February 2023 Obs/Discussion

[WinterWolf]

4 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah it was a little more pressed with PV....still not as good as EPS, but we're talking clown range here. And I don't think this Feb 23-Mar 4 period is going to have just non-stop cold/snow anyway. It's a gradient pattern where we'll prob get a cutter too....but at least we'll have the chance at an event or two with so much cold lurking in Canada.

Any chance for sustained snowy threats would have to be due to a big block forming like the weeklies showed. Plenty of reasons to be skeptical of that.

Understood Will. Thanks. 

[snowman19]

06z GEFS looked better than 00z....you can see it trying to form an NAO block as we close out the month...if that retrogrades a bit, that's how we'd get a nice March period
 

I would think if the retrograding block to a -NAO is real, it probably wouldn’t happen until the 2nd week of March?

[ORH_wxman]

3 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

I would think if the retrograding block to a -NAO is real, it probably wouldn’t happen until the 2nd week of March?

Yeah...might get going in the first week after the 4th or 5th, but otherwise, I'd think the meat of it would be like Mar 7 to the equinox....at least that is what the weeklies showed, but it's hard to trust them, even at week 3. I'm going to assume no NAO blocking until it's pretty solidly inside of 12 days.

[Ginx snewx]

34 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah it was a little more pressed with PV....still not as good as EPS, but we're talking clown range here. And I don't think this Feb 23-Mar 4 period is going to have just non-stop cold/snow anyway. It's a gradient pattern where we'll prob get a cutter too....but at least we'll have the chance at an event or two with so much cold lurking in Canada.

Any chance for sustained snowy threats would have to be due to a big block forming like the weeklies showed. Plenty of reasons to be skeptical of that.

Just get me a transient block with a banana high no need for some crazy NAO block. 

[STILL N OF PIKE]

1 minute ago, Ginx snewx said:

Just get me a transient block with a banana high no need for some crazy NAO block. 

Amen 

[WinterWolf]

19 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Just get me a transient block with a banana high no need for some crazy NAO block. 

Yes, We’ve done fabulous with this over the last 12 yrs or so. 

[Typhoon Tip]

21 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

Yes, We’ve done fabulous with this over the last 12 yrs or so. 

Will knows this ... but 'big blocks' are bad. I suspect he means just getting a coherency in that regard instead of hinting and/or having it be east based or situated wrong...etc. Lot of qualifications really.

But a large ridge anomaly sitting over Baffin Island gets into the suppression shit.  That is more maddening - to me- actually than what we've just gone through.  At least what we've just gone thru we can blame on bad luck.   But the compression from a big elephant ass up there, mooshing everything down? That ends up 5 below normal high temps, in constant wind driving dry air windchill nothingness, eternally.   F that!    for fun I call it the 'elephant sitting on a trampoline' effect. 

If you can imagine what that would look like. haha.   Basically, stretched so tight the flow can't dent?    well dents are where the storms form...and so on.

 

[weathafella]

2 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Ridge retrograding into Greenland on EPS. GEFS is still better than this week. The pattern will change on the 23rd complete by the 15th ( oh hey Jerry)

Perfect timing as we go to FL on the 23rd and return 3/9.

[Typhoon Tip]

so just to be clear ...

  ...the conversation tact is predicated on the -NAO assumption? 

I happen to believe we probably are looking at a > 50 % likeliness to observe a -NAO ... I have a few reasons that I'll gladly gloss over eyes and send readers to Advil if you'd like.  I'm guessin' no though, heh

Anyway, fwi not w ...the CFS has been all over the -NAO... even west basing it. In fact, some of the runs have been dreaded too hefty, like I was just describing for WW.  But cross that bridge I suppose. 

...assuming the > 50% gives a return on that investment.  heh.  Here's March 4 over at pivotal, nicely illustrated a western limb -NAO

 

Should also review a crucial aspect in the NAO.  There is quite often a fallacy that -NAO means snow.  No.

The index in a state of change has a weak correlation to precipitation events over eastern N/A.  The PNA, on the other hand, has a strong correlation when it is in a state of change.  I mean the papers can't spell it out any clearer, yet we pine around for -NAOs still, clearly as though we place way too much weight on them.  

Fwiw, my own experience is that a modestly negative NAO, west based, that is being cyclically perturbed ( oh... every 4 days or so..) is more typical for recreating snow potentials. 

[STILL N OF PIKE]

18 minutes ago, weathafella said:

Perfect timing as we go to FL on the 23rd and return 3/9.

I go to S Florida early May . I anticipate we will be still waiting for more then a 3 day favorable period . 

[Damage In Tolland]

all set to visit in June. Right on schedule 

 

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

18 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

so just to be clear ...

  ...the conversation tact is predicated on the -NAO assumption? 

I happen to believe we probably are looking at a > 50 % likeliness to observe a -NAO ... I have a few reasons that I'll gladly gloss over eyes and send readers to Advil if you'd like.  I'm guessin' no though, heh

Anyway, fwi not w ...the CFS has been all over the -NAO... even west basing it. In fact, some of the runs have been dreaded too hefty, like I was just describing for WW.  But cross that bridge I suppose. 

...assuming the > 50% gives a return on that investment.  heh.  Here's March 4 over at pivotal, nicely illustrated a western limb -NAO

 

Should also review a crucial aspect in the NAO.  There is quite often a fallacy that -NAO means snow.  No.

The index in a state of change has a weak correlation to precipitation events over eastern N/A.  The PNA, on the other hand, has a strong correlation when it is in a state of change.  I mean the papers can't spell it out any clearer, yet we pine around for -NAOs still, clearly as though we place way too much weight on them.  

Fwiw, my own experience is that a modestly negative NAO, west based, that is being cyclically perturbed ( oh... every 4 days or so..) is more typical for recreating snow potentials. 

-NAO is easier to snow then +NAO...especially when you have energy constantly dumping out west.

[ORH_wxman]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

-NAO is easier to snow then +NAO...especially when you have energy constantly dumping out west.

A -NAO is good to have for what Tip calls "sub-index events"....basically like in a -PNA/-NAO pattern, you have that firehose of shortwaves spraying the west coast and they run into the NAO block and get forced south of us as overrunning events or SWFEs or "NJ model" redevelopers. When you have a big +PNA, it's probably bad to have a monster west-based NAO block....that's congrats Carolinas up to Mid-atlantic...and I agree with Tip that the PNA rising is the bigger correlation to large-scale big-ticket QPF events (aka, our "big dog" storms) than the NAO.

 

One of the reasons winter weenies like the NAO blocks (myself included) is that they make it harder to get cutters so if you have snow around, its less likely to get melted out in a big rainstorm or warm sector. It keeps it wintry....more useful in mid-winter for that than March admittedly where we are fighting the solar insolation more and more each day.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, ORH_wxman said:

A -NAO is good to have for what Tip calls "sub-index events"....basically like in a -PNA/-NAO pattern, you have that firehose of shortwaves spraying the west coast and they run into the NAO block and get forced south of us as overrunning events or SWFEs or "NJ model" redevelopers. When you have a big +PNA, it's probably bad to have a monster west-based NAO block....that's congrats Carolinas up to Mid-atlantic...and I agree with Tip that the PNA rising is the bigger correlation to large-scale big-ticket QPF events (aka, our "big dog" storms) than the NAO.

 

One of the reasons winter weenies like the NAO blocks (myself included) is that they make it harder to get cutters so if you have snow around, its less likely to get melted out in a big rainstorm or warm sector. It keeps it wintry....more useful in mid-winter for that than March admittedly where we are fighting the solar insolation more and more each day.

Yes...agreed on all accounts.

[Ginx snewx]

43 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yes...agreed on all accounts.

 

45 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

A -NAO is good to have for what Tip calls "sub-index events"....basically like in a -PNA/-NAO pattern, you have that firehose of shortwaves spraying the west coast and they run into the NAO block and get forced south of us as overrunning events or SWFEs or "NJ model" redevelopers. When you have a big +PNA, it's probably bad to have a monster west-based NAO block....that's congrats Carolinas up to Mid-atlantic...and I agree with Tip that the PNA rising is the bigger correlation to large-scale big-ticket QPF events (aka, our "big dog" storms) than the NAO.

 

One of the reasons winter weenies like the NAO blocks (myself included) is that they make it harder to get cutters so if you have snow around, its less likely to get melted out in a big rainstorm or warm sector. It keeps it wintry....more useful in mid-winter for that than March admittedly where we are fighting the solar insolation more and more each day.

This  year just get us one transient block and a 1.5 to 2 qpf storm with a banana high and call it a day.

[Ginx snewx]

23rd still seems ripe for at least a moderate snow storm 

[WinterWolf]

1 minute ago, Ginx snewx said:

 

This  year just get us one transient block and a 1.5 to 2 qpf storm with a banana high and call it a day.

Absolutely agree. I don’t know if this year has it in it, but I’d love that, and then be done. 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

1 hour ago, Damage In Tolland said:

all set to visit in June. Right on schedule 

 

 

Good, let’s go desert for spring and summer. 

[Typhoon Tip]

1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

A -NAO is good to have for what Tip calls "sub-index events"....basically like in a -PNA/-NAO pattern, you have that firehose of shortwaves spraying the west coast and they run into the NAO block and get forced south of us as overrunning events or SWFEs or "NJ model" redevelopers. When you have a big +PNA, it's probably bad to have a monster west-based NAO block....that's congrats Carolinas up to Mid-atlantic...and I agree with Tip that the PNA rising is the bigger correlation to large-scale big-ticket QPF events (aka, our "big dog" storms) than the NAO.

 

One of the reasons winter weenies like the NAO blocks (myself included) is that they make it harder to get cutters so if you have snow around, its less likely to get melted out in a big rainstorm or warm sector. It keeps it wintry....more useful in mid-winter for that than March admittedly where we are fighting the solar insolation more and more each day.

Mm case in point ..the 12z GFS' D9 ..10

although the NAO may not be negative per se. Essentially works out to the same rub.

I mean I don't have a boat load of confidence in actually getting a wintry profiled ordeal in that time frame, but ...there is a multi-member presentation in the GEFs - whether the scatter is spread out all over hell's creation or not.  That's par for the course for 'sub index'.  I don’t have anything else as far as I can see… It’s all we got as we sit next to what could be winter’s death bed if things don’t break

Not that anyone asked... I'm sort of in my typical seasonal ambivalence with regard to personal druthers that I experience in mid Febs.  In one sense, I feel we were jilted by ...something this winter, pretty badly, and are 'owed' in a crazy sense of it. ha!  But, we are also out of the solar minimum and one can actually feel that difference.  The sun's setting a little later and don't look now, but it's light still at 5:20 pm ... These latter senses start my nostalgia engine for putting this misery away, dusting off and moving into the warm season. 

 

 

[Damage In Tolland]

Today’s a real naper out there in the sun and no wind . Let’s just keep it warm dry and mild here on out 

[WinterWolf]

2 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Today’s a real naper out there in the sun and no wind . Let’s just keep it warm dry and mild here on out 

That ain’t gonna happen…it may, or may not snow again this season, but it won’t be warm and dry from 2/13 on out..unfortunately. 

[NorEastermass128]

Socked in the clouds here.

[mahk_webstah]

3 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Just get me a transient block with a banana high no need for some crazy NAO block. 

Banana bring da cold

[dendrite]

16 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

That ain’t gonna happen…it may, or may not snow again this season, but it won’t be warm and dry from 2/13 on out..unfortunately. 

BDL has had 2 BN days since 12/27 and those came with the brutal cold shot. Looks like more AN for the next week or so too. Pretty remarkable.

[weathafella]

9 minutes ago, dendrite said:

BDL has had 2 BN days since 12/27 and those came with the brutal cold shot. Looks like more AN for the next week or so too. Pretty remarkable.

The elephant in the room but this time everyone sees it.

[Damage In Tolland]

42 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

That ain’t gonna happen…it may, or may not snow again this season, but it won’t be warm and dry from 2/13 on out..unfortunately. 

It very well may happen 

[jbenedet]

The latest MJO guidance looks warmer as well. I'm seeing GEFS never making to phase 8.

Both the bias corrected GEFS and ECMWF now end in phase 7.

Could of course change but hedge accordingly.

[Baroclinic Zone]

22 minutes ago, dendrite said:

BDL has had 2 BN days since 12/27 and those came with the brutal cold shot. Looks like more AN for the next week or so too. Pretty remarkable.

Yep.  Think I've had 4-5 days.

Last BN month was June 2022

[jbenedet]

DAW 43/24. 

Hat and sweatshirt day in the sunny spots. Not bad.

[Torch Tiger]

43.4, roughly +5 and a "cooler" day