January 2024 -- Discussion

[ORH_wxman]

Just now, dendrite said:

Maybe it worked this time, but historically H5 is going to outperform 2m temps 2+ weeks out. I’d argue that more get “trapped” on 2m or 850 temps versus analyzing the H5 features too. But yeah, that’s good verification at both levels. 

That H5 pattern should produce here this time of year as it should be cold enough to snow. But like you said, much of Canada is relatively torched and struggling to snow as well. It feels like we’re stuck in November in NAMER. 

Scott and I used to preach all the time on how awful the 2m verification was.

Also, there’s different flavors of “warm source region”….if it’s warm up there and also warm to our south, we’re usually screwed. But anytime I see like NYC-southward normal to BN then I immediately think “ok that’s not a torchy pattern per say, maybe no arctic cold so we’re not getting 0F nights, but easily should support some snow threats in New England in January.” Like getting stuck in that -5C to -8C band at 850….you’re gonna pop highs into the 30s a lot when it’s not precipitating under that but any storm would typically be snow assuming no cutter track (which that H5 profile doesn’t favor). 
 

We have a lot of example of this type of pattern working for us. Patterns like Jan ‘87 come to mind or even Jan 2001 and into early Feb 2001 was another great one…absolutely torched into Canada and a bit AN into New England but not to the south….and we got dumped on during that stretch. 

[Typhoon Tip]

27 minutes ago, NittanyWx said:

Yeah exactly on your last point, which I think was well articulated over the past few weeks.  Could snow isn't will snow.  And I think the main gripe I'd have if I was rooting for cold/snow is that plenty of folks shared the h5 of the weeklies as a sign for 'massive changes and improvement', yet there'd be no one sharing the t2m, which accurately showed the air being advected via PNA spike was mP due to an extended jet.

 

Here's what I mean...two weeks back I was asked what I thought about the weeklies at work and I had the h5 charts sent to me and the following: 'seeing on twitter a lot of folks think this is a colder pattern east for New Years...thoughts?'

 

My response was, did they share the 2m charts?   The source region sucks, this isn't gonna deliver anything meaningful/prolonged in early Jan.  The 2m charts were pretty damn warm at the time:

 

 

 

Well, here's what we got at h5 surrounding New Years:

 

 

I dent think that's a bad job by the weeklies at all.  I do think, however, that it was a bad job by certain forecasters ignoring the source region and assuming that the Pac jet would magically ease and cold would just appear.  There were plenty on here who disagreed with that premise, but I'd say that was more the minority opinion at the time.

 

For what it's worth, the EC Ens has also had a cold bias, so risk is this may come in even warmer/closer to Euro weeklies.

 

As forecasters, there is some element of strategy to what we do and what we communicate.  If I see an h5 that's 'better' but I see no source air to advect, I'm not gonna ignore that source air and say 'you know what, the weeklies are way too warm because of h5 and it'll roll forward colder' personally.  I'm not saying that to tout my forecast, I'm saying that because I think people got trapped up at h5, whereas some correctly (several in here to their credit) didn't see the mechanism for getting meaningful cold into NA for anything more than a slight step change/transient cool shot that wouldn't last without reinforcing HP and an airmass that wasn't cold to begin with and had no snowcoveras it was advecting into the region.

 

So, yes, it can snow there, but a lot has to go right.  I think the conversation was skewing more towards 'this is a hell of a lot better and split flow is exactly what you want'.  The premise being there was longevity to a colder look and this would be normal.   My point was the weekly didnt show that, it showed a better h5 but still a very marginal airmass.  It's only 'exactly what you want' if you have a source airmass.

 

Still keeping tabs on Jan 6-7,  but outside of that there's not much in this for early Jan on either cold or snow

 

 

The 2-m temp distribution is necessary there.  Yeah. 

Pretty colors at 500mb over those latitudes can still be quite cold below. …very cold particularly if it’s taking place over a cryosphere - DVM caused ideal low mixed/ high decoupling potential at this time of year … etc     I’m not sure what the state of the cryo is up there, just in principle. 
 

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 minutes ago, dendrite said:

I think 07-08 is my tops. A big December and continuous pack right into mid April. 

My number one stretch is February 2015.....#2 is January 1996 and #3 January 2011.

[Typhoon Tip]

Environmental Canada used to provide a really awesome product. It was the 2 m 10 day temperature anomaly.  That thing was remarkably accurate at depicting cold loading post -EPO bursts or just in general.  For some reason they divided the standard deviation in .4s or 4/10.  So -3 SD was really -1.2 so a little annoying. 

Not sure where that went but when they swept their public access/web some 10 years ago, I haven’t been able to find it very readily. I think that would be really useful now considering -

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

2 hours ago, weathafella said:

Yeah it feels like we’re starting from scratch but we’re already deep in.  I’m surprised the usual suspects didn’t do a nana a boo-boo post with the long range op gfs (18z/28).

It’s the same thing every run. It looks awful. Beating a dead horse at this point.

[kdxken]

7 minutes ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

It’s the same thing every run. It looks awful. Beating a dead horse at this point.

It's clearly climate change. I've blocked the deniers but I still have to read their nonsense when someone quotes them.

[kdxken]

19 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

My number one stretch is February 2015.....#2 is January 1996 and #3 January 2011.

How can it not be. I mean seriously.

https://youtu.be/D5cRz_GZlEY?si=seqg-VLDWYM2bSD2

[mreaves]

27 minutes ago, dendrite said:

I think 07-08 is my tops. A big December and continuous pack right into mid April. 

And that started with the V-Day storm in 2007. It seemed to just pick up in December where it left off when the previous winter ended and just kept going. 

[Typhoon Tip]

My favorite winter promptly ends on Feb 15 followed by 70s and an eery absentia of BDs. 

Since that’s never happened my favorite winter is still out there…

In the meantime … I’ll settle for anything other than this forced stuffing of shit down throat of a winter so far 

[ORH_wxman]

5 minutes ago, mreaves said:

And that started with the V-Day storm in 2007. It seemed to just pick up in December where it left off when the previous winter ended and just kept going. 

That was a crazy comeback that winter. We just missed out on some additional big snow in ORH late that winter but still managed to pull close to 50” despite having 5” entering 2/1….still the lowest on record at the end of January. It really wasn’t that far off from getting to climo if that April event worked out and we got just a bit less mixing during Vday. 

[weathafella]

The thing about 1995-96 is the major melts on January and then again February.  But aside from that, plowable snows November through April and big ones is pretty amazing.

[CoastalWx]

We’ve had Canada blow torched and managed plenty of snow and even nice events. 
 

This year has not featured a decent plunge from north of Hudson Bay where the cold had been enough. We don’t need deep blues up there. 

[weathafella]

Also, when you’re in an amazing stretch you delude yourself into thinking it’s normal.

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

23 minutes ago, kdxken said:

It's clearly climate change. I've blocked the deniers but I still have to read their nonsense when someone quotes them.

It’s hard to not come to that conclusion on some level. This month is a good example. Instead of +2, we are going to be +4 or 5 and that has given us just no shot.

The bad is really bad now, not even in the game.

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

At this point I’m hoping we can manufacture some decent skiing for Jan 31st to Feb 4th. Still a ways out so there is some hope 

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Ignoring the North east completely Regarding the 18z gfs , there was basically NO snow for the cascades of Washington the Rockies (Utah/ Co/ ) or even Jackson hole (or Montana) , very little over the sierras (6-10”?) and that is a 384 hour run (seems extremely dry to me ) . The only area that did well seemed to be parts of Arizona . Seems unusual . 0z , 6z and 12z weren’t much different. I hadn’t really looked at things for days but what is driving this across such a large area

[NittanyWx]

54 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Scott and I used to preach all the time on how awful the 2m verification was.

Also, there’s different flavors of “warm source region”….if it’s warm up there and also warm to our south, we’re usually screwed. But anytime I see like NYC-southward normal to BN then I immediately think “ok that’s not a torchy pattern per say, maybe no arctic cold so we’re not getting 0F nights, but easily should support some snow threats in New England in January.” Like getting stuck in that -5C to -8C band at 850….you’re gonna pop highs into the 30s a lot when it’s not precipitating under that but any storm would typically be snow assuming no cutter track (which that H5 profile doesn’t favor). 
 

We have a lot of example of this type of pattern working for us. Patterns like Jan ‘87 come to mind or even Jan 2001 and into early Feb 2001 was another great one…absolutely torched into Canada and a bit AN into New England but not to the south….and we got dumped on during that stretch. 

I think the giveaway was threefold on how bad the source region is/was:

 

1) Snowcover, or in this case the complete lack thereof

 

2) Lack of appreciably anomalous HP upstream

And 

 

3) +25s in the front weeks for N/NW Canada preceding this h5 change.  While I don't disagree you generally will get better performance at h5, I think this was a situation where the forecasters had enough in front of them to say 'you know, I don't like the source despite the h5, I'm not gonna paint this significantly colder than the model because I don't see a mechanism where I can tap into anything'..

 

The play was to reduce the much much above for a small period and get closer to normal.  But I think by mid-Dec you had a lot of reasons to question whether even normal is valid.

[NittanyWx]

15 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

We’ve had Canada blow torched and managed plenty of snow and even nice events. 
 

This year has not featured a decent plunge from north of Hudson Bay where the cold had been enough. We don’t need deep blues up there. 

We haven't had it to this degree.  We are at record low snowcover right now nationally and for NA.

[kdxken]

16 minutes ago, NittanyWx said:

I think the giveaway was threefold on how bad the source region is/was:

 

1) Snowcover, or in this case the complete lack thereof

 

2) Lack of appreciably anomalous HP upstream

And 

 

3) +25s in the front weeks for N/NW Canada preceding this h5 change.  While I don't disagree you generally will get better performance at h5, I think this was a situation where the forecasters had enough in front of them to say 'you know, I don't like the source despite the h5, I'm not gonna paint this significantly colder than the model because I don't see a mechanism where I can tap into anything'..

 

The play was to reduce the much much above for a small period and get closer to normal.  But I think by mid-Dec you had a lot of reasons to question whether even normal is valid.

Hope you stick around in the forum. Good stuff...

[CoastalWx]

23 minutes ago, NittanyWx said:

We haven't had it to this degree.  We are at record low snowcover right now nationally and for NA.

We are which has hurt us, but it can and does get cold with lack of solar insolation. 
 

I think in March is when you really see the dichotomy. Like 2010 and 2012. Lock in blow torch when snow is gone. 
 

But we’ve seen all the cold locked  up recently. We had cold in early December that gave the south shore snow with no snow cover in Canada so it can be done. 

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Environmental Canada used to provide a really awesome product. It was the 2 m 10 day temperature anomaly.  That thing was remarkably accurate at depicting cold loading post -EPO bursts or just in general.  For some reason they divided the standard deviation in .4s or 4/10.  So -3 SD was really -1.2 so a little annoying. 

Not sure where that went but when they swept their public access/web some 10 years ago, I haven’t been able to find it very readily. I think that would be really useful now considering -

That product was awesome.  No pretty colors.  All black and white.  But if the source region was popping -negative values, you knew a cold stretch was coming.

[powderfreak]

10 minutes ago, kdxken said:

Hope you stick around in the forum. Good stuff...

Feel like Nittany was a BTV met at some point.  But agreed, like the logical and articulated points put forth.

[mreaves]

1 minute ago, powderfreak said:

Feel like Nittany was a BTV met at some point.  But agreed, like the logical and articulated points put forth.

Now that you mention it, that sounds somewhat familiar. 

[kazimirkai]

7 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

The last thing you want models doing is heuristic output. You want them to obey physics as much as possible or their solutions will be even more error-prone. 
 

The reason sometimes analog forecasting can outperform a LR model is because of potential model biases in either initial conditions or their inability to weigh certain influences more heavily. For example, I don’t think models are trying to weigh the likelihood of an SSW months in advance like a long range forecaster might….someone like Ray knows that -QBO and El Niño have a much higher chance than climo of producing one. 
 

But as model guidance gets closer and can “see” that type of event, then the physics will respond and you’ll see changes. 
 

Model guidance used to be so much worse beyond day 6 than they are now. In fact, we hardly looked at any OP solutions beyond day 6 other than just for fun. Even ensembles were so-so. They still have issues but not like 15 years ago. 

Well 15 years ago I could barely compose a coherent sentence. Maybe I'm spoiled with modern guidance technology. Just for clarity, I assume climo stands for climatology?

[dryslot]

1 hour ago, dendrite said:

I think 07-08 is my tops. A big December and continuous pack right into mid April. 

That was an A+ winter.

[FXWX]

2 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Environmental Canada used to provide a really awesome product. It was the 2 m 10 day temperature anomaly.  That thing was remarkably accurate at depicting cold loading post -EPO bursts or just in general.  For some reason they divided the standard deviation in .4s or 4/10.  So -3 SD was really -1.2 so a little annoying. 

Not sure where that went but when they swept their public access/web some 10 years ago, I haven’t been able to find it very readily. I think that would be really useful now considering -

https://weather.gc.ca/ensemble/naefs/index_e.html

 Here is the link but don 't see the black on white anomaly plot.  I used to use that all the time...

[DavisStraight]

If given the choice, which we don't have would you take another 78 blizzard or another 2015?

[DavisStraight]

1 hour ago, weathafella said:

Also, when you’re in an amazing stretch you delude yourself into thinking it’s normal.

Or at least more likely than it is.

[NittanyWx]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Feel like Nittany was a BTV met at some point.  But agreed, like the logical and articulated points put forth.

Never done TV.  Did radio for 8 months at the start of my career.  I had some coverage in Willimantic, CT and Keene, NH among my radio stations. 

[kazimirkai]

2 hours ago, dendrite said:

I think 07-08 is my tops. A big December and continuous pack right into mid April. 

Both 2013-2014, 2020-2021, and 2016-2017 gave me at least a month full of snow cover. That's about the best I can remember.  Haven't seen a wall-to-wall good winter since 13/14 though. The Hudson river froze enough for ice boat races to take place.