January/February Medium/Long Range Disco

[Bob Chill]

Just now, C.A.P.E. said:

Lolz after I just made a post about the lack of a Nino atmospheric response, the weeklies look very Nino-ish.

I don't trust anything. Something unexpected or unforecasted has found a way to interfere from the beginning of met winter. My money is on that continuing. Not saying I think everything will fall to pieces. Just that we may never get into a stable good storm pattern. I strongly believe it will snow multiple times before it's over though. 90% of our snow events happen in less than ideal patterns.

[Bob Chill]

Just now, PhineasC said:

Feet of epic pattern incoming!

My pattern shovel is all torqued out. I'm planning on just letting the pattern pile up until the inevitable SE ridge sets up and carries it all away.

[CAPE]

2 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Feet of epic pattern incoming!

Nah, the reality will have some warts and be fraught with all sorts of issues. This is typically how we roll here in the best of times. It likes to snow in Feb tho and the LR guidance suggests there is no reason to think it wont.

[BornAgain13]

Fv3-GFS 18z looks good for next weekend... would like to see more consistency. 

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, WxUSAF said:

Because it's not really a Nino.  Not picking a fight with @psuhoffman because I agree that going into fall, it looked like a modoki type Nino was on the way.  But the SST anomalies have been pretty blah the last 2 months and as we know, the general Pac ocean warmth hasn't been efficiently coupled to the atmosphere.  

No fight. My fight was with people saying it was a basin wide nino. That’s irrelevant now. Between the collapse of the warm sst and the failure of the atmosphere to ever couple and the overall warmth all over the pac possibly muting whatever nino forcing there might have been...I can see it’s not what I thought. 

[eurojosh]

25 minutes ago, BornAgain13 said:

Fv3-GFS 18z looks good for next weekend... would like to see more consistency. 

Lol - this is the first time it's shown that solution.  But I'd take it in a heartbeat.  That's the halfway solution between the 12Z Euro and GFS I was hoping for!

 

Edit - infact, the whole second half of the Fv3 would be acceptable.

[87storms]

41 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

I don't trust anything. Something unexpected or unforecasted has found a way to interfere from the beginning of met winter. My money is on that continuing. Not saying I think everything will fall to pieces. Just that we may never get into a stable good storm pattern. I strongly believe it will snow multiple times before it's over though. 90% of our snow events happen in less than ideal patterns.

the pattern over the last year has been choppy.  the only thing that's safe to say is that we've had record breaking storminess the last 6-9 months.  my concern has been whether a consistent cold pattern can get here in time to cash in on that stormy pattern we've seen (which will fade at some point).  we've left a lot on the table, but 2 weekends ago is proof that all we need is that cold air (you made a similar post).  no cold, no snow, period lol.

[psuhoffman]

If this year fails to ever get right it will be remembered as the year the weeklies trolled us hard all winter. Lol

cfs agrees with it fwiw... but @Bob Chill is right, it’s also obvious something is running interference and there is reason to think that could continue. 

[Bob Chill]

7 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

If this year fails to ever get right it will be remembered as the year the weeklies trolled us hard all winter. Lol

cfs agrees with it fwiw... but @Bob Chill is right, it’s also obvious something is running interference and there is reason to think that could continue. 

At least the pattern has already changed and does look to keep improving over the next week or so. Progressive epo driven patterns deliver alternating cold/not cold with storms favoring a nw track but there's always a chance cold and precip combine. Far better than mid Dec - mid Jan. I do beleive it will continue to get better with deeper cold shots and a carving process. Cold/dry and warm/wet is probably thre most common winter pattern in any year. It's our climo in a nutshell. 

Even if ens are overdoing the neg nao we're still in the game for the foreseeable future. 18z gefs turned up the neg nao/ao again. Still too jumpy to get a feel for the longer range though. My gut instincts are telling me that things will continue to slowly get better as time goes on and I'm pretty confident the AO is heading negative and will probably stay there for awhile. I'll wait until the nao is firmly negative in real time before believing it. Lol

[poolz1]

I wonder if the sig piece of the PV being trapped in C Can, as a result of the sswe, is kind of the wildcard the weeklies were not seeing in runs several weeks ago? Both the EPS and especially the 18z gefs want to weaken and split this.  I think it is possible that during this evolution as one piece heads WNW toward AK and the other toward SE Canada we are just seeing a slight reshuffle and the pattern relaxing.  Having this vortex split hopefully opens the door to ridging in C Canada and also makes ridging in the NAO region much more likely.  Maybe this Pac crap head fake is just the models trying to figure out exactly how this evolves and hopefully it's actually what we need.   

[psuhoffman]

11 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

At least the pattern has already changed and does look to keep improving over the next week or so. Progressive epo driven patterns deliver alternating cold/not cold with storms favoring a nw track but there's always a chance cold and precip combine. Far better than mid Dec - mid Jan. I do beleive it will continue to get better with deeper cold shots and a carving process. Cold/dry and warm/wet is probably thre most common winter pattern in any year. It's our climo in a nutshell. 

Even if ens are overdoing the neg nao we're still in the game for the foreseeable future. 18z gefs turned up the neg nao/ao again. Still too jumpy to get a feel for the longer range though. My gut instincts are telling me that things will continue to slowly get better as time goes on and I'm pretty confident the AO is heading negative and will probably stay there for awhile. I'll wait until the nao is firmly negative in real time before believing it. Lol

The last two attempts to flip the NAO the soi and mjo spiked and thwarted it. Experts that vastly exceed my knowledge on tropical forcing claim that issue should relax soon. My gut says if the mjo actually does get out the way it will finally flip and we still have plenty of time. We’re heading into feb not March. When we get good blocking often out snow comes in relatively short but fun runs. Take out the December storm in 2010 and all that snow was in a 12 day period. We still have 6/7 weeks left before climo starts to become problematic. That’s a big if regarding the mjo though. 

[CAPE]

13 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

At least the pattern has already changed and does look to keep improving over the next week or so. Progressive epo driven patterns deliver alternating cold/not cold with storms favoring a nw track but there's always a chance cold and precip combine. Far better than mid Dec - mid Jan. I do beleive it will continue to get better with deeper cold shots and a carving process. Cold/dry and warm/wet is probably thre most common winter pattern in any year. It's our climo in a nutshell. 

Even if ens are overdoing the neg nao we're still in the game for the foreseeable future. 18z gefs turned up the neg nao/ao again. Still too jumpy to get a feel for the longer range though. My gut instincts are telling me that things will continue to slowly get better as time goes on and I'm pretty confident the AO is heading negative and will probably stay there for awhile. I'll wait until the nao is firmly negative in real time before believing it. Lol

Nice NA look on the 18z GEFS for early Feb. Has the TPV stretch/split, with the eastern piece sitting in the 50-50 region under a decent block. Generally agrees with the EPS.

[Buddy1987]

1 hour ago, BornAgain13 said:

Fv3-GFS 18z looks good for next weekend... would like to see more consistency. 

I feel like this is what @Bob Chill has alluded to here recently, along with @psuhoffman whereas some of these storms are going to spring up on you and all of a sudden here we are at close range. Verbatim FV3 was an absolute mauler for the DC guys. Let’s hope this gains some traction. GGEM at 12z was similar from the little I saw.

[Bob Chill]

7 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The last two attempts to flip the NAO the soi and mjo spiked and thwarted it. Experts that vastly exceed my knowledge on tropical forcing claim that issue should relax soon. My gut says if the mjo actually does get out the way it will finally flip and we still have plenty of time. We’re heading into feb not March. When we get good blocking often out snow comes in relatively short but fun runs. Take out the December storm in 2010 and all that snow was in a 12 day period. We still have 6/7 weeks left before climo starts to become problematic. That’s a big if regarding the mjo though. 

Assuming we get something close to the weeklies, this Feb could have much more staying power. Feb 2010 was the tail end of a ridiculous blocking period. Winter ended on the 10th. We missed a finale but it turned warm/boring right after the second storm. If we can actually get a real blocking period going it's likely that it lasts through all of Feb and into March. The weeklies and cfs lock and load for a month+ is actually pretty believable if we can get things going with the AO. Crawl walk and run... Fingers crossed the AO goes neg before the month is over. Pull that off and good things will happen. 

[psuhoffman]

14 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Assuming we get something close to the weeklies, this Feb could have much more staying power. Feb 2010 was the tail end of a ridiculous blocking period. Winter ended on the 10th. We missed a finale but it turned warm/boring right after the second storm. If we can actually get a real blocking period going it's likely that it lasts through all of Feb and into March. The weeklies and cfs lock and load for a month+ is actually pretty believable if we can get things going with the AO. Crawl walk and run... Fingers crossed the AO goes neg before the month is over. Pull that off and good things will happen. 

The NAO reloaded one more time in 2010 but not as extreme and things just didn’t come together. The one storm misses to our northeast at the start of that last blocking episode and a storm threat in March failed at the end. It ended up weak and suppressed, missed a phase. We ended up with 2 weeks of slightly below normal temps and dry. 

Problem with NAO based patterns is the core of the cold gets displaced south but then moderates. It’s snowy because it suppresses the storm track and favors high pressure to our north. But typically if we get true cold it’s at the start of blocking then it moderates to just chilly.  We did get some true cold in late jan in 2010 before and during that southern slider storm to kick off the epic run. 

This year is a bit of a wild card because Canada is an icebox. Displace that and it will take a while to moderate but it would. That weeklies look wouldn’t be frigid all the way through. Some of those negative departures look good but by late feb normal is upper 40s so it’s chilly but not arctic. 

There is a catch 22 here. If the tpv stays up in central Canada it will keep reloading the cold but it will also amplify the northern jet, increase risk of low pressure to our northwest and interfere with stable blocking. But that’s why rare years like 2014 when an epo based pattern worked are the best of both worlds. 

[CAPE]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

If this year fails to ever get right it will be remembered as the year the weeklies trolled us hard all winter. Lol

cfs agrees with it fwiw... but @Bob Chill is right, it’s also obvious something is running interference and there is reason to think that could continue. 

Active MJO plus a total weak sauce Nino to this point would be the likely culprits. The SWE has probably also contributed to volatility in the pattern and the guidance struggling in the LR.

[BTRWx's Thanks Giving]

1 minute ago, C.A.P.E. said:

Active MJO plus a total weak sauce Nino to this point would be the likely culprits. The SWE has probably also contributed to volatility in the pattern and the guidance struggling in the LR.

The MJO is going to rock in Feb!

[cbmclean]

I know that this may be more of a philosophical question, but has any one read any information about what phenomena drive/modulate the MJO?  I mean, obviously, tropical sun beating down on the ocean is going to drive convection, but I am wondering what makes the convection organize into bands which travel around the world (sometimes).

[BTRWx's Thanks Giving]

2 minutes ago, cbmclean said:

I know that this may be more of a philosophical question, but has any one read any information about what phenomena drive/modulate the MJO?  I mean, obviously, tropical sun beating down on the ocean is going to drive convection, but I am wondering what makes the convection organize into bands which travel around the world (sometimes).

Almost as good as "what drives the NAO"?  Million dollar questions

[cbmclean]

4 minutes ago, BTRWx's Thanks Giving said:

Almost as good as "what drives the NAO"?  Million dollar questions

Well, some natural phenomena have straight forward explanations, like, "why is the antarctic colder than the arctic?" and stuff like that.  Others not so much.  Still doesn't hurt to ask.

[psuhoffman]

The precip anomalies on the weeklies don’t match the h5 at all. Frankly they have a Midwest storm track look. Snow means overall are not useful but this 5 day shows the idea of storm track. And while this is the most troubling period it’s not alone. We don’t want to see above normal snow in Minnesota here. 

I’m not sure what’s to blame for the disconnect. The overall mean increased snow some in the Deep South but with the main axis well to our northwest. Like Chicago and northwest. I’m using the snow because it’s easier to see than the qpf but ideally we want a qpf pattern where the heavy qpf is confined to the east coast not extending all the way to Daluth!  

Maybe there is an extreme blocking camp that is suppressed accounting for the snow in the south and it’s skewing the h5 mean. It’s odd. That kind of blocking look shouldn’t be a good snow pattern for the upper Midwest and northern lakes yet that’s where the axis of snow is. 

[Maestrobjwa]

9 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The precip anomalies on the weeklies don’t match the h5 at all. Frankly they have a Midwest storm track look. Snow means overall are not useful but this 5 day shows the idea of storm track. And while this is the most troubling period it’s not alone. We don’t want to see above normal snow in Minnesota here. 

I’m not sure what’s to blame for the disconnect. The overall mean increased snow some in the Deep South but with the main axis well to our northwest. Like Chicago and northwest. I’m using the snow because it’s easier to see than the qpf but ideally we want a qpf pattern where the heavy qpf is confined to the east coast not extending all the way to Daluth!  

Maybe there is an extreme blocking camp that is suppressed accounting for the snow in the south and it’s skewing the h5 mean. It’s odd. That kind of blocking look shouldn’t be a good snow pattern for the upper Midwest and northern lakes yet that’s where the axis of snow is. 

Just in general...why does this winter seem to be baffling even the best meteorological minds? Is it somehow behaving more strangely than other winters, or?

[BTRWx's Thanks Giving]

1 minute ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Just in general...why does this winter seem to be baffling even the best meteorological minds? Is it somehow behaving more strangely than other winters, or?

I don't think that's true at all.  People are just impatient for pattern changes.

[BristowWx]

Just now, BTRWx's Thanks Giving said:

I don't think that's true at all.  People are just impatient for pattern changes.

Whatever pattern gave us 10 inches of snow two weekends ago is a good pattern. Are we changing from that one to a worse one or better one?  That is what I wonder.  

[BTRWx's Thanks Giving]

1 minute ago, BristowWx said:

Whatever pattern gave us 10 inches of snow two weekends ago is a good pattern. Are we changing from that one to a worse one or better one?  That is what I wonder.  

Both.  We are expecting another liquid deluge just before hell freezes over.

[clskinsfan]

The one thing that has not been denied for a year now is juicy storms. Wettest year on record and I dont see any reason to think we all of the sudden go into a dry pattern. We are in prime climo now. One of these juice bombs will line up with cold air at some point. It is inevitable.

[psuhoffman]

There is a lot of divergence in the weeklies. There are some nice members that look like you would expect with that h5 look. But then there are way too many that look like this... 

its almost 50/50 really between members that obviously have a snow distribution common to a blocking pattern and members that seem to favor a stork track that would suggest they must disagree on the pattern. Perhaps the blocking on the half is extreme and on the non blocking camp it’s neutral which would skew the mean towards blocking but leads to that kind of divergence in the members. 

[Deer Whisperer]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

There is a lot of divergence in the weeklies. There are some nice members that look like you would expect with that h5 look. But then there are way too many that look like this... 

its almost 50/50 really between members that obviously have a snow distribution common to a blocking pattern and members that seem to favor a stork track that would suggest they must disagree on the pattern. Perhaps the blocking on the half is extreme and on the non blocking camp it’s neutral which would skew the mean towards blocking but leads to that kind of divergence in the members. 

ah, dc snow hole

[nj2va]

The only thing less useful than the weeklies are snowfall maps from the weeklies.  I wouldn’t waste time focusing on it IMO.

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, nj2va said:

The only thing less useful than the weeklies are snowfall maps from the weeklies.  I wouldn’t waste time focusing on it IMO.

I don’t have access to the individual members. All I can see is the snow output. I wish I could see the h5. But we can make reasonable assumptions based on the snowfall distribution. That tells me there is a lot of variability and members that disagree with that great looking h5 mean. That lowers confidence even more imo. That was all I was taking from it.