cbmclean

One thing that throws a monkey wrench into assessing vs climo is the potential ENSO impact though. I believe that La Nina's have a tendency to be more front loaded and can often be quite toasty in February (keeping in mind that "frontloaded" is relative; just because December is the least bad doesn't mean it's good.) On the other hand a good El Nino might be just hitting it's stride at the start of February. I currently have no idea how impactful or not the fading Nina is going to be going forward. If it couples strongly, then there is reason to be concerned about late Jan and Feb.

I must have missed him discussing the TNH+. He seemed oddly quiet in early December. I believe he was having some health issues so I ascribed it to that. Maybe it just wasn't popping up on my feed for some reason.

I can't remember who it was but someone in this subforum cancelled this winter, last year.

I don't think it has much to do with his location. He has a semi-permanent feud with east coast snow weenies and he likes to savor their tears as they torch. The problem is I have followed him off an on since 2023 and he seems to be extremely knowledgeable. He dives "under the hood" into the mechanics of the synoptic scale of the atmosphere and doesn't just rip and read from the models. In 2023-24 he was down on the canonical nino pattern appearing in late Jan/Feb, and he was correct. Last year he was up on the possibilities for SE snow and he was right about that as well. Like Bob says if he knew it all he'd be rich as an energy trader, but if he is making bold claims, I would look into his basis before dismissing him off hand.

To me he's noise at this point when he's discussing cold. It's when he starts throwing in the towel that I pay attention.

I hadn't forgotten 2022; it's what I had in mind when I mentioned the sharp but transient cold. Now maybe I'm being a little unfair to it because it wasn't a one-day wonder as most of that week was bitter. And I enjoyed it thoroughly. But there was clearly no hope of any storm activity and at the time we knew it was limited duration and we could see the suck barreling down on us like a freight train. We didn't know that it was going to last the rest of the winter though.

Sure. Living in NC my whole life I'm no stranger to Christmas torches. But the consistency of the late December torch is beginning to be very troubling to me. It seems to be getting beyond the point of bad luck and to the point, "is there something going on here"? The beginning of the month has been variable: some years are torches, some years have been quite cold (like this year), but some point between 12/1 and 12/15 we see a bad look appear at 384 and march majestically through to validation and the entire holiday period is spent squinting at model noise trying to will a flip into existence, Interestingly it hasn't been the same mechanism of failure. Some years it's an AK trough bringing Pac Puke. Some years it's SER with a western trough. This year is more of a NW trough with a CONUS-wide ridge. I guess the common thread is the Pacific but the variance makes me wonder even more. I will admit that the bad periods have also not been monolithic: several have had notable sharp frontal passage with non-trivial cold. But in every case I can think of, the cold has been either transient, or completely surface-based, with no support in the higher portions of the atmosphere. Honest question to everyone: when is the last time anyone can remember when we had a good, or even "pretty good" pattern either in place or imminent between 12/20 and 12/31? The closest I can remember would be 2017. It turned cool on Christmas and then ended up bitterly cold the last few days of the year and the first few days of 2018. That was great for cold lovers (like me) but still not a snow pattern for most. I think even 2013 had a mild holiday period. And I recall many of you bemoaning the cutter that washed away your snowpack in 2009. Are there any good holiday patterns that I am missing?

16.0 F

21.9 °F. My PWS showing a DP of -0.4 °F, that seems unlikely to me, anyone else east of Raleigh with a DP to report? Edit: Never mind, just saw RDU DP was at -4 °F, so mine is reasonable!

The fabled triple phaser.

Mobile to Maine! I remember that was a cold storm.

I guess it really petered out at Boston. Pretty close though.

2016 was not one?

Obviously the numeric indices aren't as important as the the patterns they attempt to quantify, but overall I suspect that NAO blocking is less impactful for you guys in the current base state. The return flow before a shortwave has just been a little too warm. I know, I know: it's been rare lately to get a well-positioned block that lasts. But transient boot-leg stuff used to have a greater probability of meaningful results. Will that change some if we can ever get out of the -----PDO dregs, I don't know. I sure hope so. By the way, I loved your work in Blazing Saddles. Would you consider signing up for a remake?

"If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."