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January 2020 Mid/Long Term Discussion


nj2va
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31 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Too much blocking. Lol. Squashes everything. 

I'll take the under on too much blocking every single time. Lol

Gefs obviously continues the theme. We're pretty much locked in for a -EPO period and a return to colder temps. The storm next weekend is unlikely to be all snow. Beyond that everything and anything is possible

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16 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

I'll take the under on too much blocking every single time. Lol

Gefs obviously continues the theme. We're pretty much locked in for a -EPO period and a return to colder temps. The storm next weekend is unlikely to be all snow. Beyond that everything and anything is possible

Yea I wasn’t considering that a real issue. Just on that run... I’ll take too much blocking on a long range op run anytime. 

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25 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Yea I wasn’t considering that a real issue. Just on that run... I’ll take too much blocking on a long range op run anytime. 

Hypothetically... if the -EPO digs in through Feb we could end up with a respectable winter (non disaster) and potentially above climo. One thing about big blocking is it slows everything down to where chances are far between. Blocking would up the odds of a big event but lower the odds of a lot of events. I'm fine with amplified progressive flow during prime climo. If everything gets all blocked up then we better get a big event. 

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I would love to see a winter storm on MLK weekend, but factors working against us include a week of mild weather making ground temperatures suspect to support an ice event.  Also, neither 12z EURO or EPS temps currently support a front end winter thump.  However, there are below freezing temps not too far away, in south central and western PA.  8 days away Is too far away to write it off but I still think it is an uphill battle.

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38 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Hypothetically... if the -EPO digs in through Feb we could end up with a respectable winter (non disaster) and potentially above climo. One thing about big blocking is it slows everything down to where chances are far between. Blocking would up the odds of a big event but lower the odds of a lot of events. I'm fine with amplified progressive flow during prime climo. If everything gets all blocked up then we better get a big event. 

If we get a epo ridge straight through prime climo we are unlikely to do awful. It would take supreme bad luck not to at least score enough snow to get us out of the disaster category. How good would depend. An epo alone really depends on how other factors line up. 

Your point about blocking is true. But it doesn’t always go down that way.  It depends on other factors too. If there isn’t much stj or a string pna/epo ridge it can be a dry pattern. But if there is a -pna or strong stj it can be a string of storms.  Remember from Jan 30 to Feb 11 2010 we for 4 significant snows.   Even for moderate snows our odds go up with blocking. But it depends on the setup. If we get a full ridge bridge arc with pna epo NAO and the block is too south we end up with 1977. Frigid and dry. But I’ll take my chances. Honestly we haven’t wasted many blocks due to dry lately. It seems we score a very high percentage of times with blocks lately just they are few and far between. So your not wrong but all things equal I would take my chances with the blocking.  

One last thought...a best of both worlds imo would be periods of transient blocking that isn’t too extreme and waxes and wanes during a consistent epo ridge. That would be less likely to suppress but enough to keep the track under us. 

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6 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

If we get a epo ridge straight through prime climo we are unlikely to do awful. It would take supreme bad luck not to at least score enough snow to get us out of the disaster category. How good would depend. An epo alone really depends on how other factors line up. 

Your point about blocking is true. But it doesn’t always go down that way.  It depends on other factors too. If there isn’t much stj or a string pna/epo ridge it can be a dry pattern. But if there is a -pna or strong stj it can be a string of storms.  Remember from Jan 30 to Feb 11 2010 we for 4 significant snows.   Even for moderate snows our odds go up with blocking. But it depends on the setup. If we get a full ridge bridge arc with pna epo NAO and the block is too south we end up with 1977. Frigid and dry. But I’ll take my chances. Honestly we haven’t wasted many blocks due to dry lately. It seems we score a very high percentage of times with blocks lately just they are few and far between. So your not wrong but all things equal I would take my chances with the blocking.  

One last thought...a best of both worlds imo would be periods of transient blocking that isn’t too extreme and waxes and wanes during a consistent epo ridge. That would be less likely to suppress but enough to keep the track under us. 

Based on recent history, this is probably the best we can hope for. If the -EPO is legit and sustained, the AO wont be super positive, so if we can get some well timed bootleg  negative NAO periods, there will be a chance or 2 at a bigger storm that doesn't cut.

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2 minutes ago, Inverted_Trough said:

A few days ago, we heard about the Central Pacific ridge correlates to a death knell for winter.  Now we are talking about too much blocking and cold and dry.  Times have changed!

There are always "issues" when it comes to snow chances in the MA, outside of the highlands. Once in a while it all comes together though, and it's magic.

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5 minutes ago, Inverted_Trough said:

A few days ago, we heard about the Central Pacific ridge correlates to a death knell for winter.  Now we are talking about too much blocking and cold and dry.  Times have changed!

A central pac ridge that locks in longer than a couple weeks yes. If it’s long enough to cause a strong anomaly centered north of Hawaii but not into the epo region for the whole month of January over 80% of those years went on to a horrible February also. When I threw that nugget out there the look was still too far out to see past it. It was unknown if it was transient or not. Now it looks transient and so not a big deal. But if that pac look had locked in for weeks by late January it would be very unlikely we go on to much improvement according to past instances.  Thankfully that fate has been averted for the time being. 

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14 minutes ago, Inverted_Trough said:

A few days ago, we heard about the Central Pacific ridge correlates to a death knell for winter.  Now we are talking about too much blocking and cold and dry.  Times have changed!

Mentioned on another forum earlier that I can see this whole pattern evolution to a workable look actually be relatively short-lived. Transitioning from the Pac death blob ridge/SE ridge/-PNA (cutters) pattern to a HUGE epo ridge and no SE Ridge (cold/dry...think suppressed or off the coast). Could honestly see Jan 18-25 being the window between patterns that could produce. Now of course this is assuming we go where I mentioned. Been skeptical of locking in to something favorable for a while and mentioned before these 'windows' could end up being our real chances. Even if so, we could still reach climo averages so Im not poo pooing on where we are headed. Guess I'm exercising cautious optimism as it is so hard to get sustained favorable patterns and we should take our threats one by one and savor.

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Agree that we shouldn't become overly optimistic.  The CFS weeklies have consistently been showing an eventual transition to a colder look -- even while we were in the midst of despair when the Central Pacific ridge wasn't moving on the 15-day ensembles.  They are continuing to maintain a cold look throughout Feb....so there is that.

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1 minute ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Mentioned on another forum earlier that I can see this whole pattern evolution to a workable look actually be relatively short-lived. Transitioning from the Pac death blob ridge/SE ridge/-PNA (cutters) pattern to a HUGE epo ridge and no SE Ridge (cold/dry...think suppressed or off the coast). Could honestly see Jan 18-25 being the window between patterns that could produce. Now of course this is assuming we go where I mentioned. Been skeptical of locking in to something favorable for a while and mentioned before these 'windows' could end up being our real chances. And even if so, we could reach climo averages so Im not poo pooing on where we are headed. Guess I'm exercising cautious optimism as it is so hard to get sustained favorable patterns and we should take our threats one by one and savor.

Kind of hard to believe what the models spit out 10 days out when less than a week ago the current look didn't exist and most on this thread were anticipating almost no winter.

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2 minutes ago, Wonderdog said:

Kind of hard to believe what the models spit out 10 days out when less than a week ago the current look didn't exist and most on this thread were anticipating almost no winter.

Not sure about this. I thought the EPS was showing small signs on the Pac side(trending towards a neutral PNA), and made several posts about it. Showme and Chill were seeing signs as well. I felt we could be back into a  pretty favorable pattern beyond the 20th. That looks to be on track at this juncture. Lets see how it evolves/how long it lasts. We simply cannot know.

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

Not sure about this. I thought the EPS was showing small signs on the Pac side(trending towards a neutral PNA), and made several posts about it. Showme and Chill were seeing signs as well. I felt we could be back into a  pretty favorable pattern beyond the 20th. That looks to be on track at this juncture. Lets see how it evolves/how long it lasts. We simply cannot know.

You and the others you mentioned know much much more than me. With this progressive flow, it just feels like the possible outcomes for late January into February are very hard for the models to handle and as a result we have to wait until we're within five days before gaining some clarity.

 

 

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

Not sure about this. I thought the EPS was showing small signs on the Pac side(trending towards a neutral PNA), and made several posts about it. Showme and Chill were seeing signs as well. I felt we could be back into a  pretty favorable pattern beyond the 20th. That looks to be on track at this juncture. Lets see how it evolves/how long it lasts. We simply cannot know.

It was mostly my fault. I’ve seen that pac look destroy winters a few times and I got spooked. I was wrong (hopefully). 

The numbers do support the danger of that look but by presenting it the way I did it obviously conveyed more doom than warranted. I did post the good and bad outcomes and said that the bad was only likely if the look persisted past mid month but it was obvious I was nervous and that spooked the resident weenies. I’ll take the blame for that one. 

ETA: any suggestions what I should do with my reaper check? 

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11 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

It was mostly my fault. I’ve seen that pac look destroy winters a few times and I got spooked. I was wrong (hopefully). 

The numbers do support the danger of that look but by presenting it the way I did it obviously conveyed more doom than warranted. I did post the good and bad outcomes and said that the bad was only likely if the look persisted past mid month but it was obvious I was nervous and that spooked the resident weenies. I’ll take the blame for that one. 

ETA: any suggestions what I should do with my reaper check? 

You're good. Sometimes you can "know too much". We both teach for a living, so you know what I mean lol.

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1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

It was mostly my fault. I’ve seen that pac look destroy winters a few times and I got spooked. I was wrong (hopefully). 

The numbers do support the danger of that look but by presenting it the way I did it obviously conveyed more doom than warranted. I did post the good and bad outcomes and said that the bad was only likely if the look persisted past mid month but it was obvious I was nervous and that spooked the resident weenies. I’ll take the blame for that one. 

ETA: any suggestions what I should do with my reaper check? 

I freely admit to being one of the spook-ees  I did not fully comprehend the nature of the duration caveat.  I though the pattern was such that when it reached full development, it always stuck around.

Although in my defense, that post did have a pre-post which advertised it as " the least popular post in americanwx history. "

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