January Mid/Long Range Disco 3: The great recovery or shut the blinds?

[Maestrobjwa]

7 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

We don’t need to have the why debate in here. I was just trying to end the “it’s not really that bad” claims. It is that bad. The why debate can happen in another place. 

So then...why don't ya just give up the hobby since it's obviously never gonna get better? I mean correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like it's making YOU miserable now, lol

[anotherman]

2 minutes ago, forkyfork said:

it's climate change, duh

Uh oh, don't upset the "it's still up for debate" crew.

[mdhokie]

4 minutes ago, anotherman said:

I'm thinking the maple sugaring season in the northeast will be non-existent this year.  You can't have a sap run if you have no winter.

Maple Syrup futures through the roof!?

[brooklynwx99]

part of it is climate change, another part of it is just shit luck in a Nina-dominated stretch. that’s really it

there’s gonna be more >30” and <10” winters at BWI with less winters actually near average. just gotta be able to take the good with the bad

[psuhoffman]

None of my point was specific to this pattern, although I am seeing some signs we may still end up with similar problems discussed above coming up.  But we will see.   I was just seeing a lot of "its not that bad" or "its this or that one thing" kinda posts...and neither really captures the reality imo.  Maybe I am wrong and in the next 5 years we go on a 1960's level epic run...but that is what we're talking about here...its been so bad we dont just need like a few 20" seasons or one 40" season to pull out of this...we actually need some EPIC historically unprecedented makes the 60s look like 2020 5 year run just to avoid this being the WORST PERIOD EVER!  

 

Now back to analyzing what's in front of us for better or for worse.  Just had to get that off my chest.  

[psuhoffman]

5 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Another way to look at it:

Even in bad patterns before, we may have had a SE ridge with cutter tracks, but we still had just enough antecedent cold air to the north so we'd get CAD overrunning 2-4/3-6" events before changeover or dry slot. 

Now? We don't have the cold air to the north of us. There goes our season padders that used to make "bad" patterns "not so bad" in the snowfall department. 

You just said what I was trying to say way better in way less words. 

[anotherman]

2 minutes ago, mdhokie said:

Maple Syrup futures through the roof!?

We make it annually at my school, hence my thinking out loud.

[Maestrobjwa]

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

None of my point was specific to this pattern, although I am seeing some signs we may still end up with similar problems discussed above coming up.  But we will see.   I was just seeing a lot of "its not that bad" or "its this or that one thing" kinda posts...and neither really captures the reality imo.  Maybe I am wrong and in the next 5 years we go on a 1960's level epic run...but that is what we're talking about here...its been so bad we dont just need like a few 20" seasons or one 40" season to pull out of this...we actually need some EPIC historically unprecedented makes the 60s look like 2000 5 year run just to avoid this being the WORST PERIOD EVER!  

 

Now back to analyzing what's in front of us for better or for worse.  Just had to get that off my chest.  

Well start a new period after the next 5 years and see where we at 

[SnowenOutThere]

1 minute ago, anotherman said:

Uh oh, don't upset the "it's still up for debate" crew.

In an atmospheric science forum we can't just directly mention climate change because it might upset some people, just like how that post about sea ice decreasing got deleted because it directly said the issue is climate change.

[psuhoffman]

7 minutes ago, forkyfork said:

it's climate change, duh

 

5 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

1035 High, low attacking from the south.  And…fuck. 

But we’re not supposed to talk about that in here. We’re supposed to just endlessly chase fake day 15 patterns and pretend this is normal. 

[Maestrobjwa]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

 

But we’re not supposed to talk about that in here. We’re supposed to just endlessly chase fake day 15 patterns and pretend this is normal. 

Now it sounds like the hobby is making YOU miserable, lol

[Terpeast]

Maybe it's time I admit I was wrong about how the warm W atlantic SSTs would affect us. I thought it would create a juicy baroclinic zone that makes any wave go BOOM. Instead it just pops a ridge up top and forces storms to cut. No cold air either, no CAD.

Makes me wonder how in the world Ocean City got buried by those 4 bomb cyclones (if I counted correctly) in the last 5 years. 

[fujiwara79]

there are still "it's just a cycle" people out there?  I thought they disappeared in 2005.  I thought the new argument was that warmth is good for civilization and CO2 is plant food.  Oh well.

 

 

[psuhoffman]

4 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Well start a new period after the next 5 years and see where we at 

I’ll probably be living in Colorado or northern New England for most of that next period. 

[Maestrobjwa]

Just now, psuhoffman said:

I’ll probably be living in Colorado or northern New England for most of that next period. 

Oh you seriously moving?

[Maestrobjwa]

2 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Maybe it's time I admit I was wrong about how the warm W atlantic SSTs would affect us. I thought it would create a juicy baroclinic zone that makes any wave go BOOM. Instead it just pops a ridge up top and forces storms to cut. No cold air either, no CAD.

Makes me wonder how in the world Ocean City got buried by those 4 bomb cyclones (if I counted correctly) in the last 5 years. 

Yeah I don't understand that either. How ya got persistent SE ridge issues but yet that can still happen at our latitude? Or that NC can get a foot in 2018?

[Siberian-Snowcover-Myth]

I could go for a good ole fashioned Alberta Clipper or Manitoba Mauler right now! Do they even exist anymore???

[Paleocene]

I'm all in on AGW and I don't doubt it's contributing to our warmer winter (and every other day of the year) stretch. Disclaimer, this post will probably be deleted/moved because I'm talking about CC, but I'd rather talk about it here than in that weird subforum thread. 

The point I want to make is we only have 130ish years of snowfall records. It would be really cool if we had a thousand years of records so we didn't have to rely on decade-to-decade comparisons within such a small dataset. For instance, what was annual snowfall in this region in the 1600s and 1700s? Anyone aware of any records kept during that period? 

[SnowenOutThere]

11 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

But we’re not supposed to talk about that in here. We’re supposed to just endlessly chase fake day 15 patterns and pretend this is normal. 

If the most climate change effects our lives is through this hobby I will consider myself the luckiest person alive, we gotta remember that this is all small scale issues compared to the real damage it will do and has done already. I've gotten the opportunity to grow up in the 2010s but that also means I don't remember any of our awesome winters but I remember seeing countless headlines about how climate change is already here and going to get worse, so this new normal is what I and my generation onward will grow up with, snow is the least of our concerns weather wise.  

[Kevin Reilly]

5 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Maybe it's time I admit I was wrong about how the warm W atlantic SSTs would affect us. I thought it would create a juicy baroclinic zone that makes any wave go BOOM. Instead it just pops a ridge up top and forces storms to cut. No cold air either, no CAD.

Makes me wonder how in the world Ocean City got buried by those 4 bomb cyclones (if I counted correctly) in the last 5 years. 

Don't forget about the warm Pacific and Gulf of Mexico Waters Too all of this warmth is still trapped there from last summer and it is overwhelming the entire winter pattern.  There is a lag land gets colder than water and water takes longer to cool off but as you said sometimes we need this warmth to set up a dynamic gradient but no way are we getting that without an arctic push. 

[Blizzard Hunter]

Just for fun, I'm going back twenty years to remember winters in terms of snow in Delaware Valley area.

'02/2003 - Great (Had historic president's day storm)

'03/'04 - Can't remember any 4 inch plus event. 

04/05 - Decent, had big snow storm right before Eagles championship game. 

05/06 - Had February blizzard that was fun, but snow melted in three days. 

06/07 - All I can remember is valentine's day Slizzard. 

07/08 - Can't remember any 4 plus inch events

08/09 - Had one storm that was forecasted to plaster us but we got a couple of inches. 

09/10 - Unbelievable!!! Snowmaggedon

10/11 - Pretty good, Jan was snow covered all month. Had awesome Jan Snow to rain to snow blizzard. 

11/12 - We got nothing

12/13 - Nothing

13/14 Decent, winter of the Eagles/Lions snowbowl. 

14/15 Nothing memorable 

15/16 Dark knight Snowstorm! 

16/17 March snow event but overall pretty bad. 

17/18 March was very snowy, one blizzard. 

18/19 Nothing

19/20 Nothing

20/21 Almost had white Xmas. Jan had a nice modest snow event but that was it. 

21/22 Nothing memorable. 

22/23 So far, really really bad. 

 

[osfan24]

24 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

We don’t need to have the why debate in here. I was just trying to end the “it’s not really that bad” claims. It is that bad. The why debate can happen in another place. 

To preface this, you know way more than me and I am playing devil's advocate, but how much not as bad would it look if you went back an additional 1 or 2 years and included 2009 and 2010? That seems like it COULD be a bit flukey.

[Kevin Reilly]

1 minute ago, Siberian-Snowcover-Myth said:

I could go for a good ole fashioned Alberta Clipper or Manitoba Mauler right now! Do they even exist anymore???

No because the warm ocean wind flow from West to East across the Pacific has shut the door for Alberta Clippers.  Albert Clippers ride along a temperature gradient there are none because the air is flowing right in off the Pacific throwing up the wall not allowing for the clippers. 

[CAPE]

8 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Maybe it's time I admit I was wrong about how the warm W atlantic SSTs would affect us. I thought it would create a juicy baroclinic zone that makes any wave go BOOM. Instead it just pops a ridge up top and forces storms to cut. No cold air either, no CAD.

Makes me wonder how in the world Ocean City got buried by those 4 bomb cyclones (if I counted correctly) in the last 5 years. 

Big -EPO with cross polar flow in a progressive regime. Legit cold air with baroclinic boundary just offshore. When that doesn't happen for several years the immediate coast won't see snow.

[psuhoffman]

13 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Maybe it's time I admit I was wrong about how the warm W atlantic SSTs would affect us. I thought it would create a juicy baroclinic zone that makes any wave go BOOM. Instead it just pops a ridge up top and forces storms to cut. No cold air either, no CAD.

Makes me wonder how in the world Ocean City got buried by those 4 bomb cyclones (if I counted correctly) in the last 5 years. 

I think when we do get truly cold, then your hypothesis is correct and we’ve seen it.  Problem for us is 2 fold.

1) that’s such a minority of the time what’s more likely is the ridge impact. 

2) even when that happens we are seeing it result in very tightly wound bomb cyclones focused off the coast where the warmest SSTs are NOT tucked in where we need them to get a big snow into the 95 corridor. 

It's been a net L 

[osfan24]

11 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Maybe it's time I admit I was wrong about how the warm W atlantic SSTs would affect us. I thought it would create a juicy baroclinic zone that makes any wave go BOOM. Instead it just pops a ridge up top and forces storms to cut. No cold air either, no CAD.

Makes me wonder how in the world Ocean City got buried by those 4 bomb cyclones (if I counted correctly) in the last 5 years. 

Right, and this is why, despite some of the things that seem alarming that are causing us to possibly miss out on marginal events that would have been snow or some snow in the past and are now entirely rain, some of this just seems like terrible luck.

But I'll also admit I was born in 83 so I don't really remember the 80's when it comes to weather, got into snowstorms and weather with the Blizzard of 96, and then got the ice of 98, the surprise storm of 2000, the 2003 blizzard, was in College Park for the February 2006 storm and don't remember it at all somehow (which greatly frustrates me, I don't remember us getting a big snow down there at all and my hometown got almost 2 feet), and then got to enjoy 2009-2010, the fun 2011 storm, the crazy winter of 2013-2014 and another good, back-loaded winter in 2014-2015, and then the monster 2016 storm.

So this stretch seems absolutely abysmal to me compared to the stretch from the mid 90's through the mid 2010's.

[Maestrobjwa]

6 minutes ago, Kevin Reilly said:

No because the warm ocean wind flow from West to East across the Pacific has shut the door for Alberta Clippers.  Albert Clippers ride along a temperature gradient there are none because the air is flowing right in off the Pacific throwing up the wall not allowing for the clippers. 

That actually makes sense...had been wondering why those have seemingly gone extinct!

[Maestrobjwa]

13 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

If the most climate change effects our lives is through this hobby I will consider myself the luckiest person alive, we gotta remember that this is all small scale issues compared to the real damage it will do and has done already. I've gotten the opportunity to grow up in the 2010s but that also means I don't remember any of our awesome winters but I remember seeing countless headlines about how climate change is already here and going to get worse, so this new normal is what I and my generation onward will grow up with, snow is the least of our concerns weather wise.  

Real question: So, with little payoff so far, and if things are indeed getting worse...then why do you do this hobby? Just for the science or? (I actually wonder about that for others here as well).

[WxUSAF]

My 2C is that even with trends being what they are, we will still get snow here, still have occasional big storms, and still have nice winters here for many many years to come. Will they be as frequent as I’d like or as before? Doubtful. But I don’t expect them to go extinct. And so I’ll keep watching and waiting.

[AtlanticWx]

surprised no one looked at the 12z gfs, looks a lot more wintry compared to previous runs