December Mid/Long Range Discussion

[clskinsfan]

28 minutes ago, WesternFringe said:

No cold air?

Its a transient 24 hour period man. I am talking about sustained cold. There is none. Run the entire 2M plot of the 12Z GFS. The 24 hour period you posted is just about it for cold through the entire run. 

[WesternFringe]

10 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

Its a transient 24 hour period man. I am talking about sustained cold. There is none. Run the entire 2M plot of the 12Z GFS. The 24 hour period you posted is just about it for cold through the entire run. 

The ICON storm we were discussing was on 12/19.  You were saying the timing didn't matter because there was no cold to pull from, but there is cold forecasted during that timeframe.

[Ralph Wiggum]

1 hour ago, brooklynwx99 said:

 wait until we get a legit -NAO to establish a 50/50 ULL and you're golden

When those features present themselves the stj probably shuts off. Hopefully not, but that's Murphys Law for our region. I'll see myself out now....

[Ralph Wiggum]

24 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

Its a transient 24 hour period man. I am talking about sustained cold. There is none. Run the entire 2M plot of the 12Z GFS. The 24 hour period you posted is just about it for cold through the entire run. 

You have to understand...that is  basically Nino in a nutshell. Rarely is there sustained cold. Exceptions? Yes. I made a note of this the other day...during alot of Ninos we seem to get brief windows of opportunity sandwiched between seasonal/AN stuff. Siberia being cut off is pretty common tbh.  

[psuhoffman]

3 hours ago, cbmclean said:

Actually what I think I have learned is that THE critical factor is always whichever one sucks for us at a given time.

That's because snow is an anomaly here and at our elevation and latitude it takes way more factors to be in our favor than not.  Kinda like a golf swing...takes multiple things working in unison to get it right...any one little thing can F it all up.   

[CAPE]

12z GEFS has a better track for the late month potential storm- across the southern states and up off the NC coast, more like the 0z EPS.

[brooklynwx99]

well, there’s your post-Christmas coastal signal. cold air is marginal here verbatim but still worth keeping an eye on

[brooklynwx99]

worth noting that ENS would have a really hard time picking up on transient HP that’s forced by the Canadian ridge 

[CAPE]

Just now, brooklynwx99 said:

worth noting that ENS would have a really hard time picking up on transient HP that’s forced by the Canadian ridge 

Yeah that could work, and its gonna take good timing with not much help in the NA. Any HP induced over southern Canada will be on the move.

[dallen7908]

 

White XMAS Hope lives for Canaan Valley and Mount PSU? 

[psuhoffman]

Canadian weeklies updated.  They flip the NAO negative around New Years and run the table.  Also develops a nice EPO-NAO ridge bridge.  Cue Chuck to point out the PNA is negative though.  

[Eskimo Joe]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

Canadian weeklies updated.  They flip the NAO negative around New Years and run the table.  Also develops a nice EPO-NAO ridge bridge.  Cue Chuck to point out the PNA is negative though.  

Man the look on the Pacific is nice.

[stormy]

24 minutes ago, CAPE said:

12z GEFS has a better track for the late month potential storm- across the southern states and up off the NC coast, more like the 0z EPS.

Cold air aloft is very marginal at best with the 850 and the 540 line:

[CAPE]

Seeing a bit more retrogression of the PAC trough towards the Aleutians at the end of the GEFS run. Allows an EPO ridge to build poleward.

[nj2va]

7 minutes ago, stormy said:

Cold air aloft is very marginal at best with the 850 and the 540 line:

Using an ensemble at 330 hours to look at 850mb temps?  Not sure I would look that hard at this stage.  I don't think ensembles would key in on things like that at this point.

[Ji]

39 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

That's because snow is an anomaly here and at our elevation and latitude it takes way more factors to be in our favor than not.  Kinda like a golf swing...takes multiple things working in unison to get it right...any one little thing can F it all up.   

i dont remember 09-10 that well except for the 3 blizzards but what happened between Christmas and late January. Why didnt we get snow..was it more southern tracks? It wasnt warm from my recollection. Did the STJ dry up?

[WEATHER53]

3 hours ago, brooklynwx99 said:

to be honest, I think that some of the source region stuff is a bit overrated. yes, we would prefer Canada to be cold, but that is usually not the case in El Ninos, even the prolific ones. for example, look at Feb 2010! there was +10-15C air right over SE Canada. made no difference. same with Feb 1987, Canada is torched

An overreaction occurs when around Hudson is +10 to 15 with failure to realize that air mass is still 20 to 25F

[Maestrobjwa]

3 hours ago, brooklynwx99 said:

to be honest, I think that some of the source region stuff is a bit overrated. yes, we would prefer Canada to be cold, but that is usually not the case in El Ninos, even the prolific ones. for example, look at Feb 2010! there was +10-15C air right over SE Canada. made no difference. same with Feb 1987, Canada is torched

Yeah I remember that year the Winter Olympics were in Canada and they were having a snow shortage, lol (remember laughing at that irony while we were buried deep here!) So yeah it was definitely warm! Wait so what was the mechanism that made the cold for those storms?

[brooklynwx99]

2 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Yeah I remember that year the Winter Olympics were in Canada and they were having a snow shortage, lol (remember laughing at that irony while we were buried deep here!) So yeah it was definitely warm! Wait so what was the mechanism that made the cold for those storms?

+10 air coming out of northern Canada is still cold enough for our intents and purposes

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

15 minutes ago, Ji said:

i dont remember 09-10 that well except for the 3 blizzards but what happened between Christmas and late January. Why didnt we get snow..was it more southern tracks? It wasnt warm from my recollection. Did the STJ dry up?

I recall a clipper type system early in January.  Yeah it wasn't overly warm but I believe a bit above normal overall for that last part of December and then again after the early Jan. clipper.  Then it turned cold late January and we got that "surprise" moderate snow event on the 30th.

[stormy]

18 minutes ago, nj2va said:

Using an ensemble at 330 hours to look at 850mb temps?  Not sure I would look that hard at this stage.  I don't think ensembles would key in on things like that at this point.

I'm not looking that "hard" as the parameters will likely be completely different tomorrow.  But in reality, the model is arguing against itself by painting snow at +3C.

[SnowenOutThere]

Lots of talk about the 27-29th, if we manage to get a good storm track cold air will most likely be a pretty large issue (excluding the transient high idea which is timing we just won't know till later) because good, deep cold isn't really anywhere near us. A pretty good representation of the issue is with the snow depth map of North America, for those wondering, yes ... its worse than 2015. That said, even if it doesn't snow on us that storm would probably help lay down some good snowcover to our north, setting us up for later as the pattern becomes more favorable. 

 

[psuhoffman]

30 minutes ago, Ji said:

i dont remember 09-10 that well except for the 3 blizzards but what happened between Christmas and late January. Why didnt we get snow..was it more southern tracks? It wasnt warm from my recollection. Did the STJ dry up?

There was an arctic shot in late December but we only got a coating of snow with it.  The first 2 weeks of January were very cold but dry.  There was a 1-3" clipper that was it.  IAD had 11 straight days with a high below 40 degrees early in the month.  From the 14th to the 28th was mild as we got a bit too much PAC.  Similar to now.  Then things reverted to the pattern of Dec/Early Jan and it was away we go.  The not so good 2 week Jan pattern is below.  But it was really only 2 weeks that whole winter where the pattern was not so good.  

[TSSN+]

7 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

Lots of talk about the 27-29th, if we manage to get a good storm track cold air will most likely be a pretty large issue (excluding the transient high idea which is timing we just won't know till later) because good, deep cold isn't really anywhere near us. A pretty good representation of the issue is with the snow depth map of North America, for those wondering, yes ... its worse than 2015. That said, even if it doesn't snow on us that storm would probably help lay down some good snowcover to our north, setting us up for later as the pattern becomes more favorable. 

 

Again, we don’t need deep cold. Just need cold enough. 

[brooklynwx99]

the EPS amps the trailing wave well. gets BN heights overhead from the initial wave. this could work

great ridge over C Canada… should promote surface HP in a good spot too

[Chris78]

43 minutes ago, nj2va said:

Using an ensemble at 330 hours to look at 850mb temps?  Not sure I would look that hard at this stage.  I don't think ensembles would key in on things like that at this point.

Exactly. West tracks and other variables will skew the mean.

Big picture is all I'm concerned with from a mean 15 days out

[psuhoffman]

Some of y’all are funny. A few days ago when guidance looked like crap some wanted to push back. Now things look legitimately good and now it’s time to Deb?  

[NorthArlington101]

EURO control has a Christmas Eve Eve miracle

[CAPE]

1 hour ago, stormy said:

I'm not looking that "hard" as the parameters will likely be completely different tomorrow.  But in reality, the model is arguing against itself by painting snow at +3C.

You do realize that is the mean of 30 individual members... no, probably not.

[Ralph Wiggum]

42 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

EURO control has a Christmas Eve Eve miracle

That little discrete wave has been showing up for a few days. Maybe some mood flakes +.