olafminesaw

Pretty strong indications that the gears will start to turn on the pattern change in about 10 days. The cold air would begin to move across the CONUS around christmas and settle over the East Coast by the first week in January

Going back 50 years at GSO, 62% of the time there is no measurable snow in the month of December. Of course when factoring in the December totals, years with snowfall in December have a higher average snowfall at 9.8" vs 6.5" in years without snow in December. However, when looking at January through April snowfall in isolation, there is no meaningful correlation to whether snow accumulates in the month of December (6.9" in years with snow in December vs 6.4 in years without). So going forward we shouldn't be pessimistic about our chances in the new Year, knowing that confidence in modeling more than 10 days out is near zero.

Let's not forget, last year around this time we were hoping for a massive Christmas blizzard and a solid pattern afterwards. We know how that turned out. All that to say, I'd rather be hoping for a pattern change now, considering El Ninos are typically more back-loaded.

might be a T-shirt kind of Christmas.

Yesterday's rainfall of 2.86" at GSO not only sets a daily record at GSO, but also is the highest December daily rainfall since 1958. The storm total of 3.1" brings us up to just over average for the year.

Ayyy, let's get our .1" and beat last winter before Christmas.

Monday morning starting to look rather interesting, even on the gfs.

Fair, torch is hyperbole and I'm optimistic on January FWIW. But this explains why the favorable window won't open until the very end of December at the earliest.

We're waiting for the MJO to move into phase 8. Until then, torch.

It's like the past 3 winters' snowfall every two hours through the night.

I just daydream about being atop mount Rainier in times like these:

Definitely not out of the question that the system could bring snow showers to the area, most likely just in the high elevations, but you never know with the cold air mass aloft. It will probably be too dry east of the mountains with that storm track though, after the frontal passage

The Low of 16 at Sanford is really impressive. Could be a record for the month of November, but I can't find that data.

GSO dropped into the teens for the first time since the day after Christmas 2022. The average first date for the low to drop below twenty is Dec 14th

It's a bit of an outlier, but it does seem we will only have opportunities on 2-3 quick moving systems over the next 10 days. Some are promising however and it seems that rainfall is most likely to fall in the .75-1.75" range in that timeframe based on ensemble consensus.

Just for kicks and giggles, I present last night's Euro control

I love days like this every once in a while, a chilly all day rain. The 12z HRRR indicates we should receive 2-3" across the triad

Starting to finally look like a wet period upcoming

An Interesting look at the end of the 12z Euro run

Models have trended drier for sure. But the Euro ensembles have good agreement on .5-1.5" of rain. The GEFS is more all over the place and opens the door for the front to dry out entirely as you allude to. But there's a strong cluster in the .75-1" range. I think we can feel pretty confident in .5"+, which is not enough but a win relative to what we've gotten the past 6 weeks or so

The first extreme drought since 2017 has been issued for some of NC's SW counties. Next Tuesday's system is looking promising for rainfall, especially for the mountains. it looks like a long duration rainfall which will help prevent runoff as well

No meaningful rain on the GFS in the next 10 days. The Euro brings through a frontal system next Wednesday that drops .5-1". Unfortunately we've seen how these fronts have dried out as they've approached. Hopefully we get a pattern change around or just after Thanksgiving. I am glad we are stuck in this pattern now and not in mid January!

Some signs of moisture in the 4-10 day period