January? Pattern Change Thread

[Ji]

Will, you act as if JI understands any weather map beyond surface qpf and 850 temps

how is that -QBO working out for you?

[Tropopause_Fold]

Here's the PAC regime shift that is showing up in the D12-15 range on the EC ensembles...its likely rushed, but lets hope its real and we see this develop sometime around mid month

Are you able to throw out 5h anomalies from the ec ens as well?

[dendrite]

Are you able to throw out 5h anomalies from the ec ens as well?

Any particular map you want?

[Tropopause_Fold]

Any particular map you want?

NH or NA 5h anomalies centered on day 11...if you've got it. ...then day 14 or 15

[OKpowdah]

Knock on wood... I like the long range 00z GFS a lot

[weathafella]

I hear the weeklies are not so wonderful? Can someone who saw them comment?

[TalcottWx]

0z GFS is purty

[TalcottWx]

Twin rack up in Canada.

[weatherwiz]

Knock on wood... I like the long range 00z GFS a lot

Awesome! Glad I'm not the only one.

Right towards the end of the first week of the month the GFS looks rather interesting with the potential for a closed/cut-off low in the southern Plains/SE with a split flow pattern developing. The northern branch of the jet looks rather strong with lots of s/w working into the flow from the PAC...if we can just manage to remain in more a trough with lower heights perhaps we can muster up something from the northern stream.

[OSUmetstud]

Euro is still brutally cold on Tuesday. -30 at SLK Wed morning? lol

[weatherwiz]

Just can't get rid of this can we

[Damage In Tolland]

Gibbs says the weeklies are a torch thru week 4. Is anyone really surprised in the God forsaken winter?

[CoastalWx]

Gibbs says the weeklies are a torch thru week 4. Is anyone really surprised in the God forsaken winter?

I wonder I'd they are really that bad for here.

[CoastalWx]

Phil how does next week look?

[Ginx snewx]

I would not be surprised if with this arctic front there are some embedded Sw's triggering some nice squalls. CAA looks insane, should be some big winds. I also am intrigued by perhaps a SW off the MA moving NE on the 6th on the backside of the trough. At any rate it will more than likely look and feel like midwinter for a least a couple of days.

[Tropopause_Fold]

Phil how does next week look?

mid-week still looks pretty darn cold. GFS backed off a bit but the ec and ec ens still gung-ho on cold centered tue/wed.

before we torch next weekend, kinda like the idea of getting some light snows into the area either thur or fri...whether that's simply via WAA from displaced arctic air, an inverted trough or getting clipped by something from offshore i don't know.

pretty big warmth imbound next weekend i think, barring any subtle backdoor (which hasn't worked at all so far this season so no real reason to see it working this go around).

[CoastalWx]

mid-week still looks pretty darn cold. GFS backed off a bit but the ec and ec ens still gung-ho on cold centered tue/wed.

before we torch next weekend, kinda like the idea of getting some light snows into the area either thur or fri...whether that's simply via WAA from displaced arctic air, an inverted trough or getting clipped by something from offshore i don't know.

pretty big warmth imbound next weekend i think, barring any subtle backdoor (which hasn't worked at all so far this season so no real reason to see it working this go around).

That torch has been well modeled. Hopefully we can get some snows.

[ORH_wxman]

Just as long as we get rid of the AK vortex like the ensembles show...that first step and we can work from there. We have no hope with the vortex there, but if we get rid of it, then it changes things.

[NorEaster27]

Euro is still brutally cold on Tuesday. -30 at SLK Wed morning? lol

....not that unusual

[toronto blizzard]

Just as long as we get rid of the AK vortex like the ensembles show...that first step and we can work from there. We have no hope with the vortex there, but if we get rid of it, then it changes things.

Do the euro ensembles still show the vortex breaking down and replacing it with ridging up towards the aleutians?

[ORH_wxman]

Any particular map you want?

Where do you get 11-15 5h anomalies?

[Ginx snewx]

Brutal

[OSUmetstud]

....not that unusual

thanks

[Typhoon Tip]

Just can't get rid of this can we

...

Yes I was just thinking that same thing, just how much that looks like any given Sunday over the course of this near warmly historic recent December.

Not sure what the worth of the following is beyond commiseration... but, 4 days ago ... when the Euro operational developed that odd looking monsters storm from cutting off of an actual long wave trough (as opposed to the more typical model of short wave scaled events ....), there was actually some support via that product of the PSU E-Wall site. At that time, two runs, back-to-back, that Euro mean painted a huge western ridge and coupled fairly deeply carved out low heights in east centered on the same time. Meanwhile, the GEFs derived PNA was forecast to modestly spike to +2 standard deviations or so. So basically, the idea of "some sort" of event appeared very plausible - most thought the extremeness of the Euro was over-the-top, if perhaps wisely... Point being, there was cross-model type support both spatially and temporally for an era of cold amplitude, so things appeared pointed in a certain direction.

It's just bemusing, though, how no sooner was all that correlative assurance established, only then did the house of card come-a crumblin' down. It was an illusory romp perpetrated by the forces of chaos, we're left to suppose...

Be that as it may, what do we now have to show for the course? First of all...obviously nothing. But, the GEFs derived PNA is still trying to spike between the 2-6th of January; yet the Euro mean ... has gone ahead and submarined it's verification score card for that particular D6-10 range by opting for the opposite appeal, abruptly, like that which you provided. Granted, every night tacks another day on the end of that 8-10ness. There was, however, a 2 -day period, though, where they recently overlapped.

The hidden lesson in all this is

1), the Euro is not an infallible tool (nor its constituencies);

2), "anything" Euro in general is just as indictable as a piece of shyt tool as any GFS/GEFs derived product, period. I'm not forgetting this, nor that inland cutter in January last year, where at D4 or 5 the Euro had a bomb over Cleveland, and the GFS handed that model its hat in a rare defeat when what verified was a nice 6-12" resulting coastal.

Concerning the latter notion. I am not sure what it is really about the 4-D initialization thing, but it certainly does pay dividends to accuracy but only up to a certain lead time. I believe it is somewhere between D4-5 **(and yes the numbers are readily available); after which chaos roars in and bares its ugly presence with rapidity.

This sort of leads me loosely into the only comment I have regarding the pattern over the longer haul heading on into the month of Cantuary. There are some albeit thin for the time being, interesting signals coming from the western Pacific, and disparately so, from the AO, that might converge and force changing things regardless of the "infallible" Euro Weeklies.

The MJO is just entering the western Pacific Basin as it is now continuing its eastern propagation through Phase 6. Its weak to moderate in intensity, but since there is an utter and complete abandonment (apparently) of any polarward exertion on the flow, that leaves the Pac domain very prone to the advances of the tropical boner. I think it certainly possible (perhaps demonstrated via some kind of re-analysis/eval study) that the failed original Euro meridional flow may have been because the MJO wave sort of phoenix from the COD/incoherency grave, and rose to moderate strength midway through Phase 4, and then assumed a steady eastward propagation through Phase butt-bangin' 5. The end result "might" just have been rather abrupt insert of large scale destructive wave interference *(I've discussed this a few times in the recent past, but feel it prudent presently to bring it up again). I am not sure of that ... again, that's supposition. Either way, SOMETHING caused the entire Euro cluster to waver on the entire mass of the Milky Way Galaxy seemingly violating physical laws in getting there... You provide an explanation - I dunno.

Anyway, with the wave progressing now deeper eastward through the western Pac, the dispersive influence down stream should spatially favor the kind of Pacific orientation that folks are inclined to wanting to see ... eventually. Right now - of course - the GEF says the PNA neutralizes and gets rather dicey/incoherent around -.5; I honestly don't see that as significant. If we look across December, the PNA (according to both the CDC/CPC) in fact appears to have averaged slightly positive. How's that working for us? Again, it really more and more appears to be the complete and utter red-headed step child neglect by the alcoholic AO step dad that doomed us to the ennui that most are complaining about, when taking all into retrospective.

There's the rather tentative rub... The warm node I was mentioning in the upper altitudes of the stratospheric PV is gaining some strength. The very recent analysis, take on the 29th of the month, shows both the temperature +flux combined with a Wave 1 (geopotential height) bullying a presence:

What we don't know is whether or not this already verifying warm intrusion/flux will be downward propagating or not. What is interesting is that I did see some recent EP Flux diagrams that suggested it would not be; yet, when observing the other sudden onset warm events in the data set spanning the last 30 or so years...the ones that did have a subsequent propagation behavior were associated with a stronger Wave 1 geopotential signature such as that provided above. So there's some conflicting notions there...

Barring the EP Flux' accuracy (and if some warm events have an extraterrestrial orginin ( hmmm (interestingly, there has been some recent CME( maybe there somehow a polarity link to the airs of the upper PV that is realized through the variable temperature in the electroconductivity of a fluid medium) ) ) ) than a partial disconnect with EP could almost be assumed)

...Let's see who succeeds in parsing that out...

The short version, perhaps the AO begins to fall off, concurrent with a more favorable Pac orientation in about 2, 3 weeks.

Up until then, it can snow...sure, or not. Smaller time scale what-nots in the flow ...it's January. I don't see a blow torch like the whiners are chanting though. Of course, I am not even sure what defines a "torch". I scanned around in the Glossary over at AMS ... they don't have f clue. I figure it's "anything that is outside the box of winter intent", period, should be labeled a torch, and that ought to about cover it. So given that logical pre-requisite I suppose, yeah - torch. But imnsho, i find the broad spectrum oscillatory pattern that ranges from lewd run-ins with +12C, 850mb day in half warmth, followed by smack in the face -20C, 850mb day and half cold incursions (with no storms intervening the separation of those exotically differing mass fields) to be more maddening and annoying to look at then a torch. But that's just me.

[OKpowdah]

This warming is certainly intriguing. The wave 1 amplitude as you've shown has expanded downward pretty nicely, and is respectable in comparison to recent major warmings of the last few winters. One distinguishing characteristic (aside from the meager temp warming itself) is also the zonal wind anomalies which haven't made a huge response.

The CME activity isn't helping at all. That's an ozone-destroying mechanism, which cools the stratosphere.

[OKpowdah]

I think this may be a positive indication for a vortex split further down the road. Usually vortex splits are associated with anomalously strong zonal flow in the troposphere ... check, and are also often preceded by preliminary wave activity ... check. So we'd be interested at look at wave 2 amplitude in the future

[Typhoon Tip]

This warming is certainly intriguing. The wave 1 amplitude as you've shown has expanded downward pretty nicely, and is respectable in comparison to recent major warmings of the last few winters. One distinguishing characteristic (aside from the meager temp warming itself) is also the zonal wind anomalies which haven't made a huge response.

The CME activity isn't helping at all. That's an ozone-destroying mechanism, which cools the stratosphere.

Yeah I didn't get into that because the write up was getting a bit long. I was looking around this morning for Ozone tracking products, but being the way the internet is these days ... .you get lots of leads on the "Arctic Ozone Hole" ...and so forth, and difficulty finding sites that track the ambient stratospheric numbers per se -

[Ginx snewx]

Look at the Euro freebie 2 m Temp for the next ten days, cold with a brief warmup. Nice, lets get some snow in here.

[Go Kart Mozart]

Look at the Euro freebie 2 m Temp for the next ten days, cold with a brief warmup. Nice, lets get some snow in here.

Speaking of the euro...it's pretty darn close to something for Jan 4rth. If that chasing wave is a bit weaker than progged...

[HeatMiser]

500 heights look interesting for jan 9-11. all ensembles are now hinting at a trough around east, however, it looks like surface temps are warm. Seems like the setup we saw just a week ago with regards to the upcoming week. Surface temps lag.