psuhoffman

Better than ok hopefully it’s also better than typical 15 day forecasts

10:30. I’ll be dead tomorrow but oh well. I liked last Jedi but I do get why some didn’t. But I can just enjoy a movie without letting my own expectations get in the way. I also think it was good as it’s own movie but didn’t work as the middle of a trilogy. Left the plot in ruins and killed off the big bad. J.J. has some work to do to stick a landing imo. I know it gets mixed reviews but the criticisms I’m hearing I mostly roll my eyes at. “It’s campy and unrealistic and has fan service and the plot is too busy”. Umm yea it’s Star Wars. Duh. Those kinds of reviews from people who think all movies have to be artsy don’t bother me.

On my way to white marsh to see it with co-workers.

I won’t complain if someone does!

Oh im not taking he op gfs seriously, was just trying to stay on the reapers good side by throwing him a bone. I still doubt we ever truly torch. The Atlantic thus early can’t offset the pac enough to support an easy frozen event but it’s hard to really torch with the continuous stream of 50/50 lows. We will have some AN days for sure. But as for our snow prospects, as we head into January the Atlantic pattern that seems persistent becomes more and more likely to create a setup that can support snow. We might not need a pattern change as much as we just neee climo to make the pattern we have more favorable. It also wouldn’t take much adjustment in the epo region to suddenly turn this into a good pattern. It’s not hopeless heading into Jan imo.

Maybe we turned a corner. If we keep the Atlantic in our favor climo starts to favor us more and more after Xmas. How many runs does the gfs have to hold?

You pick a funny time to pick on NWP when right now the EPS absolutely NAILED this pattern from 15 days away.

Anything it shows past day 10 can flip on a dime so I am not overly concerned. On top of that...there continue to be very workable signs on the Atlantic side. Basically if we can find a way to get that TPV out of there (and that is also something that can flip quickly on guidance, they suck at modeling the high latitudes in general that far out) things would get right pretty quickly. Right now all guidance stubbornly wants to park that PV there and just say "no soup for you" into the extended range. At some point that will move and if we still have a workable atlantic we will see. Mid January seems like forever right now but we have had plenty of good winters where the bulk of our snowfall fell from Jan 15 on. If we start getting into mid January without much hope in sight...that is when I will begin to alter my expectations. There have been the rare Feb/Mar climo saves like 1960 and 2015, and it isnt extremely rare to go into February skunked and then get at least some snow or one decent warning event in Feb or Mar...but it becomes VERY unlikely we beat climo if we get to mid January and the pattern still looks like puke out to Feb. We are still 2/3 weeks away from that so for now I am patient, but I have a feeling my patience is going to be tested.

It's time We’re probably in a bad place for a long time (2-3 weeks maybe) but it’s way too early in winter to be tossing the season.

HM referring to the TPV retreating north instead of dropping due to the current NAO block. That misfortune event leads to the wrecked pattern the next 2 weeks and wasted NAO block. Tpv pulling into NW Canada loads the +EPO and fails to reload the 50/50, NAO feedback loop. There was an alternate universe where that drops and feeds into the 50/50 which in turn pumps and reloads the NAO and without the added epo trough the western trough cuts under and we have a much different outcome. Instead... puke. Sometimes (usually) it just doesn’t go our way.

There is absolutely nothing positive in that run. Total PUKE from start to finish.

@mappy CONGRATS!!!

@frd We've had plenty of cold/snow absent MJO help when its either a weak wave or waves in conflicting positions with no clear forcing signal. We have been in that situation for quite a while and look to remain in that state for a while longer. I think for now we have to look elsewhere for clear pattern signals. One thing I find annoying wrt some of the twitter talking heads...a lot of them seem to have "a thing" (the strat, the MJO, ice/snowcover, enso) and focus on that at the expense of all others sometimes, EVEN when there is no clear signal from their little pet project and other drivers are clearly driving the bus at that time.

There are no signs the MJO is going to clearly help or hurt in the near future. For the most part indications are it continues to have waves in conflicting positions with no clear dominant phase signal.

Yes the red x is me...I live on a shared drive spur off Ebbvale, up on top of the ridge that overlooks Manchester. About 1050 ft elevation.

all the hot air you are full of really hurts your chances in marginal setups. Regent Heat Island Effect is powerful

@Bob Chill since things are slow right now and depressing on the weather side...here is some info to help daydream. Basically anywhere along these 3 ridges in northeast Carroll County is where you really get dumped...even in relation to further south along Parrs Ridge. And you can see how those ridges line up with the snowfall map (its not perfect but the best representation I've seen to climo up here. There are some nice neighborhoods and properties that fit your description that are in that zone with a nice view along the ridges in purple over 13 seasons I am averaging 41.3" The median is 36.5 The worst seasons was 18" in 07-08 The best was 101.3 in 09-10

Since @showmethesnow is mia...someone search the casinos stat...I’ll fill in. There is a way out at the end of the eps. We know it’s not going to be exactly right in every way from 15 days. So assuming it’s wrong in some way...if it’s just a little more progressive with the pacific ridge it sets off a chain reaction that leads to a good pattern. Shift that ridge east some and it forces the trough east which would throw storms through the 50/50 domain again and the wave breaking there would feed the NAO ridge which would press the tpv off the pole a bit more. One error (if it’s in our favor) actually turns that into a good pattern. It’s not perfect, ideally the tpv drops but mid winter we can survive with the tpv displaced out of the way. My guess is that might be how that’s going anyways but we will have to wait a bit longer than we want.

Yea if it stays there we are screwed as NAM is completely cut off from cold. Luckily it’s unlikely for such a compact TPV to remain in the same spot all winter. It’s not like it’s some raging huge ball it blue everywhere up there. They would bother me even more.

If you just look at the Atlantic and ignore the dumpster fire that is everything else it looks good. lol. It’s too early in the season for that look to work. But if we can a repeat of the last month with an epo ridge dump of cold followed by the current look...I think we will come out ok. I probably sound like a broken record but Im hugging that until it becomes evident it’s not going right, but hey I don’t like being miserable all the time so I tend to have a “tomorrow will be a better day” attitude.

I got around 38 but not sure I count.

That look, -NAO, -PNA can work better later in winter. A theme I’m seeing with years that featured a somewhat similar look early and shared enough common factors to take them as credible analogs, what changed wasn’t so much the pattern as the seasonal reaction to the pattern. With more depth to the continental cold airmass and shorter wavelengths a -NAO can offer much more resistance to attempts to press a pacific airmass across NAM. This time of year it’s a struggle and that pacific look blasts a ridge unto the central US so even with a massive 50/50 -NAO we’re just not torching as much and dry. Whar we do need is for a period of epo ridging in January to help NAM build a cold profile. Then if we recycle into this pattern it will be a better result for us. Back in the fall I mentioned it’s hard to find good analogs because if you ignore the enso state, most of the good analogs in every other way were nino years. That continues wrt pattern analogs. So perhaps given were in a very long lived warm neutral bordering on nino at times, and given all the other pattern drivers are in a phase typically associated with a nino, using those analogs would have been a good idea. Some of the best pattern matches so far have been 1965-66, 1986-87, and 1997-98. The first two went on to good things later in January. 97-98 tried and had a beautiful storm track but the super nino meant the pac onslaught never let up a minute and NAM never was able to build any cold. I find that outcome unlikely this time. But as @Bob Chill says sometimes the weather will just weather so we will see.

The EPS isn’t perfect but it is less prone to sudden drastic shifts. An ensemble is useless if it’s a bunch of op minions saying “me too”. How to tell the difference is easy. If it were over dispersed the long range would always look washed out and ambiguous due to spread. When the long range often shows strong anomalies and goes through significant changes run to run that’s a sign of under dispersion.

Even if it comes up, and it isn’t, it would be rain.

I’m silent because I’m withholding judgment. Since the gefs has an underdispersion issue I tend to take a 24 hour cycle of runs as one entity in my mind. It cuts down on mood swings. So while I admit 18z was alarming I’m not assigning the gefs is caving yet. But I do think it was rushing the progression anyways. I am disappointed so far. I thought we would do a little better to this point. We’ve had some workable looks. A couple perfect h5 tracks where low level temps were a tad too warm. A trailing wave that was a string out mess. A couple scenarios where we needed progressive and it trended amplified. This last one wasn’t an awful look but the lead wave died and despite a good 50/50 the high was pathetic and couldn’t hold long enough to get any front end with the second wave. I’m not saying we should have had 10”+ by now or anything but with a little luck we could be sitting on 3-5” region wide if a couple of those went slightly better and the whole mood in here would be different. Now we go into the first dead period having struck out so far. I’ll admit that’s a little depressing.