January Medium/Long Range Discussion Part 2

[frd]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

It's possible the qbo going so strongly to a west state hurt us more then anything else so far. We have had plenty of cold enso years more Nina then this be more snow friendly but most of them were east or at least neutralish qbo state. The qbo correlation with the pos AO wanes a little later in the season so perhaps it's something we can overcome in feb. otherwise will need a great PAC setup to make due without any blocking. 

I know a lot of folks downplay the role of the QBO, but I believe it is a factor , I believe even neutral is better than roaring positive. Seems from what I have read the Easterly phases encourage a more - NAO , including the potential of increased PV displacments and SSW events.   

I remember it was about 10 years ago first hearing about the QBO on Eastern Weather when HM was talking about it.    

[psuhoffman]

8 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Yeah, suddenly strong consensus at range that the eastern trough cometh. Now we need the +pna to stick around for 4-5 weeks like the weeklies told us it would. 

yea it's too soon to know what our prospects will be. But I'm very pleased that by the time we get past this weekend threat we will already be staring down the flip back to colder. It doesn't appear we're facing an extended dead period. 

[BTRWx]

This is a long shot, but if any of us get a crusty base this weekend, that could slow the bleeding even more.

[ravensrule]

1 hour ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Front Back Loaded Winter!!

Which do you prefer .

[mitchnick]

HM, on Twitter, mentions Feb. 84 & 99 as analogs.  God help me. Less than an inch at BWI for both months....March was ok in both years though. 

[BTRWx]

22 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

HM, on Twitter, mentions Feb. 84 & 99 as analogs.  God help me. Less than an inch at BWI for both months....March was ok in both years though. 

Which time period for this year is he comparing that too? Now or February I wonder...

[mitchnick]

1 hour ago, BTRWx said:

Which time period for this year is he comparing that too? Now or February I wonder...

February

[WinterWxLuvr]

The latest gefs made a decent jump with 16 day total snow.  I don't put any faith in snow maps other than I think it's a good sign that there are more possible snow scenarios popping up.

This bad period might not last long in reality.

[PDIII]

4 hours ago, BTRWx said:

Never post any operational model precipitation maps after approximately hr 150...someone please back up my claim!

Maybe it should be in banter than.  it was a joke... ie..  you know your in a bad pattern when you get a low off the coast of VA Beach in mid jan and it is a 100% Rainer 

[WxUSAF]

1 hour ago, mitchnick said:

HM, on Twitter, mentions Feb. 84 & 99 as analogs.  God help me. Less than an inch at BWI for both months....March was ok in both years though. 

Excuse me while a throw up in my mouth.

 

[Bob Chill]

30 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

The latest gefs made a decent jump with 16 day total snow.  I don't put any faith in snow maps other than I think it's a good sign that there are more possible snow scenarios popping up.

This bad period might not last long in reality.

The epo/pna ridge showing fairly prominently of the gefs. If the weeklies are right then it's going to be around for a while. 12z eps flipped cold at the end. It's been slowly trending until today when it make a big jump. Hopefully not a blip. I don't think it is with the gefs showing the same idea. 

[psuhoffman]

34 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

The latest gefs made a decent jump with 16 day total snow.  I don't put any faith in snow maps other than I think it's a good sign that there are more possible snow scenarios popping up.

This bad period might not last long in reality.

The jump is day 15-16 several members have a storm up the east coast. 

[Bob Chill]

Looking at the eps meteograms shows a 6 day warm stretch from tues next week through the following Monday. 7 members showing snow d13-15. Not many but definitely a new development in the long range. 

The Jan thaw on tap looks pretty short considering the entire continent gets scoured of cold. 

[psuhoffman]

19 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Excuse me while a throw up in my mouth.

 

I can see how that bears some similarity to the pattern we're looking at around day 10-13 but after that the AK vortex seems to weaken and eventually shift west. If that stays there then yea it's like 84/99. But I don't think that's where we're heading. 

[BTRWx]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

I can see how that bears some similarity to the pattern we're looking at around day 10-13 but after that the AK vortex seems to weaken and eventually shift west. If that stays there then yea it's like 84/99. But I don't think that's where we're heading. 

I was shocked to see the corresponding surface map he responded to from my request. Torches all around. Not likely right now for that long a time period.

[psuhoffman]

21 minutes ago, BTRWx said:

I was shocked to see the corresponding surface map he responded to from my request. Torches all around. Not likely right now for that long a time period.

The dominant feature is that AL vortex. If that stays there then we're toast no matter what is going on elsewhere. But all of the long range guidance right now gefs ggem and EPS all break that down and move it out by day 15. That hasn't been a feature this year either. So I'm not sure what HM is implying. Does he think that AK vortex reforms and becomes a long term feature or simply never leaves and guidance is wrong there?  I don't see that but perhaps I'm missing something. 

[BTRWx]

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The dominant feature is that AL vortex. If that stays there then we're toast no matter what is going on elsewhere. But all of the long range guidance right now gefs ggem and EPS all break that down and move it out by day 15. That hasn't been a feature this year either. So I'm not sure what HM is implying. Does he think that AK vortex reforms and becomes a long term feature or simply never leaves and guidance is wrong there?  I don't see that but perhaps I'm missing something. 

DT's counter-request is interesting.

 

[Ji]

can you imagine if the jan 25 storm happened on Jan 25?

 

[Heisy]

This is for Ji especially, but the last few runs of the GFS have been showing a complete pattern reversal @ the end of its range. +PNA, NAO, displaced block. Fantasy land though, but IMO after this minor event this weekend the rest of the month until around the 25th is a wash. COuld see spurts of golf weather IMO. 

[psuhoffman]

The problem with over emphasizing the qbo or any one factor is we're still dealing with limited data sets relatively. We have about 65 years of reliable records on this stuff. So we have a dozen or so years with strong west qbo. Some turned out snowy. Some not. A few were very snowy. But then you try to filter by other factors like enso and your down to only a few examples. And yea 1999 was one but the Nina was way way stronger that year. But it was coming off a super Nino. Does that make it a good match?  I don't know. Depends what factors you think are weighted more. 1993 actually wasn't a bad match with a neutral enso state and very west qbo and that turned out very different.  1984 was a good match with enso but was an east qbo. The sample size is way too small to know for sure how exactly the correlation works with all the variables added together. Then you filter by AMO and PDO and you end up with like 2 years. Drawing any conclusions by that is crazy. Then add in the role chaos plays in all this. Some of it's pure chance.  HM is very good though so I take notice when he says something but I'm not sold we're headed towards an extended period with the PV stuck in AK. 

[psuhoffman]

4 hours ago, Wentzadelphia said:

This is for Ji especially, but the last few runs of the GFS have been showing a complete pattern reversal @ the end of its range. +PNA, NAO, displaced block. Fantasy land though, but IMO after this minor event this weekend the rest of the month until around the 25th is a wash. COuld see spurts of golf weather IMO. 

Yes but you realize that's only about a week. This high split the warm period in half so by the time we get past this weekend whatever we're staring down the flip back to cold. 

[psuhoffman]

These aren't bad looks. 

[Ralph Wiggum]

Decent looks there. Atlantic still stinks tho. Look at that screaming progressive flow. Yes, we can snow with this look, but chances of a big one that crawls up the coast/stalls looks nil. Guess we accept the cards we're dealt.....I will take whatever snow we can muster and run with it.

[WinterWxLuvr]

Just now, psuhoffman said:

These aren't bad looks. 

Finally that troughing off the nw coast of the US isn't showing up.

I love that look.  Now if we can semi-slow the flow off the east coast.  Or at least occasionally bend it.

Any chance we develop a split flow out of that.  I'd love to see the opportunity for some energy to come out of the sw into that eastern trough.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I don't track or try to forecast SWEs so I am asking anyone who does.....is it correct that there will be a SWE in the next 15 days BUT reconfigures the N Hemi by displacing the PV over Siberia rather than Northern Territories where it is in general attm?

[psuhoffman]

3 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Decent looks there. Atlantic still stinks tho. Look at that screaming progressive flow. Yes, we can snow with this look, but chances of a big one that crawls up the coast/stalls looks nil. Guess we accept the cards we're dealt.....I will take whatever snow we can muster and run with it.
 

If you throw out the nino's showing up in the analogs, the other "snowy" years fit the progression of 1993.  I am using that mostly because its recent enough for most to remember it.  THere was a train of systems coming across in Feb into early March that produced a variety of precip types but plenty of it was snow, especially NW of 95, but none of them was a slow moving cut of system of very amplified.  They were mostly progressive systems coming across with regularity.  Then of course in March when wavelengths shortened and we know what happened, but even if we take out the fluke event Feb was a pretty good period but it did it without anything that would look that impressive at H5.  I am not sure were going to get some classic slow moving bombed out coastal this year.  Our better bet would be a wave train with cold air in place.  

[psuhoffman]

6 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

I don't track or try to forecast SWEs so I am asking anyone who does.....is it correct that there will be a SWE in the next 15 days BUT reconfigures the N Hemi by displacing the PV over Siberia rather than Northern Territories where it is in general attm?
 

There is one forecasted by some of the guidance in the next 2 weeks yes, but I have no idea yet how that is going to impact our weather here.  There is usually a lag time and SWE's do not effect the PV the same every time.  

[gymengineer]

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

If you throw out the nino's showing up in the analogs, the other "snowy" years fit the progression of 1993.  I am using that mostly because its recent enough for most to remember it.  THere was a train of systems coming across in Feb into early March that produced a variety of precip types but plenty of it was snow, especially NW of 95, but none of them was a slow moving cut of system of very amplified.  They were mostly progressive systems coming across with regularity.  Then of course in March when wavelengths shortened and we know what happened, but even if we take out the fluke event Feb was a pretty good period but it did it without anything that would look that impressive at H5.  I am not sure were going to get some classic slow moving bombed out coastal this year.  Our better bet would be a wave train with cold air in place.  

Yes, Feb 1993 was a classic gradient month for our area with the northwest suburbs doing much better than the cities. But January and March 1984 were even more extreme in that regard. 

[psuhoffman]

14 minutes ago, gymengineer said:

Yes, Feb 1993 was a classic gradient month for our area with the northwest suburbs doing much better than the cities. But January and March 1984 were even more extreme in that regard. 

Yea honestly a lot of the analogs share that gradient look, a few the "line" you want to be north of set up favorably for us, and some it did not, so were going to need some luck as usual.  But I see signs were at least in the game in such a pattern.  

[frd]

54 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Yea honestly a lot of the analogs share that gradient look, a few the "line" you want to be north of set up favorably for us, and some it did not, so were going to need some luck as usual.  But I see signs were at least in the game in such a pattern.  

Not even sure if 1993 will be a valid analog as the month comes to an end. A lot is going on during the next three weeks, and some analogs favor some of the better winters in the 1960's.