January Medium/Long Range Discussion

[87storms]

looks like the southern stream gets involved again by mid-month on both the gfs and canadian.  guess we need to see how dominant the northern stream is during that timeframe.

[Ji]

8 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Ggem was gonna smoke us as the run ended. 

dang man...why did the run have to end?

 

[Kmlwx]

Too bad they don't have a GGEM-EX like the old DGEX.

[dallen7908]

Where did all of our model snow go? Clockwise from upper left (18 UT yesterday, 00 UT today, 06 UT today, 12 UT today)  Through 12 UT next Friday; GFS

[WinterWxLuvr]

16 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Ggem was gonna smoke us as the run ended. 

You don’t think that would just slide off the coast?

[mattie g]

17 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Ggem was gonna smoke us as the run ended. 

Did I see a phase happening at 240?

[WxUSAF]

Just now, mattie g said:

Did I see a phase happening at 240?

Yes.  That was a beautiful evolution to what would have been a major east coast storm.  Can see the two separate shortwaves out west here 24hours before that map posted above:

[WinterWxLuvr]

The gfs has a system next week that I really like the look of

[chris21]

10 minutes ago, dallen7908 said:

Where did all of our model snow go? Clockwise from upper left (18 UT yesterday, 00 UT today, 06 UT today, 12 UT today)  Through 12 UT next Friday; GFS

Are we looking at the same weather model? The 12z GFS is a dream in the extended. All of that snow predicted on the first two frames fell yesterday.

[Maestrobjwa]

4 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

The gfs has a system next week that I really like the look of

As depicted that would that be what ya call "overrunning"?

[dallen7908]

6 minutes ago, chris21 said:

Are we looking at the same weather model? The 12z GFS is a dream in the extended. All of that snow predicted on the first two frames fell yesterday.

Good point - bad post by me.  Why is the 12z GFS a dream in the extended?  Verbatim, most of our area gets ~1" of snow during the next 384 hours.  I assume you like the upper air pattern etc. 

[chris21]

4 minutes ago, dallen7908 said:

Good point - bad post by me.  Why is the 12z GFS a dream in the extended?  Verbatim, most of our area gets ~1" of snow during the next 384 hours.  I assume you like the upper air pattern etc. 

again, I’m not sure you’re looking at the latest 12z GFS run. I see far more than an inch accumulated in the next 384 hours and no fewer than three distinct threats with cold air entrenched essentially throughout the run. 

[Solution Man]

9 minutes ago, chris21 said:

again, I’m not sure you’re looking at the latest 12z GFS run. I see far more than an inch accumulated in the next 384 hours and no fewer than three distinct threats with cold air entrenched essentially throughout the run. 

This Sunday, next Friday timeframe and again around the 18th and 21st

[psuhoffman]

36 minutes ago, Ji said:

dang man...why did the run have to end?

 

It doesn’t matter because it’s day 10 and whatever it showed you can’t take it exactly as is so that’s good enough.  But we know how it was heading. That trough digging about to go neutral over the miss valley as the system in New England departs leaving room to amplify up the coast and  fresh arctic cold in place with the rain snow line in Georgia to start as the WAA gets going. It was going to end well. Use your imagination how well. 

[mattie g]

15 minutes ago, dallen7908 said:

Good point - bad post by me.  Why is the 12z GFS a dream in the extended?  Verbatim, most of our area gets ~1" of snow during the next 384 hours.  I assume you like the upper air pattern etc. 

1. Don't concern yourself with snowfall maps
2. The snowfall map (at least on TT) isn't yet out to 384
3. The pattern is fantastic. Look at that first and foremost and let the chips fall. There's reason to be excited (tempered excitement, of course) by it.

[LP08]

1 minute ago, mattie g said:

1. Don't concern yourself with snowfall maps
2. The snowfall map (at least on TT) isn't yet out to 384
3. The pattern is fantastic. Look at that first and foremost and let the chips fall. There's reason to be excited (tempered excitement, of course) by it.

 

[psuhoffman]

41 minutes ago, dallen7908 said:

Where did all of our model snow go? 

It’s on my lawn

[psuhoffman]

41 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

You don’t think that would just slide off the coast?

 

38 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Yes.  That was a beautiful evolution to what would have been a major east coast storm.  Can see the two separate shortwaves out west here 24hours before that map posted above:

What he said!   If you just look at the NS over New England and how far south the baroclinic boundary is you might think so but the NS and SS are phasing and the trough is digging pretty far west, about to go neutral near the Miss River and the flow is relaxing ahead of it. My guess is that leads to an absolute bomb up the east coast.  Probably a very high impact and large expansive storm due to a deep STJ moisture fetch aided by the warm gulf then the Atlantic and used to maximum impact by a fully mature phased cyclone. That’s the kind of storm with a huge win zone between the high ratio powder on the NW side to the high qpfs closer to the boundary and the fact that even places that might change to ice/rain north of NC had to go through a long period of WAA precip first. The kind of storm we aren’t having to worry about sharp edges and exactly where a band sets up to eek out a few inches. 
 

Alas it’s a day 10 op run so enjoy it and imagine living the dream then move on. @WxUSAF feel free to correct me but that was my impression of where that was headed.  

[LP08]

-NAO, -AO and the PV trapped on our side. A lot to like about what’s to come as we end the month.

[psuhoffman]

5 minutes ago, LP08 said:

-NAO, -AO and the PV trapped on our side. A lot to like about what’s to come as we end the month.

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

6 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

 

 

[psuhoffman]

Honestly though, while I was pretty confident this wasn’t going to be one of the REALLY bad dreg Nina’s I still had conservative expectations in terms of final #s. But had I known most of the forum would be at or close to double digits by Jan 10 heading into prime climo AND shockingly the STJ would be showing signs of behaving in a rather un Nina way…I might have gone even higher. At the least we’ve already avoided this year being in that dreaded list of years we all hate to even mention. But with some luck MAYBE this year has the chance to be one of the rare Nina exceptions. No I’m not talking 1996 level necessarily but the rare Nina that surpasses climo isn’t unfathomable given the current results and coming pattern. 

[WxUSAF]

7 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Honestly though, while I was pretty confident this wasn’t going to be one of the REALLY bad dreg Nina’s I still had conservative expectations in terms of final #s. But had I known most of the forum would be at or close to double digits by Jan 10 heading into prime climo AND shockingly the STJ would be showing signs of behaving in a rather un Nina way…I might have gone even higher. At the least we’ve already avoided this year being in that dreaded list of years we all hate to even mention. But with some luck MAYBE this year has the chance to be one of the rare Nina exceptions. No I’m not talking 1996 level necessarily but the rare Nina that surpasses climo isn’t unfathomable given the current results and coming pattern. 

Agree.  As you've said many times, a lot of our snowfall comes down to luck.  The pattern this week was "decent", but not spectacular, with "decent" cold air, but far from arctic air masses.  And we scored twice with advisory/warning level events.  That's some solid luck.  Just some normal luck for the rest of the month with the pattern being as good as advertised and we could end up with a very special and memorable winter period.  

[cbmclean]

41 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

 

But isn't that the scene just before all his plans explode into a roaring ball of flame?  What are you implying? Panic!

[snowmagnet]

35 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Honestly though, while I was pretty confident this wasn’t going to be one of the REALLY bad dreg Nina’s I still had conservative expectations in terms of final #s. But had I known most of the forum would be at or close to double digits by Jan 10 heading into prime climo AND shockingly the STJ would be showing signs of behaving in a rather un Nina way…I might have gone even higher. At the least we’ve already avoided this year being in that dreaded list of years we all hate to even mention. But with some luck MAYBE this year has the chance to be one of the rare Nina exceptions. No I’m not talking 1996 level necessarily but the rare Nina that surpasses climo isn’t unfathomable given the current results and coming pattern. 

Feel free to mention that rare January of 1996... you never know.  

[psuhoffman]

24 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Agree.  As you've said many times, a lot of our snowfall comes down to luck.  The pattern this week was "decent", but not spectacular, with "decent" cold air, but far from arctic air masses.  And we scored twice with advisory/warning level events.  That's some solid luck.  Just some normal luck for the rest of the month with the pattern being as good as advertised and we could end up with a very special and memorable winter period.  

Maybe this week was the 30,000 ft view big picture “luck” balancing out because I’ve felt the DC area has had pretty awful luck on the whole much of the last 5 years. Don’t get me wrong the prevailing patterns were a mix of decent but flawed and bad much of the time and I’m not saying DC should have done well…but it takes a special kind of bad luck to do as awful as it did Imo. There were enough “decent” periods even in some of those really bad almost snowless winters that I felt like DC should have lucked into at least one decent event. But it’s random. Maybe the randomness turned in our favor finally. 

[WxUSAF]

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Maybe this week was the 30,000 ft view big picture “luck” balancing out because I’ve felt the DC area has had pretty awful luck on the whole much of the last 5 years. Don’t get me wrong the prevailing patterns were a mix of decent but flawed and bad much of the time and I’m not saying DC should have done well…but it takes a special kind of bad luck to do as awful as it did Imo. There were enough “decent” periods even in some of those really bad almost snowless winters that I felt like DC should have lucked into at least one decent event. But it’s random. Maybe the randomness turned in our favor finally. 

Yeah perhaps.  A bit of even-ing out.  Jan 2019 was the last luck DC has had for sure with the mesoscale band adding several more inches at the end of the storm.  I caught that band as well, but it stopped literally a couple miles to my east.  Last year was a hair's breadth from being really great for the whole region, we had the storms, but couldn't get or keep a "good enough" airmass to save our lives.  Hence 5-6" at DCA, 17" for me, and like 50" for you.  

[WinterWxLuvr]

Not much in the way of discrete opportunities showing up right now on the ops but you gotta really love the feel of what’s being shown. My guess is that by the end of the weekend we have someone to track that’s within a week timeframe.

[snowmagnet]

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Maybe this week was the 30,000 ft view big picture “luck” balancing out because I’ve felt the DC area has had pretty awful luck on the whole much of the last 5 years. Don’t get me wrong the prevailing patterns were a mix of decent but flawed and bad much of the time and I’m not saying DC should have done well…but it takes a special kind of bad luck to do as awful as it did Imo. There were enough “decent” periods even in some of those really bad almost snowless winters that I felt like DC should have lucked into at least one decent event. But it’s random. Maybe the randomness turned in our favor finally. 

Living in the DC area most of my my life, I think we have really interesting climatology.  Growing up in Charles County, MD, my mom used to always tell me that we got our biggest storms from the South. She wasn't really a fan of snow, but she did watch a lot of Bob Ryan over the years!  I've since learned a great deal about winter weather dynamics from the amazing people in this forum   Most places in the country aren't between the mountains and the ocean.  I think our location makes for very interesting winter weather tracking (even if it's often frustrating). We definitely have to thread the needle to get those perfect storms, but sometimes we do just get lucky.  Here's to more "snow on snow" this month!

[mattie g]

1 hour ago, LP08 said:

-NAO, -AO and the PV trapped on our side. A lot to like about what’s to come as we end the month.

Throw in +PNA and -EPO for the final ingredients in one of the most delicious alphabet soups a Mid-Atlantic weather weenie can slurp down.