psuhoffman

Mixed feelings. He seems to be supporting an eventual pattern change. He explains why it's taking so long. But none of those analogs to this current mjo phenomenon worked out very snowy for us. And one was the only weak modoki nino fail. But he wasn't using that analog as a predictor of results this year. Still...

@nj2va his thoughts are pretty much the same as mine. Still would be nice and I'll breathe easier when I see the expected changes happening in real time.

Yea JB is really rattled. Just read his morning post. Said he was up all night because he is concerned at how the EPS suddenly backed off its good look long range yesterday. Mentioned the soi Lol I mean it looks bad. And the pattern flip was showing up and then evaporated. So it's warranted to be concerned. I thought the end of the ensembles would be showing something better by now. The Pacific blasting warmth across even under ridging has be concerned. That wasn't what I expected and isn't very nino like. More nina. Need that soi crash stat.

Nope but that doesn't mean I'm not frustrated by this mjo wave or unaware of things that "could" go wrong. Wxusaf had a great point yesterday how what's frustrating isn't the warmup but that it's turned into a complete shutout pattern. I didnt expect that. A big culprit is the combo of the soi and mjo. In 2002/3 we had a mjo wave progress warm phases this time of year also. And we did have a warmer period. But because the soi was coupled to nino the results weren't as bad. The warm phases of the mjo are muted in a nino typically. So we still were able to eek out a couple snow events (the Xmas snow and a nice clipper in early January) during the warm period. It wasn't 4 weeks of total waste. We also got unlucky to get nothing out of a pretty good pattern early December. That combo makes this frustrating. That said I don't expect the mjo to stay in phases 3-6 all winter. And I also don't expect the soi to stay in Nina mode. We have had soi spikes in a nino before. And they are almost always followed by a crash. The last time I checked the weekly oni peaked around 1.1 and was still hanging out around 1. That's not borderline nino that firmly in nino territory and close to moderate. It would be unprecedented to have the soi to stay above 0 the entire winter with such a high oni value. So if the mjo cycles around in warm phases for the next 8 weeks and the soi stays in Nina territory all winter then yes my prediction will go down in flames. Mainly because all my assumptions were based on a modoki nino. But the soi is what makes the enso matter. Without a response in the soi we basically don't have a nino in an atmospheric sense. But I don't expect that. It would be totally unheard of. Do you really expect either of those things? Yea it's possible. Just because it's never happened doesn't mean it's impossible but if we were waiting on something we needed that had never happened before you would say that's crazy. So I'm not going to worry too much about this until it starts to become apparent something has gone wrong. As of now we have seen soi and mjo spikes like this before and history suggests they should be getting close to the end of their influence.

Must be some members in the gefs that agree with a colder evolution like showme said because there is a spike in snow days 10-15.

@WxUSAF one point of hope is the nao seems to be showing signs of a long term phase change. But what a way for the Pacific to ruin a -nao but if we can get the mjo to lay off and that PAC firehouse to relax it wouldn't take much to get that workable fast. The only problem is the full latitude trough off the west coast.

EPS does that too now. Doesn't start to transition to a better pattern until day 13. I think it's inevitable that we will be stuck in this Pacific crap pattern another 10-15 days. Why would t we? If the strong mjo wave is the culprit and it's still in warm phases for another 10 days minimum then why would we expect the pattern since dec 15 to break down? I think the guidance keeps teasing because at range it doesn't see the mjo impact or weight it enough. It sees all the other factors that argue for the base state without the mjo interference. But as it gets closer it reverts to what a strong mjo phase 3-6 looks like. Good news is once the mjo progresses out of those phases then the teases should stop and the pattern really will flip. One thing annoying me is the soi. We really need that to couple with the nino. It's in Nina territory and the mjo is producing Nina results. A lot of the assumptions including my own were based on nino climo. If the soi continues to stay in Nina state than I'm less confident in the changes we need lasting. I still think we would get a good period but if the soi is still acting like a Nina the mjo is likely to weaken or race through phases 8-2 then go back into the puke phases. Plus in a Nino some of the phases aren't as bad. But the mjo has been yielding Nina type results to the mjo phases. An soi drop would make me feel a lot better.

The EPS makes more sense. It isn't as good a run as 12z because it lost the -nao but the ridging in western Canada is even better so that somewhat offsets. But you can see how the jet is undercutting the ridging and with the epo ridge promoting a flow from the north there are generally cooler temps across the mid latitudes in the US. If the EPS had the -nao the gefs has it would be even colder.

Gefs makes no sense towards the end. -AO, -nao, -epo, Aleutian Trough. Yet it's just blowtorching the whole Conus. No mid latitude response at all.

Can we extrapolate the nam yet?

Woah slow down. You sure your ready for that?

Jma is a hit nw of D.C. Come on people.

Its only been the last 2 weeks that were hostile. Before that we got some snow in November. Storms were generally taking favorable tracks. And we had 2 close misses. A perfect vort pass that developed a surface feature too late and a southern slider. Then the mjo took a big dump on us by going all ape into the warm phases. It sucks. Yea it's eaten away at a chunk of our snow climo. But if we can get the mjo to stip killing us in the next 2 weeks and resume a favorable pattern by late January we have time for a save. The problem with persistence based forecasting is a pattern persists until it doesn't. Patterns don't last or coincide with the seasons. Last year persistence would have argued against the negative nao period and snow in march. The super drought that had some blowing up every thread would have argued against the deluge since. December 2015 would have argued against what happened that January. Patterns flip ok a dime and if you always ride persistence you will look like a genius for a while until it flips. Timing pattern changes is tricky. Usually they take longer then guidance suggests. Both good and bad. Often a good pattern will look like it's breaking down only to reload. That's why I never really bit on late December or early January and stuck with mid January on as the likely flip. We will see. But there are signs things aren't as doom and gloom as you suggest.

I'm convinced that is where we will end up as soon as we get the mjo out of phases 3-6. It's just a matter of when.

@WxUSAF

It's a "men's wearhouse" run. You're gonna like the way it looks. Ends with -epo,-nao trough in the east. Stj undercutting.

There are ways to get the 3/4 to work. Easiest is a more progressive system instead of cut off so it rides the trough before that PV to our north extracates the cold air from the east. Another would be to get that system in Canada further east but that's a tougher sell. I'd root progressive wave but amplified enough to not be suppressed. Thread the needle. Lol.

@WxUSAF yea it's out to 324 and I like where the EPS is going. -nao developing. Pretty good epo ridge going. (Shhh don't tell snowgoose) PV off the pole finally. Heights falling across the eastern Conus. I'll endorse it.

It's also moving the PV off the pole way faster then previously (as bob predicted) and around day 12-13 it's trying to get the nao negative again. Last couple days aren't out yet but a better run so far.

Yea I can't type

Should I do the same with my skiis?

That vortex sitting in Canada is promoting low pressures to our north and enhancing the westerlies under it and causing the mass exodus of cold before the storm. Could change. But that's why I'd rather no PV at all over a badly placed one.

@WxUSAF agree on both points.

Much of my optimism is based on 2 things. 1. I think we saw the base state before this mjo wave and it was good. 2. I don't expect the mjo to spend the whole winter in phases 3-6. If I fail because of an unprecedented mjo that cycles around in warm phases all winter so be it. I still doubt that.

In fairness I never bought into the early January potential. The system on the 3/4 has some potential as an island in a sea of crap type of way but overall I thought it was too soon and the mjo progression argued against a real flip to favorable until later. The changes towards the end of the gefs and EPS have me slightly concerned. I know analogs aren't perfect. 1995 happened and we don't really know why when all the other best analogs were so different. Maybe this is another anomaly. I'm aware of that potential. But if I expected it to be warm now the fact it is doesn't bother me. I won't panic until I see tangible evidence the expected pattern flip mid month is in trouble. As for the "optimism" and "why do we fall for projected pattern flip lessons" I could flip that. Why don't the pessimists ever learn from years like 1987, 1993, 1999, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2015, 2016? Flips do happen. I remember all those years. How bad they were until mid January. They all flipped cold and at least somewhat snowy after. Some epically so. And several of them were ninos. And analogs I'm too young to remember like 66, 69, and 78 argue in favor of it also. I remember those examples because I'm an optimist. Others latch onto the fail years and ignore those because they are pessimists.