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December 2011 General Disc/Obs


Ellinwood

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Looks like everyone is being sensible enough that I don't need to post.

mostly...I am getting desperate but keeping it together...I was out to dinner last night and sweating and when I went outside to get a breath of fresh air it was 63 degrees....and someone mentioned how nice it was and it just made me angrier.....Ji is in full meltdown mode and had a thread deleted last night, but I think most people are being very sensible....at least this weekend we may see a couple flakes and it will be crisp...so that will help since I think next week we might push 60 again on one of those days in the Tu-THU timeframe

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mostly...I am getting desperate but keeping it together...I was out to dinner last night and sweating and when I went outside to get a breath of fresh air it was 63 degrees....and someone mentioned how nice it was and it just made me angrier.....Ji is in full meltdown mode and had a thread deleted last night, but I think most people are being very sensible....at least this weekend we may see a couple flakes and it will be crisp...so that will help since I think next week we might push 60 again on one of those days in the Tu-THU timeframe

We're going to have a nasty day next week that will seal are fate for the second half of dec. I don't liek the look of the 240 hr Euro.

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it has come on like a flu in the last 48 hours and I am trying to control it but I am getting desperate...I will admit it....I am keeping it under control, but my meltdown threshold has been lowered....

Interesting you have gone in that direction. Given all the wise ones and the pattern i have gotten used to the idea of no snow chances for the time being. I can't take most of these chances serious until we get out of these near impossible odds. If something does happen then it is a bonus.

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We're going to have a nasty day next week that will seal are fate for the second half of dec. I don't liek the look of the 240 hr Euro.

the entire Conus is a torch.....I thought maybe it portended something better down the road...se ridge flattened a bit....maybe some minor ridging in the Atlantic, but I am getting a bit desperate...

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It is we go to a positive epo, wpo and nao. How's that for a trifacta?

sounds like you are getting frustrated too....Intellectually I should know better, but "It is only December 16th" does not have the same soothing effect as "It's only November 16th"....and I am pretty sure "It is only January 8th" will have no soothing effect at all if we are saying the same thing in 3 weeks....maybe I need a break for a few days

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I've reached frustration. It just suddenly flipped. I went from patient to frustration literally overnight last night. When I was on the bus coming home and got off because I was sweating and it was too hot, I know something was wrong. I got off and walked the rest of the way home with no coat. It hit me like a ton of bricks. December seems like a floor

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sounds like you are getting frustrated too....Intellectually I should know better, but "It is only December 16th" does not have the same soothing effect as "It's only November 16th"....and I am pretty sure "It is only January 8th" will have no soothing effect at all if we are saying the same thing in 3 weeks....maybe I need a break for a few days

I just reported this post....for your own good

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sounds like you are getting frustrated too....Intellectually I should know better, but "It is only December 16th" does not have the same soothing effect as "It's only November 16th"....and I am pretty sure "It is only January 8th" will have no soothing effect at all if we are saying the same thing in 3 weeks....maybe I need a break for a few days

I'd be more frustrated if I thought the pattern was a good one and we were getting cheated but we really have not had any good chances. When your best chance is in late October, it is actually lol funny. I'm actually hoping for no snow until January. If we get to the middle of Jan and then have now snow, I might get frustrated but I'll be able to play golf which is a mitigating factor.

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What are you seeing that makes this look so bad Wes.

All the flow across southern Canada and the low pressure to the lee of the Canadian rockies. The epo which I'm betting is positive and the nao which looks negative. That is not a pattern to get much cold air into the mid atlantic and when it comes, it leaves just as quickly. For you guys maybe it is not bad, for us guys, pretty bad.

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All the flow across southern Canada and the low pressure to the lee of the Canadian rockies.   The epo which I'm betting is positive and the nao which looks negative.  That is not a pattern to get much cold air into the mid atlantic and when it comes, it leaves just as quickly.  For you guys maybe it is not bad,  for us guys, pretty bad.

Yea I see that , hope is the Ens 11-15 is correct with the PNA push. There is some hope at least. We were all due for a stinker Dec if there is such a thing as due.

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Yea I see that , hope is the Ens 11-15 is correct with the PNA push. There is some hope at least. We were all due for a stinker Dec if there is such a thing as due.

As Ian said, about a third of our December's are bad ones and this pattern has been a worse one than normal by quite a bit so I'm ready to start looking towards January.

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I posted this over in the Richmond thread, but I think it holds true for the wider Mid-Atlantic. Last winter, it was cold and snow threatened frequently (down here we even got a fair amount on Christmas Day night). The year before that the largest December storm on record for DC. Then, in October, a storm where the most frequent response was "if only it were December"...

Recency bias is a real b**ch sometimes.

Running +3.3* relative to normal... it feels considerably worse after last year's -7.1* departure and the prior year's -1.0*...

The +15 and +20 days are just brutal.

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As Ian said, about a third of our December's are bad ones and this pattern has been a worse one than normal by quite a bit so I'm ready to start looking towards January.

Our correlation up here between snowless Dec and terrible winters is very high and very concerning. Looking at an AO reinvigorating and a crappy Atlantic, not good.

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Our correlation up here between snowless Dec and terrible winters is very high and very concerning. Looking at an AO reinvigorating and a crappy Atlantic, not good.

How strong the positive nao looks through the period on the GEFS ensemble mean is a little unsettling and knowing that Bob Chill's research suggests Jan will probably also have a positive nao is also a downer though his years weren't as uniformly awful as one might expect for snow here. No stellar years but still quite a few that ended up with double figure amounts at DCA. But the majority did as well or better than last year.

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How strong the positive nao looks through the period on the GEFS ensemble mean is a little unsettling and knowing that Bob Chill's research suggests Jan will probably also have a positive nao is also a downer though his years weren't as uniformly awful as one might expect for snow here.  No stellar years but still quite a few that ended up with double figure amounts at DCA.  But the majority did as well or better than last year.

Some years we can snow even with the crappiest pattern hopefully we get a break at some point. Thanks for the answers and tips up, lines tight.

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More fun with numbers. Since 1949/50 at DCA

If we got shut out Oct-Dec: Average snowfall after Jan 1 was 10.9" (11 cases)

If we got 0"<x<2" in Oct-Dec: Average snowfall after Jan 1 was 13.0" (23 cases)

If we got 2"<x<6" in Oct-Dec: Average snowfall after Jan 1 was 9.0" (13 cases)

If we got >6" in Oct-Dec: Average snowfall after Jan 1 was 17.5" (15 cases)

All winters after Jan 1: 12.9"

So, a top 20% pre-Jan 1 period bodes very well for us, but the difference between a shutout and a moderate to even good early winter isn't much.

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December 2011 sure has turned out to look a lot like December 2001. We had some sucker punches of cold air then too, even a moderate RIC snow event after the first of the year. But, winter really did not start in earnest until February 19...by then it was merely a springtime nuisance. -10 departures in early March after a blowtorch winter really aren't interesting.

Noting that this month has featured a handful of clear sunny mild afternoons where naturally the temperature bottoms out nicely during the long dark night...sort of like a "in situ" cold air effect. If this doesn't scream January 2002 on it's face I don't know what does. Plenty of similarity to the global pattern and the perpetual "going to be better in 10 days" look to the NWP schemes. I've accepted it for now and holding out hope that February 19 2002 comes at least a month earlier this time around.

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the entire Conus is a torch.....I thought maybe it portended something better down the road...se ridge flattened a bit....maybe some minor ridging in the Atlantic, but I am getting a bit desperate...

I lived in central North Carolina during the '99-'00 winter. During that season we hit 80 degrees twice in December (a first) At RDU. Winter was comprised of 8 days in January, but it packed quite a wallop. I had 33 inches of snow during that 8 day period with 3 snows and an ice storm to finish it off. Even though it warmed up after the 8 day stretch, it took a month for all of the snow to melt. After that, I never give up on a winter until it is truly over.

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