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December Med/Long Range Disco


WinterWxLuvr

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You really do seem to enjoy chasing "patterns" more than snowstorms. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

 

You of all people should know it is damn hard for us to get snowstorms....Good patterns = better chance for snowstorms. I'm not a meteorologist, far from one, but I've been looking at this stuff for long enough to recognize a pattern that might give us a shot at a snowstorm. Yeah, a model will never get a day 7 prog right with specifics, but what they can do is give us a small idea of how the overall pattern might play out. 10-14 days ago I could tell that from then to today there wasn't a real shot at anything. Was it because I took the 240+ hr EURO/GFS at face value? Of course not, but I had a pretty good idea based on the OP/ensembles that the pattern was not going to be good for us.. 

 

The overall theme of today's model runs is that they are showing a VERY potent storm around X-mas that looks like it is going to usher in some cold air. This storm has no chance to be a snow event for the big cities because the pattern leading up to it is terrible. However, it looks like this storm might help tank the AO for a bit. However, some things I'm not liking is that it looks like we may get a big time -PNA pattern around the same time as the GFS & EURO want to dump some low heights in the W CONUS. 

 

If we get a strong enough block we could see a potential gradient pattern, but we'll see about that.

 

Gun to my head? No snow till X-mas, but come X-mas day we'll be tracking some events with real potential based on the pattern in the long range. 

 

Then again no one cares what I think anyway...

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Have to say I'm not thrilled at the long-range progs in terms of snow chances.  The Xmas monster is an Archambault event and that will finalize the pattern change, but then things look fairly dry for several days at least.  Certainly looks cold and maybe some serious cold with signs of cross-polar flow showing up on the 6z GEFS past D10.  Hopefully we'll see some signs of activity in the next several days. 

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The X-mas event showing up on the GFS & EURO are the types of storms that can abruptly change a pattern....

 

The winter of 2000-2001 had a similar event

 

If you recall, the first 15-17 days of December were boring....then we had an uber cold front around the 17th that suddenly changed the pattern to a favorable one...

 

Here is the 500mb map for that storm;

lJoRyAC.gif

 

6-7 days later here was 500mb, note the block forming;

nyjRkmb.gif

 

THIS MORNING'S 6Z GFS; HELLO WINTER MY OLD FRIEND...

52c5st7.gif

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Have to say I'm not thrilled at the long-range progs in terms of snow chances.  The Xmas monster is an Archambault event and that will finalize the pattern change, but then things look fairly dry for several days at least.  Certainly looks cold and maybe some serious cold with signs of cross-polar flow showing up on the 6z GEFS past D10.  Hopefully we'll see some signs of activity in the next several days. 

 

I agree, however, it will at least be a pattern that offers a true possibility at snow. Lets get the cold in here first. 

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Have to say I'm not thrilled at the long-range progs in terms of snow chances. The Xmas monster is an Archambault event and that will finalize the pattern change, but then things look fairly dry for several days at least. Certainly looks cold and maybe some serious cold with signs of cross-polar flow showing up on the 6z GEFS past D10. Hopefully we'll see some signs of activity in the next several days.

I'm actually feeling pretty good about the last week of the month. Height patterns on the models are going to be muddy until handling the monster next week is fully resolved.

It doesn't really look cold/dry and the ss doesn't look to be shut off. I can envision a gradient/boundary type pattern with overunning possibilities. With some blocking in place we would have a much easier time being on the cold side. Any vort that rides under us could turn the corner too. With that being said, it doesn't look like a big storm pattern.

One caveat is potential transient ridging after the Xmas storm clears out. I'm not biting on that but ops are showing the possibility.

Euro ens last night looked pretty good d10-15. Broad conus troughing and below normal temps. Not icebox stuff but cold enough. If we close the month wirh a virtual shutout I'll be bummed.

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I agree, however, it will at least be a pattern that offers a true possibility at snow. Lets get the cold in here first

 

I hope the Christmas storm re-shuffles the deck.  This weather is boring and I have always been a big believer in getting the arctic cold in place first and see what happens with storms later.  

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I'm actually feeling pretty good about the last week of the month. Height patterns on the models are going to be muddy until handling the monster next week is fully resolved.

It doesn't really look cold/dry and the ss doesn't look to be shut off. I can envision a gradient/boundary type pattern with overunning possibilities. With some blocking in place we would have a much easier time being on the cold side. Any vort that rides under us could turn the corner too. With that being said, it doesn't look like a big storm pattern.

One caveat is potential transient ridging after the Xmas storm clears out. I'm not biting on that but ops are showing the possibility.

Euro ens last night looked pretty good d10-15. Broad conus troughing and below normal temps. Not icebox stuff but cold enough. If we close the month wirh a virtual shutout I'll be bummed.

I was feeling quite positive, but the last few days the signs of 2-3 cutters possibly within +/- 2 days of Xmas has been discouraging.  Based on the GEFS, it also looks like the -NAO could disappear about as fast as it arrives.  The southern stream looks like it will weaken at least a bit, although maybe not disappear as you suggest.  Compare the 250mb winds from the next few days to the last days of the GEFS and you can see the weakening. 

 

I'm not throwing in the towel or anything, that's not my style.  Just have moved from a position where I thought it was highly likely that we'd all see at least 1 decent snowfall before New Year's to a position where I wouldn't be surprised if we get skunked.

 

P.S.  This also doesn't mean JFM won't be rockin'. 

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Imho- there's going to be an unusual amount of spread in ensembles because of the potent storm next week. GEFS will probably be more jumpy than the euro because of its resolution and fewer members. The epo ridge looks quite strong down the line. This is usually a stable feature and slow to break down once established. So the optimistic side of me see a good signal for prolonged colder air delivery into the conus. 

 

Of course cold in the conus doesn't mean cold here. The euro was focusing the dumps in the west during the 10-15 day range but it changed its tune last night. I suppose the euro is seeing better blocking possibilities to have the mean trough axis in a more favorable position for us. 

 

The 5 day mean for d11-15 looked really good last night. I hope this is direction were going in.

 

post-2035-0-07840600-1418827068_thumb.jp

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That's a really nice look on the Euro ensembles. I'm not doubting the cold, I think that's coming for sure.  Just a little more cautious than I was a few days ago regarding storm activity once the cold arrives. 

I'm with you as we lose the southern storm track.  I'd like to see the negative anomaly across Texas and the southeast and then off the coast like the ensemble has.  Having a positive anomaly there suggests we won't have a good southern storm track and will have to make do with a northern stream system that digs south of us. I fear once we get the cold we go dry though I reserved the right to change my opinion tomorrow when I actually will be writing an outlook for that period. 

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I've become somewhat wary in the past couple of days of how things look after Christmas as well.  Not negative, but also not as gung-ho as I thought it appeared before.  It still looks like regardless of how things actually pan out, it's going to be quite on the cold side the last week to 10 days of December.  But not that long ago, it really looked like we had some good chances at an event here the last week of the month (even right on or around Christmas itself).  As WxUSAF mentioned earlier, it's a bit disheartening to see the ops GFS showing cutters now during that time frame, despite the overall cold-looking pattern (cold air behind those systems, presumably).  I also do not like how apparently, the ops GFS in its later time periods is showing the flow lifting or breaking down as we head into New Year's (especially today's 06Z).  Now, I know that's the ops, which is essentially like one member of an ensemble at that time frame, so you take it with a grain of salt.  But it appeared more "stable" with the look of a colder/active/favorable pattern before...though that's probably more perception than scientific reality I'll admit.  The GEFS mean, on the other hand, has definitely been more stable with the look of a colder setup.  Though again, as was mentioned above, it does look like the -NAO in the GEFS mean isn't there as much as before.  It's as if we cannot buy a -NAO for any length of time around here for the past couple of years!

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I'm with you as we lose the southern storm track.  I'd like to see the negative anomaly across Texas and the southeast and then off the coast like the ensemble has.  Having a positive anomaly there suggests we won't have a good southern storm track and will have to make do with a northern stream system that digs south of us. I fear once we get the cold we go dry though I reserved the right to change my opinion tomorrow when I actually will be writing an outlook for that period. 

 

 

Well, after looking through the ens members...there's a good # with a 1040-1050hp planted right in the midwest...

 

Hopefully I can put on the hockey skates and hit some ponds.

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Well, after looking through the ens members...there's a good # with a 1040-1050hp planted right in the midwest...

 

Hopefully I can put on the hockey skates and hit some ponds.

If it doesn't snow at least bring on the vodka cold and freeze everything solid.

 

I like standing on my deck in shorts in very cold temps at night. Fun stuff.

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