December Med/Long Range Discussion

[WinterWxLuvr]

Huge difference between the GFS and EURO at h5.

The former has a closed low hanging back in the sw, while the latter has a full latitude trough that yanks the storm north.

[Bob Chill]

49 minutes ago, frd said:

Thanks Bob. 

We might tap into the extreme arctic air over Alaska, ( minus 68 degrees F, thats nuts !!!  )   as well, possibly in time . I imagine the air mass over Alaska has origins to Siberia, via somewhat cross-polar flow    

 

Once that aleutian ridge establishes itself there will definitely be cross polar flow. Western canada is going to be an icebox for an extended period it seems. 

 

I can't post euro ens maps or I would post the mean 850 temp/wind plots. Siberian air is getting sucked right around the big aleutian ridge and into Canada under northerly mid level flow. Pretty impressive. 

This gefs 250mb wind map shows the same idea:

 

There are going to be some monster HP's dropping out of western canada. Some guidance is showing 1040mb+ coming down. Should be widespread below zero stuff in the upper midwest. 

 

[Mercurial]

Western Canada an icebox... now that's what I like to hear.

[Bob Chill]

Weeklies are bad if you don't like neg nao's and epo's with occasional +pna's. Sweet run. 

[WxUSAF]

Bob talking dirty, I like it. 

RaleighWX agrees on the EPS interpretation:

 

 

[frd]

58 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Weeklies are bad if you don't like neg nao's and epo's with occasional +pna's. Sweet run. 

SWEET !!!

[Bob Chill]

23 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

I'm so ready for this. Why can't it be here already? I want us to get to level 1 of the despair index ASAP   

All the panels are out now. Pretty much a weenie run. Any relaxation is very short lived. And it's not dry either. No week has below normal precipitation. 

The one thing that I think is suspect is breaking down the Aleutian ridge by the end of week 3. That's not a bad thing or anything its just that when features like that become established they usually hang on for a while. 

Way out in super la  la the cold is reloading during Jan. Skill is limited or non existent but it's nice to see anyways. 

[frd]

2 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

All the panels are out now. Pretty much a weenie run. Any relaxation is very short lived. And it's not dry either. No week has below normal precipitation. 

The one thing that I think is suspect is breaking down the Aleutian ridge by the end of week 3. That's not a bad thing or anything its just that when features like that become established they usually hang on for a while. 

Way out in super la  la the cold is reloading during Jan. Skill is limited or non existent but it's nice to see anyways. 

Bob, looking at it from your end, I guess through WeatherBell premium,  what window in time, during December,  would you say potentially holds the most promise for the Northern Mid Atlantic?

Thanks :-) 

 

[Bob Chill]

19 minutes ago, frd said:

Bob, looking at it from your end, I guess through WeatherBell premium,  what window in time, during December,  would you say potentially holds the most promise for the Northern Mid Atlantic?

Thanks :-) 

 

If you want to trust and believe a 7 week forecast model....the best period looks like the 16th-26th. But it's pretty evenly spread throughout. Coldest period is Jan 6-11. Lol. 

[frd]

25 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

If you want to trust and believe a 7 week forecast model....the best period looks like the 16th-26th. But it's pretty evenly spread throughout. Coldest period is Jan 6-11. Lol. 

Thanks again Bob.

Not that it will happen , but I have been waiting for a very cold period near the winter solstice for a long, long time.  ( with snow cover of course ) 

[clskinsfan]

5 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

Over the years I've observed that we don't typically do as well from CAD setups as places to our southwest.  My best guess is the topography there helps hold in the cold and enhance qpf and that once that wedge is busted the warm layer tends to race north pretty fast so often they get a good thump while we're north of the best lift then when the precip does move north so does the warm air. We do better in almost every other setup though so I'm not complaining at all. 

 

5 hours ago, mappy said:

Yeah, I don't recall a really good CAD event since I moved north. I mean, we've had them, but they are quick, the cold erodes away sooner than I had hoped. 

I don't recall the setup for the Feb '14 ice storm... 

That is interesting. I would figure you guys would have enough elevation, especially with you more northern latitude to do well in CAD setups. I am liking the look towards the middle of december. At least it looks like we will have the cold air in place to finally have some opportunities to track. Cant do frozen anything without the cold.

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, losetoa6 said:

Interesting theory...I can't disagree.  Sounds plausible.  We might not keep  deep layer cold in cad setups to get all snow but ( if I had a dime for every time we were suppose to go above freezing at surface during a storm and didn't)...We definitely do the freezing rain deal much more often

Yea we keep low level cold well in freezing rain situations.

[Windman18]

CMC got a little more interesting for the region on the 5th. Gets some snow north of 70 it looks like.

[mappy]

7 hours ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Yep, congrats Mappy

 

hehe. ill take it. 

[WinterWxLuvr]

We need a mix of the GFS and the Euro.  GFS keeps the flow flatter in front of that energy in the sw and thus little precip makes it up to us, but the temps are colder.  Euro is too amped in front so we get the cutter but we also are way too warm.

A couple of gfs members have pretty nice solutions but I can't see surface temps on the PSU site.

12z runs are yuge!  

[psuhoffman]

37 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

ukie don't look bad at all. Got to be some frozen with that strength and local.

http://meteocentre.com/models/explorateur.php?lang=en&map=na&run=12&mod=ukmet&stn=PNM&comp=1&run2=12&mod2=ukmet&stn2=PNM&hh2=120&fixhh=1&stn2_type=prog&mode=latest&yyyy=latest&mm=latest&dd=latest&hh=144

Depends how it got there. If that low cut to Ohio then reformed near philly I doubt we get much if any frozen. If it redeveloped further south then cut inland maybe. It's not a great location though. 

[Bob Chill]

Heh, euro just caved to the gfs idea for the 4-5th storm. Weak wave sliding out in front and hanging the main energy back. Not a model war with the 12z runs. 

[Eskimo Joe]

19 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Heh, euro just caved to the gfs idea for the 4-5th storm. Weak wave sliding out in front and hanging the main energy back. Not a model war with the 12z runs. 

2016 is a cruel joke

[Bob Chill]

As is typical during transitions, we pretty much have to wait for the first semi-flush hit with polar air. Thankfully that isn't moving back in time on guidance. Sometime around the 9-10th still looks like when the window could open up. It's basically unanimous across the board. 

 

The 12z GEFS shifted towards the eps idea of a mean eastern trough and lost the SE ridge idea. Which is good cause that would be annoying to say the least. 

Beyond the 10th kinda has a clipper or warm front look for snow ops. It's way way out there so details are silly but it does look like that. I wouldn't be surprised if our first snow chance is a front end warm front type of deal. 

[WinterWxLuvr]

The GFS is not a model to take lightly.

[packbacker]

1 hour ago, Bob Chill said:

As is typical during transitions, we pretty much have to wait for the first semi-flush hit with polar air. Thankfully that isn't moving back in time on guidance. Sometime around the 9-10th still looks like when the window could open up. It's basically unanimous across the board. 

 

The 12z GEFS shifted towards the eps idea of a mean eastern trough and lost the SE ridge idea. Which is good cause that would be annoying to say the least. 

Beyond the 10th kinda has a clipper or warm front look for snow ops. It's way way out there so details are silly but it does look like that. I wouldn't be surprised if our first snow chance is a front end warm front type of deal. 

Just looking at the 12z EPS...and I thought the past few runs of the EPS was cold...yikes.

[Bob Chill]

6 minutes ago, packbacker said:

Just looking at the 12z EPS...and I thought the past few runs of the EPS was cold...yikes.

It's a straight up weenie run. Cold from d9-15 and unusually snowy at long leads. Love the mean EC trough and block/bridge over the top from AK to basically Europe. Lol. 

I like the cold reload look after the first shot d9. If we go down that path then the board is going to be busy.  Haha

[yoda]

2 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

It's a straight up weenie run. Cold from d9-15 and unusually snowy at long leads. Love the mean EC trough and block/bridge over the top from AK to basically Europe. Lol. 

I like the cold reload look after the first shot d9. If we go down that path then the board is going to be busy.  Haha

Heavy heavy run... it looks tasty, now if it will only come closer and not stay so far away

[poolz1]

The amount of NA with below normal temps in the D10-15 is impressive.  In 35 years of weather watching, I can't remember seeing something like that.  I don't have the weather memory that many other folks on here have...anyone else recall such an expansive - ?

[CAPE]

45 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

It's a straight up weenie run. Cold from d9-15 and unusually snowy at long leads. Love the mean EC trough and block/bridge over the top from AK to basically Europe. Lol. 

I like the cold reload look after the first shot d9. If we go down that path then the board is going to be busy.  Haha

The snowfall mean is quite impressive considering we are only approaching mid month at day 15. True weenie run for sure.

[Bob Chill]

7 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

The snowfall mean is quite impressive considering we are only approaching mid month at day 15. True weenie run for sure.

Best one of the year by far. But just one run so we wait as usual. Glad the first real cold mass is staying on time around the 9-10th. Even though the eps still has a cluster with potential frozen with the 4th/5th deal I extremely skeptical we even have a slim chance. 

Ops are going to be volatile for a while. The lead up to the cold is an unstable pattern. I fully expect the digital snow thread to get a workout late this week into next and beyond with long range teases. Hopefully the cold is real and we can have a mid range discussion to shake the dust off.  You know...shake the dust off and remember how fun it is when a med range threat goes poofy poof the day a thread is started.  I like the 72 hour rule but someone always has an itchy trigger finger. Lol

[stormtracker]

2 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

Best one of the year by far. But just one run so we wait as usual. Glad the first real cold mass is staying on time around the 9-10th. Even though the eps still has a cluster with potential frozen with the 4th/5th deal I extremely skeptical we even have a slim chance. 

Ops are going to be volatile for a while. The lead up to the cold is an unstable pattern. I fully expect the digital snow thread to get a workout late this week into next and beyond with long range teases. Hopefully the cold is real and we can have a mid range discussion to shake the dust off.  You know...shake the dust off and remember how fun it is when a med range threat goes poofy poof the day a thread is started.  I like the 72 hour rule but someone always has an itchy trigger finger. Lol

Hey now....

[PaEasternWX]

Already this December looks a lot better than last years which is a win regardless if we get snow or not.

[WxUSAF]

4th/5th storm is fairly close to a light front-end event on the 18z GFS.  Temps sub freezing when precip arrives in the entire column down to 925mb and near freezing from 925-surface.  

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

3 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

Best one of the year by far. But just one run so we wait as usual. Glad the first real cold mass is staying on time around the 9-10th. Even though the eps still has a cluster with potential frozen with the 4th/5th deal I extremely skeptical we even have a slim chance. 

Ops are going to be volatile for a while. The lead up to the cold is an unstable pattern. I fully expect the digital snow thread to get a workout late this week into next and beyond with long range teases. Hopefully the cold is real and we can have a mid range discussion to shake the dust off.  You know...shake the dust off and remember how fun it is when a med range threat goes poofy poof the day a thread is started.  I like the 72 hour rule but someone always has an itchy trigger finger. Lol

Finally reading more on this board as we're getting into December now, and actually getting interested.  Time flies!  Anyhow, I've liked the trends I've seen and read about entering the first half or so of December.  Nobody can complain at that, and it's been a looong time since we've had something in the offing to at least talk about.  Good comments, Bob, that the lead into a cold pattern can be unstable.  I'm sure we'll see many teases that don't come true, or are "too early" before we're really into it (assuming we actually have it happen!).

Shaking off the dust, indeed!  There's a lot of dust, for certain.

 

53 minutes ago, PaEasternWX said:

Already this December looks a lot better than last years which is a win regardless if we get snow or not.

Heh...now there's the understatement of the year!  Just kidding (sort of)...!

Anything is better than having April temperatures in December and wearing shorts on Christmas.  To be honest, this is the most exciting a December has potentially looked in about 6 years.  And those 6 years weren't even really close.