New Years 2018 Mid-Long Range Disco

[pasnownut]

56 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Pretty good inversion though. Surface isn't warm at all in the east. 

Yeah was gonna suggest looking at 2m air temps before raising torches  

Does look back and forth though. 

[Maestrobjwa]

28 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

I go from 15 to 33 degrees at the surface from hour 96 to 102 according to the CMC. I am not buying that. Once again it appears the models will struggle with just how cold the surface will be.

Yeah that doesn't sound right to me either....wonder why the models struggle with that?

[Bob Chill]

41 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

I go from 15 to 33 degrees at the surface from hour 96 to 102 according to the CMC. I am not buying that. Once again it appears the models will struggle with just how cold the surface will be.

It just did that yesterday near the cities. Low of 13 and high of 35. If precip holds off till late afternoon, the surface will have no problem getting above freezing with southerly flow in many areas. The cold is only in situ by Monday. Clouds could help keep temps down and your area will probably be colder than mine either way. If precip doesn't start until late afternoon I would guess that many areas of the burbs won't have that hard of a time getting above freezing. The euro run that had uber ice had onset shortly after daybreak. That part has slowed down a touch on guidance but could easily come back. We're still over 96 hours out. Anything can happen really. 

[Jandurin]

Anything not involving snow is my guess.

[Ji]

Euro is way late with the precip--monday night...not good. We cant do anything right

[mitchnick]

1 minute ago, Ji said:

Euro is way late with the precip--monday night...not good. We cant do anything right

we can do this right...

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=ecmwf&region=namer&pkg=T850a&runtime=2018010412&fh=168&xpos=0&ypos=102

[RevWarReenactor]

Yep, southern flow will always do you in very quickly.

I remember as a kid having a thermometer and it was like 10 degrees out and we had a cutter coming and you could literally watch the temperature rise a degree every 5 minutes, and we got rain.

[Ji]

5 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

we can do this right...

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=ecmwf&region=namer&pkg=T850a&runtime=2018010412&fh=168&xpos=0&ypos=102

that dosnet bode well for my jan 13 snowstorm

[EastCoast NPZ]

The good news is that I don't have any snow that I'll have to watch melt.

[pasnownut]

ok, now a couple day?? warmup looks possible on the 12z Euro...

500 looks notably different.  Latching on....or lost??

 

[Ji]

Euro is probably too amplified for Jan 13....most likely it will be the snowstorm scenario the GGEM shows

[Bob Chill]

2 minutes ago, Ji said:

Euro is probably too amplified for Jan 13....most likely it will be the snowstorm scenario the GGEM shows

Not sure about the snowstorm part...lol...but it looks too amplified to me too. GFS is winning the Monday evolution right now. Sticking with the GFS/GEM combo in the med range seems like the way to go lately. 

[North Balti Zen]

9 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Not sure about the snowstorm part...lol...but it looks too amplified to me too. GFS is winning the Monday evolution right now. Sticking with the GFS/GEM combo in the med range seems like the way to go lately. 

Whichever combo leaves this area without snow, that's the winning combo.

[mitchnick]

4 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Not sure about the snowstorm part...lol...but it looks too amplified to me too. GFS is winning the Monday evolution right now. Sticking with the GFS/GEM combo in the med range seems like the way to go lately. 

Have you been looking at the long range (15 day)  GEFS and GEPS?

Don't tell JI, but winter's over (again), at least for a while, if they come true.

[gymengineer]

1 hour ago, losetoa6 said:

Maby?.  Sparky might know. He keeps legit detailed records ..unlike me 

The dates I was thinking of were 1/10/14 and 1/11/15-- both had light rain in above freezing temps with very glazed sidewalks. Schools here had 2-hr delays on both those dates. 

[B-Paq]

1 minute ago, mitchnick said:

Have you been looking at the long range (15 day)  GEFS and GEPS?

Don't tell JI, but winter's over (again), at least for a while, if they come true.

The GEPS doesn't look all that bad until the very end of the run, but the GEFS - woof, get the flip-flips out.

[Wonderdog]

Just now, B-Paq said:

The GEPS doesn't look all that bad until the very end of the run, but the GEFS - woof, get the flip-flips out.

Didn't the long range look cold for the rest of the month about a week ago?

[B-Paq]

1 minute ago, Wonderdog said:

Didn't the long range look cold for the rest of the month about a week ago?

I seem to remember commenting about the parade of highs dropping down from Canada one right after the other in the long range last week, but that sure doesn't seem to be the case now.

[Ji]

16 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Not sure about the snowstorm part...lol...but it looks too amplified to me too. GFS is winning the Monday evolution right now. Sticking with the GFS/GEM combo in the med range seems like the way to go lately. 

i noticed that...the GFS dosent make these wild day to day changes like the euro does this year. We all expecet it to be wrong and having these massive changes but its been consistent and the euro has followed along

[Cobalt]

2 minutes ago, Wonderdog said:

Didn't the long range look cold for the rest of the month about a week ago?

Pretty sure the weeklies did. Another reason not to trust the weeklies I guess

[Ji]

7 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Have you been looking at the long range (15 day)  GEFS and GEPS?

Don't tell JI, but winter's over (again), at least for a while, if they come true.

the blowtorch is coming but I think we can score through day 10. We wont..but we cant. After day 10, winter is over

[mitchnick]

13 minutes ago, Ji said:

the blowtorch is coming but I think we can score through day 10. We wont..but we cant. After day 10, winter is over

not by looking at the Euro, but GFS/CMC hold out muted hope

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

14 minutes ago, Ji said:

the blowtorch is coming but I think we can score through day 10. We wont..but we cant. After day 10, winter is over

That's fine.  I'd rather have the whole eastern CONUS with AN temps instead of being arctic cold and nickel and diming our way to climo while NYC and BOS get deathbanded.  

[Cobalt]

2 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

not by looking at the Euro, but GFS/CMC hold out muted hope

GFS is pretty close to an ice/snow event on Monday. maybe we can score a slushy 2-4" and actually get a high level advisory in the area. Quite the longshot, but a bit of support by EPS/GEFS

 

[Bob Chill]

27 minutes ago, B-Paq said:

I seem to remember commenting about the parade of highs dropping down from Canada one right after the other in the long range last week, but that sure doesn't seem to be the case now.

The mid month flip to zonal flow/pac jet has been showing up for quite a few days now and the weeklies were initially to aggressive with when it comes but it's almost certainly coming. The discussion the other day was about a gradient pattern with more active flow and cold air around. Gradient patterns are tough to get right in the med to long range. More "normal" cold will be coming. Whether we time it with precip is a whole nutter story. 

[smokeybandit]

https://twitter.com/crankywxguy/status/949009762141827072

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

2 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

https://twitter.com/crankywxguy/status/949009762141827072

He's talking about Monday/Tuesday right?  

[North Balti Zen]

3 minutes ago, DCTeacherman said:

He's talking about Monday/Tuesday right?  

Yes, but that is probably a chance for a legit all snow event back for SNE, which is likely what he is pointing to.

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, Ji said:

the blowtorch is coming but I think we can score through day 10. We wont..but we cant. After day 10, winter is over

Agree there is still a window but it's closing. Unfortunately our chances as a rare prolonged snowcover period has closed. Whatever we get after this weekend would be the kind of event where you better enjoy it while it's happening because 24-48 hours later there likely would be no traces of it left. 

After that it looks ugly. Ironically the gefs wants to flip the AO negative but at the same time all the guidance progresses the Pacific trough into the Pacific NW. That will flood the conus with warmth and it won't matter what the heights up top are doing. 

Have to hope it's temporary and not the start of a long term pattern. I have no idea which. But that's why I've been shaking my head at the people wanting a warm up to shake things up. As if their assuming a warm up would be some one week thing. Sure that's possible. But it's equally as likely that this new pattern establishes and lasts as long as the previous one.

The -epo pattern really lasted the better part of 6 weeks. But it didn't hit during peak snow climo. So we wasted most of it. Then we got unlucky a few times. We did OK but what if this was our big window and all we did is eek out a few minor events. That's my fear. 

If the coming +epo pattern lasts even just 3-4 weeks we will waste through our peak snow climo.  It's the timing of this that has me pretty worried for the winter as a whole right now. We had a pretty decent pattern and didn't get lucky and it came a bit earlier then ideal so we wasted the first half of it. Now right as we enter peak climo the torch cometh. 

I am not sold this fatalistic future will come to pass. The epo could flip back negative. The nao could go negative for a moment and force something under us and in peak climo that can work even in a general warm period. Had a feb storm in 1997 that fits that bill. But it wouldn't shock me either if we go into a 4 week crap pattern and come mid February we're back in desperation mode trying to get anything to save at least something from winter. 

I really think that we have a few years that are just loaded patterns. 1996, 2003, 2010, 2014. Then there are some years where it's gonna suck like 2002, 2008, and 2012.  Most of the rest though fall to luck. We will have some windows and opportunities and some periods that are shutout crap patterns. Get lucky and hit a few times during the opportunities and it's not a bad winter. Strike out too often and the winter is remembered worse then perhaps the pattern was. If Jan 2000 missed that year was crap along 95. 2001 we just missed huge coastals in late December, early February and early march. One of those hits and it's a good winter. Instead we remember them opposite. 

I fear this year could end up like 2001. We missed a more significant event dec 9 by a bit. We missed a decent 3-5" snow last weekend by 50 miles.  Just north of me had 4". And now we struck out on a miller a coastal. We only get so many chances most years. Hopefully I'm totally wrong and I do believe we will have more chances before it's all said and done so it's not over but these are the demons running through my mind today. 

[mitchnick]

17 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Agree there is still a window but it's closing. Unfortunately our chances as a rare prolonged snowcover period has closed. Whatever we get after this weekend would be the kind of event where you better enjoy it while it's happening because 24-48 hours later there likely would be no traces of it left. 

After that it looks ugly. Ironically the gefs wants to flip the AO negative but at the same time all the guidance progresses the Pacific trough into the Pacific NW. That will flood the conus with warmth and it won't matter what the heights up top are doing. 

Have to hope it's temporary and not the start of a long term pattern. I have no idea which. But that's why I've been shaking my head at the people wanting a warm up to shake things up. As if their assuming a warm up would be some one week thing. Sure that's possible. But it's equally as likely that this new pattern establishes and lasts as long as the previous one.

The -epo pattern really lasted the better part of 6 weeks. But it didn't hit during peak snow climo. So we wasted most of it. Then we got unlucky a few times. We did OK but what if this was our big window and all we did is eek out a few minor events. That's my fear. 

If the coming +epo pattern lasts even just 3-4 weeks we will waste through our peak snow climo.  It's the timing of this that has me pretty worried for the winter as a whole right now. We had a pretty decent pattern and didn't get lucky and it came a bit earlier then ideal so we wasted the first half of it. Now right as we enter peak climo the torch cometh. 

I am not sold this fatalistic future will come to pass. The epo could flip back negative. The nao could go negative for a moment and force something under us and in peak climo that can work even in a general warm period. Had a feb storm in 1997 that fits that bill. But it wouldn't shock me either if we go into a 4 week crap pattern and come mid February we're back in desperation mode trying to get anything to save at least something from winter. 

I really think that we have a few years that are just loaded patterns. 1996, 2003, 2010, 2014. Then there are some years where it's gonna suck like 2002, 2008, and 2012.  Most of the rest though fall to luck. We will have some windows and opportunities and some periods that are shutout crap patterns. Get lucky and hit a few times during the opportunities and it's not a bad winter. Strike out too often and the winter is remembered worse then perhaps the pattern was. If Jan 2000 missed that year was crap along 95. 2001 we just missed huge coastals in late December, early February and early march. One of those hits and it's a good winter. Instead we remember them opposite. 

I fear this year could end up like 2001. We missed a more significant event dec 9 by a bit. We missed a decent 3-5" snow last weekend by 50 miles.  Just north of me had 4". And now we struck out on a miller a coastal. We only get so many chances most years. Hopefully I'm totally wrong and I do believe we will have more chances before it's all said and done so it's not over but these are the demons running through my mind today. 

meh, it's a Nina

They always stink unless, as you said, we get lucky; problem is, we usually don't get lucky.

The pattern has only produced minor events, not unlike most Ninas. So unless we get lucky on Monday (there we go again), we fail with this pattern, so I am more than happy for the advertised warm up.

My personal opinion is that if it's not going to snow, or worse, we have to endure big storms that barely miss, I'll take a warm up and hope for a different cold pattern to return.  Maybe it will, and maybe it won't. Who knows? But like you, I don't care to relive 00/01. I feel confident is saying, however, we will if we don't reshuffle and hope for a better hand that comes with luck.

At least the sun is starting to come out now.