December Med/Long Range Discussion Part 2

[psuhoffman]

8 minutes ago, H2O said:

or Wombats Against Recycling

 

take your pick

What do I owe you for my morning chuckle to go with my coffee?

[H2O]

10 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

What do I owe you for my morning chuckle to go with my coffee?

$0.73

 

 

[mappy]

 

[psuhoffman]

11 minutes ago, H2O said:

$0.73

 

 

Check or money order?

[PaEasternWX]

Euro Control is "exactly where we want it at this range". Move that 12-18 inches of snow just North of NYC 100-150 miles further south and we are golden. 180 hours out.

[mdsnowlover]

9 minutes ago, PaEasternWX said:

Euro Control is "exactly where we want it at this range". Move that 12-18 inches of snow just North of NYC 100-150 miles further south and we are golden. 180 hours out.

You must be following JB to make this comment

[PaEasternWX]

8 minutes ago, mdsnowlover said:

You must be following JB to make this comment

It was sarcasm. You didn't see the ""

[mdsnowlover]

1 minute ago, PaEasternWX said:

It was sarcasm. You didn't see the ""

No I didn't, oh my!! Lol!!

[EastonSN+]

2 hours ago, losetoa6 said:

Eps day 10

It seems like we just cannot rid ourselves of the - pna. Is this contributing to the WAR?

[mdsnowlover]

9 minutes ago, EastonSN+ said:

It seems like we just cannot rid ourselves of the - pna. Is this contributing to the WAR?

Considering what it looks like now I think that is good progress jmho, actually that looks more like an extension of low pressure around Hawaii, that usually leads to a +pna

[nj2va]

I think the period around NYE/New Years Day bears watching (as shown here via multiple posts).  It's not a perfect setup but its certainly much better than our current situation.  

 

[WinterWxLuvr]

Continuation of my conversation with PSU.

I did a compilation of the "normal" events here since 09.  These are events ranging from 3" to 8" over past few years. Two things stood out to me.  One is the low heights to our ne.  The other is the position of the trough axis.  It's along the Mississippi River.  We can't do well with a deep trough much further east than that unless maybe with extreme blocking. The last pic shows the dates used.  No big storms were used.

[WinterWxLuvr]

The gulf of Alaska ridging is pretty obvious also.

[PaEasternWX]

Whoops my computer glitched. May have accidentally reported a post Sorry! 

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, losetoa6 said:

Fwiw. ..the Para gfs day 10 500 looks more like the euro then the op gfs. So there's that.

The euro and GFS both look just fine day 10 and would offer chances for our area.  They are slightly off on timing and amplitude of ridges and troughs but are both hinting at the same general idea right now, and its a better idea then what they had in mind a few days ago. 

[Bob Chill]

A lot of the 2014 events had transient 50/50's. That's why the low heights show up to our NE when individual days are selected. We had a lot of well timed confluence due to an amplified pattern and active northern stream with tightly spaced waves. 

Tight spacing is the key with a +NAO. Pattern recognition for individual storms out in time is really hard with fast/unblocked flow. Features are embedded in chaos much more than being stable and easy to recognize because they get smoothed out beyond recognition. Once you start getting inside of 7 days things become much more clear.

2015 before Vday was super frustrating. We couldn't buy enough confluence to save any event. They kept tracking north and Boston got hammered. But once that ridiculous front cleared on vday, storm track quickly changed for the better. 

So far this year spacing has sucked. Until we lose the western trough/WAR persistence there really isn't much chance at even a moderate event. Doesn't matter what the AK ridge does. Yea, we'll get some good cold but only after rain. Luckily, persistent troughs in the west are cyclical. The west will ridge out soon enough. It's only a matter of time.

 

[psuhoffman]

26 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Continuation of my conversation with PSU.

I did a compilation of the "normal" events here since 09.  These are events ranging from 3" to 8" over past few years. Two things stood out to me.  One is the low heights to our ne.  The other is the position of the trough axis.  It's along the Mississippi River.  We can't do well with a deep trough much further east than that unless maybe with extreme blocking. The last pic shows the dates used.  No big storms were used.

I lost some of my links recently, do you have the link to where you put together the composite analogs so I don't have to go digging around NCEP again?  Thanks

[EastonSN+]

29 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Continuation of my conversation with PSU.

I did a compilation of the "normal" events here since 09.  These are events ranging from 3" to 8" over past few years. Two things stood out to me.  One is the low heights to our ne.  The other is the position of the trough axis.  It's along the Mississippi River.  We can't do well with a deep trough much further east than that unless maybe with extreme blocking. The last pic shows the dates used.  No big storms were used.

All with a positive PNA.

[psuhoffman]

28 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

The gulf of Alaska ridging is pretty obvious also.

Yep, where the guidance takes us right now is not too bad a place.  We have some peices to work with like the AK ridge and a tendancy to want to raise heights in the Arctic.  We need the AK ridge to get a LITTLE east of where its been and force the downstream trough a little more east, that will help some of the cutters (and there will still be some) to get into the 50/50 region we need to get a follow up wave to track south of us.  Its a workable look.  We have to get something to beat down the WAR though, even if just transient, to give us a shot.  With that there everything is going to want to track west of us. 

[WinterWxLuvr]

17 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I lost some of my links recently, do you have the link to where you put together the composite analogs so I don't have to go digging around NCEP again?  Thanks

Here's what I used

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/composites/day/

[psuhoffman]

I took the overnight runs as a win.  First, as some on here predicted, a better look may be sneaking up on us quicker then expected as the day 10 look on both the Euro and GFS is a pretty good one and it is beginning to have some support on the ensembles.  There is enough ambiguity to say there is a war going on within competing camps on the ensembles but with the ops spitting out some pretty good looks the last 48 hours consistently in early January I think there is a decent chance they are on to something.  Pretty much all the guidance is pumping up the AK ridge again.  That is the key, as it displaces the PV south just a bit, and in some of the guidance that does so enough, that even allows heights to build in the NAO domain as well to fill the void naturally.  The NAO help looks more transient at this point on the guidance, more a response to whats going on on the AK side but thats not a bad look and would offer chances here and there.  Usual caveats apply, need timing and such.  There are two ways to get snow in the general type of pattern the euro and gfs are hinting at.  The op GFS offers up both opportunities if you look at it trough 16 days.  I AM NOT PREDICTING THIS TO BE RIGHT, just showing how this pattern could work.  Day 10 GFS actually has a transient NAO ridge, the good look over AK, and the cutter day 8 is providing the 50/50 lower heights we need to create confluence to our north.  That little vort coming through the overall ridge in the middle of the country is our threat day 11 if it can hold together and do something.  GFS kills it but that seems to be what we want to see day 11.  That if it was stronger, would be a threat for a coastal system.  The GFS then breaks down the NAO help but the AK ridging still dumps cold into the CONUS.  The trough axis is west of us, but get a strung out series of wave lows along the boundary like Feb and March 2014 and March 2015 and you get one wave to pull the baroclinic zone south, then the next is a threat.  Not ideal but we have seen snow in such a pattern before.  The final two images are why at this point I am kind of tossing the ensembles beyond day 10, as many of you wisely do all along, because just by looking at the current day 10 GEFS and EPS (not bad looks) and what they had for the same when it was day 16 (euro looked about the same if not worse) you can see they were so far off that I have a feeling if the changes the ops and half the ensemble members are showing day 10 happen then day 16 won't look much like they think no either.  Models seem to only be catching things to about day 10 in this pattern, even general ideas.

GFS Day 10, that little vort in AR/MO would be a threat if it can do anything

If that vort over the lakes pulls the front through the one ejecting from the SW could be a threat.

The first two are the GEFS and EPS day 10, not perfect but both are workable patterns, and the 3rd is what the GEFS (and EPS) showed day 16 for the same time. 

 

 

[psuhoffman]

25 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Here's what I used

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/composites/day/

That was the link I lost, thanks

[WxUSAF]

Atlantic still mostly sucks on the 12z GFS but the pacific evolution looks good with a ridge reaching up over the pole and moving toward the west coast.

[psuhoffman]

2 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Atlantic still mostly sucks on the 12z GFS but the pacific evolution looks good with a ridge reaching up over the pole and moving toward the west coast.

Yea, it was a so so run.  We would have chances but would need some luck and timing to get the storm track south enough in that pattern.  I still think our big window might come if/when we can get that WAR to retrograde up into Greenland.  If that AK ridge keeps poking at the PV it eventually will get displaced enough and it should happen.  It gets close on the GFS then recovers, but towards the end the ridge is taking another shot at getting up into Greenland.  Probably won't do it then either but sooner or later I think we will get that to happen and have a very good window and then just hope to have some luck and cash in.  Until then we are probably hoping for a smaller event or mixed type thing.  Still, were moving in the right direction I think. 

[WxUSAF]

7 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Yea, it was a so so run.  We would have chances but would need some luck and timing to get the storm track south enough in that pattern.  I still think our big window might come if/when we can get that WAR to retrograde up into Greenland.  If that AK ridge keeps poking at the PV it eventually will get displaced enough and it should happen.  It gets close on the GFS then recovers, but towards the end the ridge is taking another shot at getting up into Greenland.  Probably won't do it then either but sooner or later I think we will get that to happen and have a very good window and then just hope to have some luck and cash in.  Until then we are probably hoping for a smaller event or mixed type thing.  Still, were moving in the right direction I think. 

If we have a window in the next two weeks, it looks like New Years weekend as a trailing low or a low along the front from the cutter on the 28-29th. GFS weakly develops such a low today, but not enough to do anything.

[WxUSAF]

GEFS looks pretty tasty around 240-270 before breaking things down a but. The WAR and EPO ridges link up through Greenland and the pole, squashing the PV into Hudson Bay with E-W trough orientation through Canada. Still some SE ridge, but there would still be plenty of cold around with that pattern. I'd like to see this continue for a few runs. Seems like recent runs lost the -NAO look, but this brings it back briefly at least.

[psuhoffman]

13 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

GEFS looks pretty tasty around 240-270 before breaking things down a but. The WAR and EPO ridges link up through Greenland and the pole, squashing the PV into Hudson Bay with E-W trough orientation through Canada. Still some SE ridge, but there would still be plenty of cold around with that pattern. I'd like to see this continue for a few runs. Seems like recent runs lost the -NAO look, but this brings it back briefly at least.

You keep Ninja'ing me today lol.  I thought it was a pretty good run.  You're right its transient and breaks down after, but honestly looking at the GEFS after day 11 it becomes a lot of useless not just because of how its been verifying lately but also because there are lots of contradictions and convoluted looks that makes me think, even before looking at the individual members, that they likely diverge off in several different directions and the mean we are looking at is washed out uselessness.  Just look below at the day 10 look on todays GEFS and what it said for the same time 3 days ago.  Give me that look day 10 and I will take my chances, we would at least have a shot for a few days and I have my doubts things break down as quickly as the GEFS shows after that anyways. 

 

 

[psuhoffman]

And its not surprising the GEFS mean snowfall spiked up a bit this run, several acceptable events with a few big hits sprinkled in.  Its about 2-4" across the area, not a big signal but we were looking at death valley 3 days ago.

"

[Thanatos_I_Am]

PSU, take a look at the Para-GFS 06z at 210 Hours. Am I wrong or is that a pretty good look?

[WxUSAF]

And 12z op euro with the same look as the GEFS at day 10.