March Mid/Long Range Discussion 2

[psuhoffman]

11 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Worrying about surface details right now should be at the bottom of our list. Lol. We should all be only worried about the fact that not other guidance looks like the gfs/gefs in the upper levels. I'm surprised the 18z gfs looked as good as it did. 

Yea I looked at h5 first then when I saw the surface it was a letdown. That said the h5 low did start out a bit north and that might have contributed to more ridging out front and a more north surface. But this solution had upside. The guidance like the euro and icon driving the h5 system up to our northwest does not. 

[Bob Chill]

Just now, psuhoffman said:

Yea I looked at h5 first then when I saw the surface it was a letdown. That said the h5 low did start out a bit north and that might have contributed to more ridging out front and a more north surface. But this solution had upside. The guidance like the euro and icon driving the h5 system up to our northwest does not. 

18z ICON sucked so I thought the GFS was probably going to fold but it didn't... I can't get past the entire EPS suite saying "what storm?" so my pessimism increasing. But there's still a chance so...

[Cobalt]

Heh, GFS has the March 10th/11th threat back. Not of note now, but it shows a storm there 

[psuhoffman]

11 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

18z ICON sucked so I thought the GFS was probably going to fold but it didn't... I can't get past the entire EPS suite saying "what storm?" so my pessimism increasing. But there's still a chance so...

Yea it went the other way but it did it later on. It didn't diverge as much early it just started to blast the h5 low up into the block later on. I doubt that. The euro idea where it starts north and slow then never recovers is a more realistic fail. 

To be honest I'm about as unsure of how something's going to go as I've ever been with something "only" 5-6 days out. My pessimism says it's going to fail. And the EPS not having a hint of it hurt a lot. But the gfs when it locks in has been good this year. And the pattern would argue for a more south dig. All that washes out and I'm left admitting I have no idea and am just along for the ride. 

[Bob Chill]

Just now, psuhoffman said:

Yea it went the other way but it did it later on. It didn't diverge as much early it just started to blast the h5 low up into the block later on. I doubt that. The euro idea where it starts north and slow then never recovers is a more realistic fail. 

To be honest I'm about as unsure of how something's going to go as I've ever been with something "only" 5-6 days out. My pessimism says it's going to fail. And the EPS not having a hint of it hurt a lot. But the gfs when it locks in has been good this year. And the pattern would argue for a more south dig. All that washes out and I'm left admitting I have no idea and am just along for the ride. 

Yea, the good thing is we have time on our side. We're up to 5 gfs runs in a row showing a decent closed ull and the GEFS supports the idea. That counts for something. Being at odds with the euro/eps isn't a feel good kind of thing but there's plenty of lead time to not just assume it's a dead deal. The EPS can do the same "group think" as the gefs in the med range. The euro op did improve from 0z as well so there's that. 

[CAPE]

5 minutes ago, WeathermanB said:

Wow. The NAM WRF has my area getting 63 MPH winds. Keep in mind that this is Maximum.

Not to nitpick, but there actually is a thread for this. You do tend to post in the wrong place a lot.

[psuhoffman]

4 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Yea, the good thing is we have time on our side. We're up to 5 gfs runs in a row showing a decent closed ull and the GEFS supports the idea. That counts for something. Being at odds with the euro/eps isn't a feel good kind of thing but there's plenty of lead time to not just assume it's a dead deal. The EPS can do the same "group think" as the gefs in the med range. The euro op did improve from 0z as well so there's that. 

The only thing that keeps me even somewhat hopeful is that the gfs evolution just seems more right given the setup. BUT it's the gfs and jma vs all. It's not just the euro the ggem U.K., icon, and navgem all are north. Yea most of them are jv but the preponderance of evidence is on the euro side.

I'm leaning fail here but I don't have a good read on it because the evidence is contradictory to how I expected it to go. Not that I expected snow, it could still fail with a nice dig as 18z showed but I expected some systems to dig into the east and get under us around that time period. 

[psuhoffman]

Gefs says "I won't back down"

No shock given it's tendency to hug the op. 

But nice none the less  

[CAPE]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

The only thing that keeps me even somewhat hopeful is that the gfs evolution just seems more right given the setup. BUT it's the gfs and jma vs all. It's not just the euro the ggem U.K., icon, and navgem all are north. Yea most of them are jv but the preponderance of evidence is on the euro side.

I'm leaning fail here but I don't have a good read on it because the evidence is contradictory to how I expected it to go. Not that I expected snow, it could still fail with a nice dig as 18z showed but I expected some systems to dig into the east and get under us around that time period. 

I was thinking the same thing given the look. But then I thought probably I was just trying to convince myself that this evolution made more sense because it gave the desired outcome. All the possible options are on the table at this juncture. H5 looks pretty nice for that window, so I will hang my hat on that for now. I am keeping expectations low though until I see the Euro/EPS make some noteworthy moves in the right direction.

[psuhoffman]

18z looks weenier to me. 

Long duration event.  First 24 hours qpf

Next 24 hours 

[Chris78]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

Gefs says "I won't back down"

No shock given it's tendency to hug the op. 

But nice none the less  

Wow! That's a great look! I wasn't expecting that.  Is it better than the 12z? It kinda looks like it.

[Ji]

Gefs says "I won't back down"
No shock given it's tendency to hug the op. 
But nice none the less  

Wow that looks better than 12z

[psuhoffman]

2 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

Transfer similar and actually rides tighter to the coast resulting in better qpf

Yea it's juicy.  Over .75 for the whole area. Over an inch qpf the northeast 1/3 of the forum. 

[Chris78]

1 minute ago, Ji said:

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Gefs says "I won't back down"
No shock given it's tendency to hug the op. 
But nice none the less  

Wow that looks better than 12z

Lol. This hobby isn't for the faint of heart. 

[psuhoffman]

2 minutes ago, Chris78 said:

Wow! That's a great look! I wasn't expecting that.  Is it better than the 12z? It kinda looks like it.

 

2 minutes ago, Ji said:

6 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Gefs says "I won't back down"
No shock given it's tendency to hug the op. 
But nice none the less  

Wow that looks better than 12z

It is. The mean anyways. Hugs the coast more and is 1-2 mb deeper each frame and consequently significantly more qpf. I expect a weenie snow output when those maps update.  

[psuhoffman]

Snowfall maps are kind of a letdown. Not awful but less then 12z. Can't tell why. The individual panels look great but more take a perfect track and rain compared to 12z so the mean snow was less.  I'm not worried about that at all. 

[psuhoffman]

4 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

The tighter track upped thermals a touch but too early to worry about that ..lol ......give me a dynamic wound up qpf bomb first 

Well yea for where we are. Not sure those around DCA or southeast share that feeling. 

[Maestrobjwa]

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Snowfall maps are kind of a letdown. Not awful but less then 12z. Can't tell why. The individual panels look great but more take a perfect track and rain compared to 12z so the mean snow was less.  I'm not worried about that at all. 

Not sure we can afford any excess worry energy on anything but whether there's even gonna be a storm to begin with, lol

[psuhoffman]

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

I was thinking the same thing given the look. But then I thought probably I was just trying to convince myself that this evolution made more sense because it gave the desired outcome. All the possible options are on the table at this juncture. H5 looks pretty nice for that window, so I will hang my hat on that for now. I am keeping expectations low though until I see the Euro/EPS make some noteworthy moves in the right direction.

Problem is what "should" happen is just my ingrained memory of what happens most often in a given setup from experience and analog study. But what usually happens isn't what always happens. 

[WVclimo]

I can’t get past what happened prior to the Super Bowl storm.  GFS was consistently further south at days 5-7 than the EC and UK with a wave coming from the PAC NW.  

Then at 96 hours out the GFS suddenly jumped 375 miles north in one run and came into line with the other models.  I made a post about it on 1/31 when the 12Z progged the low in central Indiana instead of northern Alabama.

Once it locked on to the correct solution it didn’t waver again.  Hope that isn’t how this one gets resolved.

[PDIII]

33 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

18z looks weenier to me. 

Long duration event.  First 24 hours qpf

Next 24 hours 

 Wow

That's has beast written all over it. What do the gefs temps look like? Snow storm?

[Cobalt]

Just now, PDIII said:

 Wow

That's has beast written all over it. What do the gefs temps look like? Snow storm?

Iffy/bad for DC southeast. Rain solutions actually might the majority, but thermals don't really matter at all at this range out. 

[Chris78]

A lot of the lows are tucked in to far along the coast or even on the eastern shore. I would assume that's why there are A lot of rain solutions. It's much more tucked in compared to 12z. I would be more concerned on too far north development , not the too far west track.

[psuhoffman]

10 minutes ago, WVclimo said:

I can’t get past what happened prior to the Super Bowl storm.  GFS was consistently further south at days 5-7 than the EC and UK with a wave coming from the PAC NW.  

Then at 96 hours out the GFS suddenly jumped 375 miles north in one run and came into line with the other models.  I made a post about it on 1/31 when the 12Z progged the low in central Indiana instead of northern Alabama.

Once it locked on to the correct solution it didn’t waver again.  Hope that isn’t how this one gets resolved.

I remember that. Good point. This is slightly differing though. The gfs didn't really move the storm 300 miles north. There were two waves and it had been keying on the southern stream.  The other guidance was first to have a dominant northern stream.  Then the gfs suddenly weakened the southern low and focused on the northern one and it did look like it just moved the low.   It wasn't that simple. But the gfs did fail. 

[Thanatos_I_Am]

Just now, Chris78 said:

A lot of the lows are tucked in to far along the coast or even on the eastern shore. I would assume that's why there are A lot of rain solutions. It's much more tucked in compared to 12z. I would be more concerned on too far north development , not the too far west track.

 

 

IMO, I would rather roll the dice with a more tucked low than one that may barely get precip out to me. 

[cae]

I'm not too optimistic about the day-6 storm.  It's the GFS (and maybe JMA) vs. the world, and the GFS is an outlier.  I suspect that 18z was the start of a GFS shift to an H5 low track that looks more like the other ops and ensembles.  If they meet in the middle, it won't mean that the GFS caved to the other models any more than they caved to it, but it might feel that way.  Everyone would notice that the GFS no longer gives us snow, but fewer would notice if the other models fail to give us snow in a way that is more like the GFS than their own previous runs.

I'm hoping that even if we don't get a big hit in day 6, the other models still make a substantial shift towards the GFS for that period.  Both the EPS and GEPS think the period around March 12th is more interesting than the one around March 7th.  I looked through the members of both ensembles, and it appears that the runs that at least give the northern tier some fringe snow with an earlier wave are more likely to show a big hit down the line.  (Something like today's 18z GFS.)  I know that it's a classic case of hoping for the day-10 storm after the storm, but looking through the runs I think that in the near term, that's probably our best bet. 

 

 

[Cobalt]

8 minutes ago, cae said:

I'm not too optimistic about the day-6 storm.  It's the GFS (and maybe JMA) vs. the world, and the GFS is an outlier.  I suspect that 18z was the start of a GFS shift to an H5 low track that looks more like the other ops and ensembles.  If they meet in the middle, it won't mean that the GFS caved to the other models any more than they caved to it, but it might feel that way.  Everyone would notice that the GFS no longer gives us snow, but fewer would notice if the other models fail to give us snow in a way that is more like the GFS than their own previous runs.

I'm hoping that even if we don't get a big hit in day 6, the other models still make a substantial shift towards the GFS for that period.  Both the EPS and GEPS think the period around March 12th is more interesting than the one around March 7th.  I looked through the members of both ensembles, and it appears that the runs that at least give the northern tier some fringe snow with an earlier wave are more likely to show a big hit down the line.  (Something like today's 18z GFS.)  I know that it's a classic case of hoping for the day-10 storm after the storm, but looking through the runs I think that in the near term, that's probably our best bet. 

 

 

NAO starts to head towards positive during that time, right? Seems like that would in fact be our best window if that is the case

[Interstate]

The SW keeps trending north in the plains

 

Edit: I believe it is turning ugly

[nj2va]

Three closed contour 5H at 102 but its north of 18z so far.  

[Bob Chill]

4 minutes ago, Interstate said:

The SW keeps trending north in the plains

 

Edit: I believe it is turning ugly

Yea, gfs is bleeding. Not what we want to see inside of 4 days. I was pretty much expecting it after having no support from other globals except the jma. Maybe the gfs and euro reverse roles and it ends up being a wash. Otherwise it doesnt look to end well.