cbmclean

The NAO is known to be streaky on a decadal scale, so I am hoping that some the warmth of this past decade might be natural variation. That being said I expect regular snowfall (ie a nice one every three years or so) in the non-mountainous areas of NC/SC to cease in the next decade or two.

Well, if you have to have only one model on your side, I would prefer it to be the euro.

I threw mine in last weekend. There are actually some encouraging signs for the MJO progression for the second half of February, but I suspect that it is too late for us. MA and NE could get score though.

The difference, though, is that Patriots actually had an impact on the outcome of that game. There is nothing that I can do to affect the weather one way or another.

If it was really acting like a Nina, we wouldn't have had a juicy STJ dousing us with rain for several months (although it has moderated of late). It's not acting like a weak Nino though, which is what had a lot of folks with high hopes. There are multiple theories floating around as to why. As I mentioned on the MA thread, I am waving the flag for this winter. I don't see any reason to believe that there will be any significantly good period for the Carolinas. I am completely rejecting discounting the weeklies/CFS and their continued "trust me, this time it can't go wrong" NAO blocking, and the Pacific base state just seems to not be right. I hope I am proven wrong.

Somebody please tell Cold Rain to lower the dang snow shields.

I think they banned that guy. I am not sure if that was a good idea or not, as it seemed to draw the whole forum together in a show of unity in how much they hated him.

It was truly hilarious recently when things looked really dark, Ji was breaking out the optimism. PSUHoffman christened him the "Merchant of Hope".

Others, like Bob Chill, have also noted that the Pac Puke tends to really be hard to root out. I know one thing: I am going to watch the MJO like a hawk from now on. Seems to be a more powerful driver than I realized.

In my defense, the guidance consensus was very impressive. My conclusion is you can't trust guidance when it comes to -NAO. Ever. I am not sure if I fully agree that we can't lock-in good patterns. If you mean for a week or two, last year we (RDU) had an almost 10 day period below 32 F which included some snow, plus another storm two weeks later. Not sure what you guys experienced in the Upstate. On the other hand, if you mean for a month or more, then yes I agree that the pattern stability does seem asymmetric between cold and warm. We can and do get full three-month long crap-fests, like 2005-6 and 2011-12. I am not aware of any equivalent three-month long cold period. Closest I remember is probably the first half of 2009-10. Which as I am sure you will mention, I think featured extensive -NAO blocking.

Well, I am waving the flag (with regards to a dreamt-of epic pattern). The advertised +PNA/-NAO (in some cases of epic magnitudes) which was universal across the major guidance has evaporated. Poof. Anybody who wants to say "I told you so", the mic is open. That being said, starting this weekend, it does look nice and cold for a week to 10 days. After that nobody knows. There are some ominous rumblings from the MJO.

According to MA big dogs the STJ isn't drying up, but just getting squashed way down by the TPV. Same effect while it is happening , but easier to recover from I would think.

I'm a little better off for this pattern, since I am one of those who can enjoy plain cold. Of course I would rather my cold come with snow.

Hopefully. Next 10 days will be frustrating for the "give me snow or give me 60s" crew. Gonna warm up and rain, then get cold. Then warm up and rain, then get cold.

Right now there is no HL blocking so warm/wet and cold/dry is the favored outcome. It is still possible (in NC at least) to get them to both match up, as we saw in 2013-14 and 2014-15 where we had no Atlantic support but were kept from torching by the EPO, and eventually a lot of us moderately scored. But that is a low probability occurance. For sure, if we want serious chances of scoring a significant snowfall, we are going to need the Atlantic to cooperate. There are encouraging signs that it might start to do just that the last week of January and into February, but we all know how that can go. I like cold for its own sake so for the present, I am going to sit back, enjoy the cold shots, and hope the long-range guidance comes to fruition.

Congrats to the DC bunch from your SE forum friends. Here's hoping the whole east coast can cash in on multiple big ones over the next month.

They really needed it. I have been hanging around in their forum a lot lately since ours kind of fell asleep in the afterglow of the early December storm and the subsequent boring pattern. It was getting ugly in there. Still great analysis, though.

I would call it an epic pattern, but we have to remember, in the non-mountain SE, "epic" means 30% chance of significant winter weather, as opposed to the usual 1%.

Ops runs at range. You know how that goes. That being said, things aren't looking good for snow in the SE next weekend. There's a good chance for some serious cold, and there will be moisture, just not the right kind of blocking to get them to be in the same time at the same place. On the bright side, there is serious support for significant high latitude blocking the last week of January and into February. It would be nice if it was happening now though.

Their opinions are mixed. I don't think I have seen anyone say it was actually worse. Some have shown pointed to correlation plots showing little to no improvement. There is at least one poster (psuhoffman) who really seems to know what he is talking about, who believes that it has shown notable improvement in some aspects, but astill lags the euro.

From official RDU records, 28.1 inches for 2000 calendar year: 25.8 in January, 2.2 in November, and 0.1 in December. If you meant for the 1999 - 2000 winter, it was just 25.8, since there was nothing in December 1999 or February 2000. Interestingly, 1999 was a complete shut-out: 0.0 inches.

Ignore that last post. Having technical difficulties with phone.

Well I come from Fayetteville so we get even less snow there, but I know it must be painful to be near that Wake County gradient. Looking at snow maps at times it seems that if you looked up the street you can see more snow.

Where exactly are you in Raleigh? I am guessing somewhere in the south.