Dec/Jan Medium/Long Range Disco

[WesternFringe]

8 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

You are missing the point. The fact that isnt a snowstorm in the Shenandoah Valley in early January is a problem. It would be in any other year I can remember. We have been torched at the surface plenty of times heading into snowstorms in the past. Something is just different about the base state now.

Didn’t a wise poster (psu) just say this 20 hrs ago?:

A pattern change doesn’t mean we instantly snow. You seem overly focused on snow otg but in the long range we’re often discussing a process. There was no cold anywhere in North America. We can’t go from that snow by snapping a finger. It’s taking some time after the long wave pattern flips to establish enough cold in our area to get snow. Even then we will need luck. It is a pretty good pattern to get a snowstorm in the eastern US. But it could go just north of us. Just south. Cut island a bit. Out to sea. A good pattern doesn’t guarantee snow. We also need luck. 

[TSG]

1 hour ago, clskinsfan said:

You are missing the point. The fact that isnt a snowstorm in the Shenandoah Valley in early January is a problem. It would be in any other year I can remember. We have been torched at the surface plenty of times heading into snowstorms in the past. Something is just different about the base state now.

I think a lot of people are ignoring the 48 hrs leading up to that point. Sure we have subzero 850s, but that doesn't matter if we've had SW flow at the surface for 2.5 days. This is not a good setup for snow anywhere below high elevation.

Would you really expect snow in Winchester on the 3rd looking at this setup on the 1st? I wouldn't.

[Weather Will]

It is an operational run in fantasy land beyond Day 10, but there is no cold air....compared to yesterday's 12Z run.  Zonal flow in Canada, no cold air moving south.  Big disappointment if correct.

 

 

 

[Chris78]

1 minute ago, Weather Will said:

It is an operational run in fantasy land beyond Day 10, but there is no cold air....compared to yesterday's 12Z run.  Zonal flow in Canada, no cold air moving south.  Big disappointment if correct.

13 days out on an OP. 

Come on man lol

[WinterWxLuvr]

The gfs is all over the map. Wait for the ensembles and then take them with a grain of salt as well

[WesternFringe]

4 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

It is an operational run in fantasy land beyond Day 10, but there is no cold air....compared to yesterday's 12Z run.  Zonal flow in Canada, no cold air moving south.  Big disappointment if correct.

 

 

 

So the forecast temp on an op changed 7 degrees 13 days out?  Shocker! 

[aldie 22]

Santa was looking out for us yesterday by holding off on these model runs for today

[Terpeast]

Gfs ensembles building W canadian ridge into Alaska becoming more -epo ish. 

It will be fine, so everyone take a breath. 

Let Jan 3 go.  we can’t win them all. 

[jayyy]

You are missing the point. The fact that isnt a snowstorm in the Shenandoah Valley in early January is a problem. It would be in any other year I can remember. We have been torched at the surface plenty of times heading into snowstorms in the past. Something is just different about the base state now.

Ehh, not entirely sure that it’d be a snowstorm in other years. Hard to tell. Perhaps some snow from a late changeover as the low cranks up and passes us by with minor accumulation, but all snow? Idk. Maybe but hard to tell. It’s hard to analyze in a vacuum.

Sure, we’ve overcome warm temps the day prior to then see snow, but we are looking at a setup where 850s are above 0 all the way up to Bangor ME. The flow ahead of the system isn’t helpful at all. Other instances where we’ve overcome usually have better surface temps to our NW to tap into.

Could be as simple as the complete lack of snow cover to the north of here. Great Lakes, Canada, etc. Once the winds flip NW, there’s no cold or even marginal cold to get the job done. As cape said, where’s the cold coming from, even as winds become favorable and it bombs out. That could be the base state angle you were mentioning. Less snow early in the season for places north of here could mean marginal setups at the front end of a pattern change (and in early winter) are less likely to work out. The difference a degree or two makes is quite big unfortunately. What used to be 33-34f and snow with mid levels at 0C is now 34-35 and rain with mid levels at 1-2C with this type of airmass.

[RIC_WX]

The good years in the Nino dataset all feature at least a period of cold/snow in December, or a decisive flip to cold and or/snow in the first 15 days of January.  The latter is seemingly still in play, but absent of this verifying a big reset in expectations will unfortunately be coming.

The "colder look after the 4th" is what dismays me.  There has been consistency in the models to show BN at day 10 only to bleed warm and verify AN.  These trends are way more important than any one good/bad day of LR looks.

 

[WinterWxLuvr]

6 minutes ago, RIC_WX said:

The good years in the Nino dataset all feature at least a period of cold/snow in December, or a decisive flip to cold and or/snow in the first 15 days of January.  The latter is seemingly still in play, but absent of this verifying a big reset in expectations will unfortunately be coming.

The "colder look after the 4th" is what dismays me.  There has been consistency in the models to show BN at day 10 only to bleed warm and verify AN.  These trends are way more important than any one good/bad day of LR looks.

 

Really? Show me the data for 73, 98 and 16

[Scraff]

Ooooof! Just stepped into a dumpster fire here. Soooo….the @stormtrackerShrimp Po Boy storm is off the table?

[RIC_WX]

2 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Really? Show me the data for 73, 98 and 16

73 and 98 are absent from the "good years" dataset for a reason, but you already knew that.  16 kinda makes the point does it not - pattern flipped cold in early Jan, big storm and pattern breaks down.  

We are delusional if we think 02-3 or 09-10 are still on the table.

[stormy]

As modeled by the GFS, the Jan. 2 system only degrades for wintry potential with the 12z run.

Pre-storm east and southeast surface winds bring in mild air off the Atlantic.

Surface temps. are too warm for snow nearly everywhere below 3000 ft..

Even the 81-corridor where snow is painted would more likely be a sloshy mix. The winners would be the western mountains above 2000 ft.

This is only my opinion based on the 12z run.

[NorthArlington101]

At least the SPIRE gets it done on Jan. 2.

[osfan24]

Just now, NorthArlington101 said:

At least the SPIRE gets it done on Jan. 2.

Must run based on the climate pre 2016.

[Jebman]

3 hours ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Well, at least the entire MA/NE is above freezing. We can all suffer together

Dynamic cooling bombs or bust. Otherwise head to the mountains.

If I had a choice, with all the climatic warming I would move to the Alaskan mountains.  It still snows there at 10,000 feet. Or the Russian  Urals. It still snows up there. 

[Kevin Reilly]

1 hour ago, 87storms said:

Doesn't look like there's any real surface high to the north.

This has been the case for the past few years no cold high up north, warm air trapped at the surface, more and more cloudy nights holding temperatures higher, ocean air entrenched, high humidity levels you can make the inferences. 

[Ji]

There isn’t much support for a Jan 2-3 storm right now anyway

[Kevin Reilly]

It would appear outside of a few hits here in there 2016 and 2015 there have been fewer and fewer legit snow events DC to Baltimore, to Philadelphia, to New York.

 

I trace this back to the winter of 2009-2010 that year when it comes to snow really stand out, but those storms that dumped on us in December 19th, 2009, and February 17th, 2010, were kind of unusual in the way they evolved and the extreme blocking that took place during those storms.

 

I mean I had 40-50 mph winds out of the west on February 17th, 2010, with heavy snow coming down 2-3" an hour I do not recall any time in my lifetime where that happened. 

 

I am searching and searching for the reasons why we are in this snow drought, but it is not just DC, to Baltimore, to Philadelphia this is happening it's happening in a lot of places over the past 2-4 years. Obviously too small of a sample size to make too much sense yet.

 

Are we in the warm El Nino Phase?

[NorthArlington101]

GEFS is cooking up something in the Jan. 6 timeframe. That's the one I'm after. If that one isn't at least interesting to track... it'll be sad.

[Terpeast]

1 minute ago, NorthArlington101 said:

GEFS is cooking up something in the Jan. 6 timeframe. That's the one I'm after. If that one isn't at least interesting to track... it'll be sad.

That’s been on my radar as well. Cold air availability is much better then (as long as it doesn’t trend warmer)

[CAPE]

3 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

That’s been on my radar as well. Cold air availability is much better then (as long as it doesn’t trend warmer)

Pretty nice surface look for this far out.

[EastCoast NPZ]

42 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Really? Show me the data for 73, 98 and 16

98??  What happened in 98?

[BristowWx]

2 minutes ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

98??  What happened in 98?

didnt 98 suck a giant stink hole?  maybe he means 1898...that was a solid year i would think

[osfan24]

10 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

GEFS is cooking up something in the Jan. 6 timeframe. That's the one I'm after. If that one isn't at least interesting to track... it'll be sad.

Agreed. I always thought everything before this date was too fast/early in the pattern change. But if nothing comes of the January 5-12 timeframe.......

[EastCoast NPZ]

Just now, BristowWx said:

didnt 98 suck a giant stink hole?  maybe he means 1898...that was a solid year i would think

It was terrible for nearly everyone.  We got saved with a 12" wet snow to rain storm that would no-doubt be a complete rainstorm today.

[Interstate]

1 hour ago, Weather Will said:

It is an operational run in fantasy land beyond Day 10, but there is no cold air....compared to yesterday's 12Z run.  Zonal flow in Canada, no cold air moving south.  Big disappointment if correct.

 

 

 

This is why models should not go out more than 5 days for the public to see.

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, TSG said:

i'm going to disagree pretty strongly on this point. The boundary layer up to ~900mb is torched from 2.5 days of Southwest/South flow starting on the 31st. Yeah these kind of storms can bomb out and make up for less than ideal temps, but there's no real cold for the storm to pull down from the N/NW. The panel below says it all, >0C 850s all the way to Maine... 45-50F surface coming in at 20kts off the Atlantic over NJ/DE. That's just not a recipe for snow in the Mid-Altantic in my experience, bombing cyclone or not.

You are looking macro. Pull back and look at the hemisphere long wave pattern. 
 

Look where that NS energy originates a few days before. It comes down from near the Yukon and dives through Manitoba. This isn’t some cut off southern treat subtropical system. It’s a NS wave diving down from northwest Canada. And look at the flow.  

As it dives into the upper Midwest the flow into our source regions is still directly from the north.

Now as the wave digs to our west and turns east yes we have a southwest flow.  But one that’s true of any wave approaching from the west.  Anytime any wave is west of us we will have a southerly flow ahead of it.  So what are you saying we can only snow from some negative tilt capture scenario where a wave bongs south of us and pulls due north?  Good luck with that.  Second look at the larger flow.  Look where the air to our southwest originates.  The larger flow to our area is still straight from the arctic!  

after this the upper low is amplifying and tracks to our south. Even if we concede the initial surface track is such that it would start as rain in DC there is absolutely no excuse why it’s not snow once the surface low is 988 off the coast with an amplified NS upper low whose SW originated in northern Canada and a deform band puking heavy precip on us. 
 

Finally, yes there are minor imperfections here you can point to and try to say “but if this or that variable had been more perfect” but I did a case study it every 4” snowstorm at BWI going back to 1950 years ago. And almost all of them were flawed in some way. The ones that weren’t were the HECS storms. Yes if we want 20” we need it to be textbook. 50/50, cold high, block, perfect track in every way. But that’s not true of almost all the 4-8” type storms we’ve had over the last 75 years!  The reason they weren’t a HECS was whatever flaw it had. But one or two minor flaws wasn’t a reason we can’t get snow at all!  There are a ton of variances. Micro. Macro. We could go over like 10+ important variables that influence a snowstorm to some degree. If we need every single one to line up perfect we’re screwed!  I’m not saying we can’t snow if we get like every possible thing right. Of course we will still get a hecs if we get a 3 std dv block with a 50/50 and a 1045 arctic high over Montreal and a bonbinh 980 STJ system tracking up the east coast. I know that will still work. But that setup will happen once a decade. Are we F’d the rest of the time?  

[NorthArlington101]

• weekend rule ✅
• looks decently cold ✅
• storm starts off looking sort of suppressed ✅

we're ticking off the boxes. This is it