Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,606
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    ArlyDude
    Newest Member
    ArlyDude
    Joined

December Med/Long Range Discussion Part 2


WinterWxLuvr

Recommended Posts

6 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I thought the same exact thing when I saw it, the heart must indicate my level of approval of this look.  (yes I know its still fiction range and not much support YET)

The GEFS picked up on the Dec cold look first. Not implying that I think we magically moved towards acceptable inside of 15 days but the last 3 runs of the gefs have been diverging from the eps. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 1.1k
  • Created
  • Last Reply
2 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

I remember it being locked in from about 6 days out. Not at 384 though.

it was out there in la la land, and then was lost, only to come back like North suggested.  I could go into my pics archive and see how far out i started saving stuff.

Nut

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, soadforecaster said:

I remember the gfs first showed it around hours 240 and never really moved from it.

Euro had the storm too but it was a bit too warm, track and intensity was actually good just showed a big rainstorm everywhere because from 10 days out the euro had ridging in front and no cold air to work with. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

My thoughts on the QBO discussion.  I am not sure who was saying it is going through another phase change but I don't see any evidence of that.  The QBO winds tent to propagate downward and right now both the 50 and 30 mb level are still becoming more westerly.  The 50mb level is at 7.11 and the 30 mb level went from 12.79 to 14.16 so as it tends to propagate from 30 to 50 mb that would suggest it has not started a phase change yet.  It may not be getting more westerly because as it propagates downward it tends to become more easterly by default so that minor increase at 30mb may not translate to much at 50mb but there is no evidence I see that it is reversing.  Those values are pretty solidly west because the east phase tends to have way more amplitude so anything above 5 in a pretty solid westerly phase.  Either way I don't think the QBO will be helping us at all this year, and will be a factor we just have to overcome if were going to score a good snow period.   I won't claim to be an expert on the qbo but I also think while definitely part of the mix when things are bad people suddenly start to look for things to assign blame and the QBO becomes weighted more heavily then maybe it should.  Just looking through the data and knowing our climo the correlation of the QBO and winters in our area is not lock solid.  I will say that having a solidly westerly QBO probably rules out the chances of a wall to wall -nao type winter.  Those are rare anyways, only happening once or twice a decade, but they always happen with either a neutral or easterly QBO.  But there are plenty of winters that had at least a decent period of blocking with a west QBO.  2010-11 had a very good period of blocking, even if it didnt do us any good, and that had a similar QBO to this year.  2003 and 2014 were great winters with west QBOs but of course other factors besides blocking helped us out.  Our problem this year is those other factors are NOT helping us and so blocking is important and the QBO is probably hurting us some there.  January 2000 is probably an example of how we can pull out a win in this pattern.  That year showed up in my analogs and keeps popping up in the NCEP GFS super analogs also.  Very similar QBO and Pacific pattern, and for most of the year the pattern was hostile, but we had a 2 week period of good blocking in later January that year and got lucky and scored several hits (at least NW of 95 and one big one in the cities).  There are too many factors working against us to expect a good pattern to lock in for a month or more, but we can still hope to get periods we can do well and with luck avoid a dud winter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the GEFS and GFS op runs are too fast in their transition, but I think they may be seeing what might be coming next just rushing it like usual.  I know Showmethesnow was suggesting the earlier blocking looks were the false start, but those looks came when the PV was weak and displaced.  The mechanisms for getting to that look were different.  Sometimes chaos and luck play a part.  The PV is consolidating into a monster at the worst time and it shook up the whole pattern.  What the GFS was showing 2 weeks ago has little to do with how things will evolve now.  I do think the guidance continually trying to show a -nao is a good thing.  It probably means there are some underlying pattern drivers that favor nao blocking.  But the GFS is having trouble identifying which factors will be dominant.  It's better then if the models never hint at nao help because then we can assume its highly unlikely to get any NAO blocking as the pattern this year simply doesn't support it.  At some point the PV will weaken or be displaced some and then maybe we can get some blocking.  My guess is the GFS is rushing it and were probably talking the second week of January before we can see that impact us.  Maybe longer.  But the first signs its coming are to see hints showing up on the long range ensembles and sporadic runs of the ops.  Seeing that right now is a good thing.  It doesnt mean its happening now, but that we are one step closer to possibly getting out of this god awful crap were dealing with now.  I take the last 24 hours as the first positive half step in over a week.  When we start to see this look on consecutive runs, more then one model, and it begins moving closer in time and not stuck on day 15, that is when we can start to feel more confident that better times are ahead. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, soadforecaster said:

I remember the gfs first showed it around hours 240 and never really moved from it.

The GFS lost it a little over a week out.  Here's the thread, for anyone who's interested in reliving it.

The storm showed up as a strong signal on the ensembles first, and starting about 10 days out (I think) it was showing up sporadically on op runs.  People here started getting excited around 00z on January 17th, when the Euro op locked onto it. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, cae said:

The GFS lost it a little over a week out.  Here's the thread, for anyone who's interested in reliving it.

The storm showed up as a strong signal on the ensembles first, and starting about 10 days out (I think) it was showing up sporadically on op runs.  People here started getting excited around 00z on January 17th, when the Euro op locked onto it. 

 

The signal for a storm was on the ensembles from 15 days out even.  You're never going to get consistent op runs to show specifics from that range, but it was one of the better long range signals I have ever seen on the GEFS and EPS.  Ops started to show it somewhat regularly around day 12 but would lose it for a run here and there.  Around day 10 it became a consistent feature although the euro was way too warm and even the GFS had precip type issues for a few runs, then day 8 or so on it it was like locked in.  Definitely one of the big model wins in history. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I think the GEFS and GFS op runs are too fast in their transition, but I think they may be seeing what might be coming next just rushing it like usual.  I know Showmethesnow was suggesting the earlier blocking looks were the false start, but those looks came when the PV was weak and displaced.  The mechanisms for getting to that look were different.  Sometimes chaos and luck play a part.  The PV is consolidating into a monster at the worst time and it shook up the whole pattern.  What the GFS was showing 2 weeks ago has little to do with how things will evolve now.  I do think the guidance continually trying to show a -nao is a good thing.  It probably means there are some underlying pattern drivers that favor nao blocking.  But the GFS is having trouble identifying which factors will be dominant.  It's better then if the models never hint at nao help because then we can assume its highly unlikely to get any NAO blocking as the pattern this year simply doesn't support it.  At some point the PV will weaken or be displaced some and then maybe we can get some blocking.  My guess is the GFS is rushing it and were probably talking the second week of January before we can see that impact us.  Maybe longer.  But the first signs its coming are to see hints showing up on the long range ensembles and sporadic runs of the ops.  Seeing that right now is a good thing.  It doesnt mean its happening now, but that we are one step closer to possibly getting out of this god awful crap were dealing with now.  I take the last 24 hours as the first positive half step in over a week.  When we start to see this look on consecutive runs, more then one model, and it begins moving closer in time and not stuck on day 15, that is when we can start to feel more confident that better times are ahead. 

Good point, I really hadn't considered that.

As far as your other points they make a strong argument for a delayed start and I considered mentioning them as well. But the mood in here has been bleak so I thought I would keep my post upbeat by just listing the favorables. Thought I would also mention this. When last the models were suggesting blocking, a week or two ago, they more often then not showed a southeast ridge along side a -NAO. While these two features are not mutually exclusive I do think that setup is a fairly rare occurrence so to see them side by side should have probably been a red flag. The GEFS now though does not feature a southeast ridge when we see blocking pop up. Maybe another indicator that this go round is the real deal? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12z gefs is throwing out the possibility of something other than another west track rainer in the d8-10 range with the approaching trough. The only reason I find it interesting is because basically just popped up with the 12z run and it wasn't just a stray member. A couple keep the wave weak and colder and a few others have a CAD sig with mixed before a flip. Of course the pattern screams west track and warm but worth considering if things trend favorable through the holiday. The shortwave actually has a ridge in the west on the means so that is something new. lol

 

gfs-ens_z500_vort_us_41.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, showmethesnow said:

Good point, I really hadn't considered that.

As far as your other points they make a strong argument for a delayed start and I considered mentioning them as well. But the mood in here has been bleak so I thought I would keep my post upbeat by just listing the favorables. Thought I would also mention this. When last the models were suggesting blocking, a week or two ago, they more often then not showed a southeast ridge along side a -NAO. While these two features are not mutually exclusive I do think that setup is a fairly rare occurrence so to see them side by side should have probably been a red flag. The GEFS now though does not feature a southeast ridge when we see blocking pop up. Maybe another indicator that this go round is the real deal? 

You can get ridging in the east of the nao ridging is weak and centered east of Greenland. But the one time I dug deeper I found that look was a product of two camps smoothing each other out on the means. One camp did not have the nao goimg negative. It was slightly positive or neutral and that camp had a crazy se ridge. The camp that had good blocking still didn't have a deep trough in the east due to the se ridge seeming to just want to be there this year. But it was beat down enough for our purposes in that camp. But the net result was both a -nao and se ridge in the means. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, showmethesnow said:

Good point, I really hadn't considered that.

As far as your other points they make a strong argument for a delayed start and I considered mentioning them as well. But the mood in here has been bleak so I thought I would keep my post upbeat by just listing the favorables. Thought I would also mention this. When last the models were suggesting blocking, a week or two ago, they more often then not showed a southeast ridge along side a -NAO. While these two features are not mutually exclusive I do think that setup is a fairly rare occurrence so to see them side by side should have probably been a red flag. The GEFS now though does not feature a southeast ridge when we see blocking pop up. Maybe another indicator that this go round is the real deal? 

It could be. I heard it may have something to do with the QBO changing to negative. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...