psuhoffman

I also wasn’t trying to say your wrong or stifle your opinion. Just wanted to understand your opinion. DC area has been getting extremely lucky and maximizing potential in a not so good snow pattern. Just look at the results all around. I guess I don’t want to try to keep getting lucky (I’ve been less lucky) and I’m looking for a better odds pattern for a big storm.

Where do you go around here? Stephen got into it a little last summer.

But my beautiful snowpack is melting.

We just can’t see all the variables that go into influencing the atmospheric patterns. We are a long long way from that. We do the best we can but some things are hard to see and other times conflicting signals make it hard to predict outcomes and sometimes chaos just kicks our buts.

Makes total sense especially the bold. And your point about 10 days ago is true. But I do wish some would not read too much into comments I make specific to one thing. What I feared has happened. We are losing a chunk of Feb and we did get some snow but a good big storm pattern never developed. But I’m past that now. I’m hopeful it’s only a week we lose. Maybe the first half if the trough axis sets up too far west. We don’t know yet. I’m actually not down on February as a whole. Just because I was upset when the reality the Jan 20-feb 10 period was not going as I thought or hoped doesn’t mean I’m down in the rest of winter. And being down on one gefs run doesn’t mean I’m down on the pattern. Some comments are specific to one thing only and not meant to be expanded to a broader context.

Maybe...except I’ve read stuff from multiple reliable sources that an mjo dying in warm phases isn’t very good rolling forward. How good/bad is debatable but getting into 8 is definitely preferred. But there are signs we will get there this time but not as quickly as we want.

I knew what happened I was just teasing you. Here’s the gfs...this is actually better too According to Don S high amp 7 correlates to a -AO. Low amp 7 doesn’t. So there is good and bad on both but they both get to a good place at the end. My mini melt 10 days ago was that the recycle of the mjo was going to mute our chances of a big snow for several weeks in prime climo and blow up my forecast. That’s just reality now. Looking ahead there are signs maybe we can salvage a good period. The mjo is trending stronger towards 8 on the gefs and eps but not until after Feb 15 or so. We could get lucky with the boundary day 10-15. There is enough cold in the pattern that some 50/50 help could do it. But if we want a truly hecs big dog pattern we probably need some mjo cooperation to stop muting the blocking. Many others have said the same thing. After February 15 was when HM and Isotherm indicated it gets right in their recent posts so make its on pace and were just impatient after the epic period got pushed from Jan 15 to 20 to Feb 1 to Feb 15... that’s a tough pill. I strongly feel the mjo going right back to strong warm phases totally derailed the winter. Everything was on pace up to that point. Heck you got 11” from the hot second the mjo got into 8. The good looks even made it into day 10 for a bit until guidance suddenly saw the mjo going wrong and it all evaporated fast. But what’s done is done. The few times the mjo did get into cold phases this winter the results were good so if we can get that to cooperate, even late February into early March, we could get a big storm. The fact the pattern has attempted to be ok even fighting a god awful mjo to me is a good sign. It’s trying hard. Even right now a system is tracking under us the next couple days but the huge eastern ridge renders that irrelevant. I’m still hopeful we can get this right for a 10-14 day big storm window before it’s too late.

Not criticizing you and leesburgs criticism just trying to understand. I can’t fix what I honestly don’t see. I thought I was limiting my negatives. Last night I kept my analysis of the gefs brief (by my standards) with only a couple posts and a paragraph each. And the gfs op I basically dismissed. When things are good I often write up 3 pages of analysis and dig deep. When it’s bad I try to keep it to a paragraph and move on. But I do still like to analyze and get into what’s wrong to understand the good AND the bad. No one complains when there is a page on how great it looks but a paragraph on what’s wrong is too much? I went back and looked. I made 4 posts. One dismissing the op. One saying the gefs was mostly ambiguous, conflicted, and useless. Pretty neutral. Then one pointing out the pressure pattern trend that wasn’t good with one paragraph of analysis and a comparison plot. Then the last post I carefully pointed out that I didn’t put any stock into the gefs just pointing out it wasn’t a good run imo but I would reserve any judgement until after the whole overnight guidance came in. That was it. This isn’t a criticism of you or leesburg. Others have said the same thing. And not just this year, many times over the years. The problem is obviously me. But I can’t fix it because I don’t see it. At times I thought I was being careful to not overdo it with bad stuff. I edited what would have been my typical 3 pages down to 1. I used innocuous words. I tried to qualify things. And still had people tell me I’m being too negative. So im trying to use last night as a case study so I can see what I’m doing wrong. What exactly did I do in those 4 posts that rubbed people the wrong way? I honestly thought I was keeping it benign and pretty neutral. I’m honestly not trying to be defensive I truly don’t understand and I want to so I can analyze the negative stuff but without getting this reaction.

That’s still yesterday’s run. Lol

So last night the maps showing the problem were too much? Should I just say it’s bad and not explain? I explain what’s going on when it’s good and bad. I like to analyze why it might snow and when it’s wrong why it might not. Are you saying when it’s bad not to dig into it and analyze the train wreck? I’m trying to figure out what the problem is...

I’m trying to figure out what the problem is. Not shoot down your opinion. I want to know what it is that I did last night that bothered you and others. I saw something bad on the gefs. I posted about it with a map to illustrate the problem. I qualified it with saying I don’t buy it and this is just saying what it shows. I said I’m not making any judgments until more info. And I only said it once. So what did you want me to do differently? I honestly am not sure how I could have pointed out what I did regarding the degradation in the pressure pattern on the 0z gefs in a less negative way. It was a bad thing after all. So I’m honestly asking what the issue was? Did you think I should have not said anything? Did I not do a good enough job minimizing it because I tried too not make it a big deal. I saw something not good on the gefs and I tried to explain it in the least panic inducing but way possible without simply ignoring it. I might not agree with your point but first I need to know what your point is. Right now I’m not even sure what the issue was.

Nothing wrong with your take. But I can see where cape was coming from. The 50/50 representation improved. And that could be what we need. But this run the blocking anomalies degraded in the NAO domain and the trough axis shifted west. The baroclimic zone shifted north some too and so did the snow mean. So while I can see the optimism regarding the 50/50 developments I can also see how on the whole it was a minor step back. I think my frustrations continue to be that it’s not showing significant enoughimprovements as leads shorten. When the first cold shot first showed on the eps day 15 that period is now day 8/9 and it’s gone. Totally muted and shifted to our north as blocking degraded. Now there are some signs the same “might” be happening to the next attempt to get cold into the east. If you go back to when day 11 was at day 15 it looked better. To sum up my frustration things continue to look best at day 20 on the weeklies. They enter day 15 of the eps looking “good” then slowly degrade into mediocre by day 10. That trend has continued. I went over my saved h5 plots from several days ago. It’s happened again. Your right that there are pathways to snow in that look. Day 10-15 is ok looking. But at the same time the continued degradation as leads shorten is hard to ignore. So I see both points. As for the issues with analysis. There is room for both. Often you point out things i missed in my look at things. Different perspectives is good. But I was careful lately not to use any exaggerated statements or make too much of a bad run, qualifying everything and minimizing it even when I don’t like something. But it’s still apparently too disturbing to some. Apparently saying the gefs was a bad run and showing plots that show why is beating a dead horse. I didn’t make a plethora of posts on the same thing. I said what was ok and what wasn’t and showed visuals to explain what I saw. You’re a friend so im asking you...are we supposed to just ignore bad runs? Should I ignore that the eps degraded the height anomalies near Greenland again and ONLY mention that it improved the 50/50? Do we need to just stick our heads in the sand so some can feel better?

That’s yesterday’s and everyone was fine with it then. Eps took a very minor step back with blocking overnight but let’s not make more of it then that until we get more indications.

I posted maps to back up and show my point. There was no artistic license. I said exactly what the run showed. It was a bad trend with the pressure pattern. I was careful not to use any unnecessary colorful adjectives to exaggerate anything. Should I just not say anything when there is a bad run? Ignorance is bliss? @Ralph Wiggum First of all your area (and mine) have much better prospects in a -pna gradient pattern. But in here I post from a dc perspective. They need something to suppress the baroclimic zone south of typical in those patterns. I can think of quite a few such patterns that worked ok for PA and my area but were mostly fails for DC. Feb 1993, 1994 being the most famous. A muted NAO might not be enough. Secondly my analysis was of the 0z gefs, yours is the 6z which was a significantly better run. For whatever that’s worth. But I also stated I didn’t buy it and pointed out how jumpy and useless it was and that my comments were simply saying what it showed. Everything I said was specifically about the 0z gefs. I left before the geps or eps or 6z gefs came out. I said this isn’t a judgement of the overnight at all just an analysis of the gefs. Maybe the people who cannot handle when there is a bad run of guidance should stop instead of implying that we should ignore or keep it to ourselves so they don’t get depressed and crap all over the thread! Ignoring the gefs doesn’t make it go away and even if it’s havibg issues and should be given less weight right now (which myself and bob both said) it’s still there and should be mentioned. I’m not catering my guidance analysis to the weenies who can’t handle bad news. Officially I am where I was before last night. Conflicting signals and low confidence what happens. The one thing I will say was frustrating about the run was we got a day closer to whatever is coming and we failed to take a positive step towards good. If the pattern is actually going to get good at some point ambiguous runs don’t cut it and we want to see a positive move with better confluence and more blocking or a shift south in the baroclimic zone. If anything the opposite is happening with a slight (I said slight darn it) degradation of all those features as they get closer. But taken as is the guidance is ambiguous and close enough to a good pattern not to lose hope. There if that is enough to send people into fits of depression so be it. But it’s the truth and me not saying it won’t make it any more likely it will snow. But not saying stuff will make the discussion here fake and crap and that’s worse than not getting snow.

Eps was a minor step back. It muted the blocking some which also shifted the trough west some and the baroclinic zone in the east northwest some. Correspondingly it shifted the snowfall target area northwest slightly for the 3rd straight run. Now all those things on their own as a single run analysis are very minor. And it’s too soon to make an overreaching declarations, but you’re right that there is a theme here all winter that the guidance right now is playing into once again and that’s tough to ignore. So taken by itself the eps wasn’t that bad. But within the context of the winter trends and that it was a step back from previous runs...it’s concerning.

The heavy hitters aren’t out yet. I’m not making any judgements on the 0z until we see the euro products later. Just analyzing the run. But I didn’t like the high pressure representation as much. But in general I think the gefs is out to lunch with the mjo and so everything is shows is suspect. On the other hand the gem and jma agrees with its mjo more than the euro so nothing is a lock. There are a lot of conflicting signals showing up and confidence is extremely low even for long range right now. But I’m not going to only point out good things each run to placate the emotionally unstable. I do point out the good. (There are still some nice snowstorms on the gefs members) I’m not debbing. But the bad is there too and people should have all the evidence and then can make their own assessments.

One thing I don’t like on the 0z gefs that isn’t Uber long range...it degraded the look for the day 10-12 threat. 18z had a much better high pressure representation. Way too much weakness and opens the door to cut on the 0z imo. 18z 0z

Gefs is an ambiguous conflicted mess. Some NAO blocking signal but muted. Too much SE ridge at times but that’s muted too. Pna is crappy but towards the end it seems to want to try to get an Aleutian low going. The whole thing is convoluted and adds no clarity at all good or bad.

If your asking if it’s possible sure. Anything is past day 7. But I would worry too much about it off an op run.

Gefs is less god awful

Gfs really was god awful. Flipped the AO positive and massive -pna and that’s game over. But it’s one op run of a jumpy model lately.

Last I saw he was still saying “it’s coming” just pushed it back to Feb 15-mar 15 lol.

How in gods name does JB have so many loyal followers when he forecasts above norm snow in the east 90% of the time and then spins and manipulates when it’s not going well.

@Bob Chill 3 days ago I started closely keeping track of the nao to see if it started to get delayed again. The short answer is it has. But there is a caveat. 3/4 days who the gefs had the better mjo look. Racing through 7 to 8. At that time it also went to great blocking by ~day 14. As the gefs mjo changed it subsequently lost the good NAO look. It’s not pretty much gone with an ambiguous look there now. The euro was slower and always had the stall in 7 but now has a better progression after. So does the cfs. Both get good after day 10. So I’m chalking the gefs degradation up to its mjo issues. But this game is getting old fast. If the euro starts to delay or degrade the pattern at all now that it’s entering the magic day 10 window once again I’ll probably be quick to say it’s teasing us again the same as all winter. Speaking of all winter, today’s wave got me thinking. The snowfall has been centered about where we would expect in a modoki nino. Today’s storm targeted the mid Atlantic. Most have, temps just haven’t cooperated as often as we needed. The mjo is degrading the temp pattern but there is a nino ish background there. Heck if that storm mid December that tracked an upper low under us and dumped 3” of rain had some cold to work with we would be talking about how epic this winter is. I’m starting to come around to kind of a compromise on where this year is. The oni did get to .9 on the latest 3 month update. We got a nino but it’s been muted somewhat by other sst patterns in the pac and the mjo imo. All that might not matter but maybe if we can just get a few weeks where we time to the precip and some cold there is enough of the typical modoki nino background within this convoluted pattern that I could see is scoring a big hit or two late.

Cfs actually says we get the pac right too. Cfs mjo looks like euro so not shocking it has same pattern progression.