psuhoffman

It’s going a different route but the day 15 eps isn’t hopeless. Get slightly more ridging into the NAO and that trough will be forced under into the east allowing some rising to build out west. That would offset the tpv mostly. Especially heading into Jan. That look can work. But I’m extrapolating and taking liberties. It’s mostly a crappy look as is. Just not hopelessly far from a way out.

I agree I would love a winter with a relatively short but deep winter with snow period.

It’s almost opposite. This time in 2013 the pacific was mediocre but the Atlantic was a hot mess on wheels. The early Jan snowstorm and arctic blast was thanks to a brief west based -NAO combined with the “ok” pac. the NAO blocking forced a storm under us that started out in the upper Midwest. Very rare for Chicago and our area to get significant snow from the same system. There was a brief moderation after that. The arctic blast and snow later in January was courtesy of a perfect pac, full latitude pna epo ridge with a mediocre Atlantic. There are always lots of moving parts. And some patterns work better in one part of winter than another. We generally need Atlantic AND pacific help early in Winter. Dec 2009 was a perfect NAO and PNA. Later in winter an NAO Block and PNA EPO ridge is often too much of a good thing and just cold dry. In late Jan and Feb we want a west based -NAO and a mediocre pacific. Ideally a split flow which often shows up as a -epo -Pna numerically. Some winters that share some similarity to right now wrt pattern progression early that went on to good things in january were 59-60, 65-66, 86-87, 93-94. 3/4 went in to have good blocking the rest of winter. 94 was all epo and that’s we we got a lot of ice and mix events not snow. There were some duds that shared commonality too though. 97-98 had a similar pattern around Xmas. 98 did have blocking but the raging nino torched the whole continent all winter. I doubt that outcome again though.

There are multiple conflicting waves though. The gefs is definitely picking up on convection towards the dateline towards day 15. There are also areas of convection in unfavorable locations near the maritime continent. The gefs could be keying on the wave in the western Pac. There are multiple permutations that could be why the gefs and eps are divergent.

I’m willing to wait quite a bit if this is where we are heading (and there is evidence from analogs and tropical forcing not just blind hope to suggest it is).

@frd @Bob Chill @WxUSAF I’m in general agreement wrt pattern evolution. Makes sense the gfs is too fast and the eps might be too slow in weakening and displacing the TPV. Oddly the gefs bailed on its mjo projection into 7 and now goes into 6 like the eps yet still (for now) accelerates the pattern flip.

Sorry I should clarify. We’re in a warm neutral enso state. But the representation of sst anomalies is in a modoki like phase with the warmest anomalies still centered near the dateline. There are pockets of both warm and cool anomalies along the enso domain further east. Webb seemed to imply it was moving towards a canonical nino representation. Maybe I was misreading it.

Umm that’s weak but a classic modoki representation with the core of warmth near the dateline.

I was up in Quebec for that week and the Eastern Townships got dumped. Pretty epic skiing at Sutton. Then I went up to Tremblant which missed the storm and wiped out going way too fast on ice. Still have back and shoulder issues from that.

You’re describing my place exactly lol. If/when you want to head up this way I would be glad to give advice on where to look for that combo. There are several roads and neighborhoods up here that fit that description.

That was the joke...

Or you could just ignore them like I do.

It was the Jan 30 2010 storm it got here. But only because it was always too amped and that storm ended up way more amped than modeled.

It’s run by the NAVY. It replaced the NOGAPS. I honestly don’t pay much attention too it.

We’re all waiting on the CRAS to confirm!

Both have internal consistency with their depiction of tropical forcing. The good news is even if the euro is right wrt an emergence of mjo forcing in phase 6, it would only be a little behind the gefs. It’s not like it’s emerging into phase 3!

Nothing good. Trough west ridge east and no sign of an end.

That’s the storm this weekend. He hadn’t given up yet.

That’s exactly what I’m hanging my hat on for now. Still cautiously optimistic for the winter on the whole.

I'll try to add some more "hopeful" interjection wrt where we are and where this might go here. Some of you have already hit on the current "goings on" in the strat and tropical forcing so I will just add some support to that with historical reference. I have already mentioned that almost all the analogs to late December patterns similar to this one went on to have persistent blocking the rest of winter. So that supports what we are seeing wrt PV disruptions and the tropical forcing heading towards better phases in January. But another factor on our side, a similar pattern to this one wouldn't be as hostile later in winter. There are a lot more examples of the atlantic winning over the pacific from Mid January on than this time of year. December 2009 only worked because we had pacific help ALSO. But look at Feb 2010 TPV in roughly the same location in NW Canada. Awful Pac setup. And it wouldn't have been a cold period, absent the snowcover we probably would have been near or above normal. Similar to this coming week. But that look can work later in winter when the whole thermal profile on NAM is colder in general and the jet is more susceptible to a blocked flow. I do think for that to work at some point in January we will need an EPO dump of cold into NAM prior to such a look to set the table. But assuming the PAC doesn't run the table in its current crap state if we can get the same general pattern as we have had recently to repeat the second half of winter we would have a much more favorable outcome imo.

A squeeze play between the Scand/East NAO ridge and the EPO ridge could displace the TPV either across the pole or south. Either is preferable IMO. Ideally south but going into January North America can manufacture "enough" cold for us to get snow even absent any TPV in our area. During the epic run in 2010 the TPV was way up in NW Canada at times and then got squeezed across the pole. Without all the snowcover we probably would have been 50 degrees most days during that run. I would take perfect storm track over perfect cold air source mid winter. Cold air around won't help us if storms are cutting to our northwest. I would rather have no TPV than an unfavorably placed one from New Years to Mid February. Outside that period you probably need a favorable TPV to get enough cold here. The issue on the euro for most of the next 2 weeks is the TPV is located at the worst latitude. When its to the west it pushes the EPO ridge too far west to help and floods NAM with pac puke. When it slides east it presses the NAO ridge too far east to help much and the EPO ridge is still being prevented from progressing far enough into NW NAM to overcome that. It needs to get out of there. Towards the VERY end of the runs the ensembles hint at movement on that...but its in the fantasy land range. One saving grace is that will become less critical later in winter. The TPV location isn't as crucial for our snowfall the second half of winter.

Naw that WAS me!

Almost every analog to the current pattern went on to have persistent blocking that winter. There are also a lot of 1960s years in the analogs which I find interesting because back in early November when I was looking at analogs to current sst and qbo the best ones were in the 60s but I tossed them because between climo change and the -NAO of that decade it’s dangerous using those years. But I do feel more and more optimistic we get high latitude help this winter. Issue is do we ever get the pac right at the same time. ETA: weeklies are useless buy say no. We get a good pac for 10 days but the Atlantic is atrocious. Then we get NAO help and the pac goes to crap. Issue on weeklies is the pv never gets displaced it just cycles back and forth wrecking either pac or atl pattern. I don’t give it any weight but that’s one way to epic fail.

Yea something’s been weird about my account even since it got switched. Ironically my storm mod features weren’t working either and a few people assumed it was me who started deleting a ton of garbage posts from the main thread last year. Truth is I never deleted a thing but I thought it was funny to let them think that.