WxUSAF Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 If you believe the MJO forecasts, we get a strong wave that emerges in the torch phases in 7ish days, but the forecasts have it propagating eastward and it should reach phase 7 at least by the 3rd week of January. If that happens it would shake things up. Phase 7 in January is workable for us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 1 minute ago, psuhoffman said: we need a bit more amplification in the PNA ridge to help the trough dig a bit more in the east if we want to pull of anything of consequence. Like you said we could root for a weak sheared out wave to drop another 1" type deal with the current depiction. The way to turn this into something with a bit more upside (and it wouldnt take an unrealistic adjustment at this range) would be a bit more amplified PNA ridge to help that trough dig south a bit more...then we "could" get a slightly more amped wave without it tracking north of us. I am just grasping at straws here I know...but its all we got. I'm just trying to accept there's a chance that I may see snow fall from the sky. I don't disagree with your explanation on how it could be a decent event but you're describing how multiple things have to go right during a winter where absolutely nothing has gone right so... LOL 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 27 minutes ago, Bob Chill said: I'm just trying to accept there's a chance that I may see snow fall from the sky. I don't disagree with your explanation on how it could be a decent event but you're describing how multiple things have to go right during a winter where absolutely nothing has gone right so... LOL yup agree 100%...hence the "grasping at straws" part. And if I was in your boat I probably would be rooting like crazy just for that 1" scenario. Hell...if all else fails I will still be rooting for the 1" over nothing. But up here I have seen about four 1-2" snows so far...but nothing of consequence more than that so I guess I am looking for a bit more "meat on the bone" so to speak here. But I think we are seeing the same thing wrt to the potential. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 28 minutes ago, WxUSAF said: If you believe the MJO forecasts, we get a strong wave that emerges in the torch phases in 7ish days, but the forecasts have it propagating eastward and it should reach phase 7 at least by the 3rd week of January. If that happens it would shake things up. Phase 7 in January is workable for us. I am hopeful but I am also weary of some of the longer term guidance (EPS Weeklies) that basically create a standing wave in phase 5/6 for a LONG time. The current SST might support that idea. About to make a post on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said: yup agree 100%...hence the "grasping at straws" part. And if I was in your boat I probably would be rooting like crazy just for that 1" scenario. Hell...if all else fails I will still be rooting for the 1" over nothing. But up here I have seen about four 1-2" snows so far...but nothing of consequence more than that so I guess I am looking for a bit more "meat on the bone" so to speak here. But I think we are seeing the same thing wrt to the potential. Euro isn't going to do it this run but definitely an improvement with the northern stream trying to force the shortwave south. I can envision how the storm can track south of us. All the indices suck ass and it prob "shouldn't" snow next week but our area generally pulls off a jacked up convoluted event that "shouldn't" happen once a year or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poolz1 Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 The nice looking vort pass has been there for several runs now for the D4-5 timeframe. The euro did pop a weak surface low this run and some light precip resulted. Just curious what is keeping a stronger low at the surface from forming...normally I would be excited for a panel like this but models have been pretty adamant with really zero surface response. Is it the lack of separation between the SLP off the NE coast and the closed upper low sliding under us? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nj2va Posted December 31, 2019 Author Share Posted December 31, 2019 5 minutes ago, poolz1 said: The nice looking vort pass has been there for several runs now for the D4-5 timeframe. The euro did pop a weak surface low this run and some light precip resulted. Just curious what is keeping a stronger low at the surface from forming...normally I would be excited for a panel like this but models have been pretty adamant with really zero surface response. Is it the lack of separation between the SLP off the NE coast and the closed upper low sliding under us? Curious as well...perhaps the orientation of the trough? Still positively tilted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poolz1 Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 Just now, nj2va said: Curious as well...perhaps the orientation of the trough? Still positively tilted. I think you are probably correct....even neutral may have a better response. I have a lot to learn in this hobby but these types of small details are probably my weakest area. Need to work on my ball of knowledge! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 12 minutes ago, poolz1 said: I think you are probably correct....even neutral may have a better response. I have a lot to learn in this hobby but these types of small details are probably my weakest area. Need to work on my ball of knowledge! It's a combo of things. Pos tilt obviously hinders the ULL from energizing. The progression is disjointed with SLP way out in front to the NE of the ULL. Neg tilt earlier could capture the SLP and blow the whole thing up but we wouldn't be remotely close to being on the "good side". It's certainly possible we get a period of instability driven precip as the shortwave tracks by us but it won't amount to much. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 Some thoughts on the MJO and 2 possible escape hatch options to get out of this mess I have always seen the MJO as more of a predictor of warm than cold. It correlates much higher to warmth when it is in warm phases than cold in the cold ones. IT does a better job forecasting huge eastern ridges...sometimes we go through cold phases without much impact though. Don't get me wrong we are better in cold than warm...but frankly I just want to see it keep its hands out of the maritime continent warm phases. We can do just fine when other factors are in our favor with a weak inconsequential mjo wave. On the other hand when other things are bad and we are patiently waiting on the mjo to save us usually it just races through the warm phases without doing us much good. With that said...there have been significant changes to the mjo sst areas and not for the better. THis is why seasonal forecasts are maddening. This was the SST in November and why I was optimistic. The numbers correspond to the area of convection for each phase and the red is the warm phases and the purple circles are the cold. You can clearly see the sst was aligned perfectly to suppress convection in the warm phases and foster convection in the cold phases. The cold pool in phases 3/4 was perfect to kill the waves heading into warm and the warmth in 7 was good to spark waves heading into 8/1. And for November into December we got that effect and we generally had an ok pattern. Some wanted the IOD effect to come off so the standing wave in 2 would cut off allowing the wave to progress into 8/1 near the dateline which is technically better for our snow chances, especially early in the season. But what happened instead was not good. look what has happened around the maritime continent... this is the current look and supports the forecast by guidance of the mjo into a strong warm phase signal. That is also why I am hesitant to toss the guidance that shows a strong standing wave stuck in warm phases for a very long time. There is enough warm water still in the cold phases that its not hopeless but the trend is not good...warming where we don't want it, and cooling where we want warming. So long as we see the MJO strongly in phases 5/6 don't buy anything that shows improvement. But assuming at some point the mjo relaxes or moves out of the eastern torch phases there are 2 ways to adjust this pattern in a realistic way and get to a better place. Assuming the guidance isn't completely out to lunch and we do get a strong pac ridge...there are 2 realistic errors (not needing so much error to be crazy to expect) to the ridge alignment for January which would predict a better outcome going into Feb. Neither gets us to good right away, we would probably still suffer until Feb...but these adjustments to the Jan mean look would predict a better outcome come Feb. This is why the current look is so bad. Probably the worst look there is for snow here. That ridge location is just right to prevent the TPV from retrograding west off the pole, but also perfect to dig the trough in the west and pump the eastern ridge...and with the TPV up there that ridge cant build up into the high latitudes. It sets up a mess in every way. Option 1 or "error option 1" would be if that ridge ends up slightly west of where its forecasted. That look would portend a more likely better outcome in Feb. It would allow the TPV to slide west into AK...while not idea that would allow the eastern ridge to build up into the NAO domain which would eventually favor the wester trough to cut under. It would take a while but it gets us to a better look in Feb. These are some examples of snows from that progression and the end result. Option 2 is if that ridge builds slightly east or northeast of where its progged. THat would look like this... That could allow the Scandinavian ridge to pressure over the top and drop the TPV into Quebec which can lead to a better look...these are some snows from that look Both also require an improvement in the NAM state. But there is some symbiosis going on there because the central pac ridge also correlates strongly with a positive NAM state. But either of those adjustments to the mean ridge position for January would eliminate those god awful analogs I posted last night and bring in some better outcome possibilities for February. 2 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 33 minutes ago, poolz1 said: The nice looking vort pass has been there for several runs now for the D4-5 timeframe. The euro did pop a weak surface low this run and some light precip resulted. Just curious what is keeping a stronger low at the surface from forming...normally I would be excited for a panel like this but models have been pretty adamant with really zero surface response. Is it the lack of separation between the SLP off the NE coast and the closed upper low sliding under us? 26 minutes ago, nj2va said: Curious as well...perhaps the orientation of the trough? Still positively tilted. What Bob said...also the baroclinic zone is wrecked by the wave out in front. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 EPS tossed us a cookie crumb. Trended towards rolling the trough in the west eastward and if you squint, go crosseyed, and wear someone else's glasses you could say that there is a slight hint of a -EPO starting to consider its options of making a return. 3 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 Here's a visual. This is a run over run change and not an anomaly map. We're still pretty toasty in the east but you can see the trend of lowering heights in the eastern half of the conus. That's likely a sign that there's a cluster of EPS members moving things in the right direction. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
showmethesnow Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 @psuhoffman Nice write up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ji Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 6 minutes ago, showmethesnow said: @psuhoffman Nice write up. amazing 2 week break he is having 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rtd208 Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eduardo Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 7 hours ago, psuhoffman said: It’s a long shot but get that Scandinavia ridge a little west (needs to retrograde to where it’s poking into Iceland) and working in conjunction with a monster 50/50 and it can work. There was one snowstorm in the dataset of central pac ridge snows that looked like that. Most had a west based NAO block though. But that kind of Scand ridge can be a precursor to NAO blocking. As you said it’s all we got. It’s really our only way out of this mess. 7 hours ago, nj2va said: That’s what I’ve been paying attention to as well since (thanks to your research thread) and remembering something Wes (I think) talked about a few years ago, Scand ridges generally predict more favorable patterns for us even with a crap Pacific. Forgive me if I am mis-remembering, but didn't the January 2016 storm benefit from a "bootleg block" that originated up in the Scandi/Kara region? Like most, I am squinting hard to see some light at the end of the tunnel. The optimist in me feels good that we at least have the cold on our side of the pole. Were the PV locked up over Siberia right now, I think I'd have the towel in-hand...even up here. Great analysis in here, as always! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 9 minutes ago, Eduardo said: Forgive me if I am mis-remembering, but didn't the January 2016 storm benefit from a "bootleg block" that originated up in the Scandi/Kara region? Like most, I am squinting hard to see some light at the end of the tunnel. The optimist in me feels good that we at least have the cold on our side of the pole. Were the PV locked up over Siberia right now, I think I'd have the towel in-hand...even up here. Great analysis in here, as always! I'm not 100% sure but I believe the Jan 16 block was just a random ridge that got locked into place at the right time. Someone can correct me if my old memory is failing. 2013-15 featured a lot of stout scand ridges that behaved like blocks at times. The big Feb 2014 storm was a byproduct of the scand ridge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mahk_webstah Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 5 hours ago, Snow88 said: Alot of people including meteorologists are on board with a pattern change at the end of this month to a wintry one. Has less than 7 hours to happen! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BristowWx Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 Just now, mahk_webstah said: Has less than 7 hours to happen! I assume he means January. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solution Man Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 Just now, Ji said: happy new year guys. I am soo depressed.....there is no promise and its all despair. Waiting till Jan 20 and thowing away the prime of winter is as sad as ive seen in my winter life Come on brother, don't lose hope a New decade is coming. Happy New Year 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ji Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 Come on brother, don't lose hope a New decade is coming. Happy New Year Jan 20 is just a random date...there is no guarantee of even that 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scraff Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 Happy New Year everyone! Keep the faith @Ji 1 1 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solution Man Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 4 minutes ago, Ji said: 8 minutes ago, Solution Man said: Come on brother, don't lose hope a New decade is coming. Happy New Year Jan 20 is just a random date...there is no guarantee of even that I think we will score before 20 Jan keep the faith 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaydreb Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 5 minutes ago, Scraff said: Happy New Year everyone! Keep the faith @Ji Nice tease. Need 4 more panels. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 1 hour ago, Eduardo said: Forgive me if I am mis-remembering, but didn't the January 2016 storm benefit from a "bootleg block" that originated up in the Scandi/Kara region? Like most, I am squinting hard to see some light at the end of the tunnel. The optimist in me feels good that we at least have the cold on our side of the pole. Were the PV locked up over Siberia right now, I think I'd have the towel in-hand...even up here. Great analysis in here, as always! 57 minutes ago, Bob Chill said: I'm not 100% sure but I believe the Jan 16 block was just a random ridge that got locked into place at the right time. Someone can correct me if my old memory is failing. 2013-15 featured a lot of stout scand ridges that behaved like blocks at times. The big Feb 2014 storm was a byproduct of the scand ridge. There was a Kara block but that storm wasn’t a function of a bootleg pattern. It was classic. It also had a perfect west based -NAO, ridging near Hudson Bay, monster 50/50, central pac trough with SW ridge alignment. It looked like a mirror image of the HECS h5 composite. No wonder guidance saw it coming a mile away. This was the look for the whole core of that winter. In the end we probably ended up with about what we could expect but it all came in one massive dump. We easily could/should have had multiple snows from a 5 week pattern like this mid winter. We wasted a perfect track coastal on cold rain before the big storm because of the torched air mess left begins by the epic fail December. Then a storm before the blizzard and one after got suppressed. Another perfect track storm in early Feb was a few degrees too warm. I managed 8” of really wet snow up here while 95 was a non accumulating mix at 36 degrees. Finally a 6-10” storm missed us just to the south before the blocking relaxed some. Can’t complain since we got an epic HECS but we should have had more hits from a 5 week epic pattern like that. Not saying more HECS storms but more than one decent snow. It honestly was about as good a pattern as late Jan early Feb 2010 but with a crappier N American airmass heading into it. That really screwed us from a similar outcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph Wiggum Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 46 minutes ago, Scraff said: Happy New Year everyone! Keep the faith @Ji 18z GEFS say nah....we're going full blown Eastern torch same time. That GEFS run was a trainwreck. Some ridging from the massive central Pac ridge trying to nose into the EPO region so there's that but even so any effects we would incur seem to be farther down the line. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris78 Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 The 00z cmc would be a nice spirit lifter. Would be nice to score next week during the short window of opportunity we have. Edit : GFS has the storm also but develops it to late for us. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnowGoose69 Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 On 12/31/2019 at 12:10 AM, Ralph Wiggum said: We had classes cancelled just SW of Philly and were forecast 4-8" or 5-10" and got zilch....not a flurry, not a drop of rain. That was a tough pill to swallow...thanks for bringing it up lol. I can’t recall what day it was but I vaguely remember this one. I want to say it was a Friday afternoon or evening in February or March and have no recollection of why it busted. We were supposed to get a decent amount up here too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PivotPoint Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 Trough in the west shows persistencey across most guidance. I saw this west coast trough and western pacific ridge early on in October and later in November. Thought to myself “that’s not a good direction”. Funny how these features can be hard to get rid of. Just like NAO blocking. Big pieces don’t always move so easily. Definitely thinking below avg snow fall this winter with avg to moderately above avg temps. Hoping we can pull off a couple -AO periods with PAC Jet settling down long enough to allow decent spacing for something to pop late January. Happy New Year Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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