January 2024 -- Discussion

[Ginx snewx]

Kevin was in heaven 10/11 14/15 12/13 all second half winters, he ain't fooling anyone.

[78Blizzard]

41 minutes 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 like watching Groundhog Day.  There's only so many times you can watch that movie.

[kdxken]

20 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Kevin was in heaven 10/11 14/15 12/13 all second half winters, he ain't fooling anyone.

If you're going to lose a winter month December is the way to go. Boston averages 9 in. 

[STILL N OF PIKE]

2 minutes ago, 78Blizzard said:

It's like watching Groundhog Day.  There's only so many times you can watch that movie.

Great movie 

[78Blizzard]

1 minute ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

Great movie 

 Yeah, I enjoyed it, too.

[dryslot]

2 hours ago, NoCORH4L said:

The retention factor is huge, which is why losing December puts a major dent in the winter rating.  Will never be an A, no matter what happens. No one cares about a blue bomb that melts in 2 days in March.  Sure we'll take it, but it's not the same as getting it in DEC. 

The highest percentage of my winter grade is retention.

[ORH_wxman]

1 minute ago, dryslot said:

The highest percentage of my winter grade is retention.

Retention is huge for sledding and skiing up north. Hopefully we can lay down a few synoptic events at least for NNE over the next 10-12 days and get things restarted. That arctic shot on the euro today would be kind of nice…get those water bars frozen up. 
 

 

[Typhoon Tip]

46 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

seems like there’s something coherent across all ensembles for the 7th. GEFS perked up the southern stream. some strong members in there

I was speaking specifically to the GFS operational… Least that’s what I had in mind lol

[dryslot]

Just now, ORH_wxman said:

Retention is huge for sledding and skiing up north. Hopefully we can lay down a few synoptic events at least for NNE over the next 10-12 days and get things restarted. That arctic shot on the euro today would be kind of nice…get those water bars frozen up. 
 

 

That's what we need some cold air, We're starting from scratch as i mentioned a day or two ago, We need to refreeze all the tributary's again.

[kdxken]

4 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Retention is huge for sledding and skiing up north. Hopefully we can lay down a few synoptic events at least for NNE over the next 10-12 days and get things restarted. That arctic shot on the euro today would be kind of nice…get those water bars frozen up. 
 

 

Heck just get it below freezing for a couple days. Had someone call about picking up a cord of wood today. First question was "do you have mud tires on your truck?"

 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

1 hour ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

It will be interesting to see over the coming years how much CC is affecting the viability of analogs. 
 

While still potentially useful on a hemispheric scale, it’s almost like you have to adjust for current temps.

Basically, the bad patterns are much worse, because instead of +2, it’s now +6, which makes sneaking even a mediocre event much more difficult.

The neighborhood wolf just woke up…

[tavwtby]

40 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Kevin was in heaven 10/11 14/15 12/13 all second half winters, he ain't fooling anyone.

I'll take 10/11 or 12/13 walking through the door, 14/15 was ok, but was better in eastern areas than here, by the Feb 2 storm of2011 I had about 35-40" on my roof! that was the most snow I think I saw otg, and had to dig out a path for the oil delivery and by the time I got to the road it was as tall as me and like looking at fossils, seeing the layers of different storms, that was cool. historically speaking, the majority of our best storms happen from mid January to mid February, with some outliers but that's always the most active period in my experience.

[tavwtby]

so for those who put a grade on winter, other than retention, what are the other categories that factor in? frequency, cold, snow depth, total snowfall? just curious.

[STILL N OF PIKE]

9 minutes ago, tavwtby said:

so for those who put a grade on winter, other than retention, what are the other categories that factor in? frequency, cold, snow depth, total snowfall? just curious.

I stopped grading winters years ago because if I was being honest most are fails compared to what I want , and I can’t bring myself to grade based on average climo (which is probably what should be the measuring stick regarding retention , snowfall temps etc) 

it’s like Kevin trying to convince himself the average dilf he finds in Tolland is a catch , can’t do it 

if anyone is still reading this I probably grade based on how much snow I experience (chase at least half of what I see)  , how many weekends it rains to Canada , and if it’s useless bitter cold and dry

For me this winter went from good to now fair (went to VT 3x)

[NittanyWx]

7 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah don’t disagree there. I also don’t disagree that early January never looked brutally cold. To me it sort of looked near normal which is obviously a much colder look than the +5 December temps. But it may end up being more like +3 or something instead of near normal. 
 

We can still snow in that pattern, but it’s harder with a lower margin for error. 

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

 

 

[WinterWolf]

1 hour ago, Ginx snewx said:

Kevin was in heaven 10/11 14/15 12/13 all second half winters, he ain't fooling anyone.

Agreed.  It’s such BS and whining rhetoric.  He was sculpting snowbanks in 10-11, and 12-13, and 14-15 too!  If it changes around and the storms start a coming, he’ll be as giddy as a boy gettin lucky on prom night.  PERIOD! And that prediction can be taken to the bank.  December will be long forgotten about….by him and everyone.  

[WxWatcher007]

6 minutes ago, tavwtby said:

so for those who put a grade on winter, other than retention, what are the other categories that factor in? frequency, cold, snow depth, total snowfall? just curious.

Retention matters little to me here in the valley. For me, total snowfall, frequency of events, impact of events, and novelty of events (for example the big cold in February) hold significant weight in a seasonal grade. 

[tavwtby]

3 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Retention matters little to me here in the valley. For me, total snowfall, frequency of events, impact of events, and novelty of events (for example the big cold in February) hold significant weight in a seasonal grade. 

I agree with the retention, doesn't matter to me, it gets stale if not refreshed by new snows...I personally prefer frequent snows at least one good cold stretch and total snowfall.

[weathafella]

A grade?  I could care less about retention.  Big snow dumps, frequent threats, and the occasional record cold are the 3 ingredients I grade on.

[jbenedet]

1 hour ago, brooklynwx99 said:

seems like there’s something coherent across all ensembles for the 7th. GEFS perked up the southern stream. some strong members in there

No upper level ridging in the western Atlantic. Not a hiccup; it’s the sticking issue for this one, I’m afraid.
 

Congrats Asheville.

[weathafella]

The best retention winters for me were 1960-61 and 1993-94.  

[WinterWolf]

5 minutes ago, weathafella said:

The best retention winters for me were 1960-61 and 1993-94.  

14-15 had to have been a good retention year for you too…nothing melted for 6 weeks. 

[WinterWolf]

4 minutes ago, NittanyWx said:

 

Yeah its unfortunate.   You actually do have about a 48 hour window of HP to work with in eastern Canada.

Let’s make the most of that 48 hrs then… 

[ORH_wxman]

Just now, WinterWolf said:

14-15 had to have been a good retention treat for tiy too…nothing melted for 6 weeks. 

In the interior up here 2000-01 was one of the best. After the 12/17 cutter, it snowed a few inches on 12/20, then 12/22 and we never saw the ground again until April….funny part was that winter wasn’t super cold. It just lacked any real torching cutters or prolonged warm spells…but I think overall it was like a -1 to -1.5 departure winter. 
 

‘02-03 was pretty solid too…again, eps over interior where they got whacked by 12/25 and 1/3. Snow didn’t go aby where after that until well into March. That winter, unlike 00-01, was very cold. Something like -5ish. 

[dendrite]

16 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'.  It's only 'exactly what you want' if you have a source airmass.

 

 

 

 

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. 

[qg_omega]

18 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

 

 

Great post, if you look back at the posts when we brought up Canada was an absolute torch we were told that doesn’t matter, don’t need Canada to be below normal to snow and well above normal in Canada is great.  Facts matter, source regions matter, today we had 528 thickness over the south with rain.  Now we are getting Canada a bit colder but negative PNA becomes entrenched with CONUS flooded with pacific air.  Gradient will become a bit tighter vs the very weak gradient currently.  Today temps in the northeast were similar to Florida, a hallmark of strong El Niño patterns 

[weathafella]

9 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

14-15 had to have been a good retention year for you too…nothing melted for 6 weeks. 

I’m talking solstice to equinox.  

[weathafella]

5 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

In the interior up here 2000-01 was one of the best. After the 12/17 cutter, it snowed a few inches on 12/20, then 12/22 and we never saw the ground again until April….funny part was that winter wasn’t super cold. It just lacked any real torching cutters or prolonged warm spells…but I think overall it was like a -1 to -1.5 departure winter. 
 

‘02-03 was pretty solid too…again, eps over interior where they got whacked by 12/25 and 1/3. Snow didn’t go aby where after that until well into March. That winter, unlike 00-01, was very cold. Something like -5ish. 

Yeah I kind of forgot 2002-03.  Decent snow in every month November through April 

[dendrite]

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

[Lava Rock]

0.74". Make it stop

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