Dec/Jan Medium/Long Range Disco

[Interstate]

50 minutes ago, RIC_WX said:

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.

Well 09-10 was a once in a lifetime period... but snowmageddon was in Feb... so nothing if off the table.

[Interstate]

24 minutes ago, Kevin Reilly said:

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?

It is called the law of averages... With every good snow period... there has to be some bad ones.

[Ralph Wiggum]

2 hours ago, BristowWx said:

a lot of you have said it but if we cannot snow with that setup in January then I went too high on my snow fall contest prediction.  being inside the 540 used to be good.  

Shir I've seen 546 work 

[PrinceFrederickWx]

2 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

There is a middle ground.  After calculating the avg of the analogs I came to with I did reduce the snowfall to factor in warming. The number was still so high because the best matches to this winter were some of our snowiest winters ever. I acknowledged the risk and my fears regarding warning. We will see when it’s over if I miscalculated. Maybe the gfs is too warm. Maybe this storm doesn’t even happen. Maybe this is the one storm that falls into my “reduced” calculation and we still get 2 big snows in Feb and we end up with 35” instead of 45” and I was correct. We don’t know yet. 
 

But I love snow so the thought of losing and storms bothers me. Sorry. I totally get that some would rather try to ignore something that’s depressing and they can’t control. That’s probably healthier. 

I get what you’re saying with how you did the forecast. Sorry… I’ve just been losing patience with “Deniers” lately (not you).

[Ralph Wiggum]

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.

 

 

 

Bottom map blues look like the Nittany Lion paw. I'm convinced @psuhoffmancontrols the weather just to see us snow-starved weenies suffer more and more  

[psuhoffman]

2 hours ago, brooklynwx99 said:

surface cold air isn’t established before that system moves in… simple as that, really

Everything is a see saw equation. It used to be that kind of H5 progression would overcome a marginal air mass in front. And it’s not day 1 of the pattern. We’ve had 5-7 days of a better flow into our source regions. How long do we need to wait. 10 days. 14. Do we need a good pattern to lock in for 20 days before we can snow?  What if the whole pattern only lasts 10 days?  By the time we get cold it’s too late!  That’s what keeps happening the last few years. 
 

Im truly done. Some of y’all just don’t want to see it.  Don’t want to admit it. It’s clear as day to me. Setups that used to tilt toward snow now tilt rain. It’s getting harder to snow. We’re losing storms on the margins. Deny it if you want. I’ve shown the evidence. The data backs it up. Doesn’t mean we won’t snow. Just we need more variables to be perfect now. Mainly we need a true cold airmass. Marginal air masses where in the past we relied on other factors to overcome the boundary temps are all tilting the wrong way lately EVEN WHEN WE GET EVERYTHING ELSE to go right!  Our snowfall is declining. If some don’t want to accept that so be it. 

[Ralph Wiggum]

58 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

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

I'm feeling in'SPIRE'd now, thanks.

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

I'm feeling in'SPIRE'd now, thanks.

Is that one of those IA models? 

[Ralph Wiggum]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

Is that one of those IA models? 

Not sure but it can probably be thrown in the bonfire with the ngp, cras, and icon. 

[NorthArlington101]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

Is that one of those IA models? 

partially?

Quote

Spire builds and operates the largest multipurpose constellation of satellites that use radio occultation technology to collect over 20,000 profiles a day to observe, monitor and collect weather and Earth data.

... and further enriched by our AI-based algorithm

I've been looking to see if you can run Google's GraphCast model with snow accums but I can't find it. Have found a site that shows rough MSLP + precip

[konksw]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Everything is a see saw equation. It used to be that kind of H5 progression would overcome a marginal air mass in front. And it’s not day 1 of the pattern. We’ve had 5-7 days of a better flow into our source regions. How long do we need to wait. 10 days. 14. Do we need a good pattern to lock in for 20 days before we can snow?  What if the whole pattern only lasts 10 days?  By the time we get cold it’s too late!  That’s what keeps happening the last few years. 
 

Im truly done. Some of y’all just don’t want to see it.  Don’t want to admit it. It’s clear as day to me. Setups that used to tilt toward snow now tilt rain. It’s getting harder to snow. We’re losing storms on the margins. Deny it if you want. I’ve shown the evidence. The data backs it up. Doesn’t mean we won’t snow. Just we need more variables to be perfect now. Mainly we need a true cold airmass. Marginal air masses where in the past we relied on other factors to overcome the boundary temps are all tilting the wrong way lately EVEN WHEN WE GET EVERYTHING ELSE to go right!  Our snowfall is declining. If some don’t want to accept that so be it. 

Really appreciate the ongoing analysis about the challenges we’re facing. Not sure how one has an in depth discussion about this without being able to talk about the elephant in the room.  Hope we get something soon. I’d take some sleet at this point  honestly. 

[Ji]

JB likes it so it must be crap

[NorthArlington101]

12z EURO says seasonably cold and dry on Jan. 2 - what storm?

[Ralph Wiggum]

2 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

partially?

I've been looking to see if you can run Google's GraphCast model with snow accums but I can't find it. Have found a site that shows rough MSLP + precip

Wth is 'radio occultation' that they use to run the spire? So they summon evil demons with their ham radio for each run?

[GEOS5ftw]

Spire is running a similar model to the GFS ( I think) but with additional soundings from their GNSS-RO satellites. I haven’t seen accuracy scores so it will be interesting to see how it performs this winter.

The AI models (pangu, fourcastnet, etc) are all trained on reanalysis. From my perspective of both seeing a small bit of their output and published verification scores, they can do a bit better than deterministic and similar to ensembles in the 5-10 day range. The real advantage is how fast they run. But they only produce a limited number of output fields and precipitation is a known deficiency.


.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Jan 6-7 looks warm on the ensembles

[Ralph Wiggum]

2 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Jan 6-7 looks warm on the ensembles

SER?

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Just now, Ralph Wiggum said:

SER?

Aleutian ridge is weak but it's there

[Ralph Wiggum]

3 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Jan 6-7 looks warm on the ensembles

Bruh....

[Stormchaserchuck1]

2 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Bruh....

We need below average

https://ibb.co/k1hPWtw

[Ralph Wiggum]

^^those are 850 anomalies. Here are the 2m:

[Ralph Wiggum]

Just now, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

540 line in Canada?

https://ibb.co/k1hPWtw

Those are heights I'm pretty sure....not critical thicknesses. Irregardless those are not "warm" looks.

[CAPE]

12 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Everything is a see saw equation. It used to be that kind of H5 progression would overcome a marginal air mass in front. And it’s not day 1 of the pattern. We’ve had 5-7 days of a better flow into our source regions. How long do we need to wait. 10 days. 14. Do we need a good pattern to lock in for 20 days before we can snow?  What if the whole pattern only lasts 10 days?  By the time we get cold it’s too late!  That’s what keeps happening the last few years. 
 

Im truly done. Some of y’all just don’t want to see it.  Don’t want to admit it. It’s clear as day to me. Setups that used to tilt toward snow now tilt rain. It’s getting harder to snow. We’re losing storms on the margins. Deny it if you want. I’ve shown the evidence. The data backs it up. Doesn’t mean we won’t snow. Just we need more variables to be perfect now. Mainly we need a true cold airmass. Marginal air masses where in the past we relied on other factors to overcome the boundary temps are all tilting the wrong way lately EVEN WHEN WE GET EVERYTHING ELSE to go right!  Our snowfall is declining. If some don’t want to accept that so be it. 

I think most here do see it. You kinda beat this dead horse constantly though. Snow climo sucks worse than it used to, and it has never been great in the lowlands at our latitude. So we accept it and adjust expectations. Other options include relocating.

[Bob Chill]

12z gefs really starting to agree on the shortwave. Nice height pattern leading in. Might be a blip. Previous gefs runs were much more diffuse with the sw tracking thru the rockies. 12z focused in. EPS has been pretty focused. I continue to really like the general setup. 

[AlexD1990]

2 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

12z gefs really starting to agree on the shortwave. Nice height pattern leading in. Might be a blip. Previous gefs runs were much more diffuse with the sw tracking thru the rockies. 12z focused in. EPS has been pretty focused. I continue to really like the general setup. 

thank god, a voice of reason to stop the cliff jumping...

[Terpeast]

5 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

12z gefs really starting to agree on the shortwave. Nice height pattern leading in. Might be a blip. Previous gefs runs were much more diffuse with the sw tracking thru the rockies. 12z focused in. EPS has been pretty focused. I continue to really like the general setup. 

Canadian ensembles see it, too... if not a day earlier. They mostly skipped the Jan 3 perfect track rainstorm though (suppressed SE)

[Solution Man]

3 minutes ago, AlexD1990 said:

thank god, a voice of reason to stop the cliff jumping...

We want a few in here to jump early

[RedSky]

18 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Wth is 'radio occultation' that they use to run the spire? So they summon evil demons with their ham radio for each run?

Geordie Rose runs it off his D-wave quantum computer but in the end the demons suck at meteorology

 

[LeesburgWx]

12 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

12z gefs really starting to agree on the shortwave. Nice height pattern leading in. Might be a blip. Previous gefs runs were much more diffuse with the sw tracking thru the rockies. 12z focused in. EPS has been pretty focused. I continue to really like the general setup. 

This post just saved the thread AND winter

[Maestrobjwa]

15 minutes ago, CAPE said:

I think most here do see it. You kinda beat this dead horse constantly though. Snow climo sucks worse than it used to, and it has never been great in the lowlands at our latitude. So we accept it and adjust expectations. Other options include relocating.

And relocating well inland if what he says is indeed happening. That's the craziest part to me. I'm seeing this model run demonstrating his point...and I see rain even in Boston!! I guess if you're further up 95 like Boston you have to go west, down here north AND west? Lol