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December 2017 Long Range Disco


Bob Chill

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46 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

lol... he's already in. Nobody excludes the Richmond folks, we just forget about them. Now those people in Northern Maryland... 

Anyways, so as not to make this post useless, here is a look at the Panasonic weeklies' mean snowfall. Not as high as I would have expected from the look, but the one major flaw in the weeklies seems to be they're a little dry.

89fRZgQ.png

 

Euro weeklies are usually pretty conservative with mean snowfall. That's a good look. It's a significant improvement over the last run and that wasn't a bad run either. 

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3 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

I look at it this way.... Luck is the most important factor in our snow chances. We've totally blown MANY good patterns. Even perfect ones. Luck odds improve with every day that passes when we're not in a shutout pattern. Think about the last 3 Decembers. The general H5 pattern offered little hope. Especially the last 2. We're entering this Dec with no shutout pattern in sight as far as the eye can see. For all we know the WAR (or insert the less than perfect feature) will actually contribute to having good luck. 

This time next week we enter what appears to be a prolonged period where it can snow. The only thing that can rattle me is staring at an approaching shutout pattern with nothing in the books. From what I'm seeing right now, it's going to be quite a while before we are at risk of a shutout pattern. Good times man. Enjoy it until there's nothing to enjoy. 

I can live with that.  Every year I learn a little more.  When we were slammed with the surprise in Jan 25 2000...I had no idea why.  Made me mad.  Since then I put my nose down and learned a lot. From alt.neweather to wright weather to eastern and now here.  Knowledge is power but also can mean disappointment because you know way before regular people it won’t be a white Xmas and you have to tell non weather weenies in your family it won’t snow just because it’s December 25.  That said, this upcoming pattern looks close to epic and I shall enjoy it as you prescribe.  

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2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Euro weeklies are usually pretty conservative with mean snowfall. That's a good look. It's a significant improvement over the last run and that wasn't a bad run either. 

Agreed. The weeklies typically follow climo with only modest + or - deviations. Seeing a mean like that with sig AN snowfall is impressive honestly but still a very long range tool with little skill to accurately predict things like snowfall. 

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7 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Agreed. The weeklies typically follow climo with only modest + or - deviations. Seeing a mean like that with sig AN snowfall is impressive honestly but still a very long range tool with little skill to accurately predict things like snowfall. 

Yep. I didn't get upset when last runs snowfall was a bit modest and I'm not that excited when today's is more. But I am excited by the overall look of everything right now. And as you have pointed out this isn't a long range fantasy. We have already seen the first few dominoes fall with the reversal of the pattern up top in November and the tanking of the AO. There are indications this might be a long term pattern setting up. Perhaps even the dominant one of the winter. No secret I was conservative going into this winter. The majority of similar years were bad. But no two years are alike. We don't know exactly which factors will end up being the key in any given year. 1967 & 1996 for instance were similar enough analogs in some ways too. There was always a chance... I'm not sold 100% yet but perhaps this year is one of those type anamalies. Just the chance that it is had me excited. We will see what happens but there is nothing but good showing up right now in all the guidance I see. 

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57 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

Anyone notice the GEFS snow mean maps seem to hate coastal central NJ? Just an oddity I have noticed. The EPS snow maps aren't like that. Wonder if it is a model thing or Weatherbell..

Not sure about jersey, but th GFS does weird things around the bay and metro corridor too. Apparently it got updated with some sort of UHI feature earlier this year (i think) and now it apparently never snows over the bay or gets below freezing. Overnight low forecasts always seem overly warm for every spot except maybe DCA. Euro is often much colder and more accurate. 

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1 hour ago, NorthArlington101 said:

lol... he's already in. Nobody excludes the Richmond folks, we just forget about them. Now those people in Northern Maryland... 

Anyways, so as not to make this post useless, here is a look at the Panasonic weeklies' mean snowfall. Not as high as I would have expected from the look, but the one major flaw in the weeklies seems to be they're a little dry.

89fRZgQ.png

 

Don't you just hate it when it snows more over the ocean to your east and southeast! 

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19 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

One think zwyts said years ago that has never left me is the vast majority of our snow events happen with a flawed pattern. 

In hindsight, the pattern may be too perfect, thus yielding non-events. Meridional flows do not always deliver, a wider trough is actually better for region-wide impacts and Miller As. Most will not pick up on the subtle difference unless you are well-versed in atmospheric science.

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24 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

One think zwyts said years ago that has never left me is the vast majority of our snow events happen with a flawed pattern. 

Yup. Too perfect and you get a great wasted pattern. The opposite and you're left with a torch. I have this book of East coast snowstorms, and most happen in similar patterns, the issue is that it's more luck based from there. 2009-2010 will most likely never happen again like that. Maybe one big 30"+ storm for DC, but never 2 15" events and 1 more 10" event in that succession. You just never get those good but not perfect patterns like that. 

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12 minutes ago, Cobalt said:

Yup. Too perfect and you get a great wasted pattern. The opposite and you're left with a torch. I have this book of East coast snowstorms, and most happen in similar patterns, the issue is that it's more luck based from there. 2009-2010 will most likely never happen again like that. Maybe one big 30"+ storm for DC, but never 2 15" events and 1 more 10" event in that succession. You just never get those good but not perfect patterns like that. 

What zwyts was referring to is that most of our events are small and happen with all kinds of weird or unrecognizable setups. If you went back and looked at the upper level plots for 12 different 1-3" events some of them don't even really look like snow. 

Big ones almost always share a few things with the most common being a 50/50 low. That's easy to spot. KU's have a block somewhere even if transient. Typical events are much more chaotic. Cold and and precip can come together in strange ways. 

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1 minute ago, RidingTheModelWithMostSnow said:

Temps are marginal 

It's trolling us hard-core, all it does is pump us with southerly winds. Really a remarkable troll, meanwhile the true latent threat is pushed back beyond 198 hours with the shortwave in the Dakotas that looks a shade too far east to really do anything meaningful.

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10 minutes ago, RidingTheModelWithMostSnow said:

Just a little humor to a long and great winter... Hey I have both BWI/Dulles over 30 inches for the contest this year.

Not directed at you at all....

It's all good, just need to let weather to do it's thing.  Winners and losers will be had but nobody can deny that this is a great pattern that is most likely to last more than 2 weeks.

Could we get burned? Absolutely, Ive lived in the MA for 41 years...been there many times.  I cant imagine how many times we failed before internet!  lol

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1 minute ago, poolz1 said:

Not directed at you at all....

It's all good, just need to let weather to do it's thing.  Winners and losers will be had but nobody can deny that this is a great pattern that is most likely to last more than 2 weeks.

Could we get burned? Absolutely, Ive lived in the MA for 41 years...been there many times.  I cant imagine how many times we failed before internet!  lol

I am 41 years young and lived in the Baltimore area my entire life.  I remember TWC good ole red screens text warning. 

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