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December 2017 Long Range Disco


Bob Chill

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FWIW (probably not much) one feature I'm keeping an eye on in the long term is an incredibly powerful cyclone in the E-PAC that the GFS has been tracking for a few runs.  The 12z GFS had it get down as low as 899mb at 18N, and 929mb at 22N, at hr 336.  If that scenario plays out (or preferably and more likely it recurves north faster) I could see that adding some extra perturbation to the atmosphere that would help us downstream heading into the very end of December/start of Jan.

 

gfs_z500_mslp_nhem_49.png

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1 hour ago, nj2va said:

I’m hoping the weekend low sets up as a 50/50 feature for the CAPE/14-16 storm.  

Not sure if that storm sets it up- it might result from a PV lobe. Hard to exactly tell on the ensembles. Either way, lower h5 heights have been showing up in the vicinity of 50-50 lately, on both the EPS and GEFS, for that time frame. I believe @Bob Chill mentioned this a few days ago, but having low pressure in that region tucked under a block is a key ingredient/indicator for a significant MA winter storm.

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9 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

Looks cold to me right through the end of the GEFS...true?

Yes, although the WAR breaks down by the end.  Sort of looks like there could even be a brief warmup in the D20 range before the pattern reboots.

 

ETA - Serious positive anoms persist over the pole, so I think we'll be ok.

 

gfs-ens_z500a_nhem_65.png

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If you go back like 4 days or so and look at the general trend with the front next week you can see that the alignment has shifted more w/e and not as deep. The wave running after the front is a legit feature to watch (not that anybody isn't watching it.lol). In simpleton terms, the power of the front to kick everything way off the coast is backing off. This is a common trend with ops as we close in time. NWP has a bias to be too aggressive how hard fronts push south and east in the med-long range. 

One thing I always keep in the back of my mind is the MA typically doesn't do well right after initial flips to cold. Especially early season so that's one strike against our chances for the follow up. But it could morph into something. 

I'm not a fan of NS shortwaves when flipping from a warm to a cold pattern. The jet always takes its time carving and digging. It's hard to get a good south trend in the short range. North trend usually wins that contest. We generally miss the first couple teases before something can dig right. I'm hoping as much as anyone that we can pull off something with a pure NS shortwave but if we don't I won't be surprised or bummed. Get enough chances and we'll score. Just don't let it go down like late Jan/early Feb 2015. I'm still mad at that superbowl sunday set of model runs....LOL...but then valentine's day happened and it was game on. It was hard watching Boston get 100 feet of snow when we couldn't even get sloppy seconds. The upcoming pattern is one that could do something similar. 

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23 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

If you go back like 4 days or so and look at the general trend with the front next week you can see that the alignment has shifted more w/e and not as deep. The wave running after the front is a legit feature to watch (not that anybody isn't watching it.lol). In simpleton terms, the power of the front to kick everything way off the coast is backing off. This is a common trend with ops as we close in time. NWP has a bias to be too aggressive how hard fronts push south and east in the med-long range. 

One thing I always keep in the back of my mind is the MA typically doesn't do well right after initial flips to cold. Especially early season so that's one strike against our chances for the follow up. But it could morph into something. 

I'm not a fan of NS shortwaves when flipping from a warm to a cold pattern. The jet always takes its time carving and digging. It's hard to get a good south trend in the short range. North trend usually wins that contest. We generally miss the first couple teases before something can dig right. I'm hoping as much as anyone that we can pull off something with a pure NS shortwave but if we don't I won't be surprised or bummed. Get enough chances and we'll score. Just don't let it go down like late Jan/early Feb 2015. I'm still mad at that superbowl sunday set of model runs....LOL...but then valentine's day happened and it was game on. It was hard watching Boston get 100 feet of snow when we couldn't even get sloppy seconds. The upcoming pattern is one that could do something similar. 

A couple more days to the south then north all the way to bring her home! lol

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6 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

That period changed my life. I haven't looked at winter wx patterns the same since. I'm skeptical until Radarscope is lit up like a Christmas tree. 

It started off really annoying and then it went over the top....for weeks...lol

I'm digging that we're staring at the best early start in 6 years. My fear is we are who we are...lol. A prolonged great pattern and getting good snow in the MA are 2 entirely different things. I'm already mentally preparing myself for watching NYC or SNE get smacked while I barely logged a flurry in my yard.  The competitive side of me really wants the SE and MA to get a good event before the folks up north. Might be a tall order but until someone scores a good event, we're squarely in the game. 

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16 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

That period changed my life. I haven't looked at winter wx patterns the same since. I'm skeptical until Radarscope is lit up like a Christmas tree. 

That's one of the upsides to being an old f@rt. I have no recollection of any details only that Boston/NE got nailed. 

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6 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

To the contrary ....the recent trends have been for a less aggressive fropa and not blowing thru . Chill mentioned earlier ....allowing for a sharper h5 look and for the post frontal  wave to come closer to the coast . Today's op Euro showed a sharper trough and slightly higher hieghts in the w. atlantic  and the 18z gfs made a move towards the Euro. Some nice hits within the Gefs  22 ensemble sweet  tonight . South and east areas are definitely favored atm.... plenty time for a nw trend . We are 140 + hours out .

Exactly. The trend has been to open the door and that could easily continue. Kinda sucks that ns low is sweeping through the lakes like it is. Hopefully that slows down or doesn't exist at all but models seem pretty locked on that idea. If it's too close it screws up the pressure pattern and helps draw warmer air into the midlevels while also inhibiting lift/dynamics from western edge of the wave. Would be much better if we had even weak high pressure to the N of the wave but beggers can be choosers. 

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26 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

To the contrary ....the recent trends have been for a less aggressive fropa and not blowing thru . Chill mentioned earlier ....allowing for a sharper h5 look and for the post frontal  wave to come closer to the coast . Today's op Euro showed a sharper trough and slightly higher hieghts in the w. atlantic  and the 18z gfs made a move towards the Euro. Some nice hits within the Gefs  22 ensemble sweet  tonight . South and east areas are definitely favored atm.... plenty time for a nw trend . We are 140 + hours out .

Well ok then.  I see said the blind man

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1 hour ago, losetoa6 said:

Latest Mrefs for the post fropa wave. 

Hour 144...it's got my attention :D

f144.gif

 

The one issue with this post frontal storm is the Great Lakes low. Hard to get significant snows with that there I would believe. Guess my wish is for the trough to dig deeper & for the trailer shortwave to be farther West & slower. 

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4 hours ago, eurojosh said:

FWIW (probably not much) one feature I'm keeping an eye on in the long term is an incredibly powerful cyclone in the E-PAC that the GFS has been tracking for a few runs.  The 12z GFS had it get down as low as 899mb at 18N, and 929mb at 22N, at hr 336.  If that scenario plays out (or preferably and more likely it recurves north faster) I could see that adding some extra perturbation to the atmosphere that would help us downstream heading into the very end of December/start of Jan.

 

gfs_z500_mslp_nhem_49.png

Is that a typhoon? A low at 929mb, maybe strong enough to be a super typhoon in early december? Can someone explain what the heck that is and why?

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1 minute ago, Goat_Fuente said:

Is that a typhoon? A low at 929mb, maybe strong enough to be a super typhoon in early december? Can someone explain what the heck that is and why?

Lived in Japan for a couple years some time ago and have traveled there a lot in my career.  Their typhoon season is longer than our Hurricane season.  Not sure how much longer and why.  A guess at why is that Kyushu (the large island at the srn tip of Japan) and Honshu (the main/big island of Japan) are at the NW end of the Pacific Typhoon alley.  Both islands can take direct hits or glancing blows that hit one or the other or both depending on the jet and other factors with each event. 

Even as the normal Typhoon season draws to a close in the Fall, Japan can have storms spin up that are somewhat akin to our Northeasters.  The Sea of Japan on the western side of Honshu gets cooled by cold winds blowing over Mongolia and Korea from Siberia sooner than the Pacific on the eastern side of Honshu, which stays relatively much warmer from tropical currents.  The temp gradients can spin up some pretty intense extra-tropical storms that run up the eastern flank of Honshu, past Hokkaido and on towards the Aleutians.  When those storms get going, the windward side of the mountains on western side of Honshu can experience some very intense snowfalls, with very high rates. Rates that would even challenge our most aggressive events in CONUS, be that typically lake effect snows between Buffalo, NY and Erie, PA or up-slope events in the Sierra Nevadas.  Don't have any stats on how things compare, but have been in some of the snows on Honshu skiing and it was amazing.  One resort named Zao on Honshu is famous for its "snow monsters", which are the snow encrusted and wind swept tops of pine trees.  Skied there and saw all these "things" sticking up about 20-30 feet out of the snow in various shapes.  Found out later they were the tops of pines 80+ feet tall.  Very humbling...  

Apologize for the long answer to your short question and I probably didn't actually answer it, at least very well.  Bottom line, I would guess what we're seeing with that 929 low is the Japanese equivalent of a N'eastnr...

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54 minutes ago, RDM said:

Lived in Japan for a couple years some time ago and have traveled there a lot in my career.  Their typhoon season is longer than our Hurricane season.  Not sure how much longer and why.  A guess at why is that Kyushu (the large island at the srn tip of Japan) and Honshu (the main/big island of Japan) are at the NW end of the Pacific Typhoon alley.  Both islands can take direct hits or glancing blows that hit one or the other or both depending on the jet and other factors with each event. 

Even as the normal Typhoon season draws to a close in the Fall, Japan can have storms spin up that are somewhat akin to our Northeasters.  The Sea of Japan on the western side of Honshu gets cooled by cold winds blowing over Mongolia and Korea from Siberia sooner than the Pacific on the eastern side of Honshu, which stays relatively much warmer from tropical currents.  The temp gradients can spin up some pretty intense extra-tropical storms that run up the eastern flank of Honshu, past Hokkaido and on towards the Aleutians.  When those storms get going, the windward side of the mountains on western side of Honshu can experience some very intense snowfalls, with very high rates. Rates that would even challenge our most aggressive events in CONUS, be that typically lake effect snows between Buffalo, NY and Erie, PA or up-slope events in the Sierra Nevadas.  Don't have any stats on how things compare, but have been in some of the snows on Honshu skiing and it was amazing.  One resort named Zao on Honshu is famous for its "snow monsters", which are the snow encrusted and wind swept tops of pine trees.  Skied there and saw all these "things" sticking up about 20-30 feet out of the snow in various shapes.  Found out later they were the tops of pines 80+ feet tall.  Very humbling...  

Apologize for the long answer to your short question and I probably didn't actually answer it, at least very well.  Bottom line, I would guess what we're seeing with that 929 low is the Japanese equivalent of a N'eastnr...

Very interesting, thanks; I wouldn't browse this forum if I wanted a short answer haha. Also a little something tells me that the gfs could be overdoing intensity as it does with tropical deep lows but still none the less very impressive to see.  

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1 minute ago, losetoa6 said:

Yea man. I actually thought it was pretty interesting at h5. That's one heck of a strong shortwave depicted . A little deeper and further s/e and it could get real interesting. 

That vort pretty much kills our trailer wave.  But if it can keep trending stronger/deeper I think I'll start rooting against the trailer and root for the stronger vort. 

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