psuhoffman

I don't mind how things look in the long range right now. My mini melt down last week was when I realized the NAO wasnt cooperating and that this pattern is unlikely to really work without it. But at that time we could only see to early February. Right now, at least, all guidance is making another attempt at getting the NAO where it needs to be. True blocking, not just an extension of a mid latitude ridge into the NAO domain...that doesn't really help at all. Get the NAO right in February/March and good things tend to just happen here. There are lots of ways to work with that. Even if that look is right we would have waves along the boundary and any of them could get under us if the timing and spacing is right or the confluence to the north flexes. Get the NAO negative and that WAR out of there and that isnt as hostile a look as the last time we played the boundary waves game this month. But i also suspect that if the NAO blocking is real that eventually that SE ridge gets beaten down. It doesn't happen immediately. The blocking doesn't really get good until after day 10. In 2016 it took a week once blocking started to get the trough into the east. Same last year. But get a true west based NAO block and I doubt we suffer through a long strong SE ridge all month. As systems are forced under the block sooner or later they will beat down that ridge and the trough will migrate east. That doesn't mean the look is right. The NAO could fail again. It was on all guidance last time too. But just in terms of that look...for the same reason I was completely selling a week ago even when there were cold/snowy runs without the NAO...I am buying runs that have it...even if they don't show pretty digital snowstorms over us. Give me a nice big west based block and I will take my chances regardless of exactly what the day 15 guidance THINKS it will look like in the mid latitudes.

My guess is members that don’t have as much NAO blocking have a monster eastern ridge that’s skewing the mean. If the blocking is real I bet that se ridge is muted more.

He doesn’t rip and read guidance. If you knock down the se ridge that is a ku look. Or he might have meant for NYC to Bos

I’m curious if the mjo trended worse, we will see when it updates, because that looks like a phase 6/7 fighting against the pattern. Everything has good blocking now and that amount of NAO should force the trough into the east more but the se ridge is fighting like hell on all guidance overnight. That could work if we get lucky with the waves on the boundary and timing with highs. Would rather see that ridge get squashed though.

That was there last run too just a little north.

Mid Feb and early March is not too late. Some have this notion that the season is a linear progression. Early feb is the time that the jet is most likely to buckle south of us over the long term. But we have had plenty of cold intrusions into March even recently. It amazes me when I hear arguments things are impossible we just experienced. The mean is just a bunch of anomalies averaged together. Yes a winter period becomes less likely the further past feb 15 we get but it doesn’t hit the cliff until about mid March. Frankly a deep winter pattern is unlikely at any week. People exagerate how bad late feb and early March is wrt sun angle. Yea if it’s 42 and sunny your 4” will be gone. Guess what if it’s 42 and sunny in January it will melt too. We are simply too warm 90% of the time and don’t get enough to hold snow over. But when we do get a rare cold and enough snow period late it can hold. PD2 proved that! It’s just rare. But that’s rare at any time. I can only think of a handful of times we had a ton of snow and held it more than a few days even in mid winter. That’s just not how we roll.

Hope we're on the right side cause it looks active maybe, hidden within the crappy means day 10-15 is the fact that NAM is cold and so the northern part of the ridge wont really be warm AND differences in timing with waves mutes some chances that something is running the boundary under us in that time. But in general ATT things favor north of us more. Doesn't mean we cant get one of those waves to stay under us though. If the day 15 look is right on both the EPS and GEFS chances would improve after that. The GEFS slowed down the progression some and the EPS sped it up more and now they agree on the general progression and timing of the pattern with a muted SE ridge and boundary waves pattern day 10-15 that favors to our north but is NOT a shutout or no hope look by any means and then possibly establishing an eastern trough around day 15 on. I remember many of the long range discussions at NCEP talking about the favored 60/40 compromise between the EPS/GEFS being the most likely to verify at any given time. Yea you have to adjust that when you see evidence that one is just flat wrong...but typically that works best. This time it was more like 60/40 GEFS. The GEFS was advertising the flip would be a little sooner and the EPS if you extrapolated (and weeklies confirmed) was delaying it out to like day 18/19. The GFS slowed down the progression like 2 days and the EPS sped it up like 4 days and now they both agree the trough shifts east around day 15. There are also signs the LAST 24 hours on the EPS that the -nao is building. It is on the 15 day again now and not out it super duper uber unicorn land but this is it. This is the last chance to flip the nao in a meaningful way to salvage part of prime climo. Yea we could still flip in march and get a fluke storm...but if we want a legit chance at a serious run here this is last chance charlie. ALL guidance is once again advertising another attempt to flip the NAO. The "experts" said the pacific wouldnt run destructive interference this time. We will see...but it needs to start moving forward in time and becoming clearer on the anomalies. I have no confidence but its good that its showing up again and that it took a significant jump forward in time on the euro products in the last 24 hours.

Guidance suggests a gradient pattern with waves running the boundary. That can work if we can get lower heights to our northeast. NAO would help of course.

Bob’s right anything past day 10 this year is as worthless as a day 15 CRAS extrapolation

There are places to hide on the backside at Killington that aren’t that bad. And with a beginner in tow that terrain is nice anyways. Just don’t want ice pelting me in the face.

I’m with my 4 year old son and that area is less kid friendly. I love Sugarbush. We are staying in Rutland though and doubt we can make it up there in the morning given the weather. Might even struggle to get to Killington. Thanks for the input.

Should I be worried about sleet here at Killington tomorrow now? Really don’t want pellets hitting me in the face. That seems crazy but that warm layer keeps trending north every run. Starting to wonder if I should have gone further north to Bush Stowe or Smuggs.

Yea but didn’t the euro blast a warn layer all the way into southern Vermont? Btw I’m up in Killington this weekend so I have a rooting interest.

No I was in PA that year.

They aren’t perfect but guidance often shifts towards them when they disagree. In the case a compromise was best.

I’ve had storms where I got 10+ and DC ~2”. I can’t remember one where I got 10+ and as close as where got 10” today got that little. I’m sure he’s happened but not recently.

You got double me so...lol. It was a bad weekend. Fringed. Eagles tough loss. This was one of the worst gradients I can remember with 10” about 30 miles south of me and 2.5” here. Oh well. This will be one to just forget and move on to the epic pattern ahead. I feel happy for the DC area though. This should raise spirits in here at least. DC is one more decent storm away from beating climo now.

How did you do?

No the one on 30 north of Hampstead

This storm is trolling me. After the banding set up just south of me last night the latest band is like 2 miles south of me and stuck. It seems that’s the furthest north it can get. Just went down to Walmart 3 miles south and it’s puking snow. Just flurries at my house.

2.5”

Looks like round 2 wants to fringe me too. Guess the snow gods are making up for lost time. Guess I should have taken the fringe risk more seriously. Just assumed it would pull the last minute north bump to save me as usual.

Lol I’ll survive. Bring fringed here is rare because with upslope from the 1000 ft ridges we get higher ratios and usually a mini qpf max so even if I was “fringed” at the synoptic level at the meso level I can take what would have been .15 qpf and bump it to .25 with upslope then go 20-1 ratio and boom 5”. That’s what happens a lot. But that all falls apart if I don’t get into good enough lift to get the ball rolling. This time the fringe was real because the northern most band set up just to my south and I was stuck in the subsidence of that a lot. I think some places north of me did slightly better from the modest waa wave but I might have been hurt by the sinking around that band that dropped 4-5” just to my south.

Brisk

5 or 6 from what I hear Wanna trade?