psuhoffman

For now I’m hanging my hat on the fact the Atlantic looks good through day 10. After that hopefully it’s wrong. But the issue is it slides the tpv east. That pushes the NAO ridge east. We really need that to either cross the pole or drop. But I’m going to be mildly annoyed if we waste the first extended NAO ridging for 2 weeks then just as the pac gets better the Atlantic goes to crap.

That’s a colder look... but not as snowy typically. I preferred the seasonal temps with ridging over the top look better.

Hope you enjoyed it.

I don’t enjoy pattern talk. I think most of us prefer breaking down a specific synoptic threat but when there is nothing of any realistic probability to discuss in the next 10 days down there because we’re locked in a no hope shut the lights pattern (for DC) obviously the discussion turns to “when will the pattern change”. Now that specific scenarios are showing you will see that discussed. Keep in mind they spend a greater portion of winter without legit threats to talk about compared to us. Even if a fluke run or two might show some snow down there without any of the pattern markers (epo, pna, NAO) they know better than to believe them or take it seriously.

One positive sign so far is that there wants to be some blocking up top. When the Atlantic was hostile the epo took over. Now that the tpv is on that side there is ridging on the Atlantic side. So far there have been enough mitigating factors to prevent snow here. But if we keep a somewhat favorable blocky high latitude profile through prime climo that is unlikely to continue.

Eps looks good day 10...and the trough lingers because of it day 11-15, but I don’t like the overall look day 15. It will be really hard to sustain any cold with that look up top. Luckily guidance has very low skill there past day 10 and all the guidance agrees on a pretty good look day 10. Just have to hope the Atlantic doesn’t completely break down like the euro indicates because nothing supports the pacific becoming favorable enough absent any Atlantic help. Doesn’t mean the pac stays hostile, just it looks ambiguous and not overly hostile or helpful in the long range which given the very conflicted tropical signals makes perfect sense.

@pasnownut I didn’t think you were, but some others are. One of my pet peeves are people (some of them brilliant Mets) that focus on one pet project of theirs. They might be experts at the Strat or mjo, or snow/ice correlations, whatever...but they will focus on that even when the pattern is being driven largely by other influences. No one factor controls all this. If it did this game would be a lot easier.

Naw we get big snows from storms that start out 300 miles north of Toronto and dive due south all the time. All you can take from that range and that crazy nonsense is the gfs thinks the amplification and blocking of the pattern is likely to continue.

For the record I don’t think we need a pattern change so much as we need to wait for climo to become more favorable to the current pattern along with some minor adjustments (tpv relocation) A -NAO -PNA works much better the later in winter we get. It’s harder to offset the pacific airmass early when there is less depth of cold across NAM. As that changes and wavelengths shorten later in winter the same pattern becomes more favorable additionally there are some minor tweaks that can happen earlier to make this dominant look workable. Get the TPV out of NW Canada. Either press it over the top or get it to drop into Quebec. But with it at that latitude it’s an issue. When it slides west it’s feeding into the EPO trough and flooding NAM with pac puke airmass. When it slides east it’s displacing the NAO ridge too Far East. It’s a no win scenario there. If we can displace the tpv (and I doubt such a compact tpv sits there all winter, it’s not like it’s a big blue ball everywhere up top) we can work with a -NAO -pna pattern even sooner (Xmas on) if we can get some ridging into the epo domain. Doesn’t need to be perfect but enough to stop the raging pac jet onslaught and get split flow. I’ve been saying that for a while and now guidance is hinting at exactly that progression. I can’t take credit for that, just blind luck, but I like what I’m seeing. @Blizzard of 93 thank you @Itstrainingtime There are a few posters who are overly provincial in the mid atl sub (they even proposed breaking that sub into sub subs once) but most are fine with guests who contribute something of substance and are respectful. Just don’t throw up deck picks when you know it’s raining there. @Bubbler86 I live about 2 miles from the PA line. And I have lived in Hazleton, State College, and Pine Grove PA. I am very familiar with PA climo. I will defend the mid atl posters on this point...it is a LOT harder for them to luck into a good snowfall in a bad pattern. My climo here, being on top of parr’s ridge helps also, is the same as much of PA. We can luck into a decent snow in most patterns. It’s very rare down near DC without certain specific pattern markers that know to look for. Keep in mind DC averages about 15” but their “median” yearly snowfall (a better indicator of normal imo) is about 10”. A 4”+ event there is pretty rare and almost never happens in a bad pattern, unlike up here. @pasnownut those mjo plots can conceal a lot. COD can mean a low amp wave or stronger waves in conflicting phases. Right now there are multiple waves giving conflicting signals. Going forward it looks like a mess of convection with no dominant wave. Not sure how anyone can make a declarative forecast based off that.

No one mentioned it, probably because its worthless...but the euro weeklies did have a nice NAO signature straight through the whole run. Pacific is mediocre at best the whole time though.

Looking at the individual members, there is agreement on a big cutter day 9-11 and then most of the members that cause the "trough" look in the east after that are just cold and dry with a big high parked over the east. There are some wet members...but they differ on things and take another cutter over after that. There really is no support among either camp for a frozen event despite the h5 look. Its split between cold/dry and warm/wet.

Ideally that is how it works...creating a feedback loop in our favor.

sooner or later the wave train of 50/50's has to pay off!!! We only need a couple good hits to make a winter here.

I know ground truth it was a great month for our region. There were 3 major east coast storms during the month. The one early month was better for the far NW parts of our region and mostly rain 95 southeast. It was about 6-7" up here. The next was pretty good across the area but better NW of 95 than SE, and the 3rd one was better SE of 95 than NW and fringed me up here. But by the time it was over everyone was above normal snowfall.

@Bob Chill @WxUSAF wrt 1987 One of those January storms fringed me so there is that!

Back in the fall when I mentioned that some of the best matches to various factors we look at were mostly Nino's making it hard to get a good analog set without "cheating" and using years that weren't a great enso match...and that is risky given the significance of that one factor. In the end I tossed the nino years and the 1960's years. But wrt pattern evolution so far it has been matching those years so maybe I should have gone with my gut and not excluded those. 1987 was one of the years I looked at then tossed because of the poor enso match.

Those MJO plots are not as clear cut as some people think. A COD can either indicate a weak wave, or as in this case, it can indicate conflicting waves from different regions. I think the combination we are heading into isnt the worst though. So long as we get some forcing in the western PAC and out towards the Dateline and the wave in the IO stays out of the Maritime Continent...we should be at least "OK" on that front.

Me thinks we are about to get some eyecandy at the tail end of the GFS op run. At least its something to look at.

This is just an educated guess and my opinion...but back in the early 2000s before there was a plethora of good expert weather discussion available online he was one of the main providers. I also think he was less of an extremist hype machine back then in his accuweather days. Don't get me wrong, he was still too extreme, he would do this back and forth video with Ken Reaves and he would always lose on their little competitions because he would go too cold or too snowy and Ken was more reserved. But he still wasn't as bad as he has become since. On top of that...his constant hype and spin gets old. At one point several years ago he actually said..."its going to be an inch, and it will be the worst inch of snow ever". It might work on some people for awhile... but eventually you figure out his act. But he is actually still fairly popular in the NYC region. But imo that is because he over forecasts snow like crazy...but NYC has been on the greatest 15 year snowfall heater in their history so for them his forecasts havent been nearly as awful. He probably still over forecasts snow even there...which is hard since they have been getting way above normal snow most years...but he isnt as far off. His huge error here is often including our area in storms that are clearly going to our north. On top of that he also alienates some people personally. He takes some really ignorant stances (IMO) and digs in. And I don't just mean wrt global warming. He has said some really derogatory things about teachers, public servants, scientists, and public figures. Lastly...and I can only speak for myself...but I can excuse a lot of the hype and snow weenie stuff...but IMO he flat out lies and tells people what he things will get him clicks and subscriptions from snow weenies and I cannot accept that lack of integrity. I have seen several specific examples of his blatant dishonesty. Some are indisputable like one year when he used the snowfall recorded at IAD to verify his forecast for DCA. Other times...its simply that I know he isn't totally stupid, and he says things that completely contradict things he has said or that common sense dictates he knows...in order to spin a forecast into a snowy one.

The IO forcing isn't "ideal" but given that look in the Pacific I still think the whole effect of forcing is a net benefit. A reduction in the standing wave in the central IO would help though.

@losetoa6 it’s a crazy wild ride and I enjoyed it. Probably need to see it again to take in all in, so much happens.

Only thing I feel confident in is that we should ignore JB tweets. The only thing worse than his social commentary is his weather commentary.

@Ji 6z gefs doubling down on building a pretty nice look in Jan

Split flow...hopefully were on the right side. That is one unusual looking map It won’t look like that. That’s got to be the product of competing camps within the ensemble. My guess is either there will be more ridging across Canada (as hinted but muted by a camp that doesn’t go that way) and if so a deeper trough over the CONUS. Or there won’t be and there won’t be a trough in the east at all. You’re seeing the mean of two divergent permutations on that map.

Jb comparing it to the period right before feb......2010 Of course he is... It bears some small resemblance to the pattern a couple weeks before as it was just developing, not right before. And saying that is irresponsible because all people will hear is “big snow coming” when even if that’s right the pattern might not progress the same as January 2010 did and in reality we could get that type of block and probably wouldn’t get that outcome again. It would likely snow but I bet if we got that pattern 100 times only a few went that well. That was a combo of epic pattern AND crazy stupid luck.