January 2023 Obs/Discussion

[Typhoon Tip]

It's going to be hard to do much with 23/24 if there's really a west wind thru Ontario and Quebec before it arrives. 

[eduggs]

35 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

nnno, it's not merely semantics.  In regions where it snows, they are going to snow more likely in a pattern that is both numerically and spatially in +PNA, with leading and/or concurrent polar indicators, than otherwise.

It's better just to realize it is not 1::1 and not try to cripple the correlation with moderate this or weak that or any of those adjectives. Correlation is not causation blah blah..but it works both ways, and that is why the correlation is not 1::1.

The blunt difficulty and frustration here is really that we are rolling bad dice right now, and it is driving people to agitation, to question the conventional method. No matter how articulate we pen our turn of phrases.   

We can "maybe" offer speculation that CC is having something to do with it ?.. Sure.  I actually don't have a problem with that, but that's drifting in the discussion, actually. 

We're speaking past each other and probably not reading full posts.

Problem is simple. The seasonable modeling bias across the full spectrum of guidance beyond 7 days is too cold in the east and too warm in the west. People aren't making the adjustment. So again, the problem is the correlation between a modeled "good look" and future outcome, superimposed on top of a questionable correlation between a loosely defined "look" and local non-mountain snow.

The solution is to 1) focus closer in and 2) pay more attention to specific ensemble modeled features as opposed to mathematically averaged parameters.

[Damage In Tolland]

Fold this entire winter. I’m telling you now. - PNA winters are not kind 

[Ginx snewx]

Snizzle 33⁰

[SnoSki14]

2 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Fold this entire winter. I’m telling you now. - PNA winters are not kind 

That might work out in late winter when wavelengths start to change 

I think Feb will be better than people expect 

[eduggs]

53 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

I think you have a point in the “certainty” aspect. But I disagree with the magnitude of your claim. Very frequently, we can see better setups coming in advance. If people take that as a claim that good snow events are definitely going to happen, then it’s on them, not the original poster…unless the original poster is making those claims. 
 

Pattern talk is inherently going to be less certain than discussing a synoptic setup 4-5 days out…I think most understand that. There’s a reason that very often you’ll see the phrase “let’s get that inside of 10 days…” or some iteration of that. 
 

We used to have a separate thread for just pattern talk a few years back that you may or may not recall, but it seems like it always eventually just got smeared into the monthly threads so we stopped doing them. 

I've been on these boards as long as you have. I think you're a very good forecaster. But my observation is that our board collective success at seeing good outcomes coming beyond 10 days is very low. There are all sorts of biases at play - confirmation, recency, availability etc... and a tendency to explain away failures and exaggerate successes. 

What I have observed is that during lousy winter periods, things tend to flip more favorable every, lets say, 2-3 weeks. With people claiming to see a favorable "pattern" coming a roughly similar intervals, these things are bound to line up every now and then. But we are still limited by model skill at those extended ranges, and if we bothered to actually keep score, we would see that the success rate is very low.  If someone wants to do it, go back through the past 2 years of posts and look up how often someone posted a "good look." Brooklynwx is a perfect candidate to focus on. Then count up how many times the good look beared fruit.

[Typhoon Tip]

11 minutes ago, eduggs said:

We're speaking past each other and probably not reading full posts.

Problem is simple. The seasonable modeling bias across the full spectrum of guidance beyond 7 days is too cold in the east and too warm in the west. People aren't making the adjustment. So again, the problem is the correlation between a modeled "good look" and future outcome, superimposed on top of a questionable correlation between a loosely defined "look" and local non-mountain snow.

The solution is to 1) focus closer in and 2) pay more attention to specific ensemble modeled features as opposed to mathematically averaged parameters.

I agree... 

[WinterWolf]

3 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:

That might work out in late winter when wavelengths start to change 

I think Feb will be better than people expect 

I get the whole fold it up and be done with it idea, but it’s kind of hard/silly to do on 1/14.  I mean it may never get any better, and ends up a true rat.  I’m 4.3” on the season…be real hard not to get anymore snow for the next 9 weeks.  Even 11-12 being the true rat it was, had a 7” event in there in January, after the octobomb,  which brought the total that year to about 18”.  That’s more than 4 times what I have now.  

[Typhoon Tip]

2 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

I get the whole fold it up and be done with it idea, but it’s kind of hard/silly to do on 1/14.  I mean it may never get any better, and ends up a true rat.  I’m 4.3” on the season…be real hard not to get anymore snow for the next 9 weeks.  Even 11-12 being the true rat it was, had a 7” event in there in January, after the octobomb,  which brought the total that year to about 18”.  That’s more than 4 times what I have now.  

I wonder if folks were having these discussions on Jan 14, 2015

[WinterWolf]

13 minutes ago, eduggs said:

I've been on these boards as long as you have. I think you're a very good forecaster. But my observation is that our board collective success at seeing good outcomes coming beyond 10 days is very low. There are all sorts of biases at play - confirmation, recency, availability etc... and a tendency to explain away failures and exaggerate successes. 

What I have observed is that during lousy winter periods, things tend to flip more favorable every, lets say, 2-3 weeks. With people claiming to see a favorable "pattern" coming a roughly similar intervals, these things are bound to line up every now and then. But we are still limited by model skill at those extended ranges, and if we bothered to actually keep score, we would see that the success rate is very low.  If someone wants to do it, go back through the past 2 years of posts and look up how often someone posted a "good look." Brooklynwx is a perfect candidate to focus on. Then count up how many times the good look beared fruit.

Your points are well taken. But should we say the pattern at a given point down the line, doesn’t look good when it actually does? Or should we caveat/preface that statement every time with, “It looks good, but most times it doesn’t verify.”? 
 

As most should understand, a good look to a pattern doesn’t guarantee anything. 

[WinterWolf]

5 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I wonder if folks were having these discussions on Jan 14, 2015

They were. That was another shit show right up to the last few days(27th) of January. 

[kdxken]

6 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I wonder if folks were having these discussions on Jan 14, 2015

There was cold air in 2015.

[mahk_webstah]

3 minutes ago, kdxken said:

There was cold air in 2015.

Cold air is absolutely the missing link this year

[WinterWolf]

4 minutes ago, kdxken said:

There was cold air in 2015.

Not much until very end of Jan and then Feb. Xmas Eve was over 70 that year lol. 

[mahk_webstah]

WPC outlook seems fairly optimistic for CNE and NNE for late next week,  and the 8-14 says CA stays dry.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

Stay the course. Gradual stepdown from shite to less shite as the month unfolds to close out the first half….then we start the step up (comeback) in the second half. 

[eduggs]

15 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

Your points are well taken. But should we say the pattern at a given point down the line, doesn’t look good when it actually does? Or should we caveat/preface that statement every time with, “It looks good, but most times it doesn’t verify.”? 
 

As most should understand, a good look to a pattern doesn’t guarantee anything. 

Good question to which I don't have a great answer. Personally I don't consider anything past 10 days, even ensembles. And I try not to put much stock in anything beyond 7 days. Right now I'm looking for a specific mechanism shown in successive ensemble runs across multiple models that deliver a seasonably cold airmass to the SE and mid-Atl. I don't care about future modeled NAO or PNA state because I consider those lagging and not leading indicators. But I should note that I'm looking for different things locally than most of SNE, particularly C and NNE.

[Allsnow]

44 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Fold this entire winter. I’m telling you now. - PNA winters are not kind 

Ens pumping that Aleutian ridge now….ugly 

[Sey-Mour Snow]

25 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I wonder if folks were having these discussions on Jan 14, 2015

 

[WinterWolf]

6 minutes ago, eduggs said:

Good question to which I don't have a great answer. Personally I don't consider anything past 10 days, even ensembles. And I try not to put much stock in anything beyond 7 days. Right now I'm looking for a specific mechanism shown in successive ensemble runs across multiple models that deliver a seasonably cold airmass to the SE and mid-Atl. I don't care about future modeled NAO or PNA state because I consider those lagging and not leading indicators. But I should note that I'm looking for different things locally than most of SNE, particularly C and NNE.

Very Interesting.  I see you’re from Jersey, so as you stated your looking for different things than what we would be looking for here in SNE. 

[ORH_wxman]

1 minute ago, Allsnow said:

Ens pumping that Aleutian ridge now….ugly 

I like the PV in the eastern parts of Hudson Bay though. Classic cold gradient look. But I’m not getting expectations up until I actually see it. 

[weathafella]

23 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

Not much until very end of Jan and then Feb. Xmas Eve was over 70 that year lol. 

Not true JD. We started to get good cold by mid January but it took another 10 days for the pattern to set in.  We got some measly events and one sloppy one a few days before fun started.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

6 minutes ago, Sey-Mour Snow said:

 

Fail on the blizzard for nyc or points WOR lol. I cringed reading it. Ptsd…

[WinterWolf]

2 minutes ago, weathafella said:

Not true JD. We started to get good cold by mid January but it took another 10 days for the pattern to set in.  We got some measly events and one sloppy one a few days before fun started.

Oh I remember that Jerry.  But I don’t remember any real good gold. The junk event that Friday(1/24/15), was barely snow here at night…stuff was dripping wet and so water logged. Most of it was melted by Saturday morning. 

[ORH_wxman]

1 minute ago, weathafella said:

Not true JD. We started to get good cold by mid January but it took another 10 days for the pattern to set in.  We got some measly events and one sloppy one a few days before fun started.

It got pretty damned cold in early January actually. December was def a furnace though that winter.
 

ORH had 4 out of 5 days with highs in the teens between Jan 6-10, 2015 with a low of -6. The highest temp between Jan 6-17 was 34F. Then we got a monster cutter on Jan 18-19 which set off all the bridge jumpers after we had the legit cold already in place. 

[WinterWolf]

I love the post: It isn’t Jan ‘11, but I’ll take it.
 

Who knew what awaited? Nobody knew.  Just like nobody knows now. 

[weathafella]

Just now, WinterWolf said:

Oh I remember that Jerry.  But I don’t remember any real good gold. The junk even that Friday(1/24/15), was barely snow here at night…stuff was dripping wet and so water logged. Most of it was melted by Saturday morning. 

The cold was real.  I remember a lot of cold dry days pissing everyone off.  The 1/24-25 event ended up giving me 5 inches thanks to a nice finish and it was a bullet proof pack.   

[WinterWolf]

Just now, ORH_wxman said:

It got pretty damned cold in early January actually. December was def a furnace though that winter.
 

ORH had 4 out of 5 days with highs in the teens between Jan 6-10, 2015 with a low of -6. The highest temp between Jan 6-17 was 34F. Then we got a monster cutter on Jan 18-19 which set off all the bridge jumpers after we had the legit cold already in place. 

Ok. I guess the bigger point is…folks were bailing like they are now. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

54 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:

That might work out in late winter when wavelengths start to change 

I think Feb will be better than people expect 

I agree RE February. I think I mixed Jan and Feb up like I did in 2021.

[WinterWolf]

1 minute ago, weathafella said:

The cold was real.  I remember a lot of cold dry days pissing everyone off.  The 1/24-25 event ended up giving me 5 inches thanks to a nice finish and it was a bullet proof pack.   

Ya I got about 4” here that evening…but very wet snow.