Carvers Gap

Welcome to thread-the-needle time. That should last for about the next 4-6 weeks. The MJO is all over the place, and that fits with LR modeling - all over the place. North America is cold, folks. During previous winters, we would throw in the tall after this next cold shot. The problem with that is that any cutter can driver wickedly cold air all the way to the coast right now. Chinooks will be short lived. I kind of felt like this winter wasn't gonna be an easy call, and nothing looks easy about the next 4-6 weeks in terms of any kind of generalization. I don't think we will have a locked in cold pattern, but we may well have very sharp shots of cold air. If we can get a shortwave to interact with the northern stream(phase), the ingredients are on the table for a big storm. But....it will be thread the needle stuff where we will like depend on cold rushing into the backside of a storm.

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Reading on scannerfood that some ice has developed in the mountains with the onset of this rain. ZR has caused multiple wrecks. Wise, VA, has reported ice as maybe some areas in W NC.

I got about 25% of the RAP snow forecast last weekend. LOL. Maybe not even that. Looks like the RGEM though!

The 12z GEFS has a trailing system like the 12z Euro deterministic does later in the week....something to watch and makes a lot of sense.

The 12z GEFS has flipped cold after brief warmup d10-15. What if this pattern is just starting and not ending? Worth asking. Need to watch for a trailer to the Deep South system. @Daniel Boone, we have seen that many, many times. Jeff mentioned it as well. The cold pulls back north and stalls. That creates a boundary for the next storm. Just have to time it right. The 12z GEFS oddly supports the Euro operational at 12z - just quicker.

The 12z GEFS has a trailer system (similar to the EURO) to the SE mauler. It is showing up on ensembles about 36 hours later. Decent hits.

The CMC is on the west side of guidance, and its ensemble is west of that at 12z. Decent jog west on ensembles. GFS and its ensemble are still buried. The GEPS came in west of the operational at 12z. I noticed the ensemble mean was up (GEPS), and decided to look at the individuals. Most of the bigger solutions get portions of E TN.

The 12z Euro has below zero temps right in the middle of my February warm-up! If I was driving a car called the February torch...the warning lights would be coming on. BTW, it has yet another solution for snow next week.

^^^^^^^That's what happened to our snow -> 404 not found. Comedic drum roll please.

It's an all you can eat buffet. And what's even better? It's free.

This is what we want. The Euro has a bit of a low amplitude bias at times...beware. But if we can get the MJO plot to race acorss the warm phases with low amplitude in the COD, February might be in play. I did have NOT thought that for several months. This trend started to show up recently. The EPO/PNA is showing that is really wants to stay in place. The NAO is showing some weak signals that it might fire up again soon. Remember, the NAO is one of the toughest things for modeling to model IMHO, especially when it initiates and duration. @GaWx, is phase 3 the North Carolina phase for snowstorms?

Nah, February was supposed to be a torch. Models have been slowly backing themselves out of that torch solution. That look isn't warm at all. Cold source is good, and that ridge in that PNA can deliver it.

It has a really bad habit of overdoing it for the Carolinas. Remember that 4' storm which never materialized there? I still have a friend mad at me for sharing that map! LOL Now, if it wants to move that northwest a bit....then of course it is legit. LOL.

Well, well, well....

The trend is our friend.

There wasn't even a straggler on 0z that I could find. 49 looks realistic to me. 35, 8, 3, 9, 16 as well.

There are hits on the 18z EPS for individual members. There were zero at 12z. Major trend north with individual members.

AIFS for Sunday....trend for mid week.

What is crazy is that if we manage to bridge three weeks in Feb(weeks 1-3) with even normal temps(instead of AN temps), we might be able to string together a pretty stretch of winter that lasts into March. I do agree, however, with those saying this might snap to spring at some point. That said, this winter has been troublesome since I first started looking at it over the summer, and said as much. It is no less troublesome now!!! I like these types of patterns BTW - tough! That smaller bank of cold analogs has had a say. I really want this winter to have some 14-15 in it...not sure that it will, but I'd like to see it. We have things working for us right now that we normally do not. Mainly, there is a lot of cold over NA and stays that way. I kind of thought next week might be it....I am not so sure now. The MA has a good post of modeling correcting the trough eastward in the LR. The EPO is possibly positioning itself to be the main driver for this winter. A good EPO pattern during February is often money. We aren't there yet, but let's see if we can steal a month.

@Daniel Boone, this might be one of those years where we need some SER to fight these wicked strong cold fronts. Complete opposite of recent winters.

Check out the 500 pattern at 360. Then check out what is underneath. This is supposed to be the warmup. Again, I would caution that the EPS is handling things differently than the GFS/GEFS. The GEFS still has very cold temps in Canada.

The one thing I am noticing is that even when ridges roll through in the d10-15, the source region is so cold that any trough(caused by a cutter) injects bitterly cold air into the eastern US. That seeds the next storm. It is a pattern where we could potentially have slightly AN temps(really warm days and really cold days...not in between), but be a wintry pattern. There are still below zero temps in the Ohio Valley after storms cut. Maybe the key @BNAwxis that source regions are actually improving as the month closes.

Sorry for the flurry of non-storm related posts, but the striking thing that I am seeing is the eastern Pac has a ridge over it. That sure seems like the PDO may be about to help. IMHO, it trumps all cards. Maybe that transition is already occurring as evidenced by the persistent EPO ridge. I doubt modeling is taking that into account yet.