Go Kart Mozart

Funny, but I was contemplating a similar question today. What would people prefer, four 7" storms over twelve days, each 3 days apart, or one 28 incher?

Actually, today's euro run reminds me of January 2015. Really good setup but nothing came of it. Frustration levels were at an all-time high on this forum. Until....

Now let’s unpack the jargon. Line-by-line translation “I think we need to consider the 6-7-8 a pattern arrival event” ➡️ Around January 6–8, a new large-scale weather pattern is expected to fully arrive. Think of this as: the atmosphere reorganizes itself rather than just day-to-day weather noise. “That's going to be an H.A. implication (I suspect…)” ➡️ “H.A.” = Height Anomaly (upper-air pressure departures from normal). He’s saying this pattern change will strongly affect upper-level pressure patterns, not just surface weather. “all ens systems agree in the rather abrupt guard change in the N. Pacific” ➡️ All ensemble models agree that there’s a sudden flip in the North Pacific pattern. “Guard change” = the atmosphere switches roles quickly (like defense → offense). This agreement is important — it means the signal is probably real. “The entire circulation medium out there essentially product reverses” ➡️ The whole North Pacific flow flips (ridges become troughs, troughs become ridges). “like on a temporal dime… Really fast… intra-weekly time scale.” ➡️ This happens very fast, within a few days, not weeks. Meteorologists don’t like this — fast changes break models. Why this matters for forecasts “that's likely to cause increased model performance problems” ➡️ Models struggle when the atmosphere changes this quickly. So details beyond a few days become unreliable. “sending such a violent signal downstream” ➡️ A big Pacific change ripples eastward across North America. Weather patterns behave like waves — a hard shove upstream creates chaos downstream. “the western N/A ridge will be in a period… correction vector… toward more amplitude” ➡️ As models adjust, they will likely correct toward a stronger western North America ridge. “More amplitude” = higher ridges deeper troughs bigger temperature swings more extreme outcomes “more than is currently in the cinemas” ➡️ Current model maps are too tame. Reality is likely bigger and sharper. “wave # number/distribution argument” ➡️ This is deep meteorology, but in plain English: The way large planetary waves are rearranging forces compensation elsewhere. If heights crash in one region, they must build in another. “supplant the regions N of HA with… height anomaly reversal” ➡️ When upper-level pressure drops hard in the North Pacific, physics demands that pressure builds somewhere else — in this case: ➡️ Western North America “there will physically necessitate height growth into western North America” ➡️ A strong western ridge is basically unavoidable. This is the key sentence. Why New England should care “More than 50%… closer to 80%… takes place in < 5 days” ➡️ This is an extremely rapid atmospheric reorganization. Which means: Models haven’t “caught up” yet Downstream details are suspect “I would be reeeally leery about any depictions down stream over eastern N/A” ➡️ Do not trust model specifics for the eastern U.S. yet. Snow vs rain, cold vs warm — all still very fluid. “more amplitude is actually favored” ➡️ When things settle, expect bigger extremes, not moderation. For New England, that usually means one of these, depending on timing: Sharper cold shots Stronger storms Higher snow potential or sharper cutters Bigger pattern swings overall “That all times around the 7th for some sort of emergence E of the nations midriff longitudes.” ➡️ Around January 7, the effects of this pattern change should start clearly showing up east of the Mississippi. That’s when things “pop.” The Big Picture (in normal human language) He’s essentially warning other mets: “Hey — the Pacific is about to flip hard and fast. That almost guarantees a stronger western ridge than models currently show. Because this happens so quickly, models will struggle and probably underplay how extreme things get downstream. Expect bigger swings over the eastern U.S. around Jan 7 — and don’t lock into specifics yet.” If you want, next we can: Apply this specifically to New England snow/cold odds Decode what this implies for storm track vs cold supply Or compare this to past winters with similar Pacific flips Actually, kinda neat. Or the AI translation: This is a useful reorganization of the meteorologist's thoughts.

Paging Wiz...what do the post-storm winds look like?

I love the cold beef injection diving through the Dakotas:

I was just going to comment on that. Forget the weird solution for sensible weather, the set up is loaded...right out of the KU book.

Ah, New Brunswick is beautiful this time of year.

just under 6". Winds kicking up a bit of spindrift.

Looks like its almost over here, lol.

Pound Town.

And speaking of AI, check out the AIGFS. Not depicting a huge storm per se, but still a highly weenie-ish look.

Great, thanks!

Wiz, I gather that the "crosshair" indicates rapid lift through the DGZ. What am I looking for on a skew-T to see that?

For a good time, go through the latest American Skynet run...