Jan Medium/Long Range Disco: Winter is coming

[psuhoffman]

4 hours ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

I think this is what we want....not some sharp trough aimed at the SE. A central us centered broad trof will work...just need to time waves correctly.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Weather Junkie]

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

@stormtracker @CAPE @WxUSAF @Terpeast @Bob Chill

Just a thought...what's your opinions of splitting this one thread into 2?  One devoted to pattern discussion beyond 10 days...and one devoted to specific threats between day 3-10.  Right now the two are lumped together in this "long range" thread and I think that can get annoying for those that are only interested in the analysis of the specific threats and don't want to have to deal with the super long range pattern discussions.  

Don’t know about the rest of you but I prefer to have all my fails in one thread.  No need to drag it out.

[WinterWxLuvr]

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

@stormtracker @CAPE @WxUSAF @Terpeast @Bob Chill

Just a thought...what's your opinions of splitting this one thread into 2?  One devoted to pattern discussion beyond 10 days...and one devoted to specific threats between day 3-10.  Right now the two are lumped together in this "long range" thread and I think that can get annoying for those that are only interested in the analysis of the specific threats and don't want to have to deal with the super long range pattern discussions.  

We always did that years ago. One med/long range thread, one short range

[snowfan]

3 hours ago, Ji said:

So the truth is…..deep down…no one thought this winter would be like this so far

The vision was

A cold late November early December with a snow window

A mid month warmup but not bad +2 at the worst but the pattern would be changing by Dec 20

Then our best chance for our white Christmas in years

A chance for a winter storm late December early January with the best of our Nino winter still ahead of us

40 inch winter on the way

In 61 years of reporting, Dulles has 8 seasons with >= 40”. You don’t just snap your fingers and get a 40 incher. You live closest to Dulles of the 3 major reporting stations so I’m using it in this example.

[CAPE]

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

@stormtracker @CAPE @WxUSAF @Terpeast @Bob Chill

Just a thought...what's your opinions of splitting this one thread into 2?  One devoted to pattern discussion beyond 10 days...and one devoted to specific threats between day 3-10.  Right now the two are lumped together in this "long range" thread and I think that can get annoying for those that are only interested in the analysis of the specific threats and don't want to have to deal with the super long range pattern discussions.  

I think we used to do this? Or tried it. Problem is people still end up posting in the wrong thread due to confusion of what belongs where. I like the idea, but I think it probably becomes a headache to moderate, constantly having to move posts.

[WinterWxLuvr]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

NOOOOOOOOOOOO

I don’t agree. If you want consistent cold and chances for small events that will work. Those deep troughs in the se might get you a big storm once in a blue moon but not most of the time is my experience

[Ji]

In 61 years of reporting, Dulles has 8 seasons with >= 40”. You don’t just snap your fingers and get a 40 incher. You live closest to Dulles of the 3 major reporting stations so I’m using it in this example.

Yes and most wear these kind of ninos which are rare by themselves.

[Lowershoresadness]

2 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

We always did that years ago. One med/long range thread, one short range

can we add a rage room where we can insult each other with like "you momma so fat" jokes

[stormtracker]

9 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

@stormtracker @CAPE @WxUSAF @Terpeast @Bob Chill

Just a thought...what's your opinions of splitting this one thread into 2?  One devoted to pattern discussion beyond 10 days...and one devoted to specific threats between day 3-10.  Right now the two are lumped together in this "long range" thread and I think that can get annoying for those that are only interested in the analysis of the specific threats and don't want to have to deal with the super long range pattern discussions.  

I think we should keep it all together until a specific threat consistently shows up?  I’m open to the idea tho. 

[Ji]

I think we used to do this? Or tried it. Problem is people still end up posting in the wrong thread due to confusion of what belongs where. I like the idea, but I think it probably becomes a headache to moderate, constantly having to move posts.

People like to complain in the busiest thread so it won’t matter

[snowfan]

Just now, stormtracker said:

I think we should keep it all together until a specific threat consistently shows up?  I’m open to the idea tho. 

This is the way to go. 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

5 minutes ago, CAPE said:

I think we used to do this? Or tried it. Problem is people still end up posting in the wrong thread due to confusion of what belongs where. I like the idea, but I think it probably becomes a headache to moderate, constantly having to move posts.

Yeah, we had done this before, but typically we had a "short range" or "threat" thread when there was something that was reasonably assessed to be quite likely to occur.  I'd defer a "threat" thread until we actually really have something that shows up consistently.  I don't exactly see that right now.  Just my two copper coin's worth (not much!).

Though, as @WinterWxLuvr mentioned above, I also recall that we did have a general "short range discussion" thread too, maybe the threat stuff was separate discussions once a real storm took shape.

(ETA:  Maybe it's been so long since we had a discrete real threat that I have forgotten, LOL!!!)

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

2 minutes ago, Lowershoresadness said:

can we add a rage room where we can insult each other with like "you momma so fat" jokes

Damn, the Panic Room has really devolved, hasn't it?!?!

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

3 minutes ago, Ji said:

People like to complain in the busiest thread so it won’t matter

Right, and instead of 300+ hour ops GFS plots that look like crap, we get 72+ hour NAM plots that are the equivalent in the short range!!!  Bring on the CRAS and (now defunct) DGEX!!!!

[Weather Will]

WB latest EURO weeklies, at least it looks like a wet month ahead...

[CAPE]

15 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

That's how I took what he said...but sometimes it's hard to translate "Chuck" into human language 

Sorry for my mistake... 

Congrats if that's what you deciphered out of that word salad lol. Highly subjective I guess.

[North Balti Zen]

17 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

We always did that years ago. One med/long range thread, one short range

This.

[psuhoffman]

I wanted to illustrate what I am talking about regarding what we want and more importantly DONT WANT regarding the longwave patter for snow.  Instead of cluttering up the thread with a bunch of replies I thought I would lay this out in one thread with evidence to support what I am saying.  

This is the mean H5 for every 25" snowfall winter at BWI since 1958.  From 1958 to 2016 there were 19 of those, a mean of 1 every 3 years!  So I did not only select our EPIC winters...these are basically all the good and great winters.  I did not want to be super selective. These winters used to happen pretty regularly.  This is the "what we want" pattern for the winter 

Try to ignore the overall heights because they are skewed colder by the years prior to 1980 when heights in general were much lower on average.  But try to look at where the lower and higher heights are centered and angled...what the longwave pattern looks like.  To make it even easier I pulled out the years prior to 1980 below...still the same pattern though just with higher heights in general so closer to what it would look like today on guidance now.  

The major take away...we want the lower heights centerer SOUTH OF US...not to our northwest.  We do NOT under any circumstances want lower heights centered in wester canada, that's where we want a ridge.  All this canada is warm talk is annoying because Canada is warm in almost all of our snowy winters.  We are way to far southeast and close to the Atlantic and with Gulf influence for a pattern with a mean trough position to our northwest to work for us.  

Look at the current day 16 GEFS

It's the antilog to our snowy years...everything is opposite where we want it in terms of the trough/ridge axis in the long wave pattern.  

Frankly that is even further NW than Detroit wants...this is the analog for Detroits snowiest winters...

Even they want the trough axis and the ridge in the pac centered significantly further east than the guidance is showing.  That is probably a great look for Chicago and Green bay on the GEFS.  Also...some of those years for Detroit are ok here...we did ok, not great we got scraps compared to places to our NW but ok...but notice the NAO is positive!  If we were going to try to make a long wave pattern with a trough to our west work we want the NAO positive!  Our best chance is to have a TPV over us and once in a while it gets displaced a bit south and can act to suppress the waves.  That's how 2014 worked!  It's still super rare and isn't likely to lead to a good year...but at least an OK one, but a western trough with a negative NAO is actually EVEN WORSE!  

Lastly...2014 is an example of the very very rare case a trough to our NW worked out but notice the differences here

Look at the NAO domain...again a negative displaced south to suppress the flow...we have a big positive there now, not going to work.  And look at where the pacific ridge is and the downstream trough over N AMerica.  There is a central pacific trough not ridge its just displaced southwest of where it typically is in our best years.  This year was an anomaly.  It's the ONLY season in the analog set where BWI got 25" of snow with a trough centered to the NW of us.  THE ONLY ONE.  And it had those very specific and odd features to go with it.  A full latitude EPO/PNA ridge and a displaced TPV in eastern Canada.  

So we do NOT want a trough centered to our west under any circumstances.  Only one time in 70 years has it lead to a snowy year and that season we had two other very specific features that we do NOT have this year.  We want the trough to be centered south of us with higher heights in western canada!  The complete opposite of that look some are saying is ok.  

[psuhoffman]

16 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

I don’t agree. If you want consistent cold and chances for small events that will work. Those deep troughs in the se might get you a big storm once in a blue moon but not most of the time is my experience

see my post above 

[psuhoffman]

15 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

I think we should keep it all together until a specific threat consistently shows up?  I’m open to the idea tho. 

I am fine with it either way.  It doesn't bother me the way it is now...but I get the sense it does bother some.  Especially when there are some threats day 5-10 that have potential and they have to see pessimistic posts about day 15-20 

[Buddy1987]

I thought the way that 1/7 storm was set up and the location of the LP placed over the ILM area would produce a much better surface map as we got closer. Storm def has my attention as we start to get closer. 

[Heisy]

Wave gets obliterated by the 50/50 above and that strong pac wave crashing on shore behind it speeding it up. There will be a HP wedged to the NE of us as this thing comes N for a short time it seems. I think there could be a thin line of accumulating to the north of this thing. In future runs I’d root on for the main shortwave to have more latitude as it heads east because it’s going to get shredded no matter what. What is discouraging is the one model today that brought the low far enough N was the CMC and it ended up being too warm except for far NW burbs. Cmc didn’t look as good as the GFS in SE canada though so who knows. Pretty strong thread the needle situation, but I guess it’s something to track at least.

PS Best look of the day for this storm was probably the 12z JMA at 192 lol.


.

[Scraff]

I’d like to request a separate thread just for beer, love of snow + shrimp po boys. @stormtrackercan you make that happen? 

[CAPE]

20 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I wanted to illustrate what I am talking about regarding what we want and more importantly DONT WANT regarding the longwave patter for snow.  Instead of cluttering up the thread with a bunch of replies I thought I would lay this out in one thread with evidence to support what I am saying.  

This is the mean H5 for every 25" snowfall winter at BWI since 1958.  From 1958 to 2016 there were 19 of those, a mean of 1 every 3 years!  So I did not only select our EPIC winters...these are basically all the good and great winters.  I did not want to be super selective. These winters used to happen pretty regularly.  This is the "what we want" pattern for the winter 

Try to ignore the overall heights because they are skewed colder by the years prior to 1980 when heights in general were much lower on average.  But try to look at where the lower and higher heights are centered and angled...what the longwave pattern looks like.  To make it even easier I pulled out the years prior to 1980 below...still the same pattern though just with higher heights in general so closer to what it would look like today on guidance now.  

The major take away...we want the lower heights centerer SOUTH OF US...not to our northwest.  We do NOT under any circumstances want lower heights centered in wester canada, that's where we want a ridge.  All this canada is warm talk is annoying because Canada is warm in almost all of our snowy winters.  We are way to far southeast and close to the Atlantic and with Gulf influence for a pattern with a mean trough position to our northwest to work for us.  

Look at the current day 16 GEFS

It's the antilog to our snowy years...everything is opposite where we want it in terms of the trough/ridge axis in the long wave pattern.  

Frankly that is even further NW than Detroit wants...this is the analog for Detroits snowiest winters...

Even they want the trough axis and the ridge in the pac centered significantly further east than the guidance is showing.  That is probably a great look for Chicago and Green bay on the GEFS.  Also...some of those years for Detroit are ok here...we did ok, not great we got scraps compared to places to our NW but ok...but notice the NAO is positive!  If we were going to try to make a long wave pattern with a trough to our west work we want the NAO positive!  Our best chance is to have a TPV over us and once in a while it gets displaced a bit south and can act to suppress the waves.  That's how 2014 worked!  It's still super rare and isn't likely to lead to a good year...but at least an OK one, but a western trough with a negative NAO is actually EVEN WORSE!  

Lastly...2014 is an example of the very very rare case a trough to our NW worked out but notice the differences here

Look at the NAO domain...again a negative displaced south to suppress the flow...we have a big positive there now, not going to work.  And look at where the pacific ridge is and the downstream trough over N AMerica.  There is a central pacific trough not ridge its just displaced southwest of where it typically is in our best years.  This year was an anomaly.  It's the ONLY season in the analog set where BWI got 25" of snow with a trough centered to the NW of us.  THE ONLY ONE.  And it had those very specific and odd features to go with it.  A full latitude EPO/PNA ridge and a displaced TPV in eastern Canada.  

So we do NOT want a trough centered to our west under any circumstances.  Only one time in 70 years has it lead to a snowy year and that season we had two other very specific features that we do NOT have this year.  We want the trough to be centered south of us with higher heights in western canada!  The complete opposite of that look some are saying is ok.  

Maybe those 'saying its ok' fully realize the advertised look is not what we ideally want to see, but also recognize that if that that's hand we are dealt we have a couple choices- find something else to do, or continue to look for chances within that pattern. We have managed to snow in non-ideal longwave patterns you don't approve of in recent winters, and many here are happy with any snow at all, and don't have your high standards of 40"+ per season and KUs in every Nino. In this area we suck at snow in general, and its likely not getting any better going forward. Maybe you need to adjust a bit.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

21 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Congrats if that's what you deciphered out of that word salad lol. Highly subjective I guess.

GOA stands for Gulf of Alaska. WC stands for West Coast 

[CAPE]

Just now, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

GOA stands for Gulf of Alaska. WC stands for West Coast 

Thanks Chuck. 

[WinterWxLuvr]

33 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

see my post above 

We are talking about two different things. I’m not talking about heights relative to normal. Draw a curve from Montana down to Texas around and up to the Carolina coast. That’s what I mean by a broad trough. These troughs that look like a cucumber from Wisconsin down to Ga and back up to Mass ain’t gonna do it. For one they get booted out easily. They last a day. Broad troughs give you a supply of cold to our nw that can get tapped. It also leaves room for secondary development on the tail end of fronts that do sweep through. Just my take.

[snowfan]

That post was far too long to quote. Why start with the 57-58 season for the analysis of seasons with >= 25” with the statement that these winters used to happen regularly?

The 57-58 season just so happens to be the beginning of arguably our most prolific period of seasonal snowfall on record at BWI. In fact, BWI reported 7 seasons of >= 25” snowfall in the 10 year period starting with 57-58 with an average over 30”. In the decade prior, it didn’t happen once. Why was that 10 year stretch left out of the analysis?

[Maestrobjwa]

43 minutes ago, Heisy said:

Wave gets obliterated by the 50/50 above and that strong pac wave crashing on shore behind it speeding it up. There will be a HP wedged to the NE of us as this thing comes N for a short time it seems. I think there could be a thin line of accumulating to the north of this thing. In future runs I’d root on for the main shortwave to have more latitude as it heads east because it’s going to get shredded no matter what. What is discouraging is the one model today that brought the low far enough N was the CMC and it ended up being too warm except for far NW burbs. Cmc didn’t look as good as the GFS in SE canada though so who knows. Pretty strong thread the needle situation, but I guess it’s something to track at least.

PS Best look of the day for this storm was probably the 12z JMA at 192 lol.


.

Yeah something like this...it feels like it's either gonna be too amped that it overwhelms or too weak and it gets squashed. That's a battle that, given the state of things...we're unlikely to win, imo Don't see much point in tracking it myself, but as CAPE said, it's all that's there for right now, lol

[Ralph Wiggum]

Anyone remember the WAR before Jan 2016?