With potentially another Xmas torch staring us in the face, I decided to make a plot to see if it’s been as real as it feels or has been for years. So this plot is BWI above normal and much above normal (>=10F) occurrences from 2005-2024. Thicker lines are the year by year counts for each calendar day and thin lines are smoothed by 7 days. Short answer is yes…and the week after Xmas before new years has been the most torch prone.
The warm pool moving eastward would be a good thing for us. Basically puts the background conditions to support the strongest convection (essentially the MJO) in a more favorable position for eastern troughing.
Last Friday's storm almost disappeared for DC-north within 36 hours? So I don't expect much consistency on a weak vort in fast flow until like 0z Thursday.
The torch/SE ridge progs have stayed firmly beyond D10 for weeks now. Maybe this one is different but I want to see it inside of D7 first before I buy it. Persistent MJO phase 8 argue against it.
Big divergence in ensembles toward Xmas. GEFS keeps an eastern trough although the western ridge pushes the trough axis over us and even offshore for a time. EPS goes full SE ridge with a deep western trough developing. Geps somewhat in between but leaning more toward EPS.
There were some changes at 500 that I liked actually. Looked like it almost phased in some more energy up in Canada. I think it was pretty close to a bigger event.
For reference, it’s colder than 0z, but still has AN temps most of that week. Just keeps the ridge axis more in the center of the country vs over us. But maybe a step toward again muting west coast troughing and an east coast warmup.
Bases on the euro’s depiction, it’s pretty clear how only 1 of the 2 can really work out. The shortwaves are just close together. So a stronger Sunday shortwave prevents Friday from amplifying. Confluence on 12z is actually better than 0z for Friday.