jm1220

At some point something will have to phase and develop a system strong enough to drive N into the confluence, the confluence will have to wane while having enough influence not to allow a driving cutter and rainstorm. These fast Pacific patterns are tailor made to wreck our chances here along the I-80 corridor. They can sometimes allow suppressed systems because of lack of amplification, and often allow SWFEs and cutters which do us no good either. The Pacific will have to calm down with spraying endless northern stream noise, and something will have to slow down and amplify. This upcoming pattern is above average for possibilities here but useless cold/dry for 10 days then over to our usual endless cutter-fest when that relaxes is certainly possible. We’ve struck out several times in the past 5 winters since the Pacific started going ballistic.

Ehh not really on this map verbatim. Often the north ends of these can be overdone because dry air/confluence eat up whatever snow tries to come north. So more like 100 miles. There’s still plenty of time but a screwjob like this is a perfectly reasonable outcome if we’re dealing with a huge dome of confluence just to our north.

Pretty obvious-the confluence decides how far north this can come. The S/W strength matters too but it won’t matter if the brick wall is that strong. When you see the ESE lean to the precip/snow map you know the brick wall is doing its thing. Too early to tell on that, we’ll have to wait another 48-60 hours or so to have an idea.

If we have the right pattern here and even well south of us it can definitely still snow in Jan and into Feb. There have been some big snow events recently even on the Delmarva. If the blocking is real, cold dumps in from Canada and we can get the Pacific to relax just a little, odds are in our favor. But it’s always a roll of the dice and some turd can always show up in the punch bowl to ruin it. We’re not the Snow Belt where all we need is cold air over a warm lake flowing in the right direction.

It was in a generally cold environment and it was small enough in areal extent that it wasn’t able to bring a lot of warm air into it. It was a small fire crack of a system that happened to blow over our area-it didn’t have a long lead time coming from well to our south.

Supposedly Google has an AI model that gave a perfect forecast from 15 days out. Could just all be BS since they haven’t released more information about it.

Useless dry cold is a possibility here too, shredded crap or everything suppressed way south. There are definitely ways this cold period can pan out with little snow. We just have to be patient.

That’s one of my personal favorites growing up in Long Beach. Thunder snow and 15” or so total. The R/S line closed in but never made it 30 or so miles from me. The places that got skunked largely made up for it with the early Mar 2001 disaster.

All depends on where the coastal low redevelops and where the associated mid level lows redevelop from a primary. If they form SE of us we have a good outcome. If they don’t until the storm is gone and we’re dryslotted, it’s a lousy outcome.

You want a couple days worth of space between the two storms so the first doesn’t ruin the baroclinic zone and suppress/weaken the second when it’s right on its heels but you still want an influence for it to act as a 50-50 type low and prevent too much amplification from the second. If there’s enough cold air in place going into the first storm and it really does act as a SWFE, the rules for it at I-80’s latitude apply-where does the storm redevelop particularly the mid level lows that bring mid level warm air, does the snow come in as a wall vs shredded up which allows the warm air to take over faster, how much cold air initially etc. If it’s the right setup we all can see 3-6” on the front end and mostly frozen before we dry slot or we can struggle to an inch or two before rain/sleet. Still way out there so we have to watch the upper air trends.

I'd say the 1/8-9 timeframe is a higher potential period but obviously way too early. And probably not a coincidence that the Euro strengthened the prior storm and has it as a cutter/SWFE but lays down confluence for the one behind it to take a HECS track. I'd gladly sacrifice storm #1 if it works out that way.

Wondering if we'd actually want a stronger 1/6 storm to cause enough confluence for 1/8-9. Still way out in the future of course but we all know what too much amplification without some source of confluence means.

2020-21 wasn’t a cold winter but was above average for most/all of us for snow because of the Dec storm and early-mid Feb window. From 2/1 until we warmed up after 2/15 I had 12”+ on the ground. In this new climate like others said we have to max out the windows we do get for snow.

The 1/8-9 wave seems to show the best potential. The second wave in these setups often has the best amplification and maybe the 1/6 wave can build confluence behind it to force a better track. I'm never a fan at our latitude of relying on SWFEs for anything which 1/6 looks more like. That one's more a setup for N PA to SNE and north.

Half a white Christmas here. Since the sun came out every south facing lawn is almost bare but north facing is holding onto the snow.

Snow was more patchy here vs my house in Huntington Station but Long Beach did better today. Probably about equal in season snow so far at about 4”.

A February HECS is waiting on the zookeeper. Who woulda thunk?

Just under an inch in Long Beach. Flurries now.

Probably a half inch here on the south shore. Nice little event.

Quickly ramped up to moderate. Everything coated.

Light snow just started in Long Beach.

Models show the precip weakening as it heads east of the city which would kill the potential more than temps. Models actually have it around freezing on the western half of LI just away from the ocean, and heavier rates would crash the temps quick. However they also show the precip weakening east of the city. The longer the time over water on the SW wind the more the temp might spike.

Drive 15 miles east and snow goes up by 15”?

And that’s probably the best winter we ever experience unless we move to Buffalo or Syracuse. Hopefully we get a nice 2-3 week period where we make the opportunities happen, but almost certainly we’ll have to deal with the 2-3 week relaxed period after. In maybe another once in a lifetime period Newark had 60” in a one month period from the Boxing Day 2010 blizzard to the Jan 27 2011 thunder snow 18” event. That’s the king of making it happen winter!

We never have a wall to wall cold snowy winter at our latitude-we had the later Jan thaw in 1996 for example and in 2011 we shut completely off after 2/1. The key is maximizing the snow output when it’s cold enough and the pattern’s favorable. Hopefully this upcoming Jan pattern has the pieces in place and we can have a good outcome. Our chances are better if we don’t have to rely on a fast northern stream to spawn something in time for our longitude, or be stuck with lousy SWFEs and we get help from the Gulf.