Winter Speculation 17/18 -December Thread

[AMZ8990]

11 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

It is hour 384...so just for fun...there is a 108 degree temperature gradient from northern Montana to Atlanta, Georgia.  It is conceivable that a person could drive from Atlanta to northern Montana in a day and go from 68 to -40.  One day/one twenty-four hour period, I am going to do that.

edit:  I know guys who live in Yellowstone that travel from there to Belize in a day to fish.  They leave sometimes when it is -30 there and nearly 95 in Belize.  125 degrees change in about 6-8 hours.  

Talk about opening yourself up for a cold or flu. Lol

[jaxjagman]

You want to see that ridge in the NW build to have some better wave breaking like the GFS showed today,the NE ridge looks ok ,right now.But even the GEFS don't show this.Not very optimistic the GFS is going to be right

[Jed33]

32 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

It is hour 384...so just for fun...there is a 108 degree temperature gradient from northern Montana to Atlanta, Georgia.  It is conceivable that a person could drive from Atlanta to northern Montana in a day and go from 68 to -40.  One day/one twenty-four hour period, I am going to do that.

edit:  I know guys who live in Yellowstone that travel from there to Belize in a day to fish.  They leave sometimes when it is -30 there and nearly 95 in Belize.  125 degree change in about 6-8 hours.  

GFS accomplishes this with a 1064 mb high! If the setup comes to pass I’ll bet it verifies under 1055 and the cold is not as strong, but it sure is cool to see what could happen if it were that strong!

[jaxjagman]

The rat might see his shadow this year

[Mrwolf1972]

So cmc and euro give all the snow to Ohio while gfs gives to Tennessee don't like our chances right now. 

[John1122]

The Euro control shows a trough slowly working it's way East in the Day 10-15 range. By day 15 the East side of the area is 50-55 degrees and the West side is in the 20s.

Day 10 on the Euro at 500 shows that weird buckle into the Pacific off the Canadian coast as an EPO ridge builds. It shows up on every model all winter so far and so far it's not happened. It could happen this time but I doubt it. I think we're going to get a cold shot, a warm up and then the trough will return East as the EPO ridge builds. The SE ridge has lost to western ridging every time this year. It has trouble standing in the face of the big cold available in Canada.

[Mrwolf1972]

18z GFS is still hammers the state next Friday with snow and ice if it happens and it's only model showing this I'll be pleasantly surprised. 

[PowellVolz]

GFS has been really good click bait this year and here I am sucked in again.

 

 

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[Carvers Gap]

2 hours ago, John1122 said:

The Euro control shows a trough slowly working it's way East in the Day 10-15 range. By day 15 the East side of the area is 50-55 degrees and the West side is in the 20s.

Day 10 on the Euro at 500 shows that weird buckle into the Pacific off the Canadian coast as an EPO ridge builds. It shows up on every model all winter so far and so far it's not happened. It could happen this time but I doubt it. I think we're going to get a cold shot, a warm up and then the trough will return East as the EPO ridge builds. The SE ridge has lost to western ridging every time this year. It has trouble standing in the face of the big cold available in Canada.

Good post.  It was odd to see that error on every model before Christmas.  No idea if it verifies now.  The EPO ridge is slightly west of its December position.  But that odd buckle underneath the EPO ridge has been a consistent error.  Wonder why?

[jaxjagman]

Man,is the GFS consistent or what?It's not backing down from nothing practically

[tnweathernut]

Just now, jaxjagman said:

Man,is the GFS consistent or what?It's not backing down from nothing practically

Rakes ALL of KY, as well as a good chunk of northern and eastern TN.  Looks like it gives at least some snow to almost the entire TN valley region.  Certainly consistent, though it wouldn't be the first time I have seen it be consistent and ultimately wrong.  lol

[1234snow]

Man,is the GFS consistent or what?It's not backing down from nothing practically

Extremely consistent for sure!

[tnweathernut]

The CMC shifted its heavy snow area WAY south, into the lower OH Valley.  Gives parts of northern KY over a foot.  Also has some snow to the TN/KY border.  It's a big move toward the GFS.  Doesn't mean a lot 180 hours out, but it's a start....lol

[jaxjagman]

6 minutes ago, tnweathernut said:

The CMC shifted its heavy snow area WAY south, into the lower OH Valley.  Gives parts of northern KY over a foot.  Also has some snow to the TN/KY border.  It's a big move toward the GFS.  Doesn't mean a lot 180 hours out, but it's a start....lol

Surprised the CMC did get better with that PNA look its showing.The new German model don't look half bad either

[Stovepipe]

23 minutes ago, 1234snow said:

 

Extremely consistent for sure!

 

 

[John1122]

I'd probably cash out on the rest of winter if we pulled this off. 

[John1122]

The Euro looks like the GFS from a few days ago when it had snow on the Plateau, SEKY and SWVA. It pretty much has 3-4 inches in those ares with some 5+ areas and 1-2 over the next tier of counties down into Eastern Tennessee. Not epic like the Euro, but a step in the right direction. The Canadian and Euro shifted snow southward with tonight's runs. Still a long way to go but hopefully we can reel something in.

[John1122]

Individual Euro members had a few misses but quite a few big hitters that were closer to the GFS solution.

[John1122]

The 06z brings it as well. I feel like I keep waiting on the other shoe to drop.

[Mrwolf1972]

If this verifies I'll be fine for the rest of the winter .

[jaxjagman]

 

[tnweathernut]

Good find, Jax.  Modeling is likely to struggle in the extended similar to the struggles we saw in December leading to our very cold weather.  Cold may come in waves with brief warming between initially, but I see it playing out the same way with modeling correcting toward a deeper eastern trough as we get into February. 

It would be nice to score with a wave on the arctic front in early February.  Not sure we can pull it off, but at least we have something fairly interesting to follow for the time being.  I think the more likely beneficiary to this event might be the lower OH valley.  Fingers crossed though.

I share the concern of some over the lack of QPF.  It seems almost every event for the last three months has UNDER performed, and sometimes by A LOT.  I hope we can break that tendency as we head through Feb.  It doesn't LOOK dry, but then again if you remember December the modeling advertised a very wet period that never materialized.  

Hopefully, at the middle of March we can all look back and say what a crazy and fun ride the last 45 days were.  If not, maybe Jeff, Jax, and others will get their severe.  I can't get on board with that though.  As an insurance guy I just don't look at severe weather the same way I did as a kid.....

[nrgjeff]

Winter of 2010-2011 was another one that went: Warmer, oops another cold shot, warmer, oops! Until February. It was a similar ENSO and QBO regime.

In the mid-term, I am not even paying attention to next week. It'll probably be cold chasing rain (both times). I remain more interested after February 5th.

Peer reviewed research posted somewhere on Twitter the ECMWF has troubles in MJO phase 5 (current initial) despite its overall better performance. As for the forecast MJO, who wants to gander at the phase? (see photo below) Tough for a human, ripe for disaster with a a machine. Big slug of convection is out east of the Continental Maritime already, which argues for colder than NWP.

I still think in February one has to respect the SER a little more. Still models have a history of missing low level cold advances into the South.

 

[Carvers Gap]

If the Weeklies have driven home anything during the past several runs....the end of February and the first half of March look cold.  That has been a constant.  The cold presses east and eventually wins.  With the MJO going high amplitude and cold available (unlike last winter), have to think some severe cold "should" be on the table.  The MJO for phase 7 on the GEFS is off the cart, literally.  That would likely mean that a high amplitude phase 8 is possible.  I try not to hype....but cold in early March is playing w house money in NE TN.  But the cold has to be here in place.  Now, I am definitely backing off the cold train I was on.  However, one can make a reasonable argument that the Euro is holding that trough too much into the West.  That is making a mess of the forecast in the East.  Just see the D'Aleo article that I posted yesterday.  Remember before Christmas where the models looked great, then switched to 70 degrees, then cooled off, and then went very cold.   I think the models jumped the gun a bit on the cool down, but I believe one is coming.  I think February will finish around normal or just above....but that does not mean that it won't snow.  I am attaching WxUnderground's data set for KTRI of February 1996.  I have been miffed about this data set because it is missing a massive amount of snow.  It got "lost" even though it is on graphics our there.  Anyway, look at how crazy the temps were that month.  I was not a hugely cold month.  There were places around Kingsport that had well over 30" in about a four week period from say Jan 20 to Feb 10.  But if I remember correctly, one or both of those months finished above normal for temps.  I chose the Elizabethton Weeklies snow plot so that you can see where the totals jump.   Those are the windows for snow according to this run.  Most places are 3-6" for mean snowfall.  This is like using exaggerated graphics in order to see patterns more clearly...like accentuating colors on an infrared sat map.  I have also included (in order) the said MJO maps, the CPC ensembles for the AO/PNA(did not include the NAO since it looks to stay positive for the foreseeable future), the Weeklies teleconnections, and of course, the Feb 96' data set for KTRI.

 

  

[Carvers Gap]

Jeff has put the ninja on me twice in two days.  LOL.  Hey man, that last post was not in response to yours.  I must have been working on it while you posted yours.  But yeah, the MJO looks crazy on the GEFS plot.

[jaxjagman]

The GEFS MJO ever since the shutdown seems to lagging a day,what's up with that?

[John1122]

12z GFS sings the snow song again. It's actually getting more and more robust in the short term for some snow showers around 84 hours away too.

[John1122]

The Canadian has now mostly caved to the GFS as well. Not as heavy as the GFS, but still 1-3 roughly from 40 north almost state wide and into Southern Ky/SWVA.

[nrgjeff]

Either one of us could be right. I do not notice much divergence anyway. Timing is always up in the air.

3 hours ago, Carvers Gap said:

Jeff has put the ninja on me twice in two days.  LOL.  Hey man, that last post was not in response to yours.  I must have been working on it while you posted yours.  But yeah, the MJO looks crazy on the GEFS plot.

Agree the GEFS is blowing the MJO. In other news the winter of 1996 keeps coming up. Regrettably the goods never made it much south of I-40; so, I am trying to avoid that year.

For next week, GFS op is digging/ginning the system way too fast. My guess, 12Z Euro keeps the wave meh for our Region. Carolinas maybe, but the GFS is about as believable as Mueller. Oops! I'm still posting on tilt after a Twilight Zone week, but at least Wichita State is back on track.

[Mrwolf1972]

look at these returns in the valley wow