psuhoffman

The -AO is going to run the table. This has all the characteristics of a year with a wall to wall -AO. Do we cash in wrt snow…stay tuned but we have the snowier half of snow climo left to go! But of course we will have to listen to the insufferable jack asses who complain that the sun melts snow after Feb 10 so we should just toss the last 40% of our snow climo because it melts faster.

@Ji in my adult life we’ve had 4 unquestioned A+ snowfall winters. 2 of the 4 were ninos. In the last 20 years that I’ve lived up here I’ve had 8 winters that I’d classify as a A snowfall Winter, over 35”, and 3 of the 8 weren’t ninos and 2 were Nina’s. Yes all things considered I’d prefer a Nino. But it’s not as extreme as some are making it. People are using recency bias. But imo the pdo has been the issue not Nina.

You probably have more snow now than you had that whole winter. And 1992/1995/1998 were 3 dreg ninos in a row. Im not predicting anything but Im also not putting all my eggs into just waiting on Nino to save us

We had 1992, 1995 and 1998 back to back to back ninos remember prior to 2003 people thought Nino was bad for snow. 1973 and 1977 were lackluster snowfall ninos but 77 was for very different reasons. Ninos can be our absolute best winters but not all are good.

I’m saying I don’t know but only about half of ninos are snowy so kicking the whole rest is this winter when we have a -AO to wait for a Nino seems weird to me.

We entered that month with a torched North America so we have some advantages.

Sorry I was being a bit facetious. But we did have 2 ninos and 2 enso neutral winters in this 9 year snow drought we are in. None of them did us any good. The issue we’ve had is more PDO related than enso. At the moment the PDO has chilled out and isn’t killing us. We might fail. We could get a big storm. But I see signs we might be breaking out of what’s been the biggest issue the last 9 years.

It’s not a Nino. Pack it up. Better luck next year.

We have a cold enso. That’s not negotiable. I’m working within the reality we have. We’ve had snowy months in a cold enso before. It’s not impossible. And you holding out for a Nino is silly when we have no idea yet if it will even be a favorable type of Nino. And we know the QBO and solar are unlikely to be good. We could very well end up with a Nino like 1973, 1992, 1995, 1998, 2007, 2019, 2024. Not every Nino is above normal snow…only about half are and early indication are the next Nino might have more characteristics of the less snowy variety so now you’re waiting for what…the next Nino…4-5 years from now. Ok have fun. I’ll take my chances on getting a good snowstorm out of what’s a damn good pattern coming up. Yea it’s not a Nino. If it was it would be perfect. But you act like we can’t snow outside a Nino.

Feb 2006 and March 2018 prove if you have blocking the central pac isnt as important. The issue is it’s rare to get extreme blocking in that pacific pattern. Usually that pacific is destructive to blocking. But this year it doesn’t seem to matter. I’ll take the rare win.

Just sayin Day 15 EPS snowiest February’s of the last 50 years and yes the pac is different because almost all those examples were ninos and a central pac ridge makes it unlikely to get blocking , that loading pattern actually correlates with a +AO. But we do have the blocking. What matters most is the N American long wave pattern is identical

Can we just start ignoring the op gfs? Especially at lead times we shouldn’t be looking at any operational frankly.

Charlotte is not getting 46” of snow. And I don’t care what the gfs says for 72 hours let alone 300.

@mitchnick I saw this seasonal snowfall mean map back in the early 2000s and was like “what’s that little max in north central MD just south of PA that gets as much snow as southern CT according to this. That can’t be real”. So I started paying attention to coop reports in the area after every storm. Even drove up from northern VA a couple of times to see for myself. And damn it was real. During “snowy” periods there was this little area on these ridges up here that got dumped on. I remembered that when I ended up in the area and bought a place accordingly.

It’s been a rough few years for our area since 2021. But also, you’re in a bit of a dead zone compared to here. Over the 20 years I’ve been here I’ve done significantly better than Hanover. I got a lot more from that storm in December and the 2 day multiple wave event a couple weeks ago. Over the years I can even do significantly better than @HighStakes who is within walking distance but at the bottom of the ridge I’m on and sometimes that’s meant an extra 1-2” between us. The globals don’t have the resolution to depict it but when close to a storm look at the hrrr or 3k Nam. You’ll see the difference between the higher elevations and the valley Hanover is in. Hanover isn’t a bad spot and does much better than Baltimore obviously. But there is a bit of a regional snow max over the higher elevations area along and just south of the PA line in this area. Combination of location and the orientation of the ridges creates a meso scale snow max. I observed it for years before moving to the area. Snow isn’t the only reason I’m in the area but the exact location on this ridge was chosen when that in mind. I knew this exact spot was the snow max pretty much for this whole area.

I think even Chuck admitted a couple years ago that there is a difference between a full latitude trough causing a -pna and some STJ or mid latitude wave undercutting blocking.

You think it’s an accident I live here?

I’ll buy that one please

Btw I’m always trying to learn. My optimism for this weekend was a mistake because while the wave responsible for the threat did trend west so did the 50/50 and the whole TPV which caused the SW to dig to kingdom come and get stuck under the blocked flow. My mistake was adjusting one part of the equation without properly factoring in the other pieces that were likely to adjust also.

I like this look a lot We’ve had a favorable pna most of winter and it’s doing us no favors with precip. The one good qpf event we got was during a brief -pna. Ya it mixed but it phased super early and the block was kinda north and the 50/50 relaxed and there was a SE ridge am we still got a full region warning event! With the level of blocking we have I think we need some -pna. 2010 was a good example of how a -pna can be good if you had enough blocking.

WHen we are this close now... having the furthest east model come in line with consensus is not an "improvement" if the consensus is a miss. That is simply guidance converging on the solution...but in this case that solution is a miss. When a full run of guidance is over...average everything together...and if the average of all the guidance (and you should weight it, the euro gets more weight than the GFS in this math) but if the mean of the whole suite of runs didn't move closer...it wasn't an improvement just because one or two of the worst solutions got marginally better.

@WeatherGeek2025 This is where the track would need to be for our area to get a big snowstorm

Are you serious? Not a Fkn flake in DC from that unholy piece of excrement, just like not a flake from those storms in January 2017 and 2018. They gave the Delmarva snow...then NJ and NYC and Boston, we are further west, need a further west track. Frankly, the track we would need in DC with a storm starting out this far southeast, and especially anyone west of 95 in our area, we would almost need Boston and NYC to mix. See Jan 2000 for an example.

I am not basing that off what any model is showing...historically a low position that far east of the Outer Banks of that strength would not have significant precip into DC. DC needs the low to be closer to over the outter banks tracking just east of VA beach...for me up here I want the low really tucked into the Delmarva to get a significant snow. A track that far off the coast is good for the Delmarva maybe...that is a similar track to those storms in 2018 and 2017 that gave OC a nice storm.

That initial position off NC is likely too far east for 95 and points west, we need it just off VA beach. Good track for Ocean City though...it takes a northward enough trajectory to clobber NYC to Boston with that track also...yay for them