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December Obs and Banter


WinterWxLuvr

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Thanks! Yeah..it does seem like there are a good few of us bringing home babies this winter.

A snowbaby would be awesome, as would having a storm while I'm on paternity leave!

Thats what I am hoping for. Give me 50 degrees and sun on the D-Day (whenever that is)... but give me snow while I'm home everyday :lol:

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Now that I made my eyes hurt looking at raleigh's euro maps it isn't as bad as I thought. No torches anywhere from what I can see. We're moving into the coldest normal highs of the year too. We're at a time when things don't need to be perfect to snow.

Good:

No torch

Active precip pattern

Coldest climo windo

Bad:

No cold

Lotsa rain

Average highs still 10 degrees above freezing

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here's a post i did about december warmth rolled over. i didn't have a ton of time, but there was no real major signal.. other than perhaps recent warm decembers tending to lead to warm jan-febs more often than the overall record which is close to half and half.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/december-warmth-in-dc-and-its-signal-for-temperatures-the-rest-of-winter/2012/12/19/ae24f94a-4989-11e2-b6f0-e851e741d196_blog.html

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December of 1996 had a NAO of -1.41, AO of -1.721, and PNA of -1.23 and it looked like this:

I pulled a list of winter months that featured an AO of -1.5 or lower and PNA of -1.0 or lower. Not a lot of instances but there are some for sure. I looked at temp anoms for each and it's a mixed bag. Some above normal and some around normal. Very few below normal though. The significance of a -pna in tandem with a -ao is definitely worth taking note of.

Here's the list in case anyone wants to disect it:

Dec 61

Dec 96

Dec 10

Jan 69

Feb 55

Feb 56

Feb 57

Feb 66

Feb 69

Since there were 5 in Feb I pulled the temp composite for the years and it looks like this:

Pretty obvious this pattern can suck and we definitely don't want it to continue. Winter of 68-69 was dominated by a -ao and -pna from start to finish. It wasn't a warm winter though. Just about average. I have no idea about snowfall but it was a nino so it probably doesn't compare well at all.

96-97 was a cold neutral enso year following a Nina. Analog? Not really IMO.

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Now that I made my eyes hurt looking at raleigh's euro maps it isn't as bad as I thought. No torches anywhere from what I can see. We're moving into the coldest normal highs of the year too. We're at a time when things don't need to be perfect to snow.

Good:

No torch

Active precip pattern

Coldest climo windo

Bad:

No cold

Lotsa rain

Average highs still 10 degrees above freezing

Don't worry in 12 hours it will show the exact opposite.

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It's sad how there was hope back in November for a cold pattern to set up, at least for a few days or a week in December, and that never materialized. As has happened all to often, once again, we are having to punt on a winter month, and are left hoping that the cold and stormy pattern showing 10 days out can somehow become reality. Feels like we have been in this same situation so many times.

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DT's saying the Euro ensemble gives much of central MD an ice storm and turns all precip to snow at the end for "several hours" into the big cities. I don't really see where that happens on the 168 or 192 hr panels, but he obviously has better access to the specifics.

Euro ensembles also show a very nice EPO ridge into AK at 216 and 240hrs.

Lastly...how the hell did nobody mention that the Euro gives us Christmas eve snow showers/flurries?? :snowman:

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It's sad how there was hope back in November for a cold pattern to set up, at least for a few days or a week in December, and that never materialized. As has happened all to often, once again, we are having to punt on a winter month, and are left hoping that the cold and stormy pattern showing 10 days out can somehow become reality. Feels like we have been in this same situation so many times.

I'm no fan of the warmth, but I'm not complaining yet.

The cold and snow can wait, and I never even seriously expected anything out of December regardless of some 10-15 day fantasy storms/pattern changes.

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I'm no fan of the warmth, but I'm not complaining yet.

The cold and snow can wait, and I never even seriously expected anything out of December regardless of some 10-15 day fantasy storms/pattern changes.

This is the right attitude, knowing your climo. There is really only 1 time I can think of in recent years where I hyped December in the Mid Atlantic and that was 2009. Unless you have circumstances that anomalous looking from far out, best bet is to stick to climo and hope for the best. So far, Matt's outlook for the area is doing the best with a good understanding of DC climo.

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Good call. I only do this twice a day (0 and 12z). 4 times a day doubly as maddening?

It's just kind of embarrassing. I think our subforum used to be more rational. I'll blame the lack of snow for two year but again... We don't see this with summer storms and such.

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Don't go to DT's page ;)

I don't disagree...I think it is also probably foolhardy to stick with a solution......I think we have seen some realistic options laid out....we have some parameters to work with....I think the weenieism comes from going outside the parameters and thinking this can morph into a DC snowstorm...there is nothing that suggests that..at least yet...Assuming that the optimism is restricted to the idea that we might get an interesting hybrid storm, I think this is a fun one to follow, especially since the models have had this storm for run after run

I don't .. tho I did yesterday for the first time. Sadly, we still have to hear about his ramblings. It's not really just here. I spend a lot of time on Twitter and see the exact same stuff there.

I think there is a chance we get some wintry precip out of it but there are a whole lot of unfounded ideas being thrown out everywhere. "It can't do that" or "the low will be on the coast but stronger" with no reasoning is just a waste of time to write and read.

The ensemble means being consistently east of the ops is perhaps one reason not to toss it, along with a run like the new gfs... tho I suspect there are two camps giving a skewed view of reality on the means.

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I think its cute some of the things Ian gets his panties in a bunch about

I've been doing this too long to find it enjoyable to read garbage posts. If people see a snowier solution etc I want to hear why.. not just "it's going to be snowier"

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I'm liking that little shortwave on Christmas morning. Still too far out for details but I believe it has a better chance of flurries than any of the other of the systems on the radar.

Yea, me too. It's the only reason the big storm midweek gives us a pretty solid mixed bag of goodies.

It's nearly perfect at becoming our much needed 50-50. So, we root root root for xmas flurries so we can cash in with 1-2" front end snow that get's encrusted in .25-.5" of ice then gets a good soaking rain and then finally gets another inch of snow before complete glaciation.

I have a lot invested in this stupid storm and I'm getting sucked right back in...

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the big thing to me from watching the models is that while a storm track to our west seems like a safe bet (anyone would be nuts to bet against it at this point), we are still seeing solutions that give some minor front end frozen even with a wrapped up low over Illinois....which suggests to me that we dont need a great storm track to get some interesting hybrid before we change over...a weaker low over Ohio would probably be enough and I am not skilled enough to say whether the pattern can support that but my guess is it can...

i think someone can probably get some mixed precip with a west or east solution tho the ones that go way west and throw moisture way out ahead of it might not be right either. i've seen that before as well where that moisture area doesn't end up existing.

i have no clue what will happen.. i agree the low is very likely to go to the west tho. any redevelopment is also unlikely to help us here imo.

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