January Medium/Long Range Discussion Part 2

[Amped]

7 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Here we go.

Buckle up boys.  The most important storm of Ji's life is upon us.

20 more most important Euro runs to go.

[Thanatos_I_Am]

3 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

There is a weak HP to the north. But this is all for fun at this point anyways. That storm has about as much a chance as verifying as modeled as I do winning the power ball this week.

I know lol, just trying to learn. Thanks!

[psuhoffman]

2 minutes ago, Thanatos_I_Am said:

Ok, for the experts, where is that cold air coming from on that D10 storm? No high to north, correct? 

I don't know if I am an expert but the cold (if you can call the kinda cooled Pac origin air cold) is in place ahead of the system after the trough swings through behind the day 6 bombing rainstorm.  The source of the cold sucks so its not great, plenty cold enough at the mid levels, but surface we would be relying on evaporational and convective cooling to get us cold enough for sure.  Normally I would say nope, but were within the very small window when that can work late January and early Feb.  THe bigger concern would be getting a fully phased bombing low up the east coast like the euro shows.  That is the part I doubt more.  Give me that low in that spot with H5 heights crashing and were probably going to get some snow.  Maybe a few inches, maybe a lot more, but its gonna snow.  I just doubt that H5 is going to be accurate.  

Below are the 850 temps 24 hours before, you can see there is marginal cold in place but its workable.  

 

[BristowWx]

that high out west looks nice.  too bad that is not above us...of course it would probably squash it

[Bob Chill]

9 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Sure would blow away the concerns over striking out in both December and January.

It's a delicate phase job on an op run @ d9-10. My only concern is that it will be gone in 12 hours and not show back up. The entire setup shown is extremely delicate and very unlikely to occur. 

[BTRWx]

1 minute ago, Thanatos_I_Am said:

I know lol, just trying to learn. Thanks!

Your point is a good one.  The lack of a blocking High is a concern at any time frame!

[Heisy]

Bob check out the GFS individuals around same time frame the 500mb pattern looks very good on almost all of them for something

 

[Ji]

zero chance this happens. the euro has shown plenty of 10 day storms the winter. and they typically last one run and gone by 00z to either thin air or a rainstorm. 

[osfan24]

4 minutes ago, BTRWx said:

Your point is a good one.  The lack of a blocking High is a concern at any time frame!

Don't worry, one will magically appear in future runs! LOL.

[mitchnick]

15 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

But the data I looked at shows if we get a lot of snow in January our odds of having a better February then January decrease significantly!  

First, I doubt we get "a lot of snow" out of this, if any. I'd just like to see a 2-4" job which then, at least statistically, puts years like 14/15 and a many others back into play. Second, understand that I am looking at this based purely on snowfall records at BWI.

[psuhoffman]

14 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

First, I doubt we get "a lot of snow" out of this, if any. I'd just like to see a 2-4" job which then, at least statistically, puts years like 14/15 and a many others back into play. Second, understand that I am looking at this based purely on snowfall records at BWI.

I was kidding... of course getting more snow in January makes it less likely you will get "more" snow in February then January... 

I guess it is true though that having more snow the first half of winter decreases your odds of having a better second half (in relation to the first half)

I don't really buy persistence over the course of a whole season, the patterns shift around and each has its own traits.  There is persistence to not snowing here only because we have a generally sucky snow climo so most patterns will inherently suck more often then not.  

[stormtracker]

49 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Here we go.

Buckle up boys.  The most important storm of Ji's life is upon us.

for 12 hours

[BTRWx]

10 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I was kidding... of course getting more snow in January makes it less likely you will get "more" snow in February then January... 

I guess it is true though that having more snow the first half of winter decreases your odds of having a better second half (in relation to the first half)

I don't really buy persistence over the course of a whole season, the patterns shift around and each has its own traits.  There is persistence to not snowing here only because we have a generally sucky snow climo so most patterns will inherently suck more often then not.  

I can't agree.  2009-2010, 2014-2015, 2011-2012, 2012-2013 all consistent through those winters with opposite results

[stormtracker]

33 minutes ago, Ji said:

zero chance this happens. the euro has shown plenty of 10 day storms the winter. and they typically last one run and gone by 00z to either thin air or a rainstorm. 

At least you're learning. 

[psuhoffman]

28 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

First, I doubt we get "a lot of snow" out of this, if any. I'd just like to see a 2-4" job which then, at least statistically, puts years like 14/15 and a many others back into play. Second, understand that I am looking at this based purely on snowfall records at BWI.

I also don't think anything is on or off the table depending on if it snows a few inches at a specific location by a specific date. Very few years run the table wall to wall good pattern for snow. 1996, 2003, 2010, 2014. Otherwise our snow comes mostly in chunks. Sometimes it's split into two or three periods. Sometimes one. 2016 was the most extreme example. Persistence would have argued against that storm.  2015 it was mostly after Jan. 2007 all after Jan 20. 2005 some early then feb. But using the trend from one pattern to project onto another would argue it never should snow here since our status quo is not snowing. 

[BTRWx]

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I also don't think anything is on or off the table depending on if it snows a few inches at a specific location by a specific date. Very few years run the table wall to wall good pattern for snow. 1996, 2003, 2010, 2014. Otherwise our snow comes mostly in chunks. Sometimes it's split into two or three periods. Sometimes one. 2016 was the most extreme example. Persistence would have argued against that storm.  2015 it was mostly after Jan. 2007 all after Jan 20. 2005 some early then feb. But using the trend from one pattern to project onto another would argue it never should snow here since our status quo is not snowing. 

That does make one wonder what causes such seasonal persistence versus the years that don't.

[psuhoffman]

5 minutes ago, BTRWx said:

I can't agree.  2009-2010, 2014-2015, 2011-2012, 2012-2013 all consistent through those winters with opposite results

2014-15 consistent?  That was a huge flip year. Did you mean 2014?  And the pattern was not the same 2013. It was vastly different. The result of no snow at bwi was the same but the weather was not. Snowfall is one of the most flukey things. Add in that our snow climo sucks. We can fail lots of ways. So many different patterns can result in no snow here. That's our base state. Normal is not snowing. So to lump everything that produces no snow together as the same passes the "is my ground white" test but is a gross injustice meteorologically.  Furthermore we can get the same or similar pattern and one year it produces 10" and another we miss the storm. Snowfall is fluke and luck sometimes. I am interested in understanding and predicting the weather not just snow and reducing every pattern down to did it snow in my yard would miss the bigger picture and make it harder to accurately predict the possible permutations of each pattern.  

 

[BTRWx]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

2014-15 consistent?  That was a huge flip year. Did you mean 2014?  And the pattern was not the same 2013. It was vastly different. The result of no snow at bwi was the same but the weather was not. Snowfall is one of the most flukey things. Add in that our snow climo sucks. We can fail lots of ways. So many different patterns can result in no snow here. That's our base state. Normal is not snowing. So to lump everything that produces no snow together as the same passes the "is my ground white" test but is a gross injustice meteorologically.  Furthermore we can get the same or similar pattern and one year it produces 10" and another we miss the storm. Snowfall is fluke and luck sometimes. I am interested in understanding and predicting the weather not just snow and reducing every pattern down to did it snow in my yard would miss the bigger picture and make it harder to accurately predict the possible permutations of each pattern.  

 

I'd argue the good snow years and low snow years would coincide well with persistence patterns.  I think both 13 and 14 were similar in this regard.

[BTRWx]

17 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

2014-15 consistent?  That was a huge flip year. Did you mean 2014?  And the pattern was not the same 2013. It was vastly different. The result of no snow at bwi was the same but the weather was not. Snowfall is one of the most flukey things. Add in that our snow climo sucks. We can fail lots of ways. So many different patterns can result in no snow here. That's our base state. Normal is not snowing. So to lump everything that produces no snow together as the same passes the "is my ground white" test but is a gross injustice meteorologically.  Furthermore we can get the same or similar pattern and one year it produces 10" and another we miss the storm. Snowfall is fluke and luck sometimes. I am interested in understanding and predicting the weather not just snow and reducing every pattern down to did it snow in my yard would miss the bigger picture and make it harder to accurately predict the possible permutations of each pattern.  

 

I admit, I botched 2010 locally.  Temps were more back-and-forth locally, but snow skied are roofs!

 

[psuhoffman]

24 minutes ago, BTRWx said:

That does make one wonder what causes such seasonal persistence versus the years that don't.

Well now things get complicated.  It depends.  Most of those years there was a dominant feature that aligned in our favor and drove the pattern.  It was dominant enough to continue to influence the pattern even as other factors shifted around from time to time.  In 1996 it was the NAO.  In 2014 it was the EPO.  2003 it was enso to a regard but you could argue that year also we got lucky in that we had help in different ways during very different patterns.  The one constant was a nice STJ to aid in storms coming across, and that definitely lead to the PDII storm, but we had some Atlantic help early then handed off to the Pacific in January on.  So we had two different patterns but got lucky in that they both managed to line up favorably.  Some years you get unlucky and you get 2-3 patterns and they all line up bad.  That is more common as our default is not snowy.  Lets say there are combinations of NAO/AO/PNA/EPO/WPO/STJ/QBO and on and on.  That gives you dozens of possible patterns.  I would guess only about 1/3 are actually favorable for snowfall.  Another 1/3 are workable and we can hope for a fluke but not likely.  And 1/3 are just not gonna happen torch patterns.  So the odds are stacked against us anytime we get a pattern reshuffle that 66% says it wont end up being a great pattern.  Such is life in a place that doesn't get a lot of snow.

19 minutes ago, BTRWx said:

I'd argue the good snow years and low snow years would coincide well with persistence patterns.  I think both 13 and 14 were similar in this regard.

 Just like we can get years where there is a dominant factor that helps all winter yes we can get years where a dominant factor lines up against us and we get 2002 or 2012.  But those years are just as rare as the ones we get lucky and go wall to wall snowy.  In the same period I looked at for snowy years were only really talking about 1998, 2002, and 2012.  Maybe throw 2008 and 2013 in if you want to stretch it a bit.  So 4 big years and 5 bad ones.  About the same chances.  Those years were a combination of either a dominant factor overriding all else against us like the super nino if 1998 or a combination of bad luck during decent patterns in 2002, or multiple patterns lining up badly throughout the winter.  Same factors that worked for us in better years.  So yea in very rare years where there is one dominant factor driving the weather persistence works out.  But that is fairly rare both good and bad.  The rest of the time the patterns shift throughout the winter and there isnt much persistence from one to the next.

 This year I am not sold there is some dominant factor killing us.  Perhaps in the end we will see oh the QBO...we should have known.  But its certainly not enso, almost neutral as it is.  People blaming nina for this are off base IMO.  It just seems a whole lot of factors fighting it out and so far they keep lining up not so good.  Throw in some bad luck when we had decent patterns and we get this result.  But there isnt some "big bad driving force" that I see that prevents us from getting lucky and a better pattern lines up the rest of the way.  I am not saying odds favor that but saying it won't happen because of persistence isnt really sound logic either.  We will see.  Something to look back on when its all over I guess.  I enjoy the debate either way.  I am just a believer in chaos and variability more then persistence in weather over the long run.  

[psuhoffman]

3 minutes ago, BTRWx said:

I admit, I botched 2010 locally.  Temps were more back-and-forth locally, but snow skied are roofs!

 

yea but it did it in two epic periods.  Mid December was a GREAT snow pattern not a fluke hit.  But then Dec 20-January 25 sucked.  Then we had the epic period late Jan into Feb.  But it was a see saw year pattern wise for sure.  

[BTRWx]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

Well now things get complicated.  It depends.  Most of those years there was a dominant feature that aligned in our favor and drove the pattern.  It was dominant enough to continue to influence the pattern even as other factors shifted around from time to time.  In 1996 it was the NAO.  In 2014 it was the EPO.  2003 it was enso to a regard but you could argue that year also we got lucky in that we had help in different ways during very different patterns.  The one constant was a nice STJ to aid in storms coming across, and that definitely lead to the PDII storm, but we had some Atlantic help early then handed off to the Pacific in January on.  So we had two different patterns but got lucky in that they both managed to line up favorably.  Some years you get unlucky and you get 2-3 patterns and they all line up bad.  That is more common as our default is not snowy.  Lets say there are combinations of NAO/AO/PNA/EPO/WPO/STJ/QBO and on and on.  That gives you dozens of possible patterns.  I would guess only about 1/3 are actually favorable for snowfall.  Another 1/3 are workable and we can hope for a fluke but not likely.  And 1/3 are just not gonna happen torch patterns.  So the odds are stacked against us anytime we get a pattern reshuffle that 66% says it wont end up being a great pattern.  Such is like in a place that doesn't get a lot of snow.

 Just like we can get years where there is a dominant factor that helps all winter yes we can get years where a dominant factor lines up against us and we get 2002 or 2012.  But those years are just as rare as the ones we get lucky and go wall to wall snowy.  In the same period I looked at for snowy years were only really talking about 1998, 2002, and 2012.  Maybe throw 2008 and 2013 in if you want to stretch it a bit.  So 4 big years and 5 bad ones.  About the same chances.  Those years were a combination of either a dominant factor overriding all else against us like the super nino if 1998 or a combination of bad luck during decent patterns in 2002, or multiple patterns lining up badly throughout the winter.  Same factors that worked for us in better years.  So yea in very rare years where there is one dominant factor driving the weather persistence works out.  But that is fairly rare both good and bad.  The rest of the time the patterns shift throughout the winter and there isnt much persistence from one to the next.

 This year I am not sold there is some dominant factor killing us.  Perhaps in the end we will see oh the QBO...we should have known.  But its certainly not enso, almost neutral as it is.  People blaming nina for this are off base IMO.  It just seems a whole lot of factors fighting it out and so far they keep lining up not so good.  Throw in some bad luck when we had decent patterns and we get this result.  But there isnt some "big bad driving force" that I see that prevents us from getting lucky and a better pattern lines up the rest of the way.  I am not saying odds favor that but saying it won't happen because of persistence isnt really sound logic either.  We will see.  Something to look back on when its all over I guess.  I enjoy the debate either way.  I am just a believer in chaos and variability more then persistence in weather over the long run.  

 

[BTRWx]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

yea but it did it in two epic periods.  Mid December was a GREAT snow pattern not a fluke hit.  But then Dec 20-January 25 sucked.  Then we had the epic period late Jan into Feb.  But it was a see saw year pattern wise for sure.  

part 1 was not winter. jk!

[mitchnick]

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Well now things get complicated.  It depends.  Most of those years there was a dominant feature that aligned in our favor and drove the pattern.  It was dominant enough to continue to influence the pattern even as other factors shifted around from time to time.  In 1996 it was the NAO.  In 2014 it was the EPO.  2003 it was enso to a regard but you could argue that year also we got lucky in that we had help in different ways during very different patterns.  The one constant was a nice STJ to aid in storms coming across, and that definitely lead to the PDII storm, but we had some Atlantic help early then handed off to the Pacific in January on.  So we had two different patterns but got lucky in that they both managed to line up favorably.  Some years you get unlucky and you get 2-3 patterns and they all line up bad.  That is more common as our default is not snowy.  Lets say there are combinations of NAO/AO/PNA/EPO/WPO/STJ/QBO and on and on.  That gives you dozens of possible patterns.  I would guess only about 1/3 are actually favorable for snowfall.  Another 1/3 are workable and we can hope for a fluke but not likely.  And 1/3 are just not gonna happen torch patterns.  So the odds are stacked against us anytime we get a pattern reshuffle that 66% says it wont end up being a great pattern.  Such is life in a place that doesn't get a lot of snow.

 Just like we can get years where there is a dominant factor that helps all winter yes we can get years where a dominant factor lines up against us and we get 2002 or 2012.  But those years are just as rare as the ones we get lucky and go wall to wall snowy.  In the same period I looked at for snowy years were only really talking about 1998, 2002, and 2012.  Maybe throw 2008 and 2013 in if you want to stretch it a bit.  So 4 big years and 5 bad ones.  About the same chances.  Those years were a combination of either a dominant factor overriding all else against us like the super nino if 1998 or a combination of bad luck during decent patterns in 2002, or multiple patterns lining up badly throughout the winter.  Same factors that worked for us in better years.  So yea in very rare years where there is one dominant factor driving the weather persistence works out.  But that is fairly rare both good and bad.  The rest of the time the patterns shift throughout the winter and there isnt much persistence from one to the next.

 This year I am not sold there is some dominant factor killing us.  Perhaps in the end we will see oh the QBO...we should have known.  But its certainly not enso, almost neutral as it is.  People blaming nina for this are off base IMO.  It just seems a whole lot of factors fighting it out and so far they keep lining up not so good.  Throw in some bad luck when we had decent patterns and we get this result.  But there isnt some "big bad driving force" that I see that prevents us from getting lucky and a better pattern lines up the rest of the way.  I am not saying odds favor that but saying it won't happen because of persistence isnt really sound logic either.  We will see.  Something to look back on when its all over I guess.  I enjoy the debate either way.  I am just a believer in chaos and variability more then persistence in weather over the long run.  

It will come in as a NINA this year based on this link. And, fwiw, do blame it on the NINA, although the QBO could also have a part but I doubt we'll ever know for sure on that score. We just don't do well most of the time. It could change, but we suck at NINA's.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml

[psuhoffman]

3 minutes ago, BTRWx said:

part 1 was not winter. jk!

2010 was like a poker game where you only win 3 hands all night but those 3 hands were all royal straight flushes and you won 100,000 dollars each hand.  

[BTRWx]

5 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

It will come in as a NINA this year based on this link. And, fwiw, do blame it on the NINA, although the QBO could also have a part but I doubt we'll ever know for sure on that score. We just don't do well most of the time. It could change, but we suck at NINA's.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml

especially now that nina is more like la nino

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/sst/sst.daily.anom.gif

https://twitter.com/philklotzbach/status/821001198765342721/photo/1?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=fb&utm_campaign=BTRWx&utm_content=821080382770675712

[WinterWxLuvr]

Just now, BTRWx said:

especially now that nina is more like la nino

Yeah, we'd have been better with a straight up nina.

[mitchnick]

7 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Yeah, we'd have been better with a straight up nina.

That's probably accurate. If you look at the link I had of Ninos/Ninas, you can see that the La Nada's really stunk for us. This year will barely make a weak Nina, so the fact that it is behaving more like a La Nada makes sense.

Now somebody may find an exception, but I'm talking odds favor not much snow in the La Nada's.

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, mitchnick said:

It will come in as a NINA this year based on this link. And, fwiw, do blame it on the NINA, although the QBO could also have a part but I doubt we'll ever know for sure on that score. We just don't do well most of the time. It could change, but we suck at NINA's.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml

NDJ is likely to be around -.7, and considering current and projected SST's DJF is likely to be around -.4 and JFM could go totally neutral.  So it may come in at the absolute bottom threshold of official nina status but using that to explain our lack of snowfall ignores all the much more significant nina's where we did much better.   I think once you start looking at moderate to strong Nina's there are some pretty strong correlations with low snowfall but the correlation with a weak nina is pretty weak and then add in this one is barely on the borderline of even being officially a Nina and I just don't see it as a driving force.  Its certainly not helping up at all, but its not the kind of dominant factor that can override all else.  If we got some help in other places the current almost totally neutral enso SST's wouldn't be a problem IMO.

All these years had equal or colder enso events yet ended up as a pretty good year snowfall wise, at least much better then we are currently doing.  

2006: 19.6"

2000: 26.1

1996: 62.5"

1974: 17.1"

1968: 23.4"

1965: 18.6"

1956: 19"

[mitchnick]

Day 10 Euro ensemble not that bad looking considering where we want to be.