March Medium/Long Range Discussion

[ChesterfieldVa80]

9 minutes ago, nj2va said:

You can tell winter is over when the MR/LR thread has turned into a discussion on social media.

I thought the same thing. Should be something to track for climo favored areas soon.

[CAPE]

I don't have much to add to what I posted yesterday. Still think we have a decent shot of something trackable in the March 10-17 window. Latest EPS h5 look for that period is pretty nice.

[SnowenOutThere]

GFS has a rain to snow storm followed by a weak clipper and cold. 

[Chris78]

5 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

GFS has a rain to snow storm followed by a weak clipper and cold. 

I'll take the over for the cold out in lala land.

Has my highs in the 20s late in the run.

Looks like an active mid month period though.  Maybe the snow starved western part of the sub forum finally gets some snow.

[clskinsfan]

2 hours ago, nj2va said:

You can tell winter is over when the MR/LR thread has turned into a discussion on social media.

I am not quite ready to call it yet. I think that mid March threat has a legit chance. It would melt 2 days later. But thats how we roll in March. After that I will take the torch. 

[poolz1]

Funny how the later in the season the more your bar raises rapidly.  It has to be pretty anomalous for me to be interested this time of year....plenty of other things to start thinking about.  A knee high paste job or give me spring.  The LR at least has the potential to produce a high qpf event with plenty of cold around.

[Scraff]

I’m seeing Styx in DC on St Patrick’s Day—and it’s a reschedule from March 2020 when the world shut down. I’m 1000% sure I’ll get Eff’d one more time and it will snow and screw it up again. 

[RevWarReenactor]

4 hours ago, nj2va said:

You can tell winter is over when the MR/LR thread has turned into a discussion on social media.

You know it’s over when the only people left in this thread are the ones that just enjoy tracking; even if it showers and 60 degree weather. 

[yoda]

@nj2va approves

From the SNE forum (h/t @brooklynwx99)

10 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

I would be quite surprised if there wasn't a legit threat from the 12-20th with this look

 

[brooklynwx99]

3 minutes ago, yoda said:

@nj2va approves

From the SNE forum (h/t @brooklynwx99)

 

yeah the pattern coming up is anomalously cold. it does favor NYC-PHL and N, but with a cold press that strong, there definitely is the possibility for the MA to see some wintry weather as well

[CAPE]

This is a pretty interesting look on the latest EPS. The window around the 10th is probably the earliest shot at something other than rain, but it has looked a bit too warm on the means. Latest trends have a deeper trough around the Aleutians/more ridging along the west coast, a more southward displaced TPV, and quicker progression of the trough into the central/eastern US. Probably still not cold enough verbatim here, but this would be an east coast storm with a track along the coast or just inland.

 

[WinterWxLuvr]

@CAPE said it’s gonna snow so I’m feeling good

[Heisy]

3 hours ago, CAPE said:

This is a pretty interesting look on the latest EPS. The window around the 10th is probably the earliest shot at something other than rain, but it has looked a bit too warm on the means. Latest trends have a deeper trough around the Aleutians/more ridging along the west coast, a more southward displaced TPV, and quicker progression of the trough into the central/eastern US. Probably still not cold enough verbatim here, but this would be an east coast storm with a track along the coast or just inland.

 

I like the period right after this. That’s more of a cold front for us/NNE snow type setup l. Ridge hasn’t beaten down yet. Once that front passes there should be a window with decent cold air available 

[CAPE]

9 minutes ago, Heisy said:

I like the period right after this. That’s more of a cold front for us/NNE snow type setup l. Ridge hasn’t beaten down yet. Once that front passes there should be a window with decent cold air available 

I tend to agree, but there has been a recent trend on the ensembles to shift the mean trough eastward sooner. The eastern US ridge in the h5 panel I posted is pretty flat and eastward compared to a few runs ago. 

[Bob Chill]

15 minutes ago, CAPE said:

I tend to agree, but there has been a recent trend on the ensembles to shift the mean trough eastward sooner. The eastern US ridge in the h5 panel I posted is pretty flat and eastward compared to a few runs ago. 

Could you imagine being air air molecule south of the Aleutians? It's trip to the US includes a retro trip NW, arctic circle pass, and free fall due south thru Canada before pulling Gs around the base in the US. Seriously, wild upper level setup. Something big should happen somewhere

[CAPE]

10 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Could you imagine being air air molecule south of the Aleutians? It's trip to the US includes a retro trip NW, arctic circle pass, and free fall due south thru Canada before pulling Gs around the base in the US. Seriously, wild upper level setup. Something big should happen somewhere

Yeah that is a radical looking flow path lol.

[SnowenOutThere]

18 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Could you imagine being air air molecule south of the Aleutians? It's trip to the US includes a retro trip NW, arctic circle pass, and free fall due south thru Canada before pulling Gs around the base in the US. Seriously, wild upper level setup. Something big should happen somewhere

March 1993? 

[Bob Chill]

16 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

March 1993? 

Nah, that was a triple phase. Those storms require 2 very anomalous things and not just one. Can't happen without massive amplification. We can pencil in a check mark there. The next check mark may not happen b4 either of us are gone... you need 3 shortwaves embedded in the STJ, NS, and arctic jet to pull together at just the right time and blow the F up. We can barely get a messy stj/ns phase to work.... triple? Don't set a bar there or life will become pointless lol

[SnowenOutThere]

Just now, Bob Chill said:

Nah, that was a triple phase. Those storms require 2 very anomalous things and not just one. Can't happen without massive amplification. We can pencil in a check mark there. The next check mark may not happen b4 either of us are gone... you need 3 shortwaves embedded in the STJ, NS, and arctic jet to pull together at just the right time and blow the F up. We can barely get a messy single phase to work.... triple? Don't set a bar there or life will become pointless lol

What do you think would be the main potential winter storm mode for the potentially active period coming up? GFS runs seem to like coastals but you probably have a much better guess than me or the GFS at range. 

[Bob Chill]

5 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

What do you think would be the main potential winter storm mode for the potentially active period coming up? GFS runs seem to like coastals but you probably have a much better guess than me or the GFS at range. 

When you get big amplification, all storm types are possible. Even CAD March. The type that would work here prob can't be high end stuff because the pattern is OK but fighting rain gets harder now in Mar.  So big phasers are prob the least likely to produce. 

This is just my quick gut feel on the look. Highest chance for a "big" event won't include a big low pressure. The thermal boundary is going to be intense. Common in March but models are really honking here for a battle. Southern weenies  are prob thinking tornados already. But for here, all we need is confluence and warm air advection/overrunning from the SW. WSW can be the ultimate trajectory because the angle trains better than more SW or even S. If models start showing anything like that, my focus shifts quick. 

[Bob Chill]

22 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

What do you think would be the main potential winter storm mode for the potentially active period coming up? GFS runs seem to like coastals but you probably have a much better guess than me or the GFS at range. 

Another thing I just thought of is moisture content/delivery. Juicy Jans are rare. Juicy Mars are not. A 1000mb low on the right path can drop a foot without a bunch of synoptics going crazy. I think of this time of year like a sponge. Gets all dripping wet down south before heading north but when it bumps into a roadblock... or dense dome of cold air, the big squeeze and dump ensues. March snow climo def has a good side. 

[WinterWxLuvr]

27 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Nah, that was a triple phase. Those storms require 2 very anomalous things and not just one. Can't happen without massive amplification. We can pencil in a check mark there. The next check mark may not happen b4 either of us are gone... you need 3 shortwaves embedded in the STJ, NS, and arctic jet to pull together at just the right time and blow the F up. We can barely get a messy stj/ns phase to work.... triple? Don't set a bar there or life will become pointless lol

I genuinely feel bad for those that didn’t get to experience that. In all reality it may have been a 1 in a 1000 year storm

[Bob Chill]

5 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

I genuinely feel bad for those that didn’t get to experience that. In all reality it may have been a 1 in a 1000 year storm

I missed it. It was during the end of my first season in CO. I was so blown away by rockies snowstorms that the 93 storm went mostly unnoticed by me. It was only years later when I really understood what happened when I started feeling like I missed something big. I missed Jan of 96 for the same reason. 

[anotherman]

7 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

I missed it. It was during the end of my first season in CO. I was so blown away by rockies snowstorms that the 93 storm went mostly unnoticed by me. It was only years later when I really understood what happened when I started feeling like I missed something big. I missed Jan of 96 for the same reason. 

It was during my senior year of high school.  Living outside of Philly.  There was a thunderstorm ongoing when I went to bed on the 12th and when I woke up there was heavy snow blowing drifts up against the front door.  We missed school for a long time, mostly because of all the sleet that had made the roads like a minefield.

[cbmclean]

46 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Nah, that was a triple phase. Those storms require 2 very anomalous things and not just one. Can't happen without massive amplification. We can pencil in a check mark there. The next check mark may not happen b4 either of us are gone... you need 3 shortwaves embedded in the STJ, NS, and arctic jet to pull together at just the right time and blow the F up. We can barely get a messy stj/ns phase to work.... triple? Don't set a bar there or life will become pointless lol

I clearly remember @psuhoffman guaranteed a 1993 redux this winter so I am taking to the bank!

[SnowenOutThere]

Latest GFS stalls and tucks a coastal low better than any other this year and it rains for everyone but the northwest crew. Even then it is a weak mid 1000s low that but it does stall off the coast. 

[WxUSAF]

Don’t know about snow yet, but does seem like a solid cold shot is on the table with lows in the 10s for many by mid-late next week. 

[87storms]

On 3/2/2022 at 9:12 AM, Bob Chill said:

Sad? You're doing it exactly right. I no longer spend any time on time suck social media. Even here it's not wasting my time. Sports groups are just shouting matches and egos. I mean it's fun if you have time for it. Tik tok may be the greatest time waster ever invented. My 25 year old daughter disconnected permanently for that reason. 

 

I'll bet you spend a lot of time outdoors and working with your hands to drive satisfaction and reward in your life. Not 100% sure but I get that vibe. I'm exactly that. I don't even watch network TV at all anymore. I'm done with that dumb stuff. I have bigger plans and they all include the natural world. Not a 4x6 rectangle screen looking for people to make fun of. 

i'm not a big fan of the larger (aka adding everyone you know) social media platforms, but there's something to be said about google/apple/etc not being the only ones that know your contacts and also being able to basically have your own channel that can reach across the globe, for better or worse.  i use twitter and ig the most...primarily to either vent or share basketball/biking videos to entertain family/friends (ig actually offers a fair amount of tools for creativity...adding some hip hop to practice sesh's can be fun lol).  ironically, the forums are the places that i think get a little too intense (and i'm guilty of that in the past).  i find the sites i mentioned to be "lighter", but i do agree a place like this or any other niche/hobby forum is a better place to interact with like minded folks (mostly in lower case, of course).

also, i heard it can still snow in march.

[BTRWx's Thanks Giving]

Is a strong -epo the best single indicator for winter weather for our region?

[jaydreb]

2 hours ago, anotherman said:

It was during my senior year of high school.  Living outside of Philly.  There was a thunderstorm ongoing when I went to bed on the 12th and when I woke up there was heavy snow blowing drifts up against the front door.  We missed school for a long time, mostly because of all the sleet that had made the roads like a minefield.

You must be the same age as me.  Graduated high school in 1993.  I remember the storm pretty well.  Living in central NJ at the time and we lost power and got a good amount of snow.  Blizzard of ‘96, however, still takes the cake for me.  I was home from college for winter break and we got 30”.