January Medium/Long Range Discussion

[87storms]

28 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Or you obsessively dialed 936-1212 morning noon and night and the only thing you looked at in the Washington post was the wx page and comics

That and George Michael’s sports machine were in my 80s/90s rotation.

[IUsedToHateCold]

1 minute ago, IronTy said:

My dad and I used to watch the weather channel for hours at a time. They had the 7day forecast on the 20s after the hour, I always watched that shit for the bright white snow on the map because that meant heavy snow.  

Yeah I always watched the weather channel as a kid too. I remember the local on the 8s. Music was calming and I liked reading what they had to say. My parents thought I was weird 

[TJ3]

27 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Or you obsessively dialed 936-1212 morning noon and night and the only thing you looked at in the Washington post was the wx page and comics

OMG. Remember back in mid 70s 1212 was calling for Heavy Snow Warning, as it was once called , for 4-6 starting mid afternoon on a weekday day. Best buddy and I kept waiting. Kept calling 1212 until finally changed to Travelers Advisory, also a thing, for 1-3. Of course got zilch. Not one flake. But loved calling that number 

[Rvarookie]

The less we bitch the more it snows. Don’t bring the bad juju…

[wxdude64]

33 minutes ago, Herb@MAWS said:

And let’s not forget AM Weather. 

I watched that practically every morning it was on

[GATECH]

I see  the ‘HOT’ tag on this topic and am thinking a Miller A must be inbound for next week…nope instead a bunch of old dudes talking about how they would get their weather porn from calling 976 numbers back in the 80’s.

since I am an old dude, I did that stuff to, plus would watch the weather channel Day’s Inn 5 day forecast at 20 after the hour.  And the AM weather on PBS, lol, I didn’t even know that was a thing until I was in met school in 1991 taking General Meteorology at the university of Northern Colorado.  Our prof would make everyone in the class watch am weather every day we had class, we had to make a weather map on an overhead sheet and then give the 48 hour forecast for Norhteast Colorado.  He would randomly call on a student every day to give the forecast.  Good times that was, getting up at 6am as a freshman for a MWF class to catch that show not so much.  When I got called up, it was easiest forecast ever, sunny hi 52, low 43, repeat for the next day.

[IronTy]

23 minutes ago, IUsedToHateCold said:

Yeah I always watched the weather channel as a kid too. I remember the local on the 8s. Music was calming and I liked reading what they had to say. My parents thought I was weird 

You ever watch the "extended" part of your local forecast and wait to see if you had a big snowflake in any of the days?  Cause that meant heavy snow.  Ah the good ole days living in Michigan. 

[psuhoffman]

Man there’s some crazy sh*t showing up on the long range guidance. Anyone notice the 18z Gfs nearly pulled off the same thing the ggem was doing at 12z but missed the phase by like 12 hours. Still managed a pretty good storm anyways but that was so close to a monster. I’ll say this…it’s rare we get the arctic jet amplified so far south as being indicated. It does open the door to some fun possibilities. 

[IUsedToHateCold]

3 minutes ago, IronTy said:

You ever watch the "extended" part of your local forecast and wait to see if you had a big snowflake in any of the days?  Cause that meant heavy snow.  Ah the good ole days living in Michigan. 

Nope. Don’t remember that. But I do remember the temperature maps. I was in Massachusetts then so there was always snow 

[Kmlwx]

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Man there’s some crazy sh*t showing up on the long range guidance. Anyone notice the 18z Gfs nearly pulled off the same thing the ggem was doing at 12z but missed the phase by like 12 hours. Still managed a pretty good storm anyways but that was so close to a monster. I’ll say this…it’s rare we get the arctic jet amplified so far south as being indicated. It does open the door to some fun possibilities. 

Just having it have the potential is enough for me. Differences of 12 hours are like miniscule at this range - could be really fun coming up. Trying not to invest too much. 

[Bob Chill]

6 minutes ago, Kmlwx said:

Just having it have the potential is enough for me. Differences of 12 hours are like miniscule at this range - could be really fun coming up. Trying not to invest too much. 

Last night confirmed it. We're on our first heater since Feb/Mar 2015. You should invest in getting your shovels tuned up

[Kmlwx]

Just now, Bob Chill said:

Last night confirmed it. We're on our first heater since Feb/Mar 2015. You should invest in getting your shovels tuned up

They are oiled already! (Since before the first storm). 

I'm not quite at your level of indifference for the longer range - but I'm finding it at least a bit easier these days to be patient until stuff is in the shorter ranges. If this potential is still there in 3 or 4 days, though it may start to turn into a sleepless week. Have to find something to distract me for now. 

[clskinsfan]

GFS bringing back the idea of something around MLK day as well. Monster 1051 HP plunging in behind it would deep freeze us. Fun times coming up. 

[Bob Chill]

24 minutes ago, Kmlwx said:

They are oiled already! (Since before the first storm). 

I'm not quite at your level of indifference for the longer range - but I'm finding it at least a bit easier these days to be patient until stuff is in the shorter ranges. If this potential is still there in 3 or 4 days, though it may start to turn into a sleepless week. Have to find something to distract me for now. 

Just let Ma Nature do her thing. There is no doubt a good looking period being advertised. One of the best we've seen in January for a long time. Never any guarantees but at least it looks like a multiple chance window. We usually need those. 

Oh, and take a nice long look at the analog list and let your imagination have some fun. 

[benjammin]

Those tiny maps in the Washington Post and Star. Of course dialing 936-1212 but the biggest thing was when Bob Ryan said it was going to snow a lot because he was usually conservative and right. In January 96 when he forecasted 1-2 feet before a flake had fallen I knew we were going to get nailed.

Sent from my motorola edge plus using Tapatalk

[frd]

45 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Man there’s some crazy sh*t showing up on the long range guidance. Anyone notice the 18z Gfs nearly pulled off the same thing the ggem was doing at 12z but missed the phase by like 12 hours. Still managed a pretty good storm anyways but that was so close to a monster. I’ll say this…it’s rare we get the arctic jet amplified so far south as being indicated. It does open the door to some fun possibilities. 

Yes indeed,  some very interesting potential outcomes in the long range. Besides the favorable Pac we have a very pronounced elongation/stretching of the PV forecasted.  This may coincide with Atlantic wave breaking and Greenland blocking. This could buckle and slow the exit of systems off the East Coast in addition to a potential dive of the arctic jet bringing the possibilty of very low lattitude  high ratio snow events, along with extreme baroclinic deepening of storms off the East Coast. 

Here we are now 

 

Then at 240 hours

 

 

      

Then at hour 372,  which is crazy.  Of note is the shifting Southward of the PV / streamlines and the monentum itself of the Southward elongation of the PV from beyond 300 hours to the end of the run.    

 

[snowfan]

3 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Just let Ma Nature do her thing. There is no doubt a good looking period being advertised. One of the best we've seen in January for a long time. Never any guarantees but at least it looks like a multiple chance window. We usually need those. 

Oh, and take a nice long look at the analog list and let your imagination have some fun. 

That analog list is NSFW.

[Bob Chill]

3 minutes ago, snowfan said:

That analog list is NSFW.

I just realized it's 2 days old? It's the most recent on CPC site... great list tho. Maybe tomorrow's will be weenier

[WinterWxLuvr]

4 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

I just realized it's 2 days old? It's the most recent on CPC site... great list tho. Maybe tomorrow's will be weenier

With the exception of 96 I can’t remember any storms close to those dates. I remember some a couple weeks or more later. Are there storms I’m just not remembering?

[Bob Chill]

15 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

With the exception of 96 I can’t remember any storms close to those dates. I remember some a couple weeks or more later. Are there storms I’m just not remembering?

Jan 80 & 04 both had decent storms in DC. Overall the list shows at lot of Januaries that had storms or were good periods for storms but didn't come together. 

[Scraff]

31 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Just let Ma Nature do her thing. There is no doubt a good looking period being advertised. One of the best we've seen in January for a long time. Never any guarantees but at least it looks like a multiple chance window. We usually need those. 

Oh, and take a nice long look at the analog list and let your imagination have some fun. 

Stop posting porn or I’ll report you to the authorities. 

[Cobalt]

1 hour ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

With the exception of 96 I can’t remember any storms close to those dates. I remember some a couple weeks or more later. Are there storms I’m just not remembering?

Some rudimentary research, but here's what I could figure out.

2009-01-21 Tail end of a brutal cold pattern for most of the central and eastern US. 1-28 featured a snow to ice/rain event but the major storm (12-18"+) was confined to the interior NE. 

2003-01-15 Southern slider with light accum for DC. 4-10" for SE Virginia.

1980-01-24 Couldn't find much other than a WSW event for North Carolina on the 30th.

1978-01-29 Follows a sizeable MA/NE storm on the 20th and predates the New England blizzard during Feb 5-7th (which we got scraps from).

1961-01-25 Follows a decent storm from the 18th-21st and predates a sizeable one from Feb 2nd-5th. DCA had a high of 18 and a low of 8 on the 25th, so a pretty frigid timeframe.

2004-01-20 Predates a pretty decent system on the 26th. Pretty broad range of 4"+ for most of the subforum.

2007-01-28 Couldn't find much until well after

2003-01-20 Same as previous analog 

1996-01-03 Lol I wonder what happened here

2009-12-31 Not much other than a weak system on NYE 

 

Biggest takeaway for me is that just about all of these analogs occurred before a substantial system, even if that storm didn't target our general area. A lot were also coupled with brutal temperatures, so if there's any way to test if we can still get "true" cold, this would be the time. 

 

[osfan24]

Considering it's a Nina, 01-03-1996 has me giddy.

[WinterWxLuvr]

Awesome replies guys. Thanks

[Scraff]

9 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Awesome replies guys. Thanks

It’s Friday and we just had a great winter week. Nothing but fun and love…and beers. 

[Bob Chill]

13 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Awesome replies guys. Thanks

I wasn't being super specific with the analogs as I'm more interested in the entire upcoming 2-3 weeks. Not just the upper air progs on d11. That analog list is loaded with good winter wx in the east in general. That upper air pattern looks beautiful and when setups like this come along, it usually last for a while. If things play out as it looks now, there's going to be multiple threats to track. Seems like it wants to snow here for some reason too. Weird. 

[AU74]

1 hour ago, benjammin said:

Those tiny maps in the Washington Post and Star. Of course dialing 936-1212 but the biggest thing was when Bob Ryan said it was going to snow a lot because he was usually conservative and right. In January 96 when he forecasted 1-2 feet before a flake had fallen I knew we were going to get nailed.

Sent from my motorola edge plus using Tapatalk


 

I always felt that Ryan would cover all bases more than being conservative.

The original great DC weatherman was Louis Allen, imo.

[Weather Will]

WB 0Z 3K NAM increasing threat for freezing rain Sunday am.

[psuhoffman]

52 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Awesome replies guys. Thanks

I’ll add that when going that far out on an ensemble the pattern gets smoothed and washed a bit. You’re getting a general pattern look v a specific finer details one.  It’s different when using the 24-72 hour CIPS analogs for a specific storm. A lot of times a general pattern stays in place for weeks and ebbs and flows or recycles. I know some day those long range analogs are meant to be day specific but I’ve found that when the pattern actually comes to fruition they can pick out pattern similarities and what the potential is for snow from that pattern if it sticks around a while. 
 

Some examples both good and bad recently…in late December 2019 those analogs started spitting out every total awful snowless dreg winter we’ve had. In late Feb 2018 they started quoting some of our epic March years. It took 3 fails but we did eventually cash in!   comp patterns tend to progress somewhat similar. I do think there is some value to seeing what the same general pattern produced in the past even beyond just on that exact date to set a guideline for potential. 

[NorthArlington101]

WB 0Z 3K NAM increasing threat for freezing rain Sunday am.

Could be one of those events where trees, colder surfaces are slick even in places that aren’t below freezing given its fairly frigid tonight and tomorrow.