January Med/Long Range Disco Part 2

[WVclimo]

We optimized that cold snap by having it during the lowest sun angle of the year instead of late January through early February like so many in the past.  Could have been even better with some snow cover.  I am still stuck on the idea that it was -2 in my yard the morning of the 7th and 71 the afternoon of the 12th.  It will take a heck of a finish to put this winter on the level temp-wise of the ones I think of as blockbusters: late 70's, ''81-'82, '85-'86, '93-'94, '95-'96, or '02-'03.

[Bob Chill]

Heavy rain flipping to white asteroids...some near identical solutions baked into the 12z eps. Surface is roasting leading in so legit accums near the cities is a steep hill to climb but i would be thrilled if the 18z gfs idea is where this is going. 

[Chris78]

Next weekend would probably end as a period of accumulating snow.

 

[Bob Chill]

4 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

H5 looks more progressive allowing the cold to filter in quicker it appears . Also spacing like Poolz said ..trends baby

Your yard is in a very good spot for events like this. I'll struggle becuase the flip usually comes too late but you northern tier folks can pile up some potatoes on flips during heavy precip. 

[Bob Chill]

For reference, 12z eps had 22 solutions with a trace or more next weekend. 3-6 had 2-5" with the northern locations favored. The number has grown every run too. I just want to see snow fall from the sky again. There's my bar. Lol

[Cobalt]

Great vid by DT. He seems pretty excited for the pattern chance in early-mid February. Lots of good information in there, so I thought I'd share. 

 

[frd]

5 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

Gefs starting to light up d10-15. 12z was a nice run. 

And pushing up the pattern change as well

 

 

[Climate175]

22 minutes ago, Cobalt said:

Great vid by DT. He seems pretty excited for the pattern chance in early-mid February. Lots of good information in there, so I thought I'd share. 

 

Thanks for sharing!

[Bob Chill]

Heh, CFS weeklies showing an East based -nao week 3. This is a pretty good pattern for a nina. All the way through week 6 looks pretty nice too. 

[SnowGoose69]

4 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Heh, CFS weeklies showing an East based -nao week 3. This is a pretty good pattern for a nina. All the way through week 6 looks pretty nice too. 

The GFS and CFS have wanted that SE ridge there in the longer ranger every time the EPO has gone negative but it just hasn’t panned out.  If it doesn’t again I think we again run some risk of cold and dry although climo argues somewhat against that as you approach March    

[Bob Chill]

7 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

The GFS and CFS have wanted that SE ridge there in the longer ranger every time the EPO has gone negative but it just hasn’t panned out.  If it doesn’t again I think we again run some risk of cold and dry although climo argues somewhat against that as you approach March    

One thing that makes the upcoming pattern more interesting and different than the big cold is the epo ridge if further west. All ens are showing the same general placement. Even a very amplified pattern would have a different outcome than the previous -epo. There were plenty of prolific storms during the big cold but they were all over the Atlantic. Lol.

[WeathermanB]

Watching the DT WxRisk video. Time to learn a lesson

[dallen7908]

I watched DT's podcast.  He is bearish for the next 3 weeks (all of the major indices are bad; be skeptical of any long range model output that shows wintry weather during that period) but does mention a window around February 5th, especially for New England.  He notes that the MJO is scheduled to enter phase 7 by the end of the first week of February and could reach phase 8 by mid-february.  He is bullish on cold- and wintry-weather for the last two weeks of February and possibly early March, although he noted that the signals are mixed in early March. 

[Bob Chill]

Last few gefs runs have shown a lot of mixed events in the long range. Makes sense with the gradient type of look the mean shows. I'm itching to get back into the game around here. Not picky either. Ice, sleet, flips....all good with me. Hopefully next weekend gives us something to discuss while we pass time. 

[SnowGoose69]

56 minutes ago, dallen7908 said:

I watched DT's podcast.  He is bearish for the next 3 weeks (all of the major indices are bad; be skeptical of any long range model output that shows wintry weather during that period) but does mention a window around February 5th, especially for New England.  He notes that the MJO is scheduled to enter phase 7 by the end of the first week of February and could reach phase 8 by mid-february.  He is bullish on cold- and wintry-weather for the last two weeks of February and possibly early March, although he noted that the signals are mixed in early March. 

It’s pretty rare for La Niña Marchs’ to be cold and snowy.  It did happen in 2001 (although down your way I’m not sure it did) and a few other cases but most cases where La Niña March featured cold and snowy it was usually in transition to an El Niño.  Many transitions from La Niña to El Niño have featured huge March or April snows such as 82 and 97 

[snowman19]

7 hours ago, SnowGoose69 said:

It’s pretty rare for La Niña Marchs’ to be cold and snowy.  It did happen in 2001 (although down your way I’m not sure it did) and a few other cases but most cases where La Niña March featured cold and snowy it was usually in transition to an El Niño.  Many transitions from La Niña to El Niño have featured huge March or April snows such as 82 and 97 

Agreed. If you look back over the last 40 years, you can count all the cold and snowy La Niña Marchs’ for the east coast on one hand

[attml]

Well, it's only 12 day out - I am sure it will verify!  :-)

[North Balti Zen]

15 hours ago, North Balti Zen said:

Random query (I only have been here since August of 2009 so my experience is only since then):

since january 1, 2000, have we had more area-wide 12+ inch storms than area-wide 6-10 inch storms?

i suspect we have...

Bumping to quote myself. Let's take it back to 1/1/96. Since then, how many 12+ inch storm/blizzards have we had area-wide? (to include measurements at at least two of the three airports exceeding 12 inches)

Off the top of my head:

Blizzard of Jan. '96, blizzard of Feb. '03, December '09, Feb '10 (1), Feb '10 (2), didn't we have one in Feb '14(?), Jan '16.

If I am right, that's 7 since then but would rely on people who have lived here longer to tell me if I am missing any.

What I don't know is how many 6"-10" area-wide snowstorms we have had in that same timeframe.

My working thesis is that we are in a regime right now where chasing snow means, in essence, chasing big snow. It feels like we do little snow, big snow, but don't do garden variety warning level snow as well as people seem to remember from the '60s - 80s.

Since it is kinda slow right now, thought I would see what the group thought is...

[psuhoffman]

59 minutes ago, North Balti Zen said:

Bumping to quote myself. Let's take it back to 1/1/96. Since then, how many 12+ inch storm/blizzards have we had area-wide? (to include measurements at at least two of the three airports exceeding 12 inches)

Off the top of my head:

Blizzard of Jan. '96, blizzard of Feb. '03, December '09, Feb '10 (1), Feb '10 (2), didn't we have one in Feb '14(?), Jan '16.

If I am right, that's 7 since then but would rely on people who have lived here longer to tell me if I am missing any.

What I don't know is how many 6"-10" area-wide snowstorms we have had in that same timeframe.

My working thesis is that we are in a regime right now where chasing snow means, in essence, chasing big snow. It feels like we do little snow, big snow, but don't do garden variety warning level snow as well as people seem to remember from the '60s - 80s.

Since it is kinda slow right now, thought I would see what the group thought is...

The 1980's were a bit of an aberration in that the DC area had consistent moderate snowfalls. Oddly enough it was a pretty awful decade for snowfall in NYC and some other places we usually envy (snowfall wise).  If people are remembering the 80s as their baseline then perhaps that is skewing things.  Other then that, if we look at things from the 70s, and from the 90s on, basically the other 40ish years in the last 50 its pretty much feast or famine around here. 

If we go WAY back yes decent snowfall was more common in and around DC but some of those numbers are skewed by having been kept NOT at DCA back then.  And we all know the climate has warmed since then.  I am NOT getting sucked into some debate about what is causing it or other such crap in this thread take that nonsense to the climate change thread but the fact that the climate has changed, and is always changing in both cyclical and non cyclical ways is obvious.  But I doubt people are thinking of the 1920s when they bring up the good ol days. 

I think its mostly perception bias.  Its a combo of many of us being at the age where the 80s is a significant part of our childhood memory and so its a baseline when it wasn't the normal.  And the fact that we tend to not remember the bad long stretches and focus on the wins.  If I think back carefully though I can remember some absolutely awful years when I was younger also, but the time I got stuck at school because it was supposed to change to rain and we got 10", or the time I woke up to 6" of snow...and other such memories stick out more. 

Looking at the numbers, and this is just a first glance run down so its not statistically significant unless I actually did further analysis, but it seems we still get at least one moderate event MOST years. 

Going back to 2000 this is what I remember off the top of my head

1999/2000: in January we had the 10 day epic stretch with the one MECS/HECS event and two other very good events for the NW half of this forum. 

2000/01 sucked but we did have one 4-8" event around January 20th that year. 

2001/02 was just ugh, it happens. 

2002/03...enough said. 

2003/04 we had the early December event for anyone NW of 95 and then there was the 4-8" event in late Janauary. 

2004/05 had 3 moderate events, the January miller b, then the 2 late Feb storms.

2005/06: There was a moderate event for the southern 1/2 of our forum in early December, then one for the northern 1/3 right after it, then the MECS for everyone in Feb.

2006/07:  There was the epic sleet/ice storm in February then a 3-6" thump snow event after it.

2007/08:  SUCKED but even that year we had a 3-6" event area wide in early December. 

2008/09: We had the early march event that was 4-8" across most of the area and more then that for our eastern areas.

2009/10: enough said

2010/11: We had the late January storm which was 6-14" across most of the area, and there was another 3-6" event for the northern 1/3 of the region in mid February.

2011/12: just sucked

2012/13: Just sucked in the 95 corridor but the northern and western 1/3 did score a few moderate events and the western 1/3 had a MECS with the early march storm that busted in the cities. 

2013/14: enough said

2014/15:  we had 3 solid moderate events, 2 in February and early March

2015/16: The whole winter in one weekend

2016/17:  Sucked...

So....going back 18 years there are only 4 years that we didn't get at least one moderate snowfall.  That seems about par for the course IMO.  And 3 of the last 4 we had at least one moderate event also...so there is no argument that its sucked lately in that regard.  Last year sucked yes but that's way too small a sample size.

One last thing that I think may be going on, when we were little all we cared about was snow in our yards.  Most of us probably didn't do what we do now with tracking and weren't as aware what was going on elsewhere.  Sometimes I laugh how we almost "ruin" a nice little event by worrying about the fact that somewhere else got way more (jan 2005) or that there is a torch coming and the snow will melt soon, or its March, or I was supposed to get 10" and its only 5", or whatever.  When I was a kid all I cared about was its snowing.  We lived in the moment.  Now we worry about all this other crap and it probably diminishes some of these events in our minds.  I have been guilty of that myself at times.   

 

[North Balti Zen]

Thanks for the write-up, PSU. So...on balance, almost as many HUGE snows as moderate snows in that time-frame (area-wide criteria)? Maybe a few more moderate snows, but it's close? At least that kinda comports with my personal views when looking at the long range modeling and the discussions of same, chasing a big snow look is not that insane, in that it is about as easy to get big snow in here as moderate snow all things being roughly equal.

"At least it snowed" snow - which has been this year, has been the easiest by far, and likely the norm.

[WVclimo]

Five of those storm's since 1/96 are in the top 10 all-time at DCA and BWI.  Pretty impressive considering the long period of record at both sites.  This probably also skews perception as the feasts have become so much more bountiful.  But otherwise it seems the cycles have always remained the same in my memory.  The down times between even moderate snowfalls were really long for much of the 70's for example.

[psuhoffman]

15 minutes ago, North Balti Zen said:

Thanks for the write-up, PSU. So...on balance, almost as many HUGE snows as moderate snows in that time-frame (area-wide criteria)? Maybe a few more moderate snows, but it's close? At least that kinda comports with my personal views when looking at the long range modeling and the discussions of same, chasing a big snow look is not that insane, in that it is about as easy to get big snow in here as moderate snow all things being roughly equal.

"At least it snowed" snow - which has been this year, has been the easiest by far, and likely the norm.

It depends what you define as HUGE snow.  I am not trying to be picky I just don't want people to start arguing simply because they have different standards for what a moderate vs big snow is.  No matter how you slice it, it still seems easier to get 3" then 8" or 5" then 10"... but depending on where you draw the line it can be closer to 60/40 then 80/20 perhaps.  But looking back I don't think DC was ever a region that got pummeled with consistent moderate snowfall events year after year. 

[Wonderdog]

By the looks of the 6z run, it doesn't appear there is any sustained warm up. And it looks like there may be some possibilities coming up.

[North Balti Zen]

44 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

It depends what you define as HUGE snow.  I am not trying to be picky I just don't want people to start arguing simply because they have different standards for what a moderate vs big snow is.  No matter how you slice it, it still seems easier to get 3" then 8" or 5" then 10"... but depending on where you draw the line it can be closer to 60/40 then 80/20 perhaps.  But looking back I don't think DC was ever a region that got pummeled with consistent moderate snowfall events year after year. 

That's my point, I think ( I defined HUGE snow above as 12+ inches at 2 of the 3 airports).  I don't think DCA/DC proper has been. Really, because this a regional forum in which we are all kinda rooting for everyone to do well, my point is, moderate storms where we all do well (six inches or more up to 10 inches) are, I think, rarer than people think. Those "easy" (4-8 inch or 6-10 inch) storms that people reminisce on? I don't think they get all of the area as frequently as the BIG ones do. West might cash in 6-10 while it slops in the beltways. You and mappy et al cash in for 6-10 with rates while we 2-3 in the cities. DC south occasionally cashes in for sliders of 6 or more while north and west misses. Shore and beaches (as we have seen for two years now) can rack up 6-10 inch snows while the three airports and west get almost nothing comparatively.

My thesis is the 6-10 inch storms that people get fond for really do NOT generally hit the whole area - those tend to be more winners and losers within the sub-forum storms. On top of that, the BIG snows (my definition was 12 inches or more at 2 of the 3 airports) where most everyone cashes in have actually been more frequent than area-wide 6-10 inch snows. At least since my arbitrary start point of 1/1/96. I think that is more or less kinda right.

I was mostly testing this because I know what I am looking for in the long range tends to be the big ones, but that's in part because those tend to be as frequent of late (last 20 years or so) as the so-called easier moderate ones (area-wide criteria...).

 

I am positive given your location and the frequency with which you can get six inch storms while I slop inside 695, you are happy with far more looks than I am...

[Superstorm]

I think we just don’t see enough of the subtropical jet (and very few true Miller As) to get that area wide 6 to 10.

Almost every storm is a hybrid Miller A/B with tight cutoffs.


.

[clskinsfan]

You have to like the look towards the end of the GFS run from this morning. I know we always joke that February will be rocking. But if the models are right February may just be rocking this year. It is a long ways out there. But it is nice to see east coast blocking with a -EPO. I would prefer an west based -NAO to force the cold further south. And it may just get there towards the middle of Feb. But this look is really nice:

 

 

[Bob Chill]

19 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

You have to like the look towards the end of the GFS run from this morning. I know we always joke that February will be rocking. But if the models are right February may just be rocking this year. It is a long ways out there. But it is nice to see east coast blocking with a -EPO. I would prefer an west based -NAO to force the cold further south. And it may just get there towards the middle of Feb. But this look is really nice:

 

It's a good start. Trough axis shouldn't be dry but progressive flow so we know the caveats. Both the GEFS/EPS open the door for chances around the 3rd so timing is looking better than we first thought and the push out into the future seems mostly contained as leads shorten. Still some support for some sort of flip event around the 29th-30th but the ops backed way off on amplitude. That's been a thing this year so not much of a surprise but we're far from locked into any one solution. 

We need to hope the EPO ridge axis doesn't roll forward and resemble the late dec/early jan period. That's beyond any reasonable range so no sense even thinking about it. It has the feel of our number being called instead of endless bad luck. You'll like this part....the transition period looks to favor western folks. 

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, North Balti Zen said:

That's my point, I think ( I defined HUGE snow above as 12+ inches at 2 of the 3 airports).  I don't think DCA/DC proper has been. Really, because this a regional forum in which we are all kinda rooting for everyone to do well, my point is, moderate storms where we all do well (six inches or more up to 10 inches) are, I think, rarer than people think. Those "easy" (4-8 inch or 6-10 inch) storms that people reminisce on? I don't think they get all of the area as frequently as the BIG ones do. West might cash in 6-10 while it slops in the beltways. You and mappy et al cash in for 6-10 with rates while we 2-3 in the cities. DC south occasionally cashes in for sliders of 6 or more while north and west misses. Shore and beaches (as we have seen for two years now) can rack up 6-10 inch snows while the three airports and west get almost nothing comparatively.

My thesis is the 6-10 inch storms that people get fond for really do NOT generally hit the whole area - those tend to be more winners and losers within the sub-forum storms. On top of that, the BIG snows (my definition was 12 inches or more at 2 of the 3 airports) where most everyone cashes in have actually been more frequent than area-wide 6-10 inch snows. At least since my arbitrary start point of 1/1/96. I think that is more or less kinda right.

I was mostly testing this because I know what I am looking for in the long range tends to be the big ones, but that's in part because those tend to be as frequent of late (last 20 years or so) as the so-called easier moderate ones (area-wide criteria...).

 

I am positive given your location and the frequency with which you can get six inch storms while I slop inside 695, you are happy with far more looks than I am...

I think you are probably right about all those points.  Some of that is inherent in the fact that the same factors that create some of those HECS storms also contribute to a much larger snowfall distribution.  They are more intense storms so they typically have a healthier WAA and CCB coverage.  Usually they have better confluence to the north which also contributes to better lift on the northern edge of the storm not just cold air advenction so it makes for a larger precip shield.  The simple fact that these HECS storms typically have a much larger impact zone makes it way more likely they get the entire forum vs smaller 4-8" or 6-10" events which aren't going to spread good snows out 100's of miles like a HECS storm.  But a LOT of these storms people remember were before the forums so perhaps they werent that great for everyone but we remember the 7" that fell on our yard.  

[psuhoffman]

30 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

You have to like the look towards the end of the GFS run from this morning. I know we always joke that February will be rocking. But if the models are right February may just be rocking this year. It is a long ways out there. But it is nice to see east coast blocking with a -EPO. I would prefer an west based -NAO to force the cold further south. And it may just get there towards the middle of Feb. But this look is really nice:

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

It's a good start. Trough axis shouldn't be dry but progressive flow so we know the caveats. Both the GEFS/EPS open the door for chances around the 3rd so timing is looking better than we first thought and the push out into the future seems mostly contained as leads shorten. Still some support for some sort of flip event around the 29th-30th but the ops backed way off on amplitude. That's been a thing this year so not much of a surprise but we're far from locked into any one solution. 

We need to hope the EPO ridge axis doesn't roll forward and resemble the late dec/early jan period. That's beyond any reasonable range so no sense even thinking about it. It has the feel of our number being called instead of endless bad luck. You'll like this part....the transition period looks to favor western folks. 

That mean right there is pretty similar to the "snowy EPO" look in some of those plots I posted.  I am fine with that as is.  Not sure we really want a big west based NAO block if were going to have that kind of EPO.  Remember most of the NAO blocking looks that worked DIDNT have a perfect pacific.  Too much of a good thing in those cases, a big -EPO combined with NAO blocking (especially in a nina and limited STJ) might just be cold/dry.  That look right there is going to have gradient storms running the boundary for sure.  We just have to hope the boundary ends up just south of us a few times...and given that look it should.  I would take my chances with that in Feb and roll...

[gymengineer]

2 hours ago, North Balti Zen said:

Bumping to quote myself. Let's take it back to 1/1/96. Since then, how many 12+ inch storm/blizzards have we had area-wide? (to include measurements at at least two of the three airports exceeding 12 inches)

Off the top of my head:

Blizzard of Jan. '96, blizzard of Feb. '03, December '09, Feb '10 (1), Feb '10 (2), didn't we have one in Feb '14(?), Jan '16.

If I am right, that's 7 since then but would rely on people who have lived here longer to tell me if I am missing any.

What I don't know is how many 6"-10" area-wide snowstorms we have had in that same timeframe.

My working thesis is that we are in a regime right now where chasing snow means, in essence, chasing big snow. It feels like we do little snow, big snow, but don't do garden variety warning level snow as well as people seem to remember from the '60s - 80s.

Since it is kinda slow right now, thought I would see what the group thought is...

First, if clearing 12" area-wide is applied as strictly- all three airports- as you want 6-10" to be applied, then you have to take off 2/9-10/10 and 2/12-13/14. So that's 5 instead of 7 events.

Second, I personally think using 6-10" as the range is arbitrary and makes the list weirdly restricted. Why not start with WSWarning criteria of 5"? And go up to 12" if the idea is separating significant from huge snowstorms? But if we're looking at starting from 1/1/96 and all 3 airports needing to clear 6" but less than 10.1": 

2/2-3/96, 2/16/96, 12/5/02, 2/6-7/03, 3/16-17/14 - 5 events

If we go with my suggested 5-12" range, then that adds 3 more: 3/9/99, 1/25-26/04, 3/2/09.

What about the ones that were less than 10" at one or two sites but more at the other(s)? That should still be on some list somehow: 1/25/00, 2/9-10/10, 2/11-12/06, 2/12-13/14

So, depending on how you look at it, it could 5 vs. 5. or 5 vs. 8 or 5 vs. 12. 

Third, I think only in the 60's would storms >6" but <10" be seen as relatively frequent. The 80's? There was only *one* single storm from 1/1/80 to 12/31/89 that fit the 6-10" at all three airports criteria-- that was 12/12/82. Yes, I went through and checked every single storm. At least one airport was off in all the other ones. 

As a DC area lifer, I think we've always considered 4-6" as "garden variety warning" type events. 6-10" would nudge into the disruptive, multi-day closure territory.