December/January 2019/20 Winter Speculation Thread

[tennvolfan]

*** might** have a chance at a minor mixing event through parts of the state overnight Tues into Wed. As always boundary layer looks a tad too warm. Just depends on DP and evaporation cooling.

[John1122]

If we don't actually start reeling something into the d7 or less range soon, just have to assume its another headfake. Meanwhile I'm forecast to get to 28 tonight. 31 I think Wednesday night and not be below freezing otherwise the rest of the week. My normals this time of year are 42-21. Those were old normals though. It's like the earth tilted and we all live 100-150 miles south of where we did a few years ago.  

[tennvolfan]

If we don't actually start reeling something into the d7 or less range soon, just have to assume its another headfake. Meanwhile I'm forecast to get to 28 tonight. 31 I think Wednesday night and not be below freezing otherwise the rest of the week. My normals this time of year are 42-21. Those were old normals though. It's like the earth tilted and we all live 100-150 miles south of where we did a few years ago.  

It feels like January’s have shifted for sure. I got down to 12 in November. It been over 2 months now. Kind of ironic that the coldest temp might be in mid November.

[Carvers Gap]

The GFS manages to have the entire lower 48 BN at 384.  Not going to happen, but fun to look at.

February 5 has been the date for me from the get go for a fairly strong trough.  Knock on wood, that looks on track.  I thought the position of the slp on the 18z GFS was pretty textbook for next weekend.  Get that, and someone even with marginal temps, scores IMO if it falls at night.  I have seen that look verify as snow multiple times as snow, even when modeled as rain.  It may end up raining, but that is not a given as rain.  Temps are in the mid to upper 30s in NE TN w/ 850s crashing.  That run would be accumulating snow for NE TN.  TBD what the actual outcome is.  

 

 

[jaxjagman]

 

[John1122]

GFS has lost its mind late run. Appears to have a major coastal low coming out of the gulf and a very strong cutter in Arkansas at the same time. Never even seen that from a model before, let alone reality. 

[Carvers Gap]

Happy hour GFS rarely disappoints!!!

IMBY, I actually think late December of 2018 and into early January was incredibly cold.  I have photos of our rivers being frozen across in one of those threads.  I think sometimes when a cold spell falls across two months, it skews things.  But no doubt, the last two Novembers have been cold and the heart of winter warm in general.  There have been some really good discussions on how March has cooled in the last decade or so.  Places at our latitude out West have been doing really well and even south of.  

For those in Memphis, I think winters are much different than I remember as a kid.  The AMO flip has impacted weather big time in that location.  Prior to the flip in 1989ish, Memphis had plenty of cold.  Not so much any more.  IMBY, you can just about take a pencil and cut off the "cold winters" right there with a few exceptions.  Now, as the AMO has trended downward, winters in NE TN have at least improved to the point that the are not 90s caliber.  

These two winters have been largely La Nada winters.  La Nada winters in NE TN are generally very meh.  Without ENSO 4 this winter, the Pacific ENSO would have been flat.  I catch myself mistakenly saying this is a weak El Nino.  It is not.  It is a La Nada which is weakly positive.  We need an actual weak event either as Nina or Nino and not just marginal weak stuff IMO.

[Carvers Gap]

And yes it is the 18z GEFS, but the high latitude blocking is nearly perfect late in that run.  The trough east of Hawaii is is an added bonus.  Model mayhem in full force.

[jaxjagman]

[Holston_River_Rambler]

So, looks like the Control has evolved to a full split? 

[jaxjagman]

4 minutes ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

So, looks like the Control has evolved to a full split? 

Sure looks like it 10mb-100mb,but like always it's the long range

[Carvers Gap]

Right at the end of the run, the 18z GEFS manages to take a trough along the EC and put it in Oregon in 24 hours.  It may end up being correct, but its verification scores pretty much speak volumes there.  

The EPS and Euro, while certainly not infallible and not great with SSW events, sure seems like it is locked onto the SPV and PV being disrupted.

Model mayhem is only going to get worse if the PV is about to be disturbed.  Going to see some wild, wild runs.  The 18z GFS was likely the first of many.  LR modeling will likely struggle mightily with the resulting blocking from those changes.

[jaxjagman]

Still looks like a potential strong storm into the first of the month.You have a Equatorial Rossby Wave running in with a kelvin Wave.

[jaxjagman]

If the pattern would teleconnect right,we'd have a potential bowling ball coming though the Valley,but that's a big "if"

[Matthew70]

I want to say thank you to all of you for all the useful info and thoughts about the models and winter chances.  This is the best wx blog hands down.  I can’t stomach the Southeastwx board anymore.  Living off every model run and immature comments.  Keep the great input coming.

[jaxjagman]

16 minutes ago, Matthew70 said:

I want to say thank you to all of you for all the useful info and thoughts about the models and winter chances.  This is the best wx blog hands down.  I can’t stomach the Southeastwx board anymore.  Living off every model run and immature comments.  Keep the great input coming.

Thanks,but you should be here anyways,this is your home..lol

[Daniel Boone]

3 hours ago, John1122 said:

GFS has lost its mind late run. Appears to have a major coastal low coming out of the gulf and a very strong cutter in Arkansas at the same time. Never even seen that from a model before, let alone reality. 

Saw that earlier and thought same thing. A powerful gulf low gets suddenly absorbed or even destroyed by a cutter in Arkansas. Lol.

[jaxjagman]

If we don't get help somewhere this pattern we are in is fixing to suck IMHO.When the jet retracts back into East Asia this is going to build back the ridge into East Asia and keep troughs from going through,so our active pattern won't be so active,Basically it would look just like the GEFS is showing in the long range

[John1122]

Day 10 on the Euro, deep trough in the SW, eastern ridge.  Mostly AN to well AN. No snow outside the NC high elevation border areas.  Just can't seem to reel anything in at this point. 

Winter of 1993 was awful like this. A trace of snow all winter until February 25th-26th when we got 4 inches. Then of course the blizzard hit and made it one of the most memorable winters in history from the Plateau eastward.  

But most winters that go this poorly never recover in any significantly wintery way. 

[weathertree4u]

43 minutes ago, John1122 said:

Day 10 on the Euro, deep trough in the SW, eastern ridge.  Mostly AN to well AN. No snow outside the NC high elevation border areas.  Just can't seem to reel anything in at this point. 

Winter of 1993 was awful like this. A trace of snow all winter until February 25th-26th when we got 4 inches. Then of course the blizzard hit and made it one of the most memorable winters in history from the Plateau eastward.  

But most winters that go this poorly never recover in any significantly wintery way. 

Oh, give it a day, evryone will be singing the modeling praises, then the next scratching their head in confusion, pretty standard winter for TN 

[weathertree4u]

Latest run of the GFS looks good but I am suspect of its ability to accurately forecast anything past a few days - I know it is to be expected with such wild pattern swings, etc. 

[Holston_River_Rambler]

Midweek UKMET:

Euro not too far off:

but a little too warm

It's in NAM range now too:

Some EPS ensemble support for north of 40 and elevations on teh plateau and NE TN/ SW VA:

 

6z GEFS:

 

A Met over in the SE was saying earlier in the week not to sleep on this one, since the only thing keeping from being at least a little snow storm (2-4 type deal, my guess not the Met's) was that the vort was not holding together on models at range. 

Local news weather is not mentioning it at all and that is an important, but often overlooked component for us, (well at last for my superstitions, lol) Gotta have it something like this be a little sneaky, to maintain tradition. 

 

I know the Euro looked pretty rough at 240, but the EPS swings that trough through and even the OP wasn't too far from a big storm look, following an arctic front. As long as the energy doesn't get stuck in the southwest

 

Euro still likes the strat stretch idea:

 

6z GEFS sees a split too.

0z GFS Op:

[Holston_River_Rambler]

I have given weathertree a confuse? 

It was a lot at once, sorry, lol. 

[Holston_River_Rambler]

From the guy who maintains the strat site that produces the 3D vortex:

 

[Holston_River_Rambler]

MRX not buying into the Wed.  morning system yet, but it does get a:

"Still
much uncertainty with this one, so stay tuned."

[weathertree4u]

39 minutes ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

I have given weathertree a confuse? 

It was a lot at once, sorry, lol. 

Indeed because seems to be in contrast to what other people are posting. 

[Carvers Gap]

Unless something changes, which it could, the trough on all ensembles is still supposed to arrive on February 5.  That has been consistently moving up in time.  As noted, this trough is unlikely to stick.  What we are looking for is 4-5 days of a decent pattern and then try to steal a storm from that pattern.  The GEFS MJO forecast (notably not worth much) this AM takes the MJO in phases 2-3 which are cold during JFM.  It does this at high amplitude.  The GEFS has actually corrected eastward with its trough likely due to that MJO shift.  Definitely need to keep an eye on the Euro as its playing games in the West.  As with the last head fake, that can be real but a lot of times that is a bias to dump a trough into the Southwest.  I did compare the operational and EPS and they are not much different.  The operational is just now at February 5 which is d10 and not reliable at that range.  At some point, we need to see the operational correct eastward.  But the Euro operational bounces around quite a bit at d9-10.  I don't see other modeling dumping the initial trough west.   We will see where the Euro MJO is this morning - not out yet.  Overall, the cold is moving forward in time, but now that change will get into the "inside of d10" wheelhouse during the next couple of days.  So, we should get a better idea on what is real and what is not.  Still A LOT of plates right now that modeling is juggling.  I said a couple of days ago that we were going to see some wild swings in modeling(some we like and some we don't) with this strat stuff going on.  If real, that is a MAJOR wrench and modeling and tough to know where it goes.   

[Holston_River_Rambler]

55 minutes ago, weathertree4u said:

Indeed because seems to be in contrast to what other people are posting. 

In what way? 

[Carvers Gap]

1 hour ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

MRX not buying into the Wed.  morning system yet, but it does get a:

"Still
much uncertainty with this one, so stay tuned."

Tough week to be a weather forecaster.  Lots of marginal stuff, especially along the TN/KY border.  

[Carvers Gap]

1 hour ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

Midweek UKMET:

Euro not too far off:

but a little too warm

It's in NAM range now too:

Some EPS ensemble support for north of 40 and elevations on teh plateau and NE TN/ SW VA:

 

6z GEFS:

 

A Met over in the SE was saying earlier in the week not to sleep on this one, since the only thing keeping from being at least a little snow storm (2-4 type deal, my guess not the Met's) was that the vort was not holding together on models at range. 

Local news weather is not mentioning it at all and that is an important, but often overlooked component for us, (well at last for my superstitions, lol) Gotta have it something like this be a little sneaky, to maintain tradition. 

 

I know the Euro looked pretty rough at 240, but the EPS swings that trough through and even the OP wasn't too far from a big storm look, following an arctic front. As long as the energy doesn't get stuck in the southwest

 

Euro still likes the strat stretch idea:

 

6z GEFS sees a split too.

0z GFS Op:

Great post.