psuhoffman

Agree but I’m not sure without decent blocking we will get a stable 50/50. The next 3 days we have a pretty good NAO block. That sets up the 50/50. After that the 50/50 becomes ambiguous and not ideally located after blocking breaks down completely.

You know the guidance wasn’t wrong about the blocking for this week. It looks great up there right now it’s just being offset by the pac. But it does force a pac wave under it which becomes the 50/50 that sets up the day 7 threat. By then the block breaks down which could open the door to a change to rain although maybe not. By the time the Jan 1996 storm hit the NAO block was gone but the 50/50 it created did the work. That also had an ideal pna though. A better example here might be pd2 which worked with only a 50/50 and no blocking at all and a mediocre PAC at best. Of course I’ve often said that storm was lucky wrt timing and all plus the pna looks worse now so I’m not saying this is a good analog, just that we can work with just a good 50/50. As far as the day 15 look oddly the gefs has now come around to what a phase 8/1 mjo -soi pattern should look like while the eps looks like a weird convoluted mess. The eps has been just as wrong day 15 all winter so whatever.

Oh I’m done with that too. That analysis was just from a quick look at the mean. It’s obvious there has to be divergence though from that look. The mjo has been driving the bus all year so I’m simply tracking that now and leaning on common sense pattern progression.

Looking across the gefs and eps ensembles there is a theme. Some members key on that little weak front runner day 6 and develop that. Those runs either have no day 7/8 storm or it goes north of us. The members that keep that wave weak look good day 7/8. Those still bullseye NW of 95 but most give DC decent snow and the heavy isn’t far NW. similar to the op although the op was a outlier in terms of Precip. Most are a more modest storm. Both 6z gefs and 0z eps shifted south slightly so another shift or two and DC could be in even better shape.

@showmethesnow there has to be some major conflicting members in the eps day 15 because that look is really odd. Decent lower heights to our northeast but the epo is still way to far west and absolutely puke ao and NAO yet the conus is cold. Must be some pretty cold members and disagreement on features spreads it out and skews things. My fear from that day 15 look would be given that AO if the epo doesn’t go crazy the whole thermal profile could tighten and the cold pulls up into Canada and the whole conus torches. Not sure it’s worth it though since it’s been wrong at day 15 all year.

I’m “open minded” about the transition period, maybe the euro is right, but I’m confident given the mjo and soi that things should shift towards an eastern trough alignment by the 20th. Relying on mjo trends this year I would expect a 2-3 week pattern window on the short end, maybe 4 if the mjo dies in phase 2/3 and takes its time getting into a warm phase. At that point who cares, it’s mid March and its over. Given that we have had no shortage of precip all year that should mean increased snow chances from late February through early March.

Maybe they finally learned that an op outside 100 hours shouldn’t be taken any more seriously than a crazy person on the street holding up a sign screaming “the end is near repent”. The euro is just a slightly better dressed crazy person than the gfs, while the gem is drunk and passed out under its sign.

Usually when we say climo we mean mean. Median is a better indicator of normal. I usually shoot for median knowing we only beat mean 40% of the time or less but this seemed like a year to go big game hunting.

Your right...if I got a 2 week period with multiple events and snowcover I would be happy even if I fell short of climo.

Thanks, appreciate it, I was happy for you when you got that big one last month. Really was. Obviously I’m rooting for my yard but if I’m not getting snow I still root for DC. But I don’t deserve any sympathy. I’ve had a good run up here. Even though last year was technically below avg I still made it to 34” while much of this sub suffered. I’m probably spoiled. People probably roll their eyes at my woes and i don’t blame them. But none of that changes the fact I still want to try to beat climo lol. I should let it go though. Odds are against it from where I am now. You know I actually do get fringed up here sometimes. I was in January 2010. There have been several others. But in most years (like that one) there are enough chances that eventually it evens out. This year has been weird so far in that regard. I don’t know if we ever get a big storm pattern. The NAO seems like a lost cause. I do think we stay mostly cold and snow friendly during mjo phases 8-2 but I don’t know if that will mean a big one. I tend to favor smaller to medium ones att.

@jaydreb just looked at my local records, in the last 50 years Manchester has only beaten climo without a 12”+ storm twice. 1994 and 1982. And both years had multiple 9” storms. It’s very hard to beat climo here without at least one big storm. Luckily we get a 12”+ storm most years. But without one it’s really really unlikely for me to beat climo.

It could...but let’s do this exercise. Let’s say the boundary ends to to my south and I get 3 straight snow/ice events next week. A 6”, 5”, and 3” event back to back. That’s a great week. I wouldn’t complain about that. But then I would still be entering late February 12” short of Climo. Could I pull off another 3/4 events to nickel and dime my way to that last 12” yea...but that’s starting to really become a stretch. If I did pull that off that might be even more epic than doing it with a couple of big storms. That would take almost non stop snow events the rest of winter to pull that off. I would be ecstatic. I’m just saying that seems highly unlikely.

You’re right but it’s hard for me to let that go. 1. I love big storms. I would take a winter with 30” that all fell in one storm over a winter with 40” that came 3-5” at a time. 2. Im still 26” from climo. I guess Im still trying to beat climo. I wasn’t the last 2 years. Gave up on that early. This year will be a bummer if I dont. But I doubt I can get there without at least one big storm. Maybe not an hecs but at least a 10”+. I could get four 6” storms and still be 2” short of just mean. I doubt I can nickel and dime my way to average from where I am. I bet without at least one 10” storm I probably am not making it.

If that’s all we’re talking about the answer is no.

It should look kinda ambiguous at day 16. What’s been weird is the crazy anomalies at that range that keep busting.

If you have an east based epo ridge and displaced tpv like 2014 2015 or a 1045 high over upstate NY like 2003 then some muted se ridge can help. 99% of the time we are too far south to win with a SE ridge.

Looking at the eps members the majority cluster favors the big snow being north of the PA line with the DC area with fringe totals. There is a significant monitory camp that flush hits DC and some that are south even. I would still like to see the majority shift south as climo and the look on the EPS is a touch north of what I would like.

You should let nws know you’ve perfected exact locations of the rain snow line at 30 day leads.

It’s pretty rare for NYC to get hit in a gradient pattern and not me. Miller b is more common. Either way he is just an arse

Lol same thing that has all winter. When mjo gets into 8/1/2 and we see the response then we might finally get a legit NAO period. But it’s been a ghost the rest of the time.

That’s an interesting look. Atrocious AO/NAO...EPO centered west of ideal...but floods NAM with cold and overwhelms the pattern. Ok we can work with that. It’s not a normal way to do it but it seems we are finding ways to snow in unusual ways lately.

I get it. Sometimes someone will say “the gfs looks like crap” and some interpret that as it’s going to be crap. Those are two different things.

There was a study published in monthly weather review last April by Dr Gina Henderson that suggests the average extratropical atmospheric response to the mjo in the northern hemisphere is 7 days. Assuming somewhere mid strong phase 7 starts to have positive effects and guidance says we get there in 6 days (euro) or 9 days (gefs) that would put the response near the end of the ensembles which is when the gefs started to show a shift. That doesn’t mean the euro can’t be right about day 6-10. The mjo wave is pretty dead right now and doesn’t amp up until mid phase 7 so we are kind of flying blind right now in terms of tropical forcing with ambiguous conflicting signals. There is convection both in the central pac and maritime continent sending mixed signals. This was a long winded way of saying I don’t have a freaking clue what happens during this volatile transitional period. I feel confident the next 5 days are crap. I feel confident by day 15 we see a good pattern emerge. I have absolutely no confidence in anything between day 6-14.

Extreme variance. There are some absolute crazy ridge solutions skewing means. On top of that there are some members that snow with an h5 mean that’s awful. It happens. Feb 97 was such an event. If you saw a 5 day h5 mean for that week there is no way you would expect a 4-8” snowstorm snuck in there. That can happen if you have a 50/50 getting a high stuck over a ridge. You end up with low level cold pressing and or stuck in the ridge. The overall takeaway though is extreme variance and models struggling mightily with the pattern.

Worrying and discussing are two different things. I felt most of the comments were pretty hopeful and level headed regarding the long range.