Jan Medium/Long Range Disco 2: Total Obliteration is Coming

[Ji]

1 minute ago, caviman2201 said:

Thats prob not a great trend... 

 

whatever thing it takes not to get snow....happens. Un canny

DT says no to dr no though

 

[Darkstorm]

Agree with someone else posted way back. Wondering if this weekend system that hasn't passed through yet is still throwing things off across the board.

[jayyy]

[mention=2035]Bob Chill[/mention] was 100% right about the relax.  Ive not been concerned about it and thought it would be VERY brief, but now  I'm starting to think it doesn't even happen at all.   The higher heights are actually mostly from higher avg heights above the levels we give a crap about, the low and mid levels are reasonably cold, and the STJ is undercutting the pattern with a beautiful EPO/PNA ridge.  We could get a snowstorm easy in what was supposed to be the "relax".  Then all 3 major guidance systems transition back to a -AO/NAO regime with the STJ undercutting a EPO/PNA ridge.  That is the "it" look and it holds for the whole month of Feb on all guidance.  
I am glad I didn't lower my seasonal snowfall totals when I was thinking about it a week or two ago.  

Been a while since I’ve seen you genuinely excited for a longwave pattern that sets up for more than a brief window of time. Probably since feb 2022, but even then, I believe you were cautiously optimistic as the typical caveats applied. Been a while since we haven’t had to rely on everything lining up perfectly. The tall tale sign of a good MA snow pattern is having numerous ways to score, not just one outcome that requires 5-6-7 different things to lineup perfectly.

The CFS and other ensembles do look ridiculously good for February. Delayed but not denied if that were to pan out. Yes, it’s somewhat annoying that we’ve had to wait til 1/16 and beyond to see snow in our area but in reality, that’s only about 3’ish weeks into winter and we all know February is our money maker. All it takes is a decent or better showing from one or both of these next waves (16th and 20th) and an active February to put us above climo - potentially well above climo. IF models are correct about February showcasing a pattern that sustains a -AO/NAO/EPO regime, then woof. I also agree that if we have those lined up, we don’t want some big dog +PNA. Congrats NYC and new England if that happens. Give me a reloading -AO - NAO -EPO with a near neutral PNA and I bet we score big.

Things are obviously going to shift around a bit, but models have generally nailed the longwave pattern 2-3-4 weeks out since fall. Exciting times, no doubt.


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[WEATHER53]

54 minutes ago, Deck Pic said:

Congrats

How can anything that is “scientific” jump around like this?

[Chris78]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Oddly all the guidance at 12z kinda fell into their biases I've observed, GGEM/UKMET over amped, ICON progressive, GFS too far SE, except the Euro which was off on its own planet.  Just an observation, not sure what to do with it.  

Models are definitely having a hard time with all the moving pieces.

This might be weenie talk lol but it certainly seems like confiuence always ends up further north than advertised from Day 5+ on the models.

Would less confluence give us a better outcome?

[Terpeast]

1 minute ago, Chris78 said:

Models are definitely having a hard time with all the moving pieces.

This might be weenie talk lol but it certainly seems like confiuence always ends up further north than advertised from Day 5+ on the models.

Would less confluence give us a better outcome?

My hunch is that we'll see another tick north once the models resolve the next few days. That's been the repetitive theme as far as I can remember.

[brooklynwx99]

i'd much rather pull this thing NW than SE at this range, that's for certain

[NorthArlington101]

We lost .5"-1" on the median from 00z -> 12z. . Which is bad - means a lot more members show zilch.

[nj2va]

1 minute ago, Terpeast said:

My hunch is that we'll see another tick north once the models resolve the next few days. That's been the repetitive theme as far as I can remember.

Yes, I'd rather see the ensembles SE at this point. 

[Ji]

4 minutes ago, WEATHER53 said:

How can anything that is “scientific” jump around like this?

models are really great with longwave patterns and whether its going to be cold or not and if there is a general threat or not...but we are probably years away from being able to model a storm properly past 5 days

[WEATHER53]

Monster  low near Hudson mostly does not work 

[psuhoffman]

10 minutes ago, DCAlexandria said:

not for your neck of the woods

Well duh...if I lived in VA beach or Richmond VA or Ocean City MD I might like how that mean looks...but I don't I live in this area.  

[Ji]

1 minute ago, nj2va said:

Yes, I'd rather see the ensembles SE at this point. 

not me. This is one of those events where when we need a North shift...it will shift even more south

[WEATHER53]

Just now, Ji said:

models are really great with longwave patterns and whether its going to be cold or not and if there is a general threat or not...but we are probably years away from being able to model a storm properly past 5 days

Yes they do hit cold outbreaks very well. With storms the amount of “ingredients” is just too tough to decipher. 

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

7 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

We lost .5"-1" on the median from 00z -> 12z. . Which is bad - means a lot more members show zilch.

This is actually a pretty good spot to be in IMO at day 5.  Heaviest precip to our southeast while some other models showing everything more NW.   Take a blend of everything and it's a snowstorm for us.

[psuhoffman]

11 minutes ago, WEATHER53 said:

How can anything that is “scientific” jump around like this?

Think about the ensembles. They make minor perturbation's to the initial conditions and it completely changes the outcome once you get out past a few days because very minor differences at short ranges become exponential at 100+ hours.  So even if we had the math perfected to perfectly predict the atmosphere (which we dont) we still couldnt actually do it because we don't have 100% accurate measurements from every inch of the atmosphere to initialize hour 0.  And unless you get the initial 0 hour totally 100% correct the rest of your projection will be wrong and the further out in time you go the more wrong it will be.  

So what happens is every run we do the best way can with all our observations and satellite and aircraft data input into the model to initialize the atmosphere correctly.  Then the model uses that to project whats going to happen.  But then the next run we get new observations and it sees what we got wrong last time and fixes it, and that changes the outcome.  Sometimes not much, certainly not much at 6 or 12 or 24 hours...but out at 100 hours pretty minor changes can have huge impacts.  A couple MB wrong with a feature at 6 hours can end up changing the result by hundreds of miles at 120 hours away.  

[psuhoffman]

29 minutes ago, Ji said:

@psuhoffmani hope we dont do this 8-0 thing again instead of 8-3

8-0 is way more probable than 8-3.  On the grand scheme of things the snow with any wave is a pretty small geographic area.  The degree of error we need in either direction to go from 8 to 3 is way way way less than the permutations that can produce 0.  A HUGE area will get 0 lol.  

[TowsonWeather]

21 minutes ago, WEATHER53 said:

How can anything that is “scientific” jump around like this?

It's been explained to you a thousand times and yet you keep asking. Which isn't because you want an answer, you just want to whine at everyone in the form of a question. We get it. We really do get it. We know you think weather models suck. I promise, additional rounds of passive aggressive "questions" aren't needed.

[midatlanticweather]

Is there model validation on specific ensembles? Like certain ones are more reliable than others? Just curious

 

[psuhoffman]

52 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Even in said Shakespeare hypothetical...the worse part would be that we really wouldn't have an answer...as a suppressed pattern wouldn't answer the "too warm" question as that would be more of a bad luck thing, right?

Depends...if we truly go suppressed and don't get anymore legit threats yea I would say it would be unfair to blame this on the elephant in the room.  But...we've already wasted a couple "in the box" storms this year.  We need a system to track through a specific area for us to get a snowstorm.  How many of those chances you think we get in a winter?  In 2010 there were 5.  DC only wasted 1 and it was very early Dec, places just NW got snow.  The other 4 all produced significant snow.  2016 had 5 and DC partially wasted 4 of them.  A couple had some degree of mixed precip and some snow, one was in March and was just too warm, one was early January and still too warm following the Dec torch...but out of 5 perfect tracks only 1 produced big snow.  Luckily it was BIG BIG BIG snow.   But that's why 2016 wasnt 2010, both had 5 storms through our box but 4/5 were too warm in 2016 v 1/5 in 2010.  

If at the end of the winter we had 4 or 5 waves that took a perfect track and only 1 or worse none produced snow...then I think its fair to say the elephant had something to do with it.  IF we go the rest of this winter without anymore ideal track systems then maybe we chalk it up to more of a fluke thing.  

But will any of us even survive the slaughterhouse this place will become by then to do that analysis anyways?  

[stormy]

At this point the deck is stacked against the Op. Euro.

It is an outlier without a friend. The EPS, GFS and GGEM all say yes and it is Dr. NO

If the 18z GFS stands pat, I believe the 00z Euro will come back into the fold.

If the 18z GFS collapses ,  well....... better luck next time. 

Remember, the models are smarter than we are. Wouldn't it be nice if they gave a 3 paragraph reasoning explanation of every run?

[Ji]

2 minutes ago, midatlanticweather said:

Is there model validation on specific ensembles? Like certain ones are more reliable than others? Just curious

 

just go with the ones that give you the least snow. They are the most reliable

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Aleutian island block may help this thing trend NW in the coming days.. It's not like we are in some deep +pna pattern, the pacific is still favorable for a slight SE ridge.. maybe this works to our favor this time. Either way, the Euro and GFS ensembles in agreement is usually a good combo

[psuhoffman]

24 minutes ago, WEATHER53 said:

Monster  low near Hudson mostly does not work 

It complicates things.  It can work...but you're right it adds another level of complexity and we don't usually do complicated.  The first big storm in January 1987 was an example of how a Hudson bay vortex can work though...but it requires us to get the NS to play nice with the STJ and lately we know how that often ends.  

[Terpeast]

2 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Aleutian island block may help this thing trend NW in the coming days.. It's not like we are in some deep +pna pattern, the pacific is still favorable for a slight SE ridge.. maybe this works to our favor this time. Either way, the Euro and GFS ensembles in agreement is usually a good combo

Now if you're a weenie, you'll love what Chuck is saying now. 

All it will take is for a slight 50-100 mile shift in the TPV to pull the track back up (or further suppress it)

[psuhoffman]

3 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Aleutian island block may help this thing trend NW in the coming days.. It's not like we are in some deep +pna pattern, the pacific is still favorable for a slight SE ridge.. maybe this works to our favor this time. Either way, the Euro and GFS ensembles in agreement is usually a good combo

OK we need to put out an APB for the real Chuck.  They have him tied up to a chair in a basement somewhere.  

[psuhoffman]

12 minutes ago, midatlanticweather said:

Is there model validation on specific ensembles? Like certain ones are more reliable than others? Just curious

 

That's not how they work.  All the effort is put into making the operational (and ensemble control just at lower resolution) as accurate as possible.  The purpose of the individual ensemble members is actually to produce a spread of solutions.  Because we know we will not initialize the atmosphere completely correctly AND we won't be able to project it perfectly even if we did...they produce members that have been slightly perturbed (changed) in some way in order to show a spectrum of possibilities to account for the errors.  

This can tell us a variety of things.  At long leads the average of all those solutions is way more accurate than the operational.  Even though the operational is the most accurate at short leads, over time chaos takes over and the average of a ton of slightly perturbed runs is more likely to catch what is most likely going to happen in the distant future than any one run.  

It can also help tell us if the operation just had a hiccup and spit out a bad run.  If the ensemble members are all different even at shorter leads its likely the op got something wrong.  

But I don't think they track each members accuracy scores.  The goal isn't to create a specific member that is accurate.  I'm not even sure the same members are perturbed the same way each run.  I would be curious about that myself.  

[Warm Nose]

[Ducks and runs]

 

[psuhoffman]

47 minutes ago, Chris78 said:

Models are definitely having a hard time with all the moving pieces.

This might be weenie talk lol but it certainly seems like confiuence always ends up further north than advertised from Day 5+ on the models.

Would less confluence give us a better outcome?

it's not so much confluence here as simply where the boundary ends up, but if the TPV were to shift slightly and that boundary ends up further NW that would help yes.  There are other moving parts though,  a stronger wave would help also.  

[WEATHER53]

22 minutes ago, TowsonWeather said:

It's been explained to you a thousand times and yet you keep asking. Which isn't because you want an answer, you just want to whine at everyone in the form of a question. We get it. We really do get it. We know you think weather models suck. I promise, additional rounds of passive aggressive "questions" aren't needed.

You can always bite me and/or use the ignore feature. It takes a maturity level that you lack to not lash out if your model babies get called ugly

i dont believe I ever  directed anything directly to you so your attack at me is immature and inappropriate. Also you are foolishly arrogant to pose  as some sort of board spokesman .

The ignore feature is yours. I will have no need to speak to you again. Models suck at predicting snow for around here. If you can’t deal with that then keep it to yourself.