cbmclean

I freely admit to being one of the spook-ees I did not fully comprehend the nature of the duration caveat. I though the pattern was such that when it reached full development, it always stuck around. Although in my defense, that post did have a pre-post which advertised it as " the least popular post in americanwx history. "

I love cold, any way, any place, any how. Cold with moisture is a bonus.

I was out of circulation on the GEFS the last few days, other than what people were posting. Did it fully cave?

I prefer that way to the alternative where I am loosing sleep because I'm emotionally disturbed by the torch. Realistically, not a good look for the SE for frozen, but I will take dry cold shots over Pacific Doom Blob any day.

Was it 2010? I remember a year around then when the NAO/AO was so persistently in our favor that it kept funneling warm air up in eastern Canada while I had record cold. Not sure what was happening in NW Canada at that time. I think that was like the grand finale of good AO/NAO blocking it has been almost universally crappy since then (with a few exceptions).

Well we settle in for our long winter's shut-out nap. So as others have noted we are actually in the midst of a pattern change. Unfortunately it's changing between abominable to execrable. So the general consensus is that while the Pac Puke (PP) is horrible, the Pacific Doom Blob (PDB) is even worse. For the sake of debate I ask: is it really worse? Certainly they both completely destroy snow chances for the MA (we won't even mention my home area). BUT with the PDB, at least there is a trough in the west and a tendency for decent cold to exist in NW Canada. Whereas the PP as we know completely scours all semblance of cold out of the entire continent. So one might expect that the PDB might be easier to recover from because a shuffle could at least theoretically dislodge the cold our way. As for persistence I'm not sure which way to grade it. We all know that if you even get a taste of the Pac Puke it knocks you out for a week, minimum, and those AK vortexes can get embedded as ticks. PSU has shown that IF the PDB sets up shop for an extended period of time, it never leaves, but we don't have the data to see how often it might set up for "only" 10 days, vs a whole month. Any thoughts?

Nice haul for an event that had so many flaws. What is your total for the season?

A cold Canada may or may not have any impact here. I mean I like seeing it just because I like the inherent idea of cold anywhere, but there have been winters where the cold stayed completely bottled up in there. I haven't seen any evidence of the MJO going into the cold phases. Both the GEFS and EPS seem to have it headed to the COD, which is certainly better than currently, but not particularly good.

Yikes that is stiff.

If the wind has freshened up, then that will mix the boundary layer at the surface which has been radiatively cooling.

Got down to 30.2 this morning, so at least I will have one light freeze on the books. Also the windshield was frosted over. Can you consider that frozen precipitation?

Wasn't there a guy here who lived in that far south corner. That map must make him physically ill.

How is that physically possible? I am down to 33 in eastern NC. Have the clouds already rolled in for you?

Well for the thought experiment it could go any way you want, but for more fun I would try to collate your choice with a plausible pattern. For example, for the 20" big dog, you could say that it might be one-off event in a highly amplified pattern therefore maybe there is some warm air around so completely plausible that the rest of the month is average or mild. The 10 2-inches would be indicative of a serious cold pattern without a lot of moisture in one individual storm and so on.

I would probably go with a nice 10" to get things started plus 5 2-inchers periodically the rest of the month to keep things fresh.

So hypothetical question for you guys, since I have nothing else to do down in my neck of the woods. Say that you have been guaranteed 20" of snow over the course of one month and you could choose how to distribute it? Would you take -1 big dog wtih 20" -2 nice 10" slams -4 respectable 5"' -10 2" nuggets or something else. Lengthy discussion of reasonings are welcome.

So on the low end they are expecting 91" of snow. Might even make Ji happy.

If you compare this pic from C.A.P.E with the same time stamp from Pivotal (posted by SteveRDU in the SE forum), you can really see the effect of the sites' different algorithms for snow accumulation. I live just slightly southwest of the "9.8" in eastern NC. WeatherBell shows me with zilch, Pivotal shows me with 7 inches. Even setting aside the long-lead clown map aspect of both of them without knowing anything else, I can tell you that WeatherBell is much more realistic (or rather less unrealistic). Makes me wonder how Pivotal could have such crappy algorithms or how they could be that different from each other.

Yes I misunderstood this caveat. I was under the impression that you had found that once the Pacific Doom Blob came to play it, always stayed long term.

Yeah, I'm a realist about my climo. Although I love snow, I will happily take mild/wet/cold/dry cycles as opposed to endless SER warmth. I could even hope for nice little- EPO cold snap

I was just about to make a funny post saying not to look at the 384 hour GFS if you didn't want to see another I40/85 N special but too late. One odd thing though C.A.P.E posted a map of the same model run at the same 384 hour time stamp but it was from WeatherBell. It had a much less of the good stuff south of 40/85. Wonder what the difference is.

Hey CR, can you lower the snow shields and raise the SE Ridge shields for a change?

I am infinitely happier having the EPS on my side and the GEFS on a bad island rather than the usual reverse situation, but I am having a hard time intellectually accepting the hope. I can't see the d10 - 15 EPS, but I haven't heard anyone mention a good NAO look so I am assuming it is so-so at best. PSU's research showed that the ONLY way out of this mess was NAO help, so without that I just can't see us climbing out of this hole. Nothing else was able to turn the trick. If the snow-happy 50's and 60's couldn't figure out a way to escape (other than with the NAO) I can't envision us pulling it off today. I will happily be wrong.

The thing I find least believable about the whole episode is the apparent foot of snow in December. Next you'll tel me the NAO was negative at that time.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/philadelphia-fans-boo-santa-claus/