January Medium/Long Range Discussion

[EastCoast NPZ]

Wow, another good long range look in the process of biting the PAC dust.  Shocking.  Lol. 

Winter weather model Rule #1:  the worst looking model will almost always be correct.

[aldie 22]

26 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Gefs just took a large step towards the eps with the Pac. I'm going to be forced to take an unwanted break from this stuff here shortly

Lol

[aldie 22]

This board is like an analog you can always find a situation that's happened before you just have to have been around long enough 

[Scraff]

Happy New Year friends! I’m rolling with Cohen in 2019 for now. 

[EastCoast NPZ]

Cohen.  Lol.

[cbmclean]

1 hour ago, Bob Chill said:

There are different ways to fail. No similarity to 11-12. That disaster was all on the nasty AK vortex. We had good blocking that year but the black hole over AK pumped north america full of an endless supply of pac air. This disaster is different. 

This disaster is also due to an endless supply of Pacific air though, right?  Is it just that the mechanism for supplying the air is different?

[osfan24]

I'm sitting at about a 3-4 out of 10 on the panic meter. January 10-15 will be when I start to freak out if things aren't improving. We hoped it would be earlier, but January 20-25 and on is when we were hoping for a solid 4-6 weeks of winter and that's still very possible. Remember, 2009-2010 was a total dud until the very end of January if you ignore the December 19 storm, and we could have easily hit in early December this year but just missed.

[cbmclean]

6 minutes ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

Cohen.  Lol.

The frustrating thing about hyperbole like that is that I have a feeling if the Pacific says NO and we torch for the rest of winter, this post will either be forgotten or he'll pull some obscure index out as an explanation as to why it failed.  But if it turns cold, he'll say he nailed it even if it isnt clear if it had anything to do with the SSWE.

Edit: I mean Cohen, not EastCoast NPZ.

 

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, Bob Chill said:

Doesnt it trouble you that the last "cycle" of a terrible Pac is still ongoing but started in mid Dec? If we reset back to square 1 do you really think it will be a quick/smooth transition to the promised land? I dont. If the EPS is right then my guess is sometime in Feb would be the earliest it gets good if it does at all. 

Does it trouble me some sure. Do i like seeing the guidance look like puke at day 15 nope. But there has been an extremely anomalous confective wave in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific. That's exactly where we dont want it. And a lot of the cold winter progs were partly based on SSTs not favoring convection there and an assumption we wouldn't be dealing with that.  If you look at the Pacific analogs to convection there it looks like this. 

But it can flip fast.  We were in a crap fest last year then it flipped on a dime march 1. Took 5 days then to get cold enough for threats and we missed the first two but we were tracking legit threats within a few days and that was March. Missed in all this is the nao keeps going negative. Doesn't matter now but you flip the Pacific longwave pattern and pop a epo ridge and in January it wouldn't take long. Look at the weeklies. They might be wrong but they do show how fast things would turn if the PAC firehouse breaks down. The reason it's been so persistent is the driving forces causing the PAC pattern haven't let up yet but that pattern can change quick.  We have the other parts in place to let that happen.  

So yea I hate the look, but I'm not convicted that even if it looks like the EPS day 15 that by day 20 we can't be on our way to a better pattern.  The key is getting the forcing in the Pacific back into a nino configuration.  The combo of the mjo and soi both being in phases more Nina associated is killing us and we are seeing a typical Nina firehouse jet.  Yet the stj is there, maybe even making the pattern worse by adding even more warmth into the equation so we get an even warmer version of a Nina this time of year.  But flip the PAC and that stj becomes a friend fast.  So I'm not too discouraged yet.  Frustrated yes, panicked no.  

 

[psuhoffman]

47 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

??

That is not a bad look at all. Stop chasing unicorns. Middle ground between EPS and gefs would work just fine.

lol that's a great look. He saw that little bubble of red over us and panicked. 

[psuhoffman]

41 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

I dont believe there's a middle ground between the eps and gefs. We either end the pac barf or we dont. The middle of the 2 is still pac barf.

I think the middle will be splitting the difference on the timing. EPS thinks it's 20 days away. Gefs says 13. Maybe ends up 16/17?

[aldie 22]

I fully expect in the next day or two there will be a post saying how the gefs and eps have flip flopped 

[Bob Chill]

Just now, psuhoffman said:

lol that's a great look. He saw that little bubble of red over us and panicked. 

I was looking at the epo and pna regions and comparing to the last 3 runs. Notable deamplification in both regions. Agree that the panel looks good but it was a clear step towards an EPS type of look.

[Bob Chill]

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I think the middle will be splitting the difference on the timing. EPS thinks it's 20 days away. Gefs says 13. Maybe ends up 16/17?

If the pac jet is aimed squarely at the west coast in 15 days then Jan is in big trouble along the entire east coast. We're going through an identical exercise right now. The only difference is mjo progs. We'll know soon enough if the rut we're in is purely mjo driven or if the pac just wants to fook us over no matter what.

[psuhoffman]

57 minutes ago, LP08 said:

First warning shot by the GEFS....

Edit to add, it’s still much better than the EPS but showing some troughiness out west.  Need the -EPO to hold

The difference in the last 6 runs of the gefs are noise imo. It's days 14-16 here. There will be minor differences. Yea there is a system crashing in there day 16 but the epo is still negative and great blocking up top and the trough in the west is cutting under not pumping a big ridge.  In the end I expect the gefs is a few days too fast with the flip.

also remember a day 16 mean will have outliers muting the signal some. So if the idea is right the blocking up top will be even stronger and the hints at troughing under it will be better once the handful of members that are skewing the mean with a warm look come off. That is assuming the outliers aren't correct of course. But it's the general pattern look that's important day 16 not specific locations of minor features. 

[showmethesnow]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

The difference in the last 6 runs of the gefs are noise imo. It's days 14-16 here. There will be minor differences. Yea there is a system crashing in there day 16 but the epo is still negative and great blocking up top and the trough in the west is cutting under not pumping a big ridge.  In the end I expect the gefs is a few days too fast with the flip.

also remember a day 16 mean will have outliers muting the signal some. So if the idea is right the blocking up top will be even stronger and the hints at troughing under it will be better once the handful of members that are skewing the mean with a warm look come off. That is assuming the outliers aren't correct of course. But it's the general pattern look that's important day 16 not specific locations of minor features. 

Exactly what I was thinking when comparing the different runs of the GEFS. Probably nothing more then noise at that range. The biggest take away I got from this run is that we continue to see the flip progress in time. Still think that (if in fact we see the PAC flip) when it comes time for verification we will find that the GEFS was a little quick on the draw. 

At this point the GEFS is saying that between your target date of Jan 15th and @C.A.P.E.'s of Jan 20th is looking pretty spot on.

[Chris78]

GEPS  looks great. I just looked back at the past 2 days of GEFS runs. It's been really consistant. Either the eps or GEFS is going to have to blink over the next few days.

[Bob Chill]

From a sensible wx standpoint this panel sucks but looking at the high latitudes there's a lot to like... 

 

This is my one optimistic post of the day. EPS will be out in an hour so Deb will be back shortly

[aldie 22]

2 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

From a sensible wx standpoint this panel sucks but looking at the high latitudes there's a lot to like... 

 

This is my one optimistic post of the day. EPS will be out in an hour so Deb will be back shortly

Preparation H is on sale at CVS

[pasnownut]

2 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

If the EPS is right then it would open the discussion that the reason behind the disgusting pacific includes much more than the mjo. 

Agreed. MJO is a big player but something else is going on. 

[Bob Chill]

Just now, leesburg 04 said:

Preparation H is on sale at CVS

This winter requires the "new and improved with sand" version

[psuhoffman]

2 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

From a sensible wx standpoint this panel sucks but looking at the high latitudes there's a lot to like... 

 

This is my one optimistic post of the day. EPS will be out in an hour so Deb will be back shortly

Go back about 8 frames on the gefs and cycle the last 8 runs. What your seeing is noise in the exact placement of features but the pull back and buckling of the PAC jet is progressing forward in time.  0 and 6z might have been the 2 best runs so slight degradation at 12z looks worse. But if you go back to day 13/14 it's similar out west. I think the day 16 just cought a system cutting under into the west. It's there on 6z but came in south to Baja so isn't as apparent. But that troughing is totally disconnected from the main Pacific flow and not the PAC jet blasting in the euro has. If we actually get a -epo and -nao we want systems coming across. That's how we get our big ones!  I do detect a slight slow down the last few runs and that I think is because the gefs as usual is rushing the pattern change. But as long as that destination is correct I'm ok with taking the scenic route.  I doubt the EPS is totally wrong. I think the gefs is just 5 days fast. If I'm right we will start to see the end of the EPS showing changes soon. If I'm wrong...I'll be hiding from the torches and pitch forks soon. Lol

Im past debbing now. It will change and there s no reason to deb...or it won't and it will suck but ruining my mood now won't change it so that seems silly. 

[nj2va]

Just now, psuhoffman said:

Go back about 8 frames on the gefs and cycle the last 8 runs. What your seeing is noise in the exact placement of features but the pull back and buckling of the PAC jet is progressing forward in time.  0 and 6z might have been the 2 best runs so slight degradation at 12z looks worse. But if you go back to day 13/14 it's similar out west. I think the day 16 just cought a system cutting under into the west. It's there on 6z but came in south to Baja so isn't as apparent. But that troughing is totally disconnected from the main Pacific flow and not the PAC jet blasting in the euro has. If we actually get a -epo and -nao we want systems coming across. That's how we get our big ones!  I do detect a slight slow down the last few runs and that I think is because the gefs as usual is rushing the pattern change. But as long as that destination is correct I'm ok with taking the scenic route.  I doubt the EPS is totally wrong. I think the gefs is just 5 days fast. If I'm right we will start to see the end of the EPS showing changes soon. If I'm wrong...I'll be hiding from the torches and pitch forks soon. Lol

Im past debbing now. It will change and there s no reason to deb...or it won't and it will suck but ruining my mood now won't change it so that seems silly. 

I wish I could like this post multiple times.  

[Waiting on snow]

10 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

From a sensible wx standpoint this panel sucks but looking at the high latitudes there's a lot to like... 

 

This is my one optimistic post of the day. EPS will be out in an hour so Deb will be back shortly

That's a very weird look on the west coast and shows how the model is struggling with the Pacific. Trying to pop a west coast ridge and still maintain the AK vortex? Lol but I hope it's a step in the right direction because the rest up top looks good.

[LP08]

26 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The difference in the last 6 runs of the gefs are noise imo. It's days 14-16 here. There will be minor differences. Yea there is a system crashing in there day 16 but the epo is still negative and great blocking up top and the trough in the west is cutting under not pumping a big ridge.  In the end I expect the gefs is a few days too fast with the flip.

also remember a day 16 mean will have outliers muting the signal some. So if the idea is right the blocking up top will be even stronger and the hints at troughing under it will be better once the handful of members that are skewing the mean with a warm look come off. That is assuming the outliers aren't correct of course. But it's the general pattern look that's important day 16 not specific locations of minor features. 

I agree with all of this.  Mostly as I explained to Ralph was in jest since everyone is on pins and needles it seems.  It’s been quite some time we have had blocking like that.  My fear is if we lose the PAC look, like the EPS suggests, then blocking and PAC air won’t work for us. I saw Bob mentioned the deamplified look and that’s what I was looking at.  I know to look for more than just the red or blue over us. 

 

 

[Maestrobjwa]

50 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

But there has been an extremely anomalous confective wave in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific. That's exactly where we dont want it. And a lot of the cold winter progs were partly based on SSTs not favoring convection there and an assumption we wouldn't be dealing with that.  If you look at the Pacific analogs to convection there it looks like this. 

Hang on...is THAT the culprit here? At least for the hostile PAC? (and Iet me guess...that's one of those more random things that can't possibly be seen in a more LR outlook?) And why is it anomalous, per se? (Not fitting with what you'd see in a nino?)

[Bob Chill]

5 minutes ago, Waiting on snow said:

That's a very weird look on the west coast and shows how the model is struggling with the Pacific. Trying to pop a west coast ridge and still maintain the AK vortex? Lol but I hope it's a step in the right direction because the rest up top looks good.

Next panel is better. Pna ridge going up and squeeze play on the trop pv. I can extrapolate this panel into a good pattern just a few days down the line with a trough in the east and the tpv somewhere over or south of Hudson

[HighStakes]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Go back about 8 frames on the gefs and cycle the last 8 runs. What your seeing is noise in the exact placement of features but the pull back and buckling of the PAC jet is progressing forward in time.  0 and 6z might have been the 2 best runs so slight degradation at 12z looks worse. But if you go back to day 13/14 it's similar out west. I think the day 16 just cought a system cutting under into the west. It's there on 6z but came in south to Baja so isn't as apparent. But that troughing is totally disconnected from the main Pacific flow and not the PAC jet blasting in the euro has. If we actually get a -epo and -nao we want systems coming across. That's how we get our big ones!  I do detect a slight slow down the last few runs and that I think is because the gefs as usual is rushing the pattern change. But as long as that destination is correct I'm ok with taking the scenic route.  I doubt the EPS is totally wrong. I think the gefs is just 5 days fast. If I'm right we will start to see the end of the EPS showing changes soon. If I'm wrong...I'll be hiding from the torches and pitch forks soon. Lol

Im past debbing now. It will change and there s no reason to deb...or it won't and it will suck but ruining my mood now won't change it so that seems silly. 

Your last paragraph has been my stance for the last several days. Like you said in a post a few says ago there really is no example of a pattern locking in the entire winter wall to wall. It will change, just a matter of how dramatic. Once it became quite clear we weren't going to get an epic wire to wire winter my attention turned to the later flip examples such as 87, 58, 2015,  2007 etc. This is still very much on the table if not likely. 

[CAPE]

 

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Go back about 8 frames on the gefs and cycle the last 8 runs. What your seeing is noise in the exact placement of features but the pull back and buckling of the PAC jet is progressing forward in time.  0 and 6z might have been the 2 best runs so slight degradation at 12z looks worse. But if you go back to day 13/14 it's similar out west. I think the day 16 just cought a system cutting under into the west. It's there on 6z but came in south to Baja so isn't as apparent. But that troughing is totally disconnected from the main Pacific flow and not the PAC jet blasting in the euro has. If we actually get a -epo and -nao we want systems coming across. That's how we get our big ones!  I do detect a slight slow down the last few runs and that I think is because the gefs as usual is rushing the pattern change. But as long as that destination is correct I'm ok with taking the scenic route.  I doubt the EPS is totally wrong. I think the gefs is just 5 days fast. If I'm right we will start to see the end of the EPS showing changes soon. If I'm wrong...I'll be hiding from the torches and pitch forks soon. Lol

Im past debbing now. It will change and there s no reason to deb...or it won't and it will suck but ruining my mood now won't change it so that seems silly. 

I agree with you for the most part. The SOI has finally moved into negative territory, and with the MJO moving towards the better phases I think we will gradually see some response over the next few ensemble runs. Hopefully the result of the current strat warming will produce 'favorable' impacts on the troposphere as well. Just 2 more weeks !! and we could be back into a serviceable pattern.

[Bob Chill]

Just now, Maestrobjwa said:

Hang on...is THAT the culprit here? (and Iet me guess...that's one of those more random things that can't possibly be seen in a more LR outlook?) And why is it anomalous, per se? (Not fitting with what you'd see in a nino?)

The majority of things that interfere with long range forecasts are totally unpredictable. Its why most long rangers spend winter in hindcast mode explaining why their forecast isnt going as planned.