December Medium/Long Range Discussion

[Bob Chill]

6 minutes ago, leesburg 04 said:

Lol you guys are manic

Enjoy the rain. Should be enough to shovel. 

[Maestrobjwa]

3 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

I thought December would bring us near normal snowfall, and if last week planned out it would have, but I’m still not ready to punt the month (though I think a big storm is off the table) and I’m all in on mid January through February, which fits weak niño climo to a tee. 

I know folks hate having to possibly punt the holiday season and this cold pattern, but until I see the PAC lock into a catastrophe I still have zero concern for the 95 corridor. You pop even a marginal ridge in the west and it’s game on again.

How quickly we forget that January forward is how we’ve done virtually all our winters the last decade.

Personally, I'm not ready to give up on the historical trend of mid-January on...but the talk of the pac being hostile has me concerned about it becoming a problem for the entire season. (But again, I don't know how all the teleconnections work...so this concern may not be rooted in plain logic, lol)

[SnowGoose69]

15 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Dang, man...so the PAC...is that something that can predicted before the winter starts? Or is it just some random negative that can just show up? (What drives a bad PAC vs. a good one?)

And 2011-12...if that had been a nino, would it have made a difference? (wait, was it a nino?)

11-12 I think was a neutral or weak Niña.  It was similar to 01-02 in that nobody really knew why it ended up sucking as bad as it did.   By that I dont mean nobody knew what features caused it to be bad they just had no idea why the features setup the way they did given the setup argued for something different both years headed into those winters.  

[Bob Chill]

2 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

 

How quickly we forget that January forward is how we’ve done virtually all our winters the last decade.

Jan and Feb might break records with snowfall but are we supposed to stop posting when it looks pretty grim for the next few weeks? 

[Maestrobjwa]

30 minutes ago, leesburg 04 said:

Lol you guys are manic

You can blame the last two winters for that one! Heartbreak city both times...so yeah some of us are antsy, to say the least!

[psuhoffman]

@Maestrobjwa @Bob Chill

I think 2007 could have ended much better with some luck. From Feb 1 on it was pretty cold and we had several good chances. One turned into a big ice storm. One in march was perhaps a week too late and just missed. 

This could have ended much better. I will admit one risk in a winter where we waste the first half is if we get unlucky a couple times we can end up with mediocre results despite a good pattern. 

 

[WesternFringe]

8 hours ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

I remember it showing a MECS for us after all the other models settled on NC SWVA hit and cirrus for us.  At least, that is memory....

"cirrus for us"

I guess perspective is everything and it matters where you live.  The GEM may have been wrong for where you live, but it WAS a MECS for most of VA (southern locations in Augusta County where I live got 15", and I received 8") when the rest of the globals (GFS, FV3, Euro) were showing the storm barely reaching southern VA.  It was far closer to reality 48 hours out for the southern half of the subforum than the other models were.

Which was closer to reality 48 hrs out for most of VA?  GEM at ~50 hours out from the storm...

versus the GFS at about ~44 hours out?  (The FV3 and Euro showed about the same as the GFS last Friday)...

versus reality...

[cbmclean]

1 hour ago, SnowGoose69 said:

11-12 I think was a neutral or weak Niña.  It was similar to 01-02 in that nobody really knew why it ended up sucking as bad as it did.   By that I dont mean nobody knew what features caused it to be bad they just had no idea why the features setup the way they did given the setup argued for something different both years headed into those winters.  

IIRC, 2011-12 was a wall-to-wall hostile PAC with pacific fire hose.  What was the story with 2001-2?  I was in college then and I remember it being mild, but I wasn't into the weather as much then so I don't know what the hostile feature was.

[SnowGoose69]

35 minutes ago, cbmclean said:

IIRC, 2011-12 was a wall-to-wall hostile PAC with pacific fire hose.  What was the story with 2001-2?  I was in college then and I remember it being mild, but I wasn't into the weather as much then so I don't know what the hostile feature was.

Solar spike was believed to have killed that winter.  Things went highly zonal overall and the AO and NAO were raging positive.  I want to say that for a good part of the winter some sort of weak troughing was in the east but the relatively zonal pattern out west and lack of any -AO and NAO meant no cold air was around 

[psuhoffman]

28 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

Solar spike was believed to have killed that winter.  Things went highly zonal overall and the AO and NAO were raging positive.  I want to say that for a good part of the winter some sort of weak troughing was in the east but the relatively zonal pattern out west and lack of any -AO and NAO meant no cold air was around 

There was blocking early that winter but not much cold. One perfect track storm early January was rain. Snow in higher elevations. No cold. One storm in December was suppressed I think. We didn't cash in during a good longwave pattern early then everything went to crap the rest of the winter. 

[cbmclean]

8 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

We didn't cash in during a good longwave pattern early then everything went to crap the rest of the winter.

Hmmm.  This statement certainly won't cause concern in the MA forum.

[Ji]

gfs looks interesting with some kind of phasing happening

[Ji]

greenland block-

confluence..

 

lets see what happens

[Ji]

as usual--fail

[Maestrobjwa]

3 minutes ago, cbmclean said:

Hmmm.  This statement certainly won't cause concern in the MA forum.

Particularly the part about the suppressed storm in December, lol

[stormtracker]

Just now, Ji said:

as usual--fail

You really thought that storm was gonna be snow?   At 150, right?

 

[Maestrobjwa]

Just now, Ji said:

as usual--fail

Dang it, Ji--that's not the final reality! Mercy above, man...an op run from 11 days out...

[psuhoffman]

2 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

Jan and Feb might break records with snowfall but are we supposed to stop posting when it looks pretty grim for the next few weeks? 

Your right. It looks pretty awful right now. Just because I think the snow might come primarily after Jan 20th doesn't mean we have to wait that long to see the process unfolding. In all the years i looked at, the only one that was wall to wall winter was 1963/4. The rest had a cold period early. Some with a hit some not. Then a mild period. Then the flip back to cold was sometime in January. The big snow all came after Jan 20. But there were signs way ahead. It didn't just flip and start snowing. Either the epo or nao flipped way ahead and starting bending the longwave pattern in our favor. If by early January we can't see the start of the progression then I will get worried.  That would probably mean things are not following the analogs we identified.  

[psuhoffman]

6 minutes ago, cbmclean said:

Hmmm.  This statement certainly won't cause concern in the MA forum.

There is little similar between that year and this one in terms of pattern drivers. But a fail is always possible here. We do fail well. We are the patriots of snow fail. 

[Ji]

2 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

You really thought that storm was gonna be snow?   At 150, right?

 

lol..no

 

this

 

[Maestrobjwa]

1 minute ago, stormtracker said:

You really thought that storm was gonna be snow?   At 150, right?

 

Either way...seems it's trying to do something...seems to be worth keeping an eye on

 

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

Your right. It looks pretty awful right now. Just because I think the snow might come primarily after Jan 20th doesn't mean we have to wait that long to see the process unfolding. In all the years i looked at, the only one that was wall to wall winter was 1963/4. The rest had a cold period early. Some with a hit some not. Then a mild period. Then the flip back to cold was sometime in January. The big snow all came after Jan 20. But there were signs way ahead. It didn't just flip and start snowing. Either the epo or nao flipped way ahead and starting bending the longwave pattern in our favor. If by early January we can't see the start of the progression then I will get worried.  That would probably mean things are not following the analogs we identified.  

So the fate of the winter...may be decided by January if we don't see those things...welp, if it ain't to be, better to be able to know by then than guessing the whole winter.

[WesternFringe]

I know it is an op run from range and the old GFS, but still, this would be frustrating for most of us if it happened to verify on almost Christmas Eve:

[Ji]

there is def some kind of window in the last week of Dec before the pattern goes to hell again. Gotta score something or winter is probably over

[Maestrobjwa]

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Your right. It looks pretty awful right now. Just because I think the snow might come primarily after Jan 20th doesn't mean we have to wait that long to see the process unfolding. In all the years i looked at, the only one that was wall to wall winter was 1963/4. The rest had a cold period early. Some with a hit some not. Then a mild period. Then the flip back to cold was sometime in January. The big snow all came after Jan 20. But there were signs way ahead. It didn't just flip and start snowing. Either the epo or nao flipped way ahead and starting bending the longwave pattern in our favor. If by early January we can't see the start of the progression then I will get worried.  That would probably mean things are not following the analogs we identified.  

So...the fate of the winter could already be determined if we don't see those things by early January? Welp...at least in that scenario we can find out then rather than spend the rest of the winter trying to hope, lol 

[Ji]

GGEM looks eerily similar to the Richmond/Greensboro storm smh

 

[Chris78]

1 minute ago, Ji said:

GGEM looks eerily similar to the Richmond/Greensboro storm smh

 

That actually looks like a good set up.

[Maestrobjwa]

3 minutes ago, WesternFringe said:

I know it is an op run from range and the old GFS, but still, this would be frustrating for most of us if it happened to verify on almost Christmas Eve:

Let's not even go there...still way, way, way out. The good thing is that those few days Christmas week? Seems to be a small window there...roll of the dice if we cash in or not--but I'm just happy to even have an outside shot of that (especially in a niño December, lol)

[Ji]

LOLS GFS had 3 storms after 240 Once barely missed us--the 2nd was south of us and the 3rd was a  perfect track but rain

[Ji]

GFS has some nice blocking 

[psuhoffman]

4 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Either way...seems it's trying to do something...seems to be worth keeping an eye on

 

So the fate of the winter...may be decided by January if we don't see those things...welp, if it ain't to be, better to be able to know by then than guessing the whole winter.

Depends what you mean by that. But if by January 7th per say we are still looking at a crap pattern with an AK trough and no blocking...with no end in sight...then at that point I will concede defeat and admit it's time to adjust expectations. Would that mean the chances of a warning event are over. No. In 1942 DC had no snow all winter and then had 12" on march 30th. I never give up hope of getting a fluke event any year until it's truly over. But our chances of a big year are probably cooked at that point. There are things that need to happen to get the pattern right. It won't just flip overnight.  In 2010 that blocking pattern showed up weeks away. Then it established itself 10 days before the storms started hitting. We saw it coming from weeks ahead. In 2015 the epo was flooding the Conus with cold for 2-3 weeks before our epic run. In 2016 the blocking pattern took 10 days to slowly get enough cold into the pattern to allow the hecs. Before that we wasted a couple perfect trac storms. Last march the blocking started at the very end of February but it took a week to get cold into the east then another 10 days to get a hit. These things don't happen overnight. So if there is no sign of the first steps by January 7th or so I would then start to worry.