January 2020 Mid/Long Term Discussion

[frd]

10 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

(man, I hope we can benefit from the solar minimum next year if we can't this year...provided something else in the atmosphere doesn't screw that up too) 

A wag that the NAO may be more conducive next year to negative phases, also we will be fully established with the QBO. I know Isotherm mentioned the NAO being more receptive to - phases after the solar min, target date 4/2020 . multi year SST lag to NAO domain  would be two years. I also read from Isotherm we have an issue currently as well in regards to ozone concentration and the NAO domain. The context he mentioned it escapes me at the moment. 

[CAPE]

Just now, BristowWx said:

Lets hope that trough in the west rolls east after that and we can reshuffle the deck.  you never know.

That blocking ridge in the Pac looks legit and stable on the means. At some point the pattern will break down. Hopefully we don't waste most of Jan in the process.

[frd]

15 minutes ago, LP08 said:

Definitely not much to sugar coat in the long range.  After about a 4 day window of below normal temps next week, about as dismal a pattern showing up on both the EPS and GEFS (I know I am not saying much different than most have been).  Let's hope something works out next week.

That depiction is right along the time lines of @40/70 Benchmark, and @psuhoffman. The issues with the Pacific ridge and its location goes back to last winter. 

Nothing new to add. I don't care what others might say that there are differences elsewhere,  that set-up is a HUGE issue and brings the SE and WAR to play. 

Combine that with a very +AO and a deeply -PNA and it is very frustrating. 

Maybe things progress later in the month, but I believe any change to better will be gradual and no one should except a sudden flip.  

[Ralph Wiggum]

7 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

That blocking ridge in the Pac looks legit and stable on the means. At some point the pattern will break down. Hopefully we don't waste most of Jan in the process.

If you loop the ens means that central Pac ridge looks like the storm on Jupiter. It never moves.

[BristowWx]

10 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

That blocking ridge in the Pac looks legit and stable on the means. At some point the pattern will break down. Hopefully we don't waste most of Jan in the process.

well if it's stable and that time stamp is 14 Jan...that's half the month.  still the optimistic side of me thinks it will turn around or we will see a totally different look come next week.  hope is not a plan but despair is not either. 

[LP08]

13 minutes ago, frd said:

That depiction is right along the time lines of @40/70 Benchmark, and @psuhoffman. The issues with the Pacific ridge and its location goes back to last winter. 

Nothing new to add. I don't care what others might say that there are differences elsewhere,  that set-up is a HUGE issue and brings the SE and WAR to play. 

Combine that with a very +AO and a deeply -PNA and it is very frustrating. 

Maybe things progress later in the month, but I believe any change to better will be gradual and no one should except a sudden flip.  

Definitely not transient as it locks in basically right after our brief window next week.  I am still optimistic that we can salvage some kind of winter stretch once we break the massive +ao/nao combo.  Hopefully some signs start showing up in the next week or so.

[usedtobe]

28 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

If you loop the ens means that central Pac ridge looks like the storm on Jupiter. It never moves.

And that's the big problem with the pattern, the ridge position and the location of the max positive anomaly within it.  It's not favorable for moving the trough in the west.  Of course,  the ensemble mean still could be wrong way out there in fantasy land but if it is mostly right and we don't get a hit in the cold window earlier in the month, we probably are screwed through mid January.  

[psuhoffman]

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

That blocking ridge in the Pac looks legit and stable on the means. At some point the pattern will break down. Hopefully we don't waste most of Jan in the process.

At the risk of more wrath I’ll say this...history suggests when an an extremely anomalous ridge develops there in January it persists in the means a long time. Most times through the rest of winter. It makes sense. To get a ridge of that magnitude takes strong forcing and it’s unlikeky the base state causing it breaks down completely that fast. Just like extremely anomalous blocking periods in the AO/NAO portent a seasonal repeat/recycle a ridge there is the same. What’s worse is the extreme positive AO in early Jan also portends persistence. 

Here is what has me spooked. This was last year once the pac pattern settled in early January. 

What prevented a dumpster fire winter was that we got a couple snows early January during a transition period before that locked in (seems we have the same chance this year except I’m not bullish on the setup. Last year we had a better HL pattern. But after that we had some HL help. There was persistent ridging over the top from the eastern epo to west NAO domain. It was never the full on epic blocking the models showed from long range but it was enough to suppress the SE ridge some. But for a ridge west of the pac coast to work history suggests the NAO blocking needs to be equally anomalous to the pac ridge. The stronger the pac ridge the more blocking we need. 

Right now that ridge looks the same as last year. I kind of expected that. But the problem is I actually expected more NAO help than last year. We are closer to solar min, favorable QBO projections, and a favorable North Pac and Atlantic SST argued for a -NAO year.  But reality is starting to show that to be less likely each passing day. If we get last years pac with less NAO help it won’t be pretty. The analogs to that pac pattern with a +NAO are a horror show of our worst winters.  To be blunt what I’m seeing is the absolute worst look I would want to see for our winter prospects.  I know me saying this makes me public enemy number one...and I’ll let this post serve as my final word/warning on this.  I’ve laid out my rationale and evidence.  Nothing more to say.

The obligatory silver lining is guidance could still be wrong. The NAO could still flip. It’s rare but not impossible. And even if our worst fears come to be there will be periods of waxing and waning of that ridge where a brief window opens and we could get lucky and score a fluke.  And lastly several of the bad analogs did turn snowy in March. Seems with shorter wavelengths late that ridge is less hostile to our snow chances. So even if we head into late winter in bad shape we could at least get one fluke snowstorm at the end.  1960 was the most extreme example of that...however signs of blocking were showing up way before late winter that year. 

[CAPE]

18 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

At the risk of more wrath I’ll say this...history suggests when an an extremely anomalous ridge develops there in January it persists in the means a long time. Most times through the rest of winter. It makes sense. To get a ridge of that magnitude takes sting forcing and it’s unlikeky the base state causing it breaks down completely that fast. Just like extremely anomalous blocking periods in the AO/NAO portent a seasonal repeat/recycle a ridge there is the same. What’s worse is the extreme positive AO in early Jan also portends persistence. 

Here is what has me spooked. This was last year once the pac pattern settled in early January. 

What prevented a dumpster fire winter was that we got a couple snows early January during a transition period before that locked in (seems we have the same chance this year except I’m not bullish on the setup. Last year we had a better HL pattern. But after that we had some HL help. There was persistent ridging over the top from the eastern epo to west NAO domain. It was never the full on epic blocking the models showed from long range but it was enough to suppress the SE ridge some. But for a ridge west of the pac coast to work history suggests the NAO blocking needs to be equally anomalous to the pac ridge. The stronger the pac ridge the more blocking we need. 

Right now that ridge looks the same as last year. I kind of expected that. But the problem is I actually expected more NAO help than last year. We are closer to solar min, favorable QBO projections, and a favorable North Pac and Atlantic SST argued for a -NAO year.  But reality is starting to show that to be less likely each passing day. If we get last years pac with less NAO help it won’t be pretty. The analogs to that pac pattern with a +NAO are a horror show of our worst winters.  To be blunt what I’m seeing is the absolute worst look I would want to see for our winter prospects.  I know me saying this makes me public enemy number one...and I’ll let this post serve as my final word/warning on this.  I’ve laid out my rationale and evidence.  Nothing more to say.

The obligatory silver lining is guidance could still be wrong. The NAO could still flip. It’s rare but not impossible. And even if our worst fears come to be there will be periods of waxing and waning of that ridge where a brief window opens and we could get lucky and score a fluke.  And lastly several of the bad analogs did turn snowy in March. Seems with shorter wavelengths late that ridge is less hostile to our snow chances. So even if we head into late winter in bad shape we could at least get one fluke snowstorm at the end.  1960 was the most extreme example of that...however signs of blocking were showing up way before late winter that year. 

For now I will hang my hat on the CFS weeklies. Starts to shift the long wave pattern around the 20th to a gradient look, then develops a favorable EPO ridge and deep trough in the east into Feb. With a +NAO it would probably feature NW tracking lows followed by cold/dry. 

[psuhoffman]

7 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

For now I will hang my hat on the CFS weeklies. Starts to shift the long wave pattern around the 20th to a gradient look, then develops a favorable EPO ridge and deep trough in the east into Feb. With a +NAO it would probably feature NW tracking lows followed by cold/dry. 

I can’t wait. 

[poolz1]

25 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

At the risk of more wrath I’ll say this...history suggests when an an extremely anomalous ridge develops there in January it persists in the means a long time. Most times through the rest of winter. It makes sense. To get a ridge of that magnitude takes sting forcing and it’s unlikeky the base state causing it breaks down completely that fast. Just like extremely anomalous blocking periods in the AO/NAO portent a seasonal repeat/recycle a ridge there is the same. What’s worse is the extreme positive AO in early Jan also portends persistence. 

Here is what has me spooked. This was last year once the pac pattern settled in early January. 

What prevented a dumpster fire winter was that we got a couple snows early January during a transition period before that locked in (seems we have the same chance this year except I’m not bullish on the setup. Last year we had a better HL pattern. But after that we had some HL help. There was persistent ridging over the top from the eastern epo to west NAO domain. It was never the full on epic blocking the models showed from long range but it was enough to suppress the SE ridge some. But for a ridge west of the pac coast to work history suggests the NAO blocking needs to be equally anomalous to the pac ridge. The stronger the pac ridge the more blocking we need. 

Right now that ridge looks the same as last year. I kind of expected that. But the problem is I actually expected more NAO help than last year. We are closer to solar min, favorable QBO projections, and a favorable North Pac and Atlantic SST argued for a -NAO year.  But reality is starting to show that to be less likely each passing day. If we get last years pac with less NAO help it won’t be pretty. The analogs to that pac pattern with a +NAO are a horror show of our worst winters.  To be blunt what I’m seeing is the absolute worst look I would want to see for our winter prospects.  I know me saying this makes me public enemy number one...and I’ll let this post serve as my final word/warning on this.  I’ve laid out my rationale and evidence.  Nothing more to say.

The obligatory silver lining is guidance could still be wrong. The NAO could still flip. It’s rare but not impossible. And even if our worst fears come to be there will be periods of waxing and waning of that ridge where a brief window opens and we could get lucky and score a fluke.  And lastly several of the bad analogs did turn snowy in March. Seems with shorter wavelengths late that ridge is less hostile to our snow chances. So even if we head into late winter in bad shape we could at least get one fluke snowstorm at the end.  1960 was the most extreme example of that...however signs of blocking were showing up way before late winter that year. 

I hear you...and I appreciate your last few posts and the time/effort you put into the research.  I dont disagree with anything you said and the Pac ridge is a dagger without help elsewhere but from my perspective it comes as no surprise if the MJO is going right into the warm phases.  Not that I saw that happening...I actually thought we had a good chance at cold phases for Jan.  I understand the MJO is not the be all and end all but the Pac is responding just as it did last year to the unfavorable tropical forcing. 

So, with that said the only thing I might have an issue with is describing the upcoming pattern as a base state....seems like this year has no base state, imo. The silver lining here is that I think we are primed for a rapid response if we can get into the cold phases...as you noted, with the low solar, fav QBO and already seeing bouts of HLB this season.  With the warm phases hopefully doing their work to disrupt the PV I think we could see that Pac ridge move east around week 3/4.  Going to be a rough couple of weeks...or more. But nothing new to a MA snow lover.

[Ralph Wiggum]

16 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I can’t wait. 

St Patrick's Day and Easter will rock! That is, if the progression happens as some are suggesting. Grass is shooting up here past few days and weeds sprouting. Might be time for the mower and weedwhacker.

[LurkerBoy]

Is the pattern ++++AN or just bad for snow?

[showmethesnow]

@psuhoffman

Why are you apologizing? Thread is about discussion on the weather/models both good and bad. You are only stating what is staring us in the face and has been for a couple of weeks now. You know me, Glass Half full, Mr positive when I am discussing the weather. Well even I have struggled for awhile now to find positives on what we are/have been seeing. Hell, this morning about the only positive thing I could think of to say was, "Maybe the models are wrong?'. So keep doing what you do and though it might not be what people want to hear your logic/knowledge is sound (same goes with Chill). 

I myself am going to give it another couple/few days of runs in the hopes of seeing something positive otherwise I am probably going to call it as far as the first half of winter. Maybe even take another semi-break from the boards and the models for a couple of weeks. 

[BristowWx]

6 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

Decent vort pass in the wake of the Saturday cutter on the Gfs . Maybe it might initiate  some snow showers Late Saturday night  early Sunday am

I noticed that but didn't want to mention.  h5 didn't look as impressive as I thought it would but at first glance it looked like a closed upper low. 

[Maestrobjwa]

@psuhoffman Yeah man you don't have to sugarcoat anything...just calling it as you see it. Yes, it sucks that things are setting up this way...but there's no need to shoot the messenger. I mean...personally, if we gotta punt half or more of winter away I'd much rather know it now and just snow-grieve the loss than have the heightened expectations we had going into last year. Will be nice to just be surprised in a good way.

[Ji]

No sugarcoating here. This winter sucks and there is very little hope. Last winter was so much better and that sucked too

[psuhoffman]

52 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

Decent vort pass in the wake of the Saturday cutter on the Gfs . Maybe it might initiate  some snow showers Late Saturday night  early Sunday am

 

42 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

I noticed that but didn't want to mention.  h5 didn't look as impressive as I thought it would but at first glance it looked like a closed upper low. 

If that upper low pass on the gfs is correct we would likely have at the least some bands of snow showers in the area. But that’s a big if. 

[snowmagnet]

17 minutes ago, Ji said:

No sugarcoating here. This winter sucks and there is very little hope. Last winter was so much better and that sucked too

Last winter completely sucked. Go back and look at your comments last year.   I would suggest that this winter is much better considering it is not even January 1st and there is always hope.  Even if we punt the next 2 weeks, there is still time for things to change.  The long-term modeling has proven to be awful lately, so there is still time for things to turn around.  I am always the optimist.  Sorry for the bit of banter.  

[cbmclean]

Well, I find it interesting, in a masochistic way, that the models, especially the EPS but all of them to some extent, have been able to zero in on our fail patterns super far out.  Impressive work on their part.

[CAPE]

3 minutes ago, cbmclean said:

Well, I find it interesting, in a masochistic way, that the models, especially the EPS but all of them to some extent, have been able to zero in on our fail patterns super far out.  Impressive work on their part.

Not impressive at all when 80% of the time we are in a fail pattern.

[Bob Chill]

8 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

Not impressive at all when 80% of the time we are in a fail pattern.

Ensembles have done an excellent job this year. There has only been one notable time where things made a big shift in the medium range and that was the brief -AO/NAO period we just had. That sorta popped up unexpectedly. Other than that d10-15 has done quite well. Especially since mid Dec. People who don't think models have any accuracy beyond 5-7 days are flat wrong this year. EPS has been killing it. 

[CAPE]

11 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Ensembles have done an excellent job this year. There has only been one notable time where things made a big shift in the medium range and that was the brief -AO/NAO period we just had. That sorta popped up unexpectedly. Other than that d10-15 has done quite well. Especially since mid Dec. People who don't think models have any accuracy beyond 5-7 days are flat wrong this year. EPS has been killing it. 

I was just being facetious. We are in fail mode by default lol.

I am always impressed by the ens guidance in general inside 10 days. Especially useful when there is a less stable/predictable pattern- i.e higher uncertainty- where the op runs alone can be nearly useless due to the run to run variability.

[osfan24]

1 hour ago, showmethesnow said:

@psuhoffman

Why are you apologizing? Thread is about discussion on the weather/models both good and bad. You are only stating what is staring us in the face and has been for a couple of weeks now. You know me, Glass Half full, Mr positive when I am discussing the weather. Well even I have struggled for awhile now to find positives on what we are/have been seeing. Hell, this morning about the only positive thing I could think of to say was, "Maybe the models are wrong?'. So keep doing what you do and though it might not be what people want to hear your logic/knowledge is sound (same goes with Chill). 

I myself am going to give it another couple/few days of runs in the hopes of seeing something positive otherwise I am probably going to call it as far as the first half of winter. Maybe even take another semi-break from the boards and the models for a couple of weeks. 

Agreed. I'd rather all of the most knowledgeable posters here be honest and realistic and not just feed fantasy BS just to make people feel good. It just makes it worse when it doesn't come to fruition. 

It is what it is right now. Things currently look bleak. Very bleak. Maybe they turn around, maybe they don't. We are paying the price for the heater we were on from 2009-2016 I suppose. I guess some would argue 2016 sucked, which it did outside of a few days, but I digress.

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

14 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Ensembles have done an excellent job this year. There has only been one notable time where things made a big shift in the medium range and that was the brief -AO/NAO period we just had. That sorta popped up unexpectedly. Other than that d10-15 has done quite well. Especially since mid Dec. People who don't think models have any accuracy beyond 5-7 days are flat wrong this year. EPS has been killing it. 

Very true...unfortunately!! The ensembles have been very impressive and were pretty well spot on with the current pattern and look, as bad as it is for anyone wanting snow.  People need to better understand the difference between single deterministic runs out beyond a week (or even less) and ensembles through the same time period and beyond.  In general, ensembles will be much more reliable and accurate on the overall pattern/flow drivers without wild swings each model run.  Not that ensembles don't have their "issues" and cannot be wrong, but you get the idea.

(ETA:  And yeah, the EPS has been killing it...and killing us, LOL!!)

[WinterWxLuvr]

16 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Ensembles have done an excellent job this year. There has only been one notable time where things made a big shift in the medium range and that was the brief -AO/NAO period we just had. That sorta popped up unexpectedly. Other than that d10-15 has done quite well. Especially since mid Dec. People who don't think models have any accuracy beyond 5-7 days are flat wrong this year. EPS has been killing it. 

There was a period, and I forget when, when they showed a pattern that everyone was drooling over that didn’t materialize at all.

The warm period you highlighted verified very well but I’m gonna need to see verification over a long period before I’m gonna say any forecast at 15 days is reliable. 

[psuhoffman]

3 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

There was a period, and I forget when, when they showed a pattern that everyone was drooling over that didn’t materialize at all.

The warm period you highlighted verified very well but I’m gonna need to see verification over a long period before I’m gonna say any forecast at 15 days is reliable. 

There were a couple random runs. It’s better to take ensembles over several days to avoid the one day blips. But over the course of days they have pretty much been warning us this was coming for a long time. 

[psuhoffman]

Ummm.  Ironically the people wanting the IOD to release its grip on the mjo got their wish. And the minute it did the mjo rushed right to the warm phases just like last year.  Be careful what you wish for!   And even assuming the wave progresses thats still 2 weeks away from getting to cold phases at day 15 and the last attempt at that feat died.  

I guess you just have to laugh. This is like a horror show in every way right now. 

[MJO812]

Cutter after cutter on the euro

[Ji]

wtf happened to next week. Euro has no snow and warm?