psuhoffman

I’m not expecting this and am generally optimistic we get some snow from the ULL but one thing to be careful of if the coastal ends up closer but not close enough, we could end up in the subsidence outside the banding. If the coastal was further away it would actually increase our chances of convective banding with the ULL. A trend towards a closer coastal ups the ante for all or nothing.

Where do we live again? i continue to be interested in that. With our elevation we could still get surprise coating. Of the last pathetic vort pass was able to cool the column this one has a chance.

I’ve suddenly got a headache

The pacific base state is almost the opposite of what we had to fight most of last year. Every attempt to shift seems to snap back pretty quickly. On the other side the AO/NAO seems to be variable but that’s not nearly as hostile as most of the last decade. The next week or so is big as that is about when the signs of problems wrt the pac showed up last year. Give me a -epo/+pna pacific base state with a variable not hostile AO/NAO for Dec-Mar and I’ll take my chances!

I think what a lot of experts “mean” is that the warming isn’t going to have a major impact on the TPV. It’s confusing the way they talk about it because warning is warming and anyone can see the temps and deduce it’s warmer. But when they say a major SSWE they typically mean is it having a major impact to the troposphere. There is a lot of discussion that this current warming isn’t going to do that for various reasons that I don’t care to get into since most of its above my pay grade.

I think for now it's also relevant to see what the op GFS does because the GEFS is currently based on a completely different model. For now we don't have an ensemble suit for the op GFS and so while we definitely cannot put that much stock into a single run at range, its the only thing we have giving us a hint at what it "thinks" att.

I think 99% of us here know not to take ANYTHING in the long range too seriously. But that said, it's still better to see good runs than bad ones. And looking at general pattern trends is not the same as looking at a specific synoptic event at day 15. So I think we should be able to post when something looks good in a general pattern sense and log it into "this is good" evidence without having to always have the disclaimer that we shouldn't take it literally. I would rather just ignore the random posts we get every so often by some clown telling us not to look at long range guidance.

The WAA could come back, and I won’t kick it out of bed if it does, but I’m mildly interested in some snow with the upper low. I know the guidance is pretty dry and warm with that but given that track I find it hard to believe we don’t at least get some instability snow showers.

I am pretty sure we are going to "warm up" by around Dec 7th-10th as we briefly lose the pacific and the TPV is moving across the pole creating a brief but extremely positive AO. What I am looking at is whether we can flip back cold again sometimes mid December in time for the holidays.

The best news is that the AO looks to quickly flip back after a short spike positive.

Even during the back to back La Niña’s when odds of climo snow are like 18% he predicted above both years! Rotfl

I’ve always suspected the North Atlantic Tripoli sst look was more an effect than a cause. As @Bob Chill often points out a few degree difference in cold waters in the high latitudes isn’t changing the equation that much. The difference between 42 and 50 degree water is not adding as much heat and moisture to the atmosphere as a change from 78 to 86 degree water. Imo the warmer SSTs near Greenland are from the ridging with a -NAO and the colder sst near New Foundland is from the constant parade of storms forced through that region by the NAO blocking. Because the NAO tends to run in multi year cycles that can create the mirage of causality at times. I do think there is a feedback cycle though that can contribute. For instance, the colder sst profile in the 50/50 domain is often caused by storminess there, and enough storms blowing up there can help contribute to ridging into the NAO domain. So there can be a chicken or the egg type play there. For now I’m not going to over think it. It’s just plain good to see lots of lows bombing into the 50/50 space. If that continues it will up our chances significantly.

Gefs starting to look like the euro heading towards mid December.

It’s not as good in that they are temporary features and so the window is shorter. But if we get a year where everything wants to amplify through that domain it will create multiple opportunities to time something up. We will likely get some hits. It wouldn’t be 2010 epicness without a stout block but that tendency could be the difference between a sub par year and a pretty good one.

There are several things I like seeing right now. The mjo being muted before it gets to the maritime continent. The sst in the north Pac. The tendency for troughs to kick out of the west quickly. But the one that I am most thrilled with is that almost every system this year is amplifying through the 50/50 space. The last few years systems would either get squashed or pull up into Quebec and the WAR would hold. This year everything else up a 50/50. Keep that up and it’s a ticking time bomb, only a matter of time before something goes off.

If we can just get a pattern repeat of basically the last few weeks and the next week sometime between Dec 15 and Feb 15th I think most of us will be happy.

I really like the north Pac SST look. @Bob Chill I know you said it was ok but given the crazy warm base state the current look might be as good as it gets. There really aren’t many truly cold pools. It’s warm and warmer. So seeing the warmest anomalies where we want them and the coldest where we want (relative to the current hot tub base state) is about all we can ask for. It’s still kind of a blend between a PDO and a VM state but that current look is actually better for our purposes than a pure pdo look. It seems to be having the desired effect. Regardless of what modeling shows the pattern across the north Pac keeps reloading into a generally favorable one. I think the trend away from the crazy +AO is a natural response to the beating from above and below that the PV is taking. I see nothing that would suggest we get some prolonged +AO of death. Finally I see things in the Indian Ocean and western Pac that I think suggest we avoid mjo hell this year. The sst patterns near the maritime continent have flipped. Due to that every time an mjo wave tries to propagate into warm phases it dies and reforms back over the western Indian Ocean. That may not continue all winter but for now it’s acting as a block on the typical mjo progression and might help save December from the expected torch. I continue to be cautiously optimistic in the big picture I’m seeing right now long term.

Where’d that awful pattern go?

Gefs looks less awful heading into mid December.

Yea without blocking to slow down the flow a -epo/-pna is actually a better chance for a decent snow. It also increases the chances of a cutter but you have to roll the dice to win. With an epo/pna ridge we really actually want some southeast ridge or else it’s a dry look.

Truth is with a late developing coastal the further northeast the better. These often develop slower than guidance and screw over whoever thought they were in the southern area of snowfall. I also get annoyed with the “it jumped over us” thing. It didn’t jump over us. If the primary tracks to our south we do fine with a miller b. When that happens it’s usually a miller a/b hybrid since a pure northern stream miller b has a hard time digging far enough south and not get squashed doing it to work. But when a system comes at us from the west at our latitude it doesn’t jump. The best lift from the WAA associated with the low simply goes north of us and the mirage of good precip from the upslope to our west dries up when it downslopes. Same as with a clipper. We will always get less precip from a southwesterly flow due to downslope in any system. Then the coastal is going to develop a ccb way too late if it’s developing at our latitude. The only reason it looks like a jump is the mountains to our west create the illusion the system created snow all around us. Really the snow just went to our northwest as the primary tracked to our northwest or too close to us to keep us in the best WAA precip to the north of the track and downsloping killed the rest. The coastal is irrelevant since it develops after the system passes us. If the primary tracks to our south we do fine as we keep enough of an easterly wind component. That just doesn’t happen often because we are too far south. ETA: Once every long while there is a true system that transfers over a long distance and “jumps” completely over an area but it’s way more rare than we use that term for any system reaching west to east that develops into a coastal late.

No doubt it’s off. If you add up the members snowfall at DCA it’s mean is about 1.8” yet it shows almost nothing.

@C.A.P.E. @showmethesnow @Bob Chill One other thing to consider...the mjo/Indian Ocean/tropical pac forcing doesn’t always drive the bus. But within the last 18 months it largely has correlated well with our patterns. With the effects of most recent wave through cold phases wearing off its likely we fight that for a time. But just because last year it went into warm phase hell and mostly stayed there all winter doesn’t mean it does again. The warm/cold pools around Australia and in the Indian Ocean have shifted since then. Let’s see how the mjo behaves. It’s been spending a lot of time in phases that would be good come winter. If it cycles through the maritime continent regions quickly this time I’m confident we don’t waste much time. If it starts to stall and go ape in phases 4-6 then I will concede our prospects of a good year are probably shot. Even then though I will adjust my expectations and chase whatever scraps we may get.

There is a lot of divergence within the members past day 10.