December Mid/Long Range Discussion

[Maestrobjwa]

31 minutes ago, nj2va said:

As mentioned earlier today, the -PNA is going to flood the CONUS with pac air and will take time to scour that out - which is why you see AN even with the favorable ATL. IMO, the PAC has been the bigger factor in our sucky winters of late because it was too hostile to overcome even with a favorable ATL. I’m more bullish this winter because it doesn’t look like we are going to be in a consistent -PNA. 
 

I disagree that “even perfect patterns have been too warm” - I think we just have had some bad luck with timing in some cases. Take the beach blizzards the eastern areas have gotten recently. Was it too warm? No, we were on the losing side of the setup/timing. 

Now, to us layman...there are somethings in whether that are opposite of what you'd expect (like a warmer climate favoring cooler enso...that was mind boggling). The beach blizzards are one of those things. Like...how did those happen?

[Maestrobjwa]

Personally I won't be comfortable until we see that pac actually improving in real time. To me I don't know what else works without at least some help there.

[psuhoffman]

https://x.com/webberweather/status/1728864083976298602?s=46&t=JDI46BeqOMUGnLaA2k6MTw

[Daniel Boone]

One of our biggest problems of late has been the -NAO always forming during a crappy Pacific. Also, phasing of systems forming formidable LP to our South are almost non existent anymore. 

[Jersey Andrew]

27 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Two things can be true.
1)It can still snow if we get the right pattern 

2) it’s getting harder to snow as it warms and marginal setups that used to work do not anymore. 
 

The hostile cycle of the pacific we’ve been in is very likely MORE to blame for our snow drought the last 7 years.  Even had the climate not warmed the last 7 years were not going to be a good period given the pacific mean long wave pattern. But, we’ve had -pdo cycles before and they weren’t as bad in a colder base state. The warming is making bad worse. 
 

Keep in mind as we lose marginal events my early season snow stats might become obsolete since most of those first 1” storms even up here were very marginal.  We might just have to wait deeper into winter even in a good pattern to get snow. Of course that will limit and mute a snowy season some. But it doesn’t mean it won’t snow, just maybe we lose an early season marginal threat. We might also gain a threat mid season when added heat COULD even be a net benefit in some setups.  
 

There are lots of variables to this. Terp did a great job quantifying this as best as possible given current evidence and data. But the two truths remain. 
 

It can still snow. It is snowing less. 

How do you reconcile big East Coast storms hitting 2006-2016 which deviated from historical norm in strength and size? Could climate change have accelerated since 2026 affecting worldwide weather patterns and base state?

[CAPE]

41 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Day 10 Euro: NAO is going positive, PNA is going negative.. 

https://ibb.co/N3XZNRB

who cares.

[CAPE]

The one nitpick on the GEFS and EPS in the LR is the position of the NE PAC low. A GoA trough long term will limit cold air availability, esp if it is strong. Want that to retrograde more towards the Aleutians. GEPS has a much more favorable look there.

[frd]

54 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

https://x.com/webberweather/status/1728864083976298602?s=46&t=JDI46BeqOMUGnLaA2k6MTw

Wow, an area along and West of the lower Eastern Shore with 70 % probability of above normal snowfall. Our area firmly in the 40 % probability of above normal snowfall. Looks hopeful. 

[CAPE]

58 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Now, to us layman...there are somethings in whether that are opposite of what you'd expect (like a warmer climate favoring cooler enso...that was mind boggling). The beach blizzards are one of those things. Like...how did those happen?

Ninas during periods where the Aleutian high shifted into the EPO region, bringing cross polar flow. Progressive pattern with baroclinic boundary offshore resulted in later developing coastal scrapers.

[brooklynwx99]

19 minutes ago, CAPE said:

The one nitpick on the GEFS and EPS in the LR is the position of the NE PAC low. A GoA trough long term will limit cold air availability, esp if it is strong. Want that to retrograde more towards the Aleutians. GEPS has a much more favorable look there.

this is likely the case the further we go into winter

[Daniel Boone]

39 minutes ago, CAPE said:

The one nitpick on the GEFS and EPS in the LR is the position of the NE PAC low. A GoA trough long term will limit cold air availability, esp if it is strong. Want that to retrograde more towards the Aleutians. GEPS has a much more favorable look there.

Yeah, that's the eyesore we addressed a few days ago when the good pattern started showing up. Once the MJO gets to 7-8 it should help position it back where we want it if it's not already there as Model's may adjust west of what's depicted. 

[Jebman]

Cosgrove says the Nino may be weakening which could translate into a really good snow winter for the Mid Atlantic and vicinity.

[jayyy]

[mention=2304]psuhoffman[/mention] mentioned it previously, as well. The disturbing part is we have been getting in patterns that historically deliver and they don’t. It’s still too warm.

But we were still relying on things like perfect timing of phases, praying the SER doesn’t flex, ignoring the PAC, etc. for nearly 7 years out of sheer hope we’d get SOME snow. Yes, these are things we try to avoid every winter given our location, but when they are sustained / entrenched patterns? Good luck overcoming that.

Sure, we saw a few brief windows where the pattern “historically delivered”, but they were extremely short lived and still required near perfect timing in the midst of an otherwise bad longwave pattern. That may work for Boston, but not in the mid Atlantic. Add in the impacts of AGW, and what used to be marginal snow at 32F is now more likely to be rain at 34-35. We typically need the boundary to our south, snowpack in Canada and the Great Lakes, etc to score around here. We really haven’t had much of that the past 5+ winters. Temps were what? +5 to +7 above normal last winter? How many sustained patterns (2+ weeks) have we seen where we had a +PNA and a workable NAO / AO / EPO setup? That’s just not going to cut it. Hoping it snows when it’s 50+ degrees out the day before and after a storm is not a recipe for success around here. Is it possible? Sure. Not likely. And certainly not likely when we don’t have the necessary mechanisms in place to bring cold air into our area.

Not sure we can just chalk this up to “it doesn’t work like it used to” when we haven’t really had a prolonged period of favorable setups for the better part of the last decade. If we’re being brutally honest… we saw a pretty incredible stretch from 2000-2016 of above average winters and winters with at least one major snowstorm. Our luck caught up to us, and the accelerating change in our overall climo has been the icing on top. We can certainly have that convo if this winter doesn’t pan out - where we should see plentiful WC ridging, blocking, etc.


.

[jayyy]

LES machine looks like it’s ready to finally crank up. LES Warnings and watches up all over the Great Lakes. The cold air, it be a’coming.. Shame we have to wait 2ish weeks for the PAC to become more favorable. That snowpack will erode pretty quickly as a result.

[Maestrobjwa]

1 minute ago, jayyy said:

LES machine looks like it’s ready to finally crank up. LES Warnings and watches up all over the Great Lakes. The cold air, it be a’coming.. Shame we have to wait 2ish weeks for the PAC to become more favorable.

As long as it becomes more favorable I'm good waiting 2 weeks. Besides what's two weeks when we've been waiting several years 

[Weather Will]

WB latest EURO weekly control through Jan.10, you can't make this stuff up.....  

The Euro weekly run from early today is not as cold through December....but is cold in January.

[DarkSharkWX]

nice -NAO/+PNA showing up here

snowfall at DCA in these months:

Dec 1981: 1.7"
Dec 1952: 2.0"
Dec 2009: 16.6"
Dec 1955: 0.5"
Dec 1961: 1.2"
Dec 1996: 0.2"
Dec 1987: T
Nov 1981:T 
Dec 2000: 2.0"

[frd]

3 minutes ago, DarkSharkWX said:

nice -NAO/+PNA showing up here

snowfall at DCA in these months:

Dec 1981: 1.7"
Dec 1952: 2.0"
Dec 2009: 16.6"
Dec 1955: 0.5"
Dec 1961: 1.2"
Dec 1996: 0.2"
Dec 1987: T
Nov 1981:T 
Dec 2000: 2.0"

 

More realistic potential versus the never correct Euro Control run.   

 

 

 

 

[Eskimo Joe]

6 minutes ago, DarkSharkWX said:

nice -NAO/+PNA showing up here

snowfall at DCA in these months:

Dec 1981: 1.7"
Dec 1952: 2.0"
Dec 2009: 16.6"
Dec 1955: 0.5"
Dec 1961: 1.2"
Dec 1996: 0.2"
Dec 1987: T
Nov 1981:T 
Dec 2000: 2.0"

I'd like to see the trough get further west and the GOA low further west. Otherwise, we should really temper expectations.

[stormy]

23 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

WB latest EURO weekly control through Jan.10, you can't make this stuff up.....  

The Euro weekly run from early today is not as cold through December....but is cold in January.

I thought we all learned yesterday that the Euro Control is rubbish, not worthy of being posted on this site.

[Weather Will]

7 minutes ago, stormy said:

I thought we all learned yesterday that the Euro Control is rubbish, not worthy of being posted on this site.

I used a smiley face, and there is nothing going on this week....but fair enough will refrain.

[Terpeast]

Remember last year we were seeing tons of snow on the controls, only for that to disappear towards D0. 

We may not see any snow on the controls this year, but we’ll see if something sneaks up on us inside D3-4

[Eskimo Joe]

3 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Remember last year we were seeing tons of snow on the controls, only for that to disappear towards D0. 

We may not see any snow on the controls this year, but we’ll see if something sneaks up on us inside D3-4

Yea that's a big caveat here. Some subtle shortwave might pop up at D3 and we're in business. @wxmvpete talked about this.

[jayyy]

WB latest EURO weekly control through Jan.10, you can't make this stuff up.....  
The Euro weekly run from early today is not as cold through December....but is cold in January.

LR Weekly Euro control (one ensemble member) clown map? Oof. How far we’ve fallen

I’m sure it’ll show 20” tomorrow or some shit.

[CAPE]

1 minute ago, jayyy said:

Weekly Euro control (one ensemble member) clown map? Oof.


.

I really wish this stuff could be confined to the digital snow thread.

[cbmclean]

4 hours ago, brooklynwx99 said:

this is likely the case the further we go into winter

My understanding is that El Nino winters are often backloaded, so this would make sense.  My personal goal as a SE weenie is just to have December be seasonable instead of a torch. That would be a huge win.  

Maybe you guys can get lucky with good timing with marginal temperatures.

ETA: I meant lucky with marginal temps in December.  Hopefully No luck needed in Jan Feb.

 

 

[psuhoffman]

Some of us aren’t going to make it 

[Ralph Wiggum]

54 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Some of us aren’t going to make it 

Definitely going to require alot of patience. Could strike out a few times and incur meltdowns of epic proportions. May be one of those seasons we wait til Jan into Feb which could fit alot of the backloaded analog seasons. Hopefully we don't wait that long. The panic room will be packed if that's the case.

[Terpeast]

5 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Definitely going to require alot of patience. Could strike out a few times and incur meltdowns of epic proportions. May be one of those seasons we wait til Jan into Feb which could fit alot of the backloaded analog seasons. Hopefully we don't wait that long. The panic room will be packed if that's the case.

Yeah we may have to wait, we do have some wiggle room in an el nino year, but it would be really nice to get on the board in Dec than waiting until mid Jan

[winter_warlock]

7 hours ago, Prestige Worldwide said:

https://x.com/wxrisksnowstorm/status/1728848978731475388?s=61&t=jtYSAZghIHxEA6K1a8OFsw
someone is in mid season form with the expletives already 

He has a way with words lol