psuhoffman

We've had one snowstorm since 2016 blizzard....what are you going to smite? Dec 2017, March 2018, Nov 2018, Jan 2019 And here come the reasons they all don’t count lol.

The main reason my team is in the playoffs is that the rest of the division be like...

I actually liked him and corresponded with him semi regularly through emails when I was a meteorology student at Penn State in the late 90's and early 2000's. He was always friendly and helpful with my questions and seemed like a really nice guy. He also seemed to really know his stuff. I still think he knows his stuff...I just think he has an agenda. The last time I messaged him we got into a spat about my local climo and his forecast. He was trying to use Washington's snow average to say my area verified his forecast. And then he refused to believe me that I averaged 40" here. And when I pointed out that DC didnt get what DC averages he got snippy. That was the last private conversation I ever tried to have with him. I will admit he has also said some dumb things about teachers that didn't sit well with me but mostly its just his act got old after a while, and he went off the deep end with everything.

Both the EPS and GEFS have been moving the extent of the pac ridge further north and that is a significant change also. The more it builds over the top the more it helps attack the TPV over the pole and helps press down on the flow over the CONUS. When we were seeing unanimous support for an incredibly anomalous flat central pac ridge north of Hawaii that was really bad. This look not nearly as much. Still not good yet...but not the utter dumpster fire it was.

This is closer to workable than where it was 2 days ago. get that Scandinavia ridge to poke into the NAO domain a little more and it sets off the chain reaction we need. It’s still got a ways to go but we’re seeing progress. I can see an easy way out from that look. The one the other day when the euro spilled a whole blue paint can all over the high latitudes was hard to even see an easy way out. Seeing it back away from a continuation of the raging +NAM state is the best sign.

I missed that...sorry. We went through a long stretch where March snowfall was virtually extinct compared to earlier periods. Lately things have flipped back and the new averages will reflect that. You are correct.

Definitely. What I am most encouraged about is where that might go. The look day 10-15 is still not really great for snow...but that look matches patterns that rolled forward lead to snowier times. Not there quite yet but build that ridging over the top just a little more and suddenly the western energy starts to slide across under us and its game time again.

In fairness to JB (you all know I can't stand him but truth is truth) he admits he was wrong quite a bit. He will spin so that it's "not his fault" with stuff like "I had this or that right but..." but the bigger issue is he is stubborn as all get out and will wait way way way too long to adjust. He is so scared to "flip flop" that he holds onto an outdated idea way too long. There are no points for that... a forecast should always be based on the preponderance of best evidence available. We have to adjust when better evidence, and in weather more recent is almost always better than older guidance/data. As for seasonally.. he will spin a crap look into "not that bad" to try to keep the weenies paying for another month or two...then admit defeat once its well into Feb and apparent his cold/snowy winter idea is toast.

in fairness he admitted his excitement is mostly due to lack of anything else to be excited about

lol I have no change in my forecast until I actually see what falls and then I will adjust/spin accordingly. Until then keep paying your subscription.

Not really... going into this season BWI is averaging exactly 20" over the last 29 years. Their old 30 year average was 20.1 so they are only off by 1/10 of an inch. Even if BWI only gets 5" this season their new 30 year avg would be 19.5" That is only a 0.6" change from the current avg. And that assumes this year is god awful. If BWI makes it to near normal their 30 year avg will remain virtually unchanged.

I suppose a true "cutter" is a storm that bombs out into the lakes...but we have come to call any system that goes to our NW a cutter. And there most definitely can be a track to our NW in a progressive pattern if there is too much ridging along the east coast and no blocking.

As long as it totally caves on the long range pattern too I will forgive it this once. Seriously though...I know the running joke is "why does the model with no snow always win" but that isnt true when we are in a pattern conducive for snow. Granted it does't seem that way but that is because 80% of the time we aren't in a good pattern for snow. But that is our climo. But when we know the overall longwave pattern isn't conducive for a snowstorm...going with the model with the snowy outcome, even when it's the euro, is a bad idea. I know you know that...just pointing it out before we get the typical comments.

One saving grace about the PAC ridge pattern is it will promote enough cross polar flow that there should be ample cold in western and northern North America. That means things can flip FAST if we can get some mechanism to get that into the east.

@Bob Chill That look matches the "better" enso analogs I posted earlier today way more than the disgusting looks the guidance were tossing out 24-48 hours ago. It's a subtle difference...the main one being the higher heights pressing the pattern over the top from Scandinavia and the EPO ridge poking over the top more as well. Not only is that look better for our prospects the rest of January...but it is a MUCH better omen for our prospects in February. That look tends to roll over into a pretty good pattern more often than the one we were getting yesterday. Hopefully this trend continues and we may be able to open that escape hatch after all.

Very cool!

Showmethesnow and some others are all over the medium range threats. The upper low pass this weekend is interesting. My gut says the low wraps up a little too late for anything significant in our area. That is usually how these go, but that H5 pass is good enough to think a little surprise is possible. The day 6 thing depends on 2 things imo. If we can either get the energy crashing into the west to back off and not compress the flow which prevents the system digging under us in the east....OR if we can get a little more ridging near Hudson bay. There has been a trend towards some ridging there...a bit more and that can compensate and act as a bootleg block. We actually have had a lot of decent snow events from that bootleg look. But... looking ahead I wanted to post something hopeful for long range. I already posted the analogs to a January central pac ridge +NAM regime and its not good. BUT...I was thinking almost all of them are either Nina years or cold neutral following Nina years. There were no good enso comps within that set. The fact that all of them were nina years might indicate this year could have more a chance at variability than those did when the enso supported that ridge alingment more than the current sst does. Look at the SST anomalies for the years I posted before...NOTHING like this year. Almost the complete opposite actually. So I went looking for somewhat similar years where there was at least a 1-2 week pattern like what is coming during a similar enso. I will admit this took some liberties. I did restrict it to January patterns but I had to cherry pick weeks from different parts of the month to find comps. Admittedly there really are NO great comps other than nina years. And admittedly the NAM state isnt as awfull as it is right now in these 5 comp patterns I found...but overall its a close enough look to think this might have some merit. There were similar patterns for a portion of January in 1952, 1960, 1962, 1979, and 2006. 1952 was a borderline weak nino warm neutral enso. 1960 was a neutral following a nino, 1962 was neutral following a neutral. 1979 was a neutral following a weak nino, and 2006 was a very weak nina following a nino. Those are all much better enso matches. This is the composite of the January periods that looked somewhat similar to this year. This is the February patterns for those years For the purposes of scientific integrity I will admit that the methodology used to get these matches was more biased and subjective than the last set of analogs. But it is true that those others do not match our current SST or ENSO at all. These years are better matches in that regard. These years are also perfect PAC matches. They are not as good wrt to the AO/NAO though, especially for the whole month. But we don't know yet what the second half of January will be. We can assume the first half will feature a PAC ridge +NAM regime but the second half could flip enough to alter the monthly mean look some. But for these to be valid we need to see the NAM state start to flip soon. What differentiated these analogs from the others the most was that by mid January the NAM state was in transition to a negative AO/NAO combo that lasted the rest of those winters. There were absolutely no examples of a similar pac look that improved at all absent a better AO/NAO state. One other interesting thing to note, and someone asked about this yesterday. Most of the years that improved did so by retrograding the pac ridge NOT progressing it. My take away from this... if we start to see improvements up top by the middle of January the door is open to a much better outcome...and that is supported by enso analogs. But those years this pattern didn't lock in for more than 2 weeks or so. The years where this NAM/PAC combo locks in for more than 2/3 weeks or so...its permanent and lasts pretty much all winter. We are still a ways away from being at that point...and there have been some baby steps in the long range trends wrt the NAM state. So when factoring in the enso and sst there may be more hope than the previous analog look suggests.

AO

It’s not oversimplified at all. The strong convection there will feed the central pac ridge which feeds the full latitude western trough which pumps the eastern ridge. We fought this last year too.

If we get an epo ridge with a +NAM we actually want a -PNA. Get the epo to ridge over the top of the pna trough and get an elongated positively tilted trough and we can score waves. A big full latitude western ridge with a +NAM is just cold and dry.

Anywhere but there is better. If the NAO tanks retrogression is more likely. If not progression. Either is better than where it is projected now.

We definitely agree on the ways out. I wish I had confidence with that Feb assessment though. The 4 top pattern analogs right now that keep showing up in the day 8 and 11 ensembles are 1952, 1989, 2002, and 2008. They all pretty much sucked wall to wall. Plus the other years I found skimming every January with a similar h5 look to what guidance is hammering were all a horror show straight through to March also. Im not saying I’m sold we don’t recover. I don’t have the answers. Anything can happen. The one comp year that did flip better, 2006, is in the analogs too so there is that. And you know in past years that started bad I’ve stayed optimistic and preached things might turn. But looking at what has happened in past years when January looked like this gives me no confidence February is any better. This look is the one our complete dumpster fire fail years are made of. Even so we will have threats regardless. Flukes. Maybe we get a Hudson Bay ridge for a time. Those can make something work in an otherwise shite pattern. A trailing wave. We might get lucky. And records are made to be broken.

@Bob Chill if these run over run trends continue we could have a decent pattern by Feb.

The gefs has more fluke runs that show some divergent nonsense because they run 4 times a day and have a follow the leader issue and less members. Plus they gave a cold bias at range you have to take into account. But if you take them in 48 hour chunks (ignore a couple fluke runs) and account for the bias they were always indicating problems ahead also imo.

You’re comparing specific synoptic events at range to longwave patterns? Ugh ETA: I see bob beat me too it.