December Discussion II

[Baroclinic Zone]

3 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

That should be fun...nose of the LLJ is about arriving at that time...maybe you beat it by a few hours.

Get a boost on takeoff.  Take runway 5, S-N heading.

[Typhoon Tip]

10 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

Perfectly normal to have July PWATs near Christmas time.

I get the humor here ... but you know.  I have a weird take on this.

If we dimensionalize that, is it really that unusual? 

Per my experience, these 62/62 ... 66/63 or even 70/70 southerly stream events recur approximately every three to five years. I can actually go all the way back to 1994 and start counting and assuredly...it comes out to about that.  Jan '94, Jan '96, very late Nov '03, Dec '04(?), Dec '08 ... I know there's been another since 2008, and should this one take place, too ...etc.

It seems setting up a winter scenario where the storm track shifts W and N while the surface PP slips east ... leaving the entire eastern seaboard defenseless to the tropical fist ( a deep layer WCB ) while obnoxious, granted, seems to have a return rate as those empirical(like) years seem to suggest. 

This thing modeled strikes me a lot as just almost exactly like the 29th Novie 2003 ... I'm not sure why ...but that week's succession of events has always stuck out elaborately in my memory:

First, the warm blast:  I recall temperature and dew point soared to 70/70 with sheets of rain and white noise through the tree top ( https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20031128.html m).  A friend texted me mid evening asking what the fu chuck, 70 F in December?!  At the time ...far different than present, the big event of Dec 5-7 was just beginning to sniff out on the GGEM's D10, too.  I distinctly recall ...the model was scooping up a TC out of the Caribbean and fusing it into a cold trough up underneath an over-top high pressure cresting through eastern Ontario.  Interestingly ...what actually came of it was there was indeed a TC but it remained cohesive and separate ... escaping E over the Sargasso Sea ...

However, before any of that would have a chance to verify came two: we suffered a strong polar fropa ( https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20031201.html ) ...  followed a day or so later by a diffused arctic front ( https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20031202.html )... that wrought havoc to morning commute with blinding snow squalls and temperatures crashing through twenties into the teens. That 1 to 1.5" of snow and crashing temps flashed on the roads and created an utter locked grid from Danvers Mass clear to RI on I-95.  

Three: Followed a couple days later by a 10 to 20" powder event ...one that interestingly squeezed the rain/snow line all the way down to the Borne Bridge  ( https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20031206.html  ) ... very difficult to do in the first week of any December! That was one of my finer calls (shameless self-promotion.. ) I shared an email with Harvey ...explaining how/why that may happen and precisely events transpire accordingly (it's awesome when that so rarely happens, huh!) The cold trough turned more like a book-end low that pushed N against the high pressure, as is suggest in the above link.  That construct created 'snow machine' kinematics. The low its self was climatologically weak as a coastal storm entity...however, E flow anomaly at 700 mb, with ENE at 850, and NNE at the surface through an ideal frozen sounding... ho-ho man. I love it when that sort of outre way of getting it done, happens... Sweet cross-section/ jet concurrence in that case.  I was living in Winchester Mass at the time... also climate-unusual for that location and powder snow so early. It was 19 F (distinctly recall) with 1/8th mile visibility at one point, and we ended up with 17.5" of champaign not 10 miles from the ocean as the crow flies, when/where SST were lingering in the low 50s. 

Those sort of events are like under-the-radar extremes that remind us that there really are no immovable boundaries and/or rules in the business of atmosphere... How it's really just shifting probabilities relative to opposing forces ...

Anyway, ... I almost wonder. .. .if took each one of those WCB events and looked at whatever did transpire within ten or so day post their occurrence, would we see any kind of stat marker for a colder profiled event.  

[Damage In Tolland]

11 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I get the humor here ... but you know.  I have a weird take on this.

If we dimensionalize that, is it really that unusual? 

Per my experience, these 62/62 ... 66/63 or even 70/70 southerly stream events recur approximately every three to five years. I can actually go all the way back to 1994 and start counting and assuredly...it comes out to about that.  Jan '94, Jan '96, very late Nov '03, Dec '04(?), Dec '08 ... I know there's been another since 2008, and should this one take place, too ...etc.

It seems setting up a winter scenario where the storm track shifts W and N while the surface PP slips east ... leaving the entire eastern seaboard defenseless to the tropical fist ( a deep layer WCB ) while obnoxious, granted, seems to have a return rate as those empirical(like) years seem to suggest. 

This thing modeled strikes me a lot as just almost exactly like the 29th Novie 2003 ... I'm not sure why ...but that week's succession of events has always stuck out elaborately in my memory:

First, the warm blast:  I recall temperature and dew point soared to 70/70 with sheets of rain and white noise through the tree top ( https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20031128.html m).  A friend texted me mid evening asking what the fu chuck, 70 F in December?!  At the time ...far different than present, the big event of Dec 5-7 was just beginning to sniff out on the GGEM's D10, too.  I distinctly recall ...the model was scooping up a TC out of the Caribbean and fusing it into a cold trough up underneath an over-top high pressure cresting through eastern Ontario.  Interestingly ...what actually came of it was there was indeed a TC but it remained cohesive and separate ... escaping E over the Sargasso Sea ...

However, before any of that would have a chance to verify came two: we suffered a strong polar fropa ( https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20031201.html ) ...  followed a day or so later by a diffused arctic front ( https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20031202.html )... that wrought havoc to morning commute with blinding snow squalls and temperatures crashing through twenties into the teens. That 1 to 1.5" of snow and crashing temps flashed on the roads and created an utter locked grid from Danvers Mass clear to RI on I-95.  

Three: Followed a couple days later by a 10 to 20" powder event ...one that interestingly squeezed the rain/snow line all the way down to the Borne Bridge  ( https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20031206.html  ) ... very difficult to do in the first week of any December! That was one of my finer calls (shameless self-promotion.. ) I shared an email with Harvey ...explaining how/why the may happen and it precisely events transpire accordingly (it's awesome when that so rarely happens, huh!) The cold trough turned more like a book-end low that pushed N against the high pressure, as is suggest in the above link.  That construct created 'snow machine' kinematics. The low its self was climatologically weak as a coastal storm entity...however, E flow anomaly at 700 mb, with ENE at 850, and NNE at the surface through an ideal frozen sounding... ho-ho man. I love it when that sort of outre way of getting it done, happens... Sweet cross-section/ jet concurrence in that case.  I was living in Winchester Mass at the time... also climate-unusual for that location, it was 19 F (distinctly recall) with 1/8th mile visibility at one point.  We end up with 17.5" of champaign not 10 miles from the ocean as the crow flies, when/where SST were lingering in the low 50s. 

Those sort of events are like under-the-radar extremes that remind us that there really are no immovable boundaries and/or rules in the business of atmosphere... How it's really just shifting probabilities relative to opposing forces ...

Anyway,    

You were texting in 03?

[Chrisrotary12]

19 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

Where and how?

Each of the last 3 weeks were supposed to be snowy as well.............

[OceanStWx]

34 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I get the humor here ... but you know.  I have a weird take on this.

If we dimensionalize that, is it really that unusual? 

Per my experience, these 62/62 ... 66/63 or even 70/70 southerly stream events recur approximately every three to five years. I can actually go all the way back to 1994 and start counting and assuredly...it comes out to about that.  Jan '94, Jan '96, very late Nov '03, Dec '04(?), Dec '08 ... I know there's been another since 2008, and should this one take place, too ...etc.

Well if you are to believe the ensemble return interval tools, this is more like a generational event for this time of year. In this 20 day window, the return interval for what the GEFS is showing is like once every 25-30 years, the EPS more like 30 years. Only a handful of times has CHH ever recorded a 1.5 PWAT in December, and that's the ensemble mean at this point.

[Typhoon Tip]

16 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Well if you are to believe the ensemble return interval tools, this is more like a generational event for this time of year. In this 20 day window, the return interval for what the GEFS is showing is like once every 25-30 years, the EPS more like 30 years. Only a handful of times has CHH ever recorded a 1.5 PWAT in December, and that's the ensemble mean at this point.

Well, there were near saturation ... upper 60s to near 70 events as near as in 08... as such was the case in 03... for what it's worth.  And many in the 60 to 64 range. 

That does seem to refute the 25 year result,  but ... honestly, I wasn't considering the GEFs PWAT per se - haha..  I was more going for the temperature part of that oops. 

You know it's interesting ... we keep getting, with accelerating frequency too ... higher DP and concomitant PWAT excursions into middle latitudes ... I'm not willing to blame that on mere agricultural feedback in the summer, as it is happening globally, regardless of season.  People keep knee jerk trying to assign causes to anything that could even be 7 degrees (pun intended!) of separation plausibly related to global warming ... Meanwhile, said "excursions" are like ... number 2 on the list of 100 reasons why GW is going to holocaust and dust civility to its knees...probably?  sooner than f'n people have any g-damn clue!  The consequential changes in the arctic circle have out-paced even the most dire climate models ... and this denial complex will shouted over the shoulders of those as they are walking off the cliff at this rate. sorry, I rant.

[OceanStWx]

6 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Well, there were near saturation ... upper 60s to near 70 events as near as in 08... as such was the case in 03... for what it's worth.  And many in the 60 to 64 range. 

That does seem to refute the 25 year result,  but ... honestly, I wasn't considering the GEFs PWAT per se - haha..  I was more going for the temperature part of that oops. 

You know it's interesting ... we keep getting, with accelerating frequency too ... higher DP and concomitant PWAT excursions into middle latitudes ... I'm not willing to blame that on mere agricultural feedback in the summer, as it is happening globally, regardless of season.  People keep knee jerk trying to assign causes to anything that could even be 7 degrees (pun intended!) of separation plausibly related to global warming ... Meanwhile, said "excursions" are like ... number 2 on the list of 100 reasons why GW is going to holocaust and dust civility to its knees...probably?  sooner than f'n people have any g-damn clue!  The consequential changes in the arctic circle have out-paced even the most dire climate models ... and this denial complex will shouted over the shoulders of those as they are walking off the cliff at this rate. sorry, I rant.

The ensemble tools don't have a "surface" level to really dig into, only 1000 mb. So that limits what I can compare it to. 1000 mb is more in the 2 to 10 year range for T. And OKX is not unprecedented to get 60s Td in early December, this time of the month is outside of the historical record though. 

[Typhoon Tip]

49 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

You were texting in 03?

In my memory ... but it may have been a phone call. We had the conversation.  And I told him at the time, things were going to change.  Unlike now, there were more obvious signals in the indices and runs suggesting that warm surge back whence was more transient.

Which this will be too... It's just that the rest state on either side is a different canvas.

[Typhoon Tip]

1 minute ago, OceanStWx said:

The ensemble tools don't have a "surface" level to really dig into, only 1000 mb. So that limits what I can compare it to. 1000 mb is more in the 2 to 10 year range for T. And OKX is not unprecedented to get 60s Td in early December, this time of the month is outside of the historical record though. 

Yeah... as an afterthought ...this/that is what I was thinking, that PWAT is an integral and so the tropospheric depth may be where this particular event scores its uniqueness. 

Correct me if I'm wrong... I thought PWAT considered the entire column -

[dendrite]

36 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Well if you are to believe the ensemble return interval tools, this is more like a generational event for this time of year. In this 20 day window, the return interval for what the GEFS is showing is like once every 25-30 years, the EPS more like 30 years. Only a handful of times has CHH ever recorded a 1.5 PWAT in December, and that's the ensemble mean at this point.

Of course that's with 2 CHH obs per day. There's probably been some instances where the PWATs max out in between RAOB times and we "miss" it. There's probably a good chance that those record PWATs actually had higher values at some point during the day too. But yeah, impressive nonetheless.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

No shortage of qpf, if only we can turn it to frozen eventually. Hippy is worried we dry out when the cold comes....kinda like what this month has been already.

[JBinStoughton]

1 hour ago, Chrisrotary12 said:

Each of the last 3 weeks were supposed to be snowy as well.............

All I read from the prognostications at this point is that we’re supposed to be happy we only have to forfeit two of the three meteo winter months and wait for a SSWE that may or may not happen and may or may not deliver if it does.  I don’t know. Winter used to just happen. Now we have to rely on anomalous events to maybe salvage part of the winter.  

[HoarfrostHubb]

2 hours ago, Baroclinic Zone said:

@CoastalWx

Ok Scott, I need to know I am looking for 6am Friday flight out of PVD to MCO.

Any good dining ressies?      Disney Springs has a ton of good places

[Baroclinic Zone]

1 minute ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

Any good dining ressies?      Disney Springs has a ton of good places

We going to Universal, staying at Portofino.  My wife made all of the dinner reservations a couple of days ago.

[HoarfrostHubb]

12 minutes ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

No shortage of qpf, if only we can turn it to frozen eventually. Hippy is worried we dry out when the cold comes....kinda like what this month has been already.

ORH is actually in the negative for precip for December... I'm guessing that changes after this get through... should be well above for a few days at least.

Still BN temp wise, but that will get hit

[HoarfrostHubb]

Just now, Baroclinic Zone said:

We going to Universal, staying at Portofino.  My wife made all of the dinner reservations a couple of days ago.

Nice!   CityWalk is fun, lots of good eats, and the hotel has a well like restaurant.

tDs here will be similar

[cut]

10 minutes ago, Baroclinic Zone said:

We going to Universal, staying at Portofino.  My wife made all of the dinner reservations a couple of days ago.

Going down this Summer - same hotel. I work for NBCSN so I get a discount on rooms and tix.

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I get the humor here ... but you know.  I have a weird take on this.

If we dimensionalize that, is it really that unusual? 

Per my experience, these 62/62 ... 66/63 or even 70/70 southerly stream events recur approximately every three to five years. I can actually go all the way back to 1994 and start counting and assuredly...it comes out to about that.  Jan '94, Jan '96, very late Nov '03, Dec '04(?), Dec '08 ... I know there's been another since 2008, and should this one take place, too ...etc.

It seems setting up a winter scenario where the storm track shifts W and N while the surface PP slips east ... leaving the entire eastern seaboard defenseless to the tropical fist ( a deep layer WCB ) while obnoxious, granted, seems to have a return rate as those empirical(like) years seem to suggest. 

This thing modeled strikes me a lot as just almost exactly like the 29th Novie 2003 ... I'm not sure why ...but that week's succession of events has always stuck out elaborately in my memory:

First, the warm blast:  I recall temperature and dew point soared to 70/70 with sheets of rain and white noise through the tree top ( https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20031128.html m).  A friend texted me mid evening asking what the fu chuck, 70 F in December?!  At the time ...far different than present, the big event of Dec 5-7 was just beginning to sniff out on the GGEM's D10, too.  I distinctly recall ...the model was scooping up a TC out of the Caribbean and fusing it into a cold trough up underneath an over-top high pressure cresting through eastern Ontario.  Interestingly ...what actually came of it was there was indeed a TC but it remained cohesive and separate ... escaping E over the Sargasso Sea ...

However, before any of that would have a chance to verify came two: we suffered a strong polar fropa ( https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20031201.html ) ...  followed a day or so later by a diffused arctic front ( https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20031202.html )... that wrought havoc to morning commute with blinding snow squalls and temperatures crashing through twenties into the teens. That 1 to 1.5" of snow and crashing temps flashed on the roads and created an utter locked grid from Danvers Mass clear to RI on I-95.  

Three: Followed a couple days later by a 10 to 20" powder event ...one that interestingly squeezed the rain/snow line all the way down to the Borne Bridge  ( https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20031206.html  ) ... very difficult to do in the first week of any December! That was one of my finer calls (shameless self-promotion.. ) I shared an email with Harvey ...explaining how/why that may happen and precisely events transpire accordingly (it's awesome when that so rarely happens, huh!) The cold trough turned more like a book-end low that pushed N against the high pressure, as is suggest in the above link.  That construct created 'snow machine' kinematics. The low its self was climatologically weak as a coastal storm entity...however, E flow anomaly at 700 mb, with ENE at 850, and NNE at the surface through an ideal frozen sounding... ho-ho man. I love it when that sort of outre way of getting it done, happens... Sweet cross-section/ jet concurrence in that case.  I was living in Winchester Mass at the time... also climate-unusual for that location and powder snow so early. It was 19 F (distinctly recall) with 1/8th mile visibility at one point, and we ended up with 17.5" of champaign not 10 miles from the ocean as the crow flies, when/where SST were lingering in the low 50s. 

Those sort of events arelike under-the-radar extremes that remind us that there really are no immovable boundaries and/or rules in the business of atmosphere... How it's really just shifting probabilities relative to opposing forces ...

Anyway, ... I almost wonder. .. .if took each one of those WCB events and looked at whatever did transpire within ten or so day post their occurrence, would we see any kind of stat marker for a colder profiled event.  

Every one of those seasons were good winters.

[WinterWolf]

2 hours ago, Damage In Tolland said:

You were texting in 03?

Got my first cell phone in 01, and could text then, so 03 for sure.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

Well if you are to believe the ensemble return interval tools, this is more like a generational event for this time of year. In this 20 day window, the return interval for what the GEFS is showing is like once every 25-30 years, the EPS more like 30 years. Only a handful of times has CHH ever recorded a 1.5 PWAT in December, and that's the ensemble mean at this point.

Thank god I don't have a huge snow pack. January 1996 catastrophe averted.

[SJonesWX]

3 hours ago, Baroclinic Zone said:

@CoastalWx

Ok Scott, I need to know I am looking for 6am Friday flight out of PVD to MCO.

brace, brace, brace

head down 

stay down

brace, brace, brace

[Greg]

1 hour ago, JBinStoughton said:

All I read from the prognostications at this point is that we’re supposed to be happy we only have to forfeit two of the three meteo winter months and wait for a SSWE that may or may not happen and may or may not deliver if it does.  I don’t know. Winter used to just happen. Now we have to rely on anomalous events to maybe salvage part of the winter.  

Nobody said that we were punting both December and January of the meteorological winter months of Dec., Jan., and Feb.  Only most of December. The change comes back in late Dec. and early Jan.

[STILL N OF PIKE]

This is def not a generation event this Friday . We have these every Couple years.

its not gonna be 70/67 

[JBinStoughton]

10 minutes ago, Greg said:

Nobody said that we were punting both December and January of the meteorological winter months of Dec., Jan., and Feb.  Only most of December. The change comes back in late Dec. and early Jan.

Yes, but apparently the sensible effects don’t kick in for 3 weeks post event. That takes us to late January. Anyway, we’ll see. 

[WinterWolf]

1 minute ago, JBinStoughton said:

Yes, but apparently the sensible effects don’t kick in for 3 weeks post event. That takes us to late January. Anyway, we’ll see. 

Chill out for crying out loud....nobody is cancelling January or winter for that matter.  Winter hasn't even started yet officially....and it's First flake to last flake.  

Same bologny every year with some of you....

[powderfreak]

53 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Thank god I don't have a huge snow pack. January 1996 catastrophe averted.

Yeah thank god that river of moisture looks to avoid the ski areas up north to some extent.  0.8" is much better than 2.8" lol.  

Gonna be a solid thaw regardless. 

If SNE had a deep pack this would be quite the flood event.

[ORH_wxman]

Just now, JBinStoughton said:

Yes, but apparently the sensible effects don’t kick in for 3 weeks post event. That takes to late January. Anyway, we’ll see. 

Our climo is strong in early/mid January as it is...we don't need extreme events to produce snow in early January. We just need something half-decent. I would say we are way more spoiled on winter than we used to be back "when winter just happened"....in recent years, we get jaded when we don't get at least one KU per season or reach a 20"+ pack. That type of stuff was generally the exception and not the rule like the post-2000 era.

Pretty soon, we will get back to winters of the late 20th century and wonder why we ever complained at all.

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Our climo is strong in early/mid January as it is...we don't need extreme events to produce snow in early January. We just need something half-decent. I would say we are way more spoiled on winter than we used to be back "when winter just happened"....in recent years, we get jaded when we don't get at least one KU per season or reach a 20"+ pack. That type of stuff was generally the exception and not the rule like the post-2000 era.

Pretty soon, we will get back to winters of the late 20th century and wonder why we ever complained at all.

I'm still not sure that is happening....I mean, not the pace of the past 15 years, but I think larger events are going to be the rule going forward.

[40/70 Benchmark]

8 minutes ago, JBinStoughton said:

Yes, but apparently the sensible effects don’t kick in for 3 weeks post event. That takes us to late January. Anyway, we’ll see. 

You need a break...take the dog for a walk and have the wife hide the laptop.

[40/70 Benchmark]

No one said wait until Jan 20 for snow....that is just when some feel the window for the real big dogs begin, and winter's most extreme stretch begins.

We don't need extreme in Boston on January 3rd.