RitualOfTheTrout

Getting some full sun right now, not sure if that was expected but might boost some instability. I think we have had more thunderstorm type threats than snow thus far this January.

We have to see how each wave is going to amplify and track to see placement of the boundary for the next wave. Hard to see much past that other than the general idea, but 18z GFS showed an option where we are more on the winning side.

The upcoming pattern looks very gradient like. There is a chance we get on the right side of a couple storms riding along that depending on wave spacing / SE ridge strength. I'd feel better for more dice rolls the further North and West you go. To many other variables to say much past that but hopefully we can get something. Longer range would lean towards SE Ridge really building into Feb.

Can't say I've noticed that myself.

Right now the period around the 20th or so should offer some better chances. PAC fire hose slows down with that low finally shifting to the Aleutians and a -EPO / +PNA ridge popping. I'm skeptical right now on how long it lasts though. Early December the "pattern change" that really ended up only being a 5-7 day cold snap looked similar to what we are seeing now in the mid / long range.

Well, got my wish, woke up to dry bare ground. Not complaining though, maybe it's the start of a hot streak. Next I'll try my wish hand at a Blizzard of 93 redux and mega millions jackpot. Sad thing is I'm not sure which has lower odds. Next "storm" continues to evolve with some ENS members hinting there is a path to some snow on the backend of the secondary. Nothing else weatherwise to follow but day 10+ pattern changes. Could end up being something more interesting than a straight up rain storm though.

Yeah maybe a slight tick, gonna be close for much over a coating / half inch north of the city

Difference this year is the cold/dry is more like cool/dry or downright warm/dry.

Looks like that trend has continued. I'm actually rooting it just stays dry at this point. Personally I have no use for a slop slush dusting that melts by 9am anyways.

I fully expected models to struggle in this progressive flow, but the run to run changes even inside days 3-5 especially on the GFS have been dizzying to say the least.

I guess we shouldn't look past this, marginal cold but it's coming at night so maybe a shot to add some snow to the seasonal total. It's more like a Match snow, hope it hits overnight but will melt quickly the next day.

That was my take, the stall \ retrograde would be fun to watch if we had a cold antecedent airmass. Those retrograding situations rarely happen though and your point about the ridge is on point, seeing that I expected this to be much further offshore. Only thing saving it was getting some northern stream phasing going on, but if that's less and the storm is weaker more progressive it probably can't tap what marginal cold is available and it will rain on the coast. Almost a lose lose situation for those guys.

Yeah, absolutely scouring out the cold. Does look to relax somewhat, really need that low to retrograde west to the Aleutians to get an -epo / +PNA, at least then we could get some continental modified PAC flow. Who knows how long any relax lasts though, might only be 10 days before this base state takes over again. Feb Nina's aren't great going off of climo so who knows. Really hope we can break out of this 3 year Nina into an ElNino for next season. Really sucks to see storms with decent tracks still be rain, or even situations we could get a front thump / slop storm just be straight 40s and rain. While not preferred those slop events are at least trackable.

Yeah, at least a chance starting this weekend. Fast flow though will likely play havoc with modeling so something might pop up in the short range while longer range things will be tougher than usual to nail down. Certainly agree this is boring, hate wasting prime tracking time.

Just so we have all of our bases covered, Euro has nothing lol. SWPA Snow and the three models, Canadian is to amaped, Euro to weak, but the GFS is juuuuussst right. lol

Its looking more and more like this season is only going to feature brief interludes of winter sandwiched between shutouts. Going to have to time something within one of those short windows I think. We keep getting "better-ish" looks on longer range but once we get closer in its not really a pattern change and after a few days we revert back to the base state. Would be nice to get a solid 2 week period of winter before January ends though, February Ninas are typically pretty bad. Looks like we have a small window upcoming Friday - Tuesday, maybe a little shortwave passes south of us Saturday night with some light snow. Its marginal temperature wise but its all we got right now.

Maybe a shot at a rumble of thunder. If we can get enough instability for lighting that would be a pretty unusual. Something weather wise to shoot for I guess. In addition to the high moisture content, CAMs are suggesting the nose of very warm air at around 850mb will also result in some modest elevated CAPE with values of 100-200 J/kg. While this isn`t generally considered a large amount of instability, this is quite a bit for the month of January. This instability paired with high moisture content and deep lift will likely yield efficient rain rates with embedded convective segments that may contain lightning/thunder. How rare is lightning in early January? The 1988- 2017 lightning climatology dataset shows only 1 CG strike in Allegheny County in the first week of January for that period. So bottom line... lightning is quite uncommon this time of year.

Looks like we at least go from zero chance close the blinds to closer to normal with a chance for snow by the end of the week.

I hear this, we have 3 German shepherds, the mud pain is real. Luckily they are well trained and only need to go out twice a day, but that's still 4*3*2 paws to towel off every day.

Discusting forecast for late Dec / early Jan.. .LONG TERM /FRIDAY NIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY/... As we head into New Year`s weekend and into the next work week,expect a period of unseasonably warm and humid air with a few days of rainfall.

Just looking at how the pattern is evolving hard to imagine we don't make it into the top 5. Looks way above average until at least the 7th with no temperatures below freezing. After that it's a crap shoot, but I'm not sold things flip to a good look. Ensembles look to be delaying the flip, although it gets noisy and low skill past day 8-10 anyways and it might just be more of a timing / step down process muddying things. Other thing to note though is by second week of January you don't need anomalously cold air / perfect setup for something to pop up so not trying to spread doom and gloom.

Yeah, no doubt snow with cold is awesome. I'd take less snow to have it fall in the low 20s and stick around for a couple days, especially this time of year with sun having little impact vs more snow that starts melting with temps rising above freezing before that last flake falls every time. Just my personal preference I guess, I know there are others that could care less about snow once it stops falling. Probably why I'm not as big into late feb and early march snow unless they are biggies.

Already a light at the end of the tunnel though on the ENS. If you can see the end of the torch on the models before it starts there are worse places to be. Need to see it stick as we move forward in time but right now I think if in another 5 days it still looks to flip around the Jan 7th-8th period we can have a sigh of relief. No doubt it's going to be a gross mud galore period and is lasting a little longer than I thought it might I was however prepared for Winter to be pretty variable with patterns flipping back and forth throughout the season. I think the fact this cold shot looked to be longer lived and with a few snow chances mixed in when we were on the other side looking ahead doesn't help with the optics of the situation either.

We beat it, official high was 12. Not bad overall, broke some records and had a white Christmas.

Merry Christmas! Enjoy the day, the cold, and the snow. Torch incoming but signs of the flip back as you said. Hopefully by mid week we have a good idea when the next window for snow opens up.