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March medium/long range disco

psuhoffman

By psuhoffman,
in Mid Atlantic

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psuhoffman

psuhoffman

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38 minutes ago, Mdecoy said:

It feels like we've been tracking snowstorms and potential pattern changes 10-15 days out since the start of winter. If you were on here Feb 15th, Feb 25th looked pretty good, and on and on and on. You come in this thread and it is always 10-15 days out. Soon the pattern may look great for early April.

 

 

 

That's because the short range pattern has been crap all winter so naturally people that like to track weather look to the long range. I'd much rather spend my time on tangible threats but there weren't any. Now if your the kind of person who just wants snow and the chase isn't fun then you would have been better off just not paying any attention. But some of us enjoy the analysis and tracking. 

There is some truth to the long range trolling us all winter too. But many of us noticed it a long time ago and pointed it out numerous times. We discussed how there is obviously something the models miss or under weight at long leads that is overriding the other pattern influences.  So at times the guidance saw a favorable mjo or nao or whatever and thought ok it's going to do "this". But as we get closer that other factor that's been leading to ridging in the east takes over. 

My guess is a combo of the cold pool off the west coast of North America combined with the warm sst combo in the eastern tropical PAC and off the east coast of America.  

That cold pool is the exact opposite of the warm pool that helped us so much in 2014. That's might be a pretty significant player and in the future I'll give it more weight because there were a lot of similarities this year and 2014 yet such drastic opposite results and that feature sticks out as one reason. 

The warm sst off South America and off the east coast combined with that is just bad. The pacific cold pool means we are fighting the flow coming on off the west in the northern stream and the warm sst down there is pumping warmth into what is already a bad flow and pumping ridging even more. Sprinkle in the qbo and those 3 factors were too much to overcome. The first two would fight off any attempt to get cold into the east. Again and again cold shots would be deflected and ridging would fight back. 

I love that kind of diagnostic discussion but I'm not sure many others do. But it's not been unnoticed. But other then to point it out and temper expectations I'm not sure how much more we could have done to factor it in. We all have been low on expectations I've not heard anyone be bullish lately. We're just discussing possible outcomes. And there we're some rare instances where the ridge was beat down for a small window so you can't completely dismiss things out of hand. I think most have handled it well. 

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psuhoffman

psuhoffman

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37 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Euro weeklies show a good storm window the last week of March. I'm kidding but not really. 

I know what you mean. It does. But it's likely wrong and wouldn't do us any good anyways. One of these years up here is going to get another spring wet snow bomb but it's hard to predict those things at any lead. 

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showmethesnow

showmethesnow

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3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

That's because the short range pattern has been crap all winter so naturally people that like to track weather look to the long range. I'd much rather spend my time on tangible threats but there weren't any. Now if your the kind of person who just wants snow and the chase isn't fun then you would have been better off just not paying any attention. But some of us enjoy the analysis and tracking. 

There is some truth to the long range trolling us all winter too. But many of us noticed it a long time ago and pointed it out numerous times. We discussed how there is obviously something the models miss or under weight at long leads that is overriding the other pattern influences.  So at times the guidance saw a favorable mjo or nao or whatever and thought ok it's going to do "this". But as we get closer that other factor that's been leading to ridging in the east takes over. 

My guess is a combo of the cold pool off the west coast of North America combined with the warm sst combo in the eastern tropical PAC and off the east coast of America.  

That cold pool is the exact opposite of the warm pool that helped us so much in 2014. That's might be a pretty significant player and in the future I'll give it more weight because there were a lot of similarities this year and 2014 yet such drastic opposite results and that feature sticks out as one reason. 

The warm sst off South America and off the east coast combined with that is just bad. The pacific cold pool means we are fighting the flow coming on off the west in the northern stream and the warm sst down there is pumping warmth into what is already a bad flow and pumping ridging even more. Sprinkle in the qbo and those 3 factors were too much to overcome. The first two would fight off any attempt to get cold into the east. Again and again cold shots would be deflected and ridging would fight back. 

I love that kind of diagnostic discussion but I'm not sure many others do. But it's not been unnoticed. But other then to point it out and temper expectations I'm not sure how much more we could have done to factor it in. We all have been low on expectations I've not heard anyone be bullish lately. We're just discussing possible outcomes. And there we're some rare instances where the ridge was beat down for a small window so you can't completely dismiss things out of hand. I think most have handled it well. 

Good post. 

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MountainGeek

MountainGeek

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24 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

That's because the short range pattern has been crap all winter so naturally people that like to track weather look to the long range. I'd much rather spend my time on tangible threats but there weren't any. Now if your the kind of person who just wants snow and the chase isn't fun then you would have been better off just not paying any attention. But some of us enjoy the analysis and tracking. 

There is some truth to the long range trolling us all winter too. But many of us noticed it a long time ago and pointed it out numerous times. We discussed how there is obviously something the models miss or under weight at long leads that is overriding the other pattern influences.  So at times the guidance saw a favorable mjo or nao or whatever and thought ok it's going to do "this". But as we get closer that other factor that's been leading to ridging in the east takes over. 

My guess is a combo of the cold pool off the west coast of North America combined with the warm sst combo in the eastern tropical PAC and off the east coast of America.  

That cold pool is the exact opposite of the warm pool that helped us so much in 2014. That's might be a pretty significant player and in the future I'll give it more weight because there were a lot of similarities this year and 2014 yet such drastic opposite results and that feature sticks out as one reason. 

The warm sst off South America and off the east coast combined with that is just bad. The pacific cold pool means we are fighting the flow coming on off the west in the northern stream and the warm sst down there is pumping warmth into what is already a bad flow and pumping ridging even more. Sprinkle in the qbo and those 3 factors were too much to overcome. The first two would fight off any attempt to get cold into the east. Again and again cold shots would be deflected and ridging would fight back. 

I love that kind of diagnostic discussion but I'm not sure many others do. But it's not been unnoticed. But other then to point it out and temper expectations I'm not sure how much more we could have done to factor it in. We all have been low on expectations I've not heard anyone be bullish lately. We're just discussing possible outcomes. And there we're some rare instances where the ridge was beat down for a small window so you can't completely dismiss things out of hand. I think most have handled it well. 

So PSU....something I haven't seen discussed (maybe a dumb question because it's too small a factor to matter)...but I'll throw it out there anyway:

The PAC has been killing a lot of areas this year, not just us. For example, Chicago has just gone through all of Jan/Feb with no snow on the ground, something like a 100+ year record for them. How much does little or no northern snow cover affect the ability of cold shots to drop lower into the CONUS and persist? 

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Bob Chill

Bob Chill

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Good post PSU. However, I disagree with the Epac cold/warm pool being a driver. That region is always pretty cold in the grand scheme. Even with + or - anomalies it's still in the 50's. I don't think water temps in the 40's and 50's will have near the atmospheric response like anomalies near the equator. We've had this disco before. It's the chicken/egg thing. IMHO- water temp anomalies in the epac can get bullied around in either direction pretty quickly. I see that area as more of an indicator of persistence and not the root cause of the persistence. I'm sure there can be some feedback once things get going though but how much is anyone's guess. 

The persistent ridge in the epac during 13-15 was anomalous as is the trough this year. Looking at larger real estate like the PDO domain can be more telling but even then, it's not a magic bullet. The PDO was + in Dec/Jan and will probably be + in Feb so the winter will go down as yet another +PDO. This time around it didn't help though unlike previous years. 

My post mortem this winter is pretty simple. We didn't get any meaningful blocking and that sealed our fate for a sub climo winter. The persistent lack of blocking showed its hand really early. Other factors like a crappy pac and no real enso help worked in concert to make it historically crappy. Weather being weather inside of an overall blah upper level setup of meaningful drivers like enso and the arctic/GL.  

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EastCoast NPZ

EastCoast NPZ

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2 hours ago, clskinsfan said:

You may be right about the snow. But it is looking likely that we get some kind of blocking towards mid March. And that is a horrible solution IMO. The blocking comes right on time for 33 and rain throughout March.

At this point, I'll take the rain.  Hell, I'll take anything; just give me some precip.

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psuhoffman

psuhoffman

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59 minutes ago, MountainGeek said:

So PSU....something I haven't seen discussed (maybe a dumb question because it's too small a factor to matter)...but I'll throw it out there anyway:

The PAC has been killing a lot of areas this year, not just us. For example, Chicago has just gone through all of Jan/Feb with no snow on the ground, something like a 100+ year record for them. How much does little or no northern snow cover affect the ability of cold shots to drop lower into the CONUS and persist? 

Does snowcover have an impact on temperatures YES.  Is that high up on the list of our problems, IMO no.  Its not helping but I also think, as Bob pointed out with the chicken or egg thing that snowcover is equally an effect of cold as a cause.  There is some bleed over but if the pattern was better we would have more snowcover around and it would also be colder.  Kind of a feedback loop.  In a bad year you get the opposite feedback.  Hopefully that answered your question a bit. 

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psuhoffman

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41 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Good post PSU. However, I disagree with the Epac cold/warm pool being a driver. That region is always pretty cold in the grand scheme. Even with + or - anomalies it's still in the 50's. I don't think water temps in the 40's and 50's will have near the atmospheric response like anomalies near the equator. We've had this disco before. It's the chicken/egg thing. IMHO- water temp anomalies in the epac can get bullied around in either direction pretty quickly. I see that area as more of an indicator of persistence and not the root cause of the persistence. I'm sure there can be some feedback once things get going though but how much is anyone's guess. 

The persistent ridge in the epac during 13-15 was anomalous as is the trough this year. Looking at larger real estate like the PDO domain can be more telling but even then, it's not a magic bullet. The PDO was + in Dec/Jan and will probably be + in Feb so the winter will go down as yet another +PDO. This time around it didn't help though unlike previous years. 

My post mortem this winter is pretty simple. We didn't get any meaningful blocking and that sealed our fate for a sub climo winter. The persistent lack of blocking showed its hand really early. Other factors like a crappy pac and no real enso help worked in concert to make it historically crappy. Weather being weather inside of an overall blah upper level setup of meaningful drivers like enso and the arctic/GL.  

Excellent points, and you opened me a bit to looking at that factor differently.  I do not disagree with anything, and I think I made a bit of an oversight in my original post.  First about the Pac cold pool, I agree you make a compelling argument for effect vs cause.  But I do think there is some bleed over effect between the two.  Kind of like my idea on snowcover.  Kind of a feedback loop.  How much is cause/effect I don't know.  It doesn't matter since the end result is a BAD pattern so anytime we see that sst configuration weather it is the cause or the effect its a bad sign imo.  THe reason I say there is probably some causality or at least some factor we are not seeing in there is because the cold pool often starts to develop before the pattern really sets in.  So perhaps there is some evolution within the pattern that causes the cold pool then the feedback combines to lock in that awful look.  I suck at explaining this sometimes so hopefully that made some sense to you and what I am thinking. 

You are also totally right about the AO being our biggest problem in a grand scheme of why the winter wasn't good.  I agree with you 100% that trying to "win" despite a +AO is going to bite us eventually and boy did it ever this year.  That is a losing effort more often then not.  But what I was focusing on was more why was this a total FAIL vs just a normal typical sucky winter.  That is why I neglected the AO in that convo.  The AO was problem numero uno overall if we are discussing why the winter wasn't good.  But we have had plenty of bad AO years and usually we still get some snow.  Sometimes we even get lucky and get a lot, but that is a fluke as we know.  But why was this year a total absolute fail?  Well saying AO alone misses something because we did have a couple -AO periods in December and again in February.  I think the February one was totally missed because by then people were just fed up with analysis.  But we had a pretty decent -AO for the first half of the month.  We also had a -NAO in the second half of Janauary.  Neither did a darn thing for us.  So there were obviously other factors that were combining to ensure we had an absolutely dreadful snow season.  Such that even in those rare cases where the pattern up top cooperated we still were screwed.  So I was pointing out those other factors that when combined with the AO was just way too much for us to overcome.  But I neglected to say that and I see how it came off as ignoring the AO in the equation and I am glad you cleared that up. 

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MountainGeek

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8 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Does snowcover have an impact on temperatures YES.  Is that high up on the list of our problems, IMO no.  Its not helping but I also think, as Bob pointed out with the chicken or egg thing that snowcover is equally an effect of cold as a cause.  There is some bleed over but if the pattern was better we would have more snowcover around and it would also be colder.  Kind of a feedback loop.  In a bad year you get the opposite feedback.  Hopefully that answered your question a bit. 

Yeah -- thanks. I was thinking along the lines of both positive and negative feedback loops, where low snow cover favors marginal events to accumulate slightly north of where they'd otherwise be, which would then repeat creating a negative feedback loop. Higher snow cover would do the opposite in a positive feedback loop, pushing things a bit south over time.

I get that the overall pattern this winter has been terrible, and northern snow cover may be more of an effect than a cause, but I was wondering if it played a role in some of our near-misses where with a just a bit more cold we would have had a decent hit.

On the bright side, at least we can take solace in the fact that we're not the only ones suffering a snow drought....and perhaps the trickle-down effects of widespread warm temps and low snow elsewhere is just that little bit of extra push needed to turn our winter from moderately sub-climo into an epic fail.

 

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BTRWx

BTRWx

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23 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Excellent points, and you opened me a bit to looking at that factor differently.  I do not disagree with anything, and I think I made a bit of an oversight in my original post.  First about the Pac cold pool, I agree you make a compelling argument for effect vs cause.  But I do think there is some bleed over effect between the two.  Kind of like my idea on snowcover.  Kind of a feedback loop.  How much is cause/effect I don't know.  It doesn't matter since the end result is a BAD pattern so anytime we see that sst configuration weather it is the cause or the effect its a bad sign imo.  THe reason I say there is probably some causality or at least some factor we are not seeing in there is because the cold pool often starts to develop before the pattern really sets in.  So perhaps there is some evolution within the pattern that causes the cold pool then the feedback combines to lock in that awful look.  I suck at explaining this sometimes so hopefully that made some sense to you and what I am thinking. 

You are also totally right about the AO being our biggest problem in a grand scheme of why the winter wasn't good.  I agree with you 100% that trying to "win" despite a +AO is going to bite us eventually and boy did it ever this year.  That is a losing effort more often then not.  But what I was focusing on was more why was this a total FAIL vs just a normal typical sucky winter.  That is why I neglected the AO in that convo.  The AO was problem numero uno overall if we are discussing why the winter wasn't good.  But we have had plenty of bad AO years and usually we still get some snow.  Sometimes we even get lucky and get a lot, but that is a fluke as we know.  But why was this year a total absolute fail?  Well saying AO alone misses something because we did have a couple -AO periods in December and again in February.  I think the February one was totally missed because by then people were just fed up with analysis.  But we had a pretty decent -AO for the first half of the month.  We also had a -NAO in the second half of Janauary.  Neither did a darn thing for us.  So there were obviously other factors that were combining to ensure we had an absolutely dreadful snow season.  Such that even in those rare cases where the pattern up top cooperated we still were screwed.  So I was pointing out those other factors that when combined with the AO was just way too much for us to overcome.  But I neglected to say that and I see how it came off as ignoring the AO in the equation and I am glad you cleared that up. 

Could it be as simple as a favorable Pacific never aligned with a favorable Atlantic?

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showmethesnow

showmethesnow

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16 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Figuratively and literally. lol. Max stripe of .05 with above freezing surface is probably thread worthy though. 

I'm in!!! Can I start the thread? Might be a short thread though. Starting with the word 'Go' and ending with the word 'Go'

See what I did there? I laid tribute to your funny in the banter thread. ;)

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showmethesnow

showmethesnow

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Euro was interesting @ 500mb. I would discuss the possibilities I see of the potential evolution of the pattern where we see a winters worth of snow (crap, that was a weenieism. mods please delete) but that would not be appropriate. So I won't. Thought about posting some surface and 500mb maps and diagramming it out but damned if I know if they are too long range or not. Snowfall map is definitely out though it would have been handy in getting one point across. Not sure what I can post.

But anyway, the Euro was very interesting.

Note to modes: After rereading my post I find that it is probably more banter then anything else and that's a no-no. So feel free to delete or to move to banter. After all we need tight controls on these all important long range discussion threads.

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