January Medium/Long Range Discussion

[BristowWx]

2 minutes ago, IronTy said:

The fabled changeover from rain to snow...take it to the bank, it's happening...like always.  

I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times…thousands.     Take the pen

[psuhoffman]

@BristowWx @cbmclean

Depends  what “throw in the towel” means.  I always expected below avg snow. But I didn’t expect a total dreg dud year like 2002/2012/2017/2020…

 

In 2019 I did call TOD on winter in late December. But I didn’t do that lightly or as a joke like some do every year it doesn’t snow by Xmas. There was a very specific set of circumstances (raging positive AO during a long term +AO phase, anomalous mid latitude pac ridge, and a N. amer void of cold, enso neutral) that when that pattern sets in around New Years in those phases the results have always been atrocious. Every time. That’s the recipe for our absolute worst winters. And it’s a pattern that takes months to break usually so it was game over. 
 

What we’re dealing with now is bad. But it’s not necessarily totally game over. There is cold around. The pattern has been variable it’s just we’ve seen different things take turns wrecking our snow chances. Now it seems the pac improves but the Atlantic will play Scrooge. But that’s the kind of thing where eventually we could line stuff up for a decent run. If a period of Atlantic blocking returns while the pac is somewhat less hostile we could pull out some snow.  Blocking tends to return later in winter in years we had a -NAO in December. 
 

But we should set the bar low. This is a Nina which will limit any recovery. Ninos can pull off amazing endings after awful starts like 1958, 1960, 1966, 1987, 2015 because with a stronger stj all we need is to get a period of cold and we can go on a tear. In a Nina that’s muted somewhat. So even if we get a 2-3 week cold period we’re still likely talking modest snowfall results.  Something like 1999 or 2009 is doable where we eventually got a decent snowstorm later in winter. 2000 is an example of where you can get lucky with a 10 day favorable pattern in an otherwise awful year.  Then there is 1976 where it was awful and totally snowless and then we lucked into a 6–10” snowstorm mid March. Those were all awful Nina’s where we still managed at least one legit snowstorm. Actually even in a bad Nina odds greatly favor us licking our way to one snowfall somehow. But are we going to turn this into a good snowfall year that we remember fondly, highly unlikely at this point. 

[IUsedToHateCold]

8 minutes ago, IronTy said:

The fabled changeover from rain to snow...take it to the bank, it's happening...like always.  

I'll take it, although I historically do very poorly in this type of event in my location. It's usually 3-5 hours of watching it snow in Frederick/Gaithersburg waiting for a switch that moves as slowly as a slug crawling uphill across the Beltway. Finally it snows but the ground is too wet and I get a pile of slush, maybe an inch. 

I didn't look at the soundings, but as depicted on the 18z GFS the rain line is precariously close. Let's hope that moves to the east. 

[DCAlexandria]

FWIW the 18Z GFS crushes us

[psuhoffman]

Regarding the trailing wave threat next week. Yea usually trailing waves don’t work. Know what else usually doesn’t work…just about every setup other than a juiced stj system plowing into a high locked in by a 50/50.  That’s the only high prob setup we have. Everything else is us rooting for a low probability thread the needle scenario to work out. 
 

What we need is enough enough energy left behind by the initial NS wave and enough separation for the trailing wave to amplify after the front clears.  It happens. We got snow this way in a Nina in Jan 2001. But it’s low probability, like just about everything else we track. 

[Weather Will]

WB 18Z GEFS

[WEATHER53]

Rain to snow changeover work better than phase jobs.  If there is rain then generally the cold air push is not strong enough to suppress nor run it due East 

[Ji]

FWIW the 18Z GFS crushes us

Yes with false hope

[Negnao]

22 minutes ago, DCAlexandria said:

FWIW the 18Z GFS crushes us

Crushes?

[IronTy]

8 minutes ago, Negnao said:

Crushes?

I guess 2" of snow qualifies as a crush job these days.  Would be the most I've gotten in 4yrs...but nah it's gonna be cold rain with maybe a few flakes mixed in.  

[87storms]

gfs is a lot different with that sunday system.  icon hints at something similar with a low forming along the front, but euro/canadian just push the front right through with very little precip after the main batch.

[clskinsfan]

2 hours ago, BristowWx said:

Maybe it is over.  Who knows.  Not me or really anyone else.  There are a lot of prognosticators on twitter that will have to redact some predictions made couple weeks ago that’s for sure.

I agree with this. One thing the models have been consistent with in the long range is they are completely inconsistent in the long range pattern. I just dont think we have any idea what late January/February are going to look like because of this. I think we all agree a blockbuster winter is off the table. But living where we do it only takes a couple decent storms to make our winter. A dead STJ isnt going to help for sure though. 

[Weather Will]

WB 18Z GEFS is a lot different from 12Z EPS…so I guess we will find out in a couple of weeks which is correct…

 

[osfan24]

45 minutes ago, 87storms said:

gfs is a lot different with that sunday system.  icon hints at something similar with a low forming along the front, but euro/canadian just push the front right through with very little precip after the main batch.

Hmmmm wonder which is right?  The GFS almost always folds to the Euro, especially when it has the CMC on its side. I don't even care about the GFS or GEFS when it comes to snow anymore. It's a joke.

[poolz1]

5 hours ago, 87storms said:

if it wasn't for moving and starting a new job this year, amongst other things, i'd probably care more, but at this point i'm just happy to be able to bike/hoop so deep into the season.  i'm definitely craving a snowstorm, though.  i don't think nina is gonna move too much this season (noaa has it lasting through prime), but the pacific seems active enough that maybe a well timed zonal vort could work out, if nothing else.

I've just gutted out our bathroom to it's bones!  Certainly occupying my time but like you said....I'm jonesing for some snow.  A well timed vort or 2 seems like a good bet, imo. Just give me one solid event....

[osfan24]

1 hour ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

But the ICON pretty much made the same move.

Ok, I’m back in.

ICON and GFS vs. Euro and CMC. What could go wrong?

[StormchaserChuck!]

I'm suspicious of the ridge/trough N America. maybe refer to this

NAO trough also seems foreign to the NAO, it probably goes south of a -AO (Arctic circle)

[cbmclean]

13 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

WB 18Z GEFS is a lot different from 12Z EPS…so I guess we will find out in a couple of weeks which is correct…

 

Hello Pac Puke, my old friend...

[North Balti Zen]

  

14 minutes ago, osfan24 said:

Hmmmm wonder which is right?  The GFS almost always folds to the Euro, especially when it has the CMC on its side. I don't even care about the GFS or GEFS when it comes to snow anymore. It's a joke.

@leesburg 04 got some quality intuition-ing here...

[WinterWxLuvr]

1 hour ago, cbmclean said:

Hope springs eternal.

As does stupidity 

[WinterWxLuvr]

1 hour ago, BristowWx said:

I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times…thousands.     Take the pen

 … in a Cadillac

[WinterWxLuvr]

1 hour ago, DCAlexandria said:

FWIW the 18Z GFS crushes us

[psuhoffman]

Gefs went 2014 look in the long range.

The key is it keeps enough of a ridge over the top to displace the TPV into N Amer enough to suppress any SE ridging.  We don’t need a great look up top if the pac is great, just need it to not go to total dog poo like the eps says.  A great pac ok HL works. A great HL ok pac works too. But we’ve taken turns with one or the other in total dog crap phase. 

[WinterWxLuvr]

1 hour ago, 87storms said:

gfs is a lot different with that sunday system.  icon hints at something similar with a low forming along the front, but euro/canadian just push the front right through with very little precip after the main batch.

Gfs and ICON were both pretty big departures from their 12z runs. It is possible that the next euro and Canadian runs may be much different as well.

Or they could be the same.

[StormchaserChuck!]

Still say watch 1-08.. no negative anomalies in the arctic

[Solution Man]

42 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Gfs and ICON were both pretty big departures from their 12z runs. It is possible that the next euro and Canadian runs may be much different as well.

Or they could be the same.

I’ll be around to see it tonight

[psurulz]

I thought the models were predicting a -NAO for a few weeks into January.  Did it dissipate faster than the models predicted, or were there other factors that affected it?

[cbmclean]

17 minutes ago, StormchaserChuck! said:

Still say watch 1-08.. no negative anomalies in the arctic

Chuck, I have to ask where you get your plots.  Its like you tap directly into the GFS mainframe or something.

[WinterWxLuvr]

21 minutes ago, psurulz said:

I thought the models were predicting a -NAO for a few weeks into January.  Did it dissipate faster than the models predicted, or were there other factors that affected it?

It went the way all day +10 guidance goes … into the trash

[poolz1]

18z Euro and eps with a bit more stream separation for the 1/2-3 system.  18z op actually looked poised to produce something similar to the 18z gfs.