February Mid/Long Range Discussion

[showmethesnow]

18 minutes ago, poolz1 said:

I was surprised to see the EPS go that bad...It's not like them to jump that much.  I'm inclined to believe the GEFS here just for the simple fact that they didnt make any sudden moves..lol 

I may get bashed for this, mainly because I have nothing to back it up, but the GEFS seem to have done better this year in the 10-15 at h5 NH.  They seem to swing in a direction and then lose some the magnitude as time gets closer.  But, in the end the overall look is closer to reality.

 

Have to agree with you. IMO the GEFS has done better in the longer ranges. But that's not saying much when they have both been pretty rough. About the only thing I thought they did well on was catching the EPO flip.

[psuhoffman]

20 minutes ago, Ji said:

What was dissapointing was seeing chill and psu get so excited over gefs weenie runs. You all should know better lol

I did some good research back in October and originally had a pessimistic view then the nao and ao gave me a head fake in November and early December. Hope is a dangerous thing. I'm not a robot and I don't like being a deb so when that hope presented I bought the fake move. 

But once the nao and ao failed I should have gone back to my original position. Instead "other" teases like the epo presented and my optimism had me chasing ghosts. I'm biased. I want snow. I fell victim to my bias. 

A couple posts about the nao recently combined with our repeated fails brought me back to my original thoughts back in fall and so I did the deeper data analysis and it's so clear that in a Nina the nao is the key.  The be all and end all.  Epo pna and other such factors are ghosts.  They might get us some 1-3" stuff but if we want a legit snow event we must have the nao.  

I wont forget that again.  The nao isn't easy to predict at long leads but in a Nina until we see good evidence the nao will tank no snow is the way to go.  Live and learn  

I will continue to track.  The nao could flip and a few years that flip was in march and a late save. Ill take snow whenever.  And flukes can happen so I will track everything but expecting something that's only happened twice in 20 years is silly.  So I will remain cautious and skeptical of anything maxing out above the typical pittance event unless or until we get nao help  

 

[SnowGoose69]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I did some good research back in October and originally had a pessimistic view then the nao and ao gave me a head fake in November and early December. Hope is a dangerous thing. I'm not a robot and I don't like being a deb so when that hope presented I bought the fake move. 

But once the nao and ao failed I should have gone back to my original position. Instead "other" teases like the epo presented and my optimism had me chasing ghosts. I'm biased. I want snow. I fell victim to my bias. 

A couple posts about the nao recently combined with our repeated fails brought me back to my original thoughts back in fall and so I did the deeper data analysis and it's so clear that in a Nina the nao is the key.  The be all and end all.  Epo pna and other such factors are ghosts.  They might get us some 1-3" stuff but if we want a legit snow event we must have the nao.  

I wont forget that again.  The nao isn't easy to predict at long leads but in a Nina until we see good evidence the nao will tank no snow is the way to go.  Live and learn  

I will continue to track.  The nao could flip and a few years that flip was in march and a late save. Ill take snow whenever.  And flukes can happen so I will track everything but expecting something that's only happened twice in 20 years is silly.  So I will remain cautious and skeptical of anything maxing out above the typical pittance event unless or until we get nao help  

 

The North Atlantic SSTs for a decent time in September and October did look okay for a -NAO this winter.  It may have been the best look out there since 2010 for at least awhile 

[pasnownut]

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

Both the GEFS and GEPS are not as bad as the EPS in the LR. Both keep some semblance of a ridge out west. GEPS looks devoid of cold for most of the US by the end of the run though. GEFS holds the most promise as it is still hinting at some improvement in the NA, and keeps average/slightly below temps for the east at day 15. Just have to watch and wait and see how things evolve, and hope the EPS does not have the right idea. Prediction: New EPS weeklies will be ugly lol.

GEPS has consistantly been running warmer than GEFS.  Im not sure which has verified better, but its something i noticed a few times.  GEFS/EPS have looked more closely matched.

[stormtracker]

1 hour ago, mattie g said:

We gon' rain.

Pretty much.  IMO, it's baked in and we're done.  I hope I'm being excessively pessimistic and wrong.  

[Ji]

43 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I did some good research back in October and originally had a pessimistic view then the nao and ao gave me a head fake in November and early December. Hope is a dangerous thing. I'm not a robot and I don't like being a deb so when that hope presented I bought the fake move. 

But once the nao and ao failed I should have gone back to my original position. Instead "other" teases like the epo presented and my optimism had me chasing ghosts. I'm biased. I want snow. I fell victim to my bias. 

A couple posts about the nao recently combined with our repeated fails brought me back to my original thoughts back in fall and so I did the deeper data analysis and it's so clear that in a Nina the nao is the key.  The be all and end all.  Epo pna and other such factors are ghosts.  They might get us some 1-3" stuff but if we want a legit snow event we must have the nao.  

I wont forget that again.  The nao isn't easy to predict at long leads but in a Nina until we see good evidence the nao will tank no snow is the way to go.  Live and learn  

I will continue to track.  The nao could flip and a few years that flip was in march and a late save. Ill take snow whenever.  And flukes can happen so I will track everything but expecting something that's only happened twice in 20 years is silly.  So I will remain cautious and skeptical of anything maxing out above the typical pittance event unless or until we get nao help  

 

the GEFS and all the pink did look good but i kept wondering how we were going to get that much snow. It was not a big storm pattern.....so then next was...are we going to keep getting  3-5 inch snowstorm every couple of days....which was very unrealistic. As you said the NAO was garbage and i just kept seeing northern stream energy on the models and hardly any southern jet....

Maybe early March we will get that -NAO and a chance for a 2001 March type storm.

 

Remember, last year we started routing for a shutout after we gave up lol..sometimes in early February

 

[Ji]

22 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

Pretty much.  IMO, it's baked in and we're done.  I hope I'm being excessively pessimistic and wrong.  

you got nothing to complain about. You saw a blizzard and you were making snow angels in 2 feet of snow

[cae]

43 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

GEPS has consistantly been running warmer than GEFS.  Im not sure which has verified better, but its something i noticed a few times.  GEFS/EPS have looked more closely matched.

The GEPS and GEFS have had similar performance within 8 days, but beyond 8 days December and January have been different stories.  The GEPS were better in most of December, and the GEFS were better in January. 

You're right about the temperatures.  Here's the bias of temperatures at 850 mb.

I'm showing 850 mb temps because the 1000 mb plots seem weird to me.  They show that the GEPS are initialized with a cold bias and then lose the bias in the long run.  The GEFS start with no bias and pick up a cold bias, similar to what is shown above.  I'm not sure if the GEPS really are initialized with a cold bias near the surface, or if there's something else going on there.

[Chris78]

After the model trends of thr past 24 hours I'd take what the 12k nam  is showing.  A quick  thump of 1 to 3 for most and them dry slot.

[BristowWx]

12z 12K NAM didn't look quite as bad to me.  comparing to 6z.  just looking at where the snow/sleet/rain sets up in the morning.  12z looked further SE with this line.  Then I looked at 850 temps.  again better

[Ji]

5 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

12z 12K NAM didn't look quite as bad to me.  comparing to 6z.  just looking at where the snow/sleet/rain sets up in the morning.  12z looked further SE with this line.  Then I looked at 850 temps.  again better

not bad on the NAM...we do lose 850's by 18z but we get a nice morning thump. lol.  I created a new thread for this disaster of a storm

[clskinsfan]

12Z NAM is about the best I could hope for out here. Thump of snow then dry slot. Sometimes we can OK with those out this way. But we need a pretty cold air mass for it to happen. The NAM has us in the high 20's during the snow. That should be good enough I guess.

[pasnownut]

22 minutes ago, cae said:

The GEPS and GEFS have had similar performance within 8 days, but beyond 8 days December and January have been different stories.  The GEPS were better in most of December, and the GEFS were better in January. 

You're right about the temperatures.  Here's the bias of temperatures at 850 mb.

I'm showing 850 mb temps because the 1000 mb plots seem weird to me.  They show that the GEPS are initialized with a cold bias and then lose the bias in the long run.  The GEFS start with no bias and pick up a cold bias, similar to what is shown above.  I'm not sure if the GEPS really are initialized with a cold bias near the surface, or if there's something else going on there.

Great stuff man.  Thanks for the graphic and confirmation of what I've been noticing.  I also saw it on the 500's 

[pasnownut]

9 minutes ago, Chris78 said:

After the model trends of thr past 24 hours I'd take what the 12k nam  is showing.  A quick  thump of 1 to 3 for most and them dry slot.

yeah, looks like the R/S line ticked SE.  Boy if there were a day for good trends....today would be it no??

[stormtracker]

42 minutes ago, Ji said:

you got nothing to complain about. You saw a blizzard and you were making snow angels in 2 feet of snow

You mean in Slovakia?   Well, alright then.  

[Ji]

Just now, stormtracker said:

You mean in Slovakia?   Well, alright then.  

snow is snow right. remember you went to Buffalo a few years ago?

[mappy]

There are threads for tomorrow morning and Sunday now, please post in the appropriate place!

thanks

management

[pasnownut]

4 minutes ago, BTRWx's Thanks Giving said:

Something to watch

 

Yep, had just done the same thing a few min ago and noticed the uptick in precip shield, as well as SE tick in R/S line.

We'll take whatever we can get right?

 

[psuhoffman]

2 hours ago, poolz1 said:

To go from a deeply neg dn south of the Aleutians to a weak + is pretty sig for the EPS...and thats on a 5 day mean.  But, you are right that the last few runs have been trending toward knocking down the EPO ridge...We will see I guess.  

Need something to trend the right direction for a change.  Some winters the vorts always trend stronger, temps always trend a bit colder.  I miss the days of watching a Richmond storm turn in to a MD/DC special.

That's not a Nina thing. In a Nina southern storms have a tendency to stay south due to the progressive northern stream. That's why NC has a better chance at a good snow year then we do in a Nina wrt average. Keep in mind all they need is 1-2 events to do that. But still the trend is clear over time that without Atlantic blocking we are stuck in between storm tracks. 

The nao is the wildcard. We have had some epic snow periods in a Nina. Only one epic whole winter because that was the one year the blocking was off the charts and lasted all season. But we have had some other totally acceptable "periods" of winter. Ones we can probably remember (other than 96) include march 99, January 2000, early feb 2006 and Jan 2011(only one of the threats in each hit but man they hit big just sucks the first few failed each time so it came at the tail and warmed after but that was mostly bad luck) early march 2009. 

None of those were without nao help though. What seems to differentiate Nina snow climo from everything else in a negative way is that in other Enso base states we have at least some chance at snow with other patterns. A pna or epo based pattern. Or just a fluke. In a Nina is seems an nao is the only viable option. Given the results in a -nao during Nina I don't think our snow chances during a -nao are MUCH worse in Nina than anything else.  with the exception of a weak to moderate west based Nino. That combo of tropical forcing enhanced stj without the warmth of other Ninos is gold here. But the lack of snow in any other jet configuration skews ninas bad overall.  It's basically a few isolated snow win periods with nao help surrounded by the Sahara desert. 

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, Ji said:

the GEFS and all the pink did look good but i kept wondering how we were going to get that much snow. It was not a big storm pattern.....so then next was...are we going to keep getting  3-5 inch snowstorm every couple of days....which was very unrealistic. As you said the NAO was garbage and i just kept seeing northern stream energy on the models and hardly any southern jet....

Maybe early March we will get that -NAO and a chance for a 2001 March type storm.

 

Remember, last year we started routing for a shutout after we gave up lol..sometimes in early February

 

Well to be fair I was never expecting a barrage of snow. But I was thinking if we had 7 threats over 3 weeks one should work out to the tune of a 3-6" hit. Sprinkle in some other 1-2"ers and it's a respectable year. But the nao data says that 3-6" hit is highly unlikely absent nao help. 

This is just speculation but it seems logical that in a Nina relying on the epo alone is problematic because without enough stj and with a progressive NS when cold presses it's dry.  When cold is not pressing NS systems go north. No path to win.  That's overly simplified but it makes sense.  I feel stupid for having overlooked it.  

I bet some see your 2001 comment and cringe but I think you mean it the way I do...I'd take that look again 100 times and roll.  That was one of the worst outcomes given that setup possible.  90% of the time with a similar pattern we get at least a secs.  

 

 

 

[BristowWx]

mid levels look better for mid next week so far.  not sure it will matter but less amped is what we want to avoid epic disaster and just have a routine disaster. 

[BristowWx]

just an ever so slight shift of the low to the south for next week Wed-Thurs timeframe.  minor but positive trends on GFS just my opinion.  the strong OH cutter look is being tempered 

[CAPE]

8 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

mid levels look better for mid next week so far.  not sure it will matter but less amped is what we want to avoid epic disaster and just have a routine disaster. 

I suppose this one has a shot to trend better, more so than trying to bring back Sunday's rainer, but still not getting any help to our NE. Too bad we cant move that Atlantic high a few hundred miles to the west.

[Ji]

26 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

just an ever so slight shift of the low to the south for next week Wed-Thurs timeframe.  minor but positive trends on GFS just my opinion.  the strong OH cutter look is being tempered 

i say that was  big shift south

[Bob Chill]

6 minutes ago, Ji said:

i say that was  big shift south

CMC put us on the winning side so a similar but better shift. The only flag I see is that we have less than 1 mm of room to spare. Maybe we can get a midrange shift to a RIC hit and then walk it home. 

[Ji]

CMC put us on the winning side so a similar but better shift. The only flag I see is that we have less than 1 mm of room to spare. Maybe we can get a midrange shift to a RIC hit and then walk it home. 

Cmc always puts on winning side.....till 2 days out

[clskinsfan]

The CMC is pretty much a weenie run for the NW burbs this run. The far long range chance is ugly. But if we can score a couple of events this week I would be fine with missing on that one.

[Bob Chill]

8 minutes ago, Ji said:

21 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

CMC put us on the winning side so a similar but better shift. The only flag I see is that we have less than 1 mm of room to spare. Maybe we can get a midrange shift to a RIC hit and then walk it home. 

Cmc always puts on winning side.....till 2 days out

Let's face it. The only way we should believe any of these gradient type events is to have a RIC jackpot between 48-72 hours. Until that happens we know what side we're going to be on. 

[Ji]

I'm just astounded that the better chances for us come 1st week of Feb and 2nd week is such a disaster. How did we get here? What's the purpose of the weeklies?

[Bob Chill]

5 minutes ago, Ji said:

I'm just astounded that the better chances for us come 1st week of Feb and 2nd week is such a disaster. How did we get here? What's the purpose of the weeklies?

I'm not astounded at all. Myself and others said from the very beginning that the pattern was ripe for ptype problems. I won't deny the epic teases the ops and ens spit out because they were epic. But in reality, things are breaking more they they are "supposed" to versus what happened in 14&15. Those 2 years had very strong trop PV displacements. We're not seeing that so far so cold is in and out and storms are favoring a NW track. Because of timing differences and super fast flow, you can't really write anything off until d3-4 at the earliest. Prolongs the agony with the misses but also means that you can't just say it's over d5+ either.