3/10 and beyond... all the waves threats

[CAPE]

Once again the presence of a NS low looks to screw up chances for frozen outside of the western higher terrain at our latitude for early next week. There isn't enough of a mechanism(lack of UL convergence/ confluence) up top to generate any decent HP to our north with a cold feed. Very weak signal for frozen on the ens means.

[CAPE]

Looking ahead to late next week. Looks a little familiar. The legit cold is out west. 

This may be our best chance. The ultimate hail mary.

[IronTy]

4 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Looking ahead to late next week. Looks a little familiar. The legit cold is out west. 

This may be our best chance. The ultimate hail mary.

Tupac once rapped about Hail Mary.  It didn't turn out so well for him.  

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Spring pattern is setting in, despite highs in upper latitudes. 6z GFS shows a lot of snow falling, but not much/any accumulation. 

[RevWarReenactor]

1 hour ago, Weather Will said:

WB 6Z GFS trying to pull us back in for late next week storm.

I am not sure why people post this stuff. In my experience, you take what it shows and cut it in half, you take that number and you cut it in half, and MAYBE you get that. MAYBE. 

Like psu said, its just too warm. 

[Buddy1987]

Nobody biting on the 6z GFS band of snow coming thru this weekend? I saw @CAPEpost something earlier but guess it’s better to have snow tv than nothing. 

[mappy]

Can we please stop acting like children? Yall are grown ass adults. 

[WinterWxLuvr]

It has been warm no doubt. But look at tomorrow. It will be cold enough for snow at least to start. So what is now happening? Precip amounts are falling. That’s what kills me.

[CAPE]

14 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

It has been warm no doubt. But look at tomorrow. It will be cold enough for snow at least to start. So what is now happening? Precip amounts are falling. That’s what kills me.

The primary disturbances in this pattern are in the NS. Unfortunately the initial heavier precip associated with that is(again) a bit too far north. The secondary coastal develops too late and gets carried well offshore by the progressive flow. Betwixt, between, too warm.. The suckage continues for our region in general.

[Weather Will]

There have been a group tracking since December, we might as well take the last two weeks and try to keep hope alive for the next two weeks.  I have seen worse GEFS looks over the last 3.5 months.  I always get a little more hopeful when I see a member with a big hit to our south…in about two weeks I will put the snow maps away until next year,  if you don’t like them, ignore them.  Keep your negativity to yourself and have a good day!  WB 6Z GEFS

[WesternFringe]

12 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

There have been a group tracking since December, we might as well take the last two weeks and try to keep hope alive for the next two weeks.  I have seen worse GEFS looks over the last 3.5 months.  I always get a little more hopeful when I see a member with a big hit to our south…in about two weeks I will put the snow maps away until next year,  if you don’t like them, ignore them.  Keep your negativity to yourself and have a good day!  WB 6Z GEFS

Looking good for the western (and NW) parts of the subforum.  6Z GFS has 4 waves in the next 13 days that bring frozen out here.

[Terpeast]

The march 13 wave 2 appears to have trended slightly colder for the piedmont. Not by much, though. 

Still want to test the el nino to see if everything still falls apart in the medium range. Maybe next year. 

[mdhokie]

Yes please lock in 32" for Garrett County. Thats still 8" if we do the /2 /2 rule

[Solution Man]

57 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

There have been a group tracking since December, we might as well take the last two weeks and try to keep hope alive for the next two weeks.  I have seen worse GEFS looks over the last 3.5 months.  I always get a little more hopeful when I see a member with a big hit to our south…in about two weeks I will put the snow maps away until next year,  if you don’t like them, ignore them.  Keep your negativity to yourself and have a good day!  WB 6Z GEFS

Your posts are appreciated, you do you

[psuhoffman]

28 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

The march 13 wave 2 appears to have trended slightly colder for the piedmont. Not by much, though. 

Still want to test the el nino to see if everything still falls apart in the medium range. Maybe next year. 

I have no doubts that a Nino still gives us better odds. 2019 while disappointing was still the snowiest winter across our region as a whole of this 7 year dreg period!   But…my fear is that if we do remain in a longer term -pdo that the impact of ninos might be muted some. Not totally. But if you look at the h5 from 2019 it matches the mean h5 from ninos during a -pdo cycle.  Often during a -pdo a nino muted the pacific ridge but cannot eradicate it to produce what we consider the canonical nino split flow STJ dominant pattern. 
 

Ninos were still pretty good during the last -pdo predominantly because mjo phase 8-1 which they favor also promotes blocking. With blocking we won a lot with a more NS dominant nino pattern back then when the mid latitudes were simply colder. I have my doubts how that might work now. It would obviously be better. But maybe not as much better as we expect. 
 

There were some more canonical ninos during the last -pdo. 1958 was one.  So we still could get lucky with one of those.  But there were more like 2019 than 2003/2010/2015 or even 2016.  And again even a not as good Nino is better than what we’ve been getting so I’ll take it. Just not sure “Nino” is the panacea for all that ails us. 

But even if ninos are still awesome and we get 50” next year…I still don’t see that as the solution to what I’m upset about. We aren’t going to suddenly get ninos 50% of the time!  Ya it’s good if 1-2 times a decade we get a huge anomalous snowy year from a Nino, but what about the rest of the time?  What I’m lamenting is that it seems like getting snow in an enso neutral or Nina is becoming REALLY hard.  Like as if we suddenly all moved to Richmond hard!  Those 1-2 huge years a decade are great but it was easier to tolerate that equation when the other 80% of the time we were still averaging a decent amount of snow and the even getting a random 1979/1982/1996/2000/2014 big  non Nino season in there.  I’m not ok with getting 1-2 snowy winters a decade of the other 8 years are like they’ve been lately  

 

 

[mappy]

Congrats Thurmont

[Terpeast]

10 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I have no doubts that a Nino still gives us better odds. 2019 while disappointing was still the snowiest winter across our region as a whole of this 7 year dreg period!   But…my fear is that if we do remain in a longer term -pdo that the impact of ninos might be muted some. Not totally. But if you look at the h5 from 2019 it matches the mean h5 from ninos during a -pdo cycle.  Often during a -pdo a nino muted the pacific ridge but cannot eradicate it to produce what we consider the canonical nino split flow STJ dominant pattern. 
 

Ninos were still pretty good during the last -pdo predominantly because mjo phase 8-1 which they favor also promotes blocking. With blocking we won a lot with a more NS dominant nino pattern back then when the mid latitudes were simply colder. I have my doubts how that might work now. It would obviously be better. But maybe not as much better as we expect. 
 

There were some more canonical ninos during the last -pdo. 1958 was one.  So we still could get lucky with one of those.  But there were more like 2019 than 2003/2010/2015 or even 2016.  And again even a not as good Nino is better than what we’ve been getting so I’ll take it. Just not sure “Nino” is the panacea for all that ails us. 

But even if ninos are still awesome and we get 50” next year…I still don’t see that as the solution to what I’m upset about. We aren’t going to suddenly get ninos 50% of the time!  Ya it’s good if 1-2 times a decade we get a huge anomalous snowy year from a Nino, but what about the rest of the time?  What I’m lamenting is that it seems like getting snow in an enso neutral or Nina is becoming REALLY hard.  Like as if we suddenly all moved to Richmond hard!  Those 1-2 huge years a decade are great but it was easier to tolerate that equation when the other 80% of the time we were still averaging a decent amount of snow and the even getting a random 1979/1982/1996/2000/2014 big  non Nino season in there.  I’m not ok with getting 1-2 snowy winters a decade of the other 8 years are like they’ve been lately  

 

 

I see it in two ways, and both lead to the same conclusion. 

If we get a big winter in the next nino, then we know if it’s not a nino, it’s going to suck.

If we get a nino, and the winter sucks anyway, the conclusion is the same. 

Life will be much easier and more fun if we look to the chase. Deep Creek, Vermont, Colorado/Utah, Tahoe.

If we get a non-nino big winter again, then that’s when things get a little interesting. 

[Heisy]

Just for fun since there isn’t much else to discuss, the 6z GFS is a little faster N/S away from an anafrontal snowstorm. That’s what this run does but for farther N/W. Can see the stretched out LP. That being said this is the GFS beyond 7 days and the EURO looks entirely since it phases those streams much earlier….sure it’ll look completely different in 2 hours





.

[osfan24]

Can't wait for the next anafrontal storm. It'll be my first.

[Heisy]

Can't wait for the next anafrontal storm. It'll be my first.

2014 or 2015 (forget the exact year) had a solid March anafrontal snowstorm up here in Philly. I forget if it impacted you guys. However, you know winter is just about over when this discussion starts lol.


.

[psuhoffman]

8 minutes ago, Heisy said:

2014 or 2015 (forget the exact year) had a solid March anafrontal snowstorm up here in Philly. I forget if it impacted you guys. However, you know winter is just about over when this discussion starts lol.


.

2015. I got 13” from it. I think DC area got like 4-8” 

[CAPE]

18 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

2015. I got 13” from it. I think DC area got like 4-8” 

Was that the super cold St Patty's Day storm? IIRC that was the one that had some ice on the front end and temps fell into the low 20s in the morning with snow and stayed there all day. Ended up with 6-7" here.

[Cobalt]

7 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Was that the super cold St Patty's Day storm? IIRC that was the one that had some ice on the front end and temps fell into the low 20s in the morning with snow and stayed there all day. Ended up with 6-7" here.

I think that was the March 17 2014 system. This is likely what PSU and Heisy are referring to. Potent Arctic airmass helped aid in the system's snowy characteristic despite being anafrontal.

4.8" DCA, 6.2" BWI, 9.5" IAD

That airmass also set a few records in the wake of the storm, where IAD fell to 6 degrees on the morning of the 6th and 2 degrees on the 7th. 

[CAPE]

6 minutes ago, Cobalt said:

I think that was the March 17 2014 system. This is likely what PSU and Heisy are referring to. Potent Arctic airmass helped aid in the system's snowy characteristic despite being anafrontal.

4.8" DCA, 6.2" BWI, 9.5" IAD

That airmass also set a few records in the wake of the storm, where IAD fell to 6 degrees on the morning of the 6th and 2 degrees on the 7th. 

Yep this was another anomalously cold March storm. Temps here the following morning with snowpack were close to zero.

[CAPE]

I have cleared most of my attachments from those days but still have this one, uploaded on March 6th 2015. Temp when I took this was around 2F.

[psuhoffman]

20 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Was that the super cold St Patty's Day storm? IIRC that was the one that had some ice on the front end and temps fell into the low 20s in the morning with snow and stayed there all day. Ended up with 6-7" here.

The St Patty's storm was 2014.  I was talking about the anafrontal wave in March 2015.  The St Patty's storm was a follow up wave but it had enough separation I wouldn't consider it anafront.  The 2015 one was one string of waves the last of which got us as the boundary pressed south under a suppressed TPV.  

[Stormchaserchuck1]

They are more common in +NAO's (Not what's happening). 

Get the Greenland block out of my face any day lately. The pattern is more W->E vs N->S

[dallen7908]

With respect to next week's chances, I feel like a 4th string point guard on a 7th grade basketball team warming up for the last game of the season.   Will I finally score a basket? 

Spoiler alert, I never did score that basket - but I did make one of two free throws in the one minute I played in that last game.  I went out for wrestling in 8th grade.   Perhaps I'll track cold-rain-storms next year.  Oh wait ... 

... am encouraged to see the southern extent of the wintry precipitation next week and the general pattern 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

1 hour ago, Heisy said:

2014 or 2015 (forget the exact year) had a solid March anafrontal snowstorm up here in Philly. I forget if it impacted you guys. However, you know winter is just about over when this discussion starts lol.


.

Yup...March 5, 2015.  We had rain overnight and into the early morning on the 5th (and had icing a day before that).  Then there was a lull as temperatures dropped with a cold front, and the main low then tracked along the front.  Snowed from about 9AM through 4PM, I got 6.5" snow from that and it was quite cold through the afternoon that day.  Following day on the 6th it also remained below freezing.

[CAPE]

9 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

They are more common in +NAO's (Not what's happening). 

Get the Greenland block out of my face any day lately. The pattern is more W->E vs N->S

NA blocking works better during a Nino. NS is too busy during a Nina, so the positive impacts a -NAO provides are negated to an extent.