Jan/Early Feb Medium/Long Range Discussion Part 3

[Stormchaserchuck1]

NAO is rapidly going + now. beginning of the end.. we are going to need a pattern change for snow again. That's what the the last 4-5 years have taught me, without favorable upper latitudes/indexes, we rarely if ever get snow these days. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

4 hours ago, Weather Will said:

Latest WB 12Z CFS; 5 day period ending February 11 is below average and it stays below average through March 5.

Feb 11 - March 5? What did those long ranges say in Nov/Oct?

[Stormchaserchuck1]

1 hour ago, Ji said:

This looks like it’s headed to how the seasonals saw February

Just a week late.

Maybe the SE will get a storm.

[Terpeast]

21 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

I had that as a kid!!

That’s your plan B

[Albedoman]

FWIW for those who were in elem school in the 90's   

as winter arrived a few days earlier than I thought nearly  a month ago, this will all be history by the end of the week with the normal january thaw as the pattern begins to reload. I will predict that by the end of the week, most of this snow cover will be gone except for the huge snow piles in the parking lots with the barrage of moderate rain events and warmer temps.  Then by the the 30th, another whopper of a rain/snow storm is leading the way to bring cold temps back into our area after Ground hogs day. Snow for the Poconos mix for LV and rain for Philly appears to be the makeup  of that storm event. Anything can happen as there is not enough cold air in place right now in the models. After that the new pattern gets established during the first week in February, by the third week of February there is a real  good chance of a significant winter storm event (maybe a few back to back events )  for the entire region.  This what historically I have seen in a typical scenario of a relaxing El Nino pattern in the last 30 years here. welcome comments but this what I have witnessed

 

[clskinsfan]

28 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

NAO is rapidly going + now. beginning of the end

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Yeah.. I lose what I'm going to say when I don't get to the computer in time lol. AO is going to hit +3.5 on the dailies in a few days... It seems like after good snows, we really amp the AO, doesn't it? 

[psuhoffman]

33 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

NAO is rapidly going + now. beginning of the end.. we are going to need a pattern change for snow again. That's what the the last 4-5 years have taught me, without favorable upper latitudes/indexes, we rarely if ever get snow these days. 

Oh so now the -nao is important. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Just now, psuhoffman said:

Oh so now the -nao is important. 

It's a little drier. I would give it a +0.10 advantage all things neutral, but because we're so sensitive with the 32 degree mark it's probably higher here.. 

[anotherman]

Oh so now the -nao is important. 

-pna

[Stormchaserchuck1]

On 1/19/2024 at 3:17 PM, fujiwara79 said:

I think they made an error somewhere.  The max NAO didn't even make it to 1.94 in December, so it's impossible that the average would be 1.94.  You should notify them

I think they use a skewed mean, where like 30 days of +1.00 would be a +3.00 monthly reading, but I'm not 100% sure. 

(That's why I said January will probably end up around +1.00.)

[GaWx]

On 1/19/2024 at 3:17 PM, fujiwara79 said:

I think they made an error somewhere.  The max NAO didn't even make it to 1.94 in December, so it's impossible that the average would be 1.94.  You should notify them

 

9 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

I think they use a skewed mean, where like 30 days of +1.00 would be a +3.00 monthly reading, but I'm not 100% sure. 

(That's why I said January will probably end up around +1.00.)

Great observation about Dec NAO! I calculated the average of the dailies and got only +0.60 vs the monthly table’s +1.94.

 But this big discrepancy is not too surprising because I noticed a while back that the monthlies don’t jibe with the dailies in that the absolute value of each monthly often comes out 2+ times as high as the the absolute value of the average of the dailies. It is similar with the PNA, especially when it is positive. But not with the AO.

 I have no idea why the monthly vs average daily NAO/PNA are this way. But at least the relationship is pretty consistent from month to month allowing for halfway decent predictability of the monthlies from the average dailies.

[fujiwara79]

7 hours ago, Terpeast said:

Agreed. Since I’m exactly halfway to the old climo benchmark, I’d give it a midterm grade of B. 

I should have clarified:  By winter ending today, I meant if we don't get any more snow until next winter, then I'd still give it a C- because my expectations have lowered a lot for the current climate regime we're in.  But if we're strictly judging it as a midterm grade, then yeah I would give it a solid B too.

[Jebman]

Guys we got model runs. Let's get trackin'.

This place is deader than the Reapers back yard.

[Jebman]

Models are showing a snowstorm for Jan 31. Central MD gets 6-8 inches. Rates are strong enough to accumulate in the DAYTIME!

FOLKS!

[Jebman]

13 hours ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

My WAG is we won’t be waiting until mid Feb for a snow chance. Thinking next 10 days provides another chance

We have a winnah.

[Ji]

Okay guys now I feel like I am back in high school again worrying about exams lmao.

Please stop posting garbage in the long range thread. There is a banter thread

Sent from my SM-A515U using Tapatalk

[Jebman]

31 minutes ago, Ji said:

Please stop posting garbage in the long range thread. There is a banter thread

Sent from my SM-A515U using Tapatalk
 

Post deleted.

[87storms]

Great observation about Dec NAO! I calculated the average of the dailies and got only +0.60 vs the monthly table’s +1.94.
 But this big discrepancy is not too surprising because I noticed a while back that the monthlies don’t jibe with the dailies in that the absolute value of each monthly often comes out 2+ times as high as the average of the absolute value of the dailies. It is similar with the PNA, especially when it is positive. But not with the AO.
 I have no idea why the monthly vs average daily NAO/PNA are this way. But at least the relationship is pretty consistent from month to month allowing for halfway decent predictability of the monthlies from the average dailies.

Sounds like the monthlies might be based on a standard normal distro. Maybe the dailies are either based on a correlation or the value just simply can’t get as high as the normalized monthly value. I’m not sure, though…just brainstorming.

[WxUSAF]

All 3 ensemble systems are consistent with pattern evolution the first few days of February. The big pac jet extension is very short-lived and it weakens after a couple days. Then the  trough out west starts to undercut the ridge in the east and the ridging rotates north and west across the continent. Keep this rolling forward a few more days and the reds and blues are mostly in the right places. Now do we need 7-10 more days to recharge cold air sources at peak climo? TBD, but I think it’s faster than that despite elephants and BAMwx flame emojis. 

[GaWx]

41 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

All 3 ensemble systems are consistent with pattern evolution the first few days of February. The big pac jet extension is very short-lived and it weakens after a couple days. Then the  trough out west starts to undercut the ridge in the east and the ridging rotates north and west across the continent. Keep this rolling forward a few more days and the reds and blues are mostly in the right places. Now do we need 7-10 more days to recharge cold air sources at peak climo? TBD, but I think it’s faster than that despite elephants and BAMwx flame emojis. 

 After the shortlived +PNA near January 31, the transition back to a supposed longer lasting +PNA starts ~Feb 10-12 on the extended ensemble model means (EPS, GEFS, CFS). Crossing my fingers that that holds as it is still 3+ weeks out, a near eternity as regards the abilities of the models. These same extended ensemble means have then been maintaining a +PNA on most days through the end of their runs (though the 1/20 GEFS run’s mean did relax it somewhat late in Feb).

[Ji]

-nao

[Bob Chill]

40 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

All 3 ensemble systems are consistent with pattern evolution the first few days of February. The big pac jet extension is very short-lived and it weakens after a couple days. Then the  trough out west starts to undercut the ridge in the east and the ridging rotates north and west across the continent. Keep this rolling forward a few more days and the reds and blues are mostly in the right places. Now do we need 7-10 more days to recharge cold air sources at peak climo? TBD, but I think it’s faster than that despite elephants and BAMwx flame emojis. 

 

 

The next couple weeks look a lot like late Dec / early Jan when east half of Canada was void of cold. The remnants of that anomalous height pattern cost us some snowfall with a good track. More often than not, big anomalous airmasses like to linger longer than guidance likes to think. 

Using that period as a guide, it's probably too optimistic to think we can flip to a snow window during first 7 days of Feb. I do believe the western trough undercuts and spikes the NAO or AO. Hopefully pac flow turns off right then and there. That would greatly speed up cooling the continent where it matters. Otherwise, we're prob normal temps at best with a though in the east until some sort of ridge deflects flow from the pac into the Conus. 

Right how, there is near unanimous agreement of this pattern in 2 week. Man, that's a continental problem lol

 

If Feb 4th really looks like this, it's going to take a lot of work to reset and get back to workable. I'm gonna skip out of town to VA later this week and come back when winter comes back. Lol

[Ralph Wiggum]

10 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Feb 11 - March 5? What did those long ranges say in Nov/Oct?

I was wondering the same. Someone had better tell the LR ens means to check in with the weeklies because they dont look anything alike even if you roll the pattern forward. Heck, even the Scan Ridging does the opposite of what we are used to ie migrating towards the NAO domain. Instead that ridge meanders elsewhere.

[Ralph Wiggum]

27 minutes ago, Ji said:

-nao

Op at range

[psuhoffman]

36 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

The next couple weeks look a lot like late Dec / early Jan when east half of Canada was void of cold. The remnants of that anomalous height pattern cost us some snowfall with a good track. More often than not, big anomalous airmasses like to linger longer than guidance likes to think. 

Using that period as a guide, it's probably too optimistic to think we can flip to a snow window during first 7 days of Feb. I do believe the western trough undercuts and spikes the NAO or AO. Hopefully pac flow turns off right then and there. That would greatly speed up cooling the continent where it matters. Otherwise, we're prob normal temps at best with a though in the east until some sort of ridge deflects flow from the pac into the Conus. 

Right how, there is near unanimous agreement of this pattern in 2 week. Man, that's a continental problem lol

 

If Feb 4th really looks like this, it's going to take a lot of work to reset and get back to workable. I'm gonna skip out of town to VA later this week and come back when winter comes back. Lol

Pac jet extensions are going to happen every winter. This isn’t some crazy rare thing. But lately we take weeks to recover. That’s the part that’s killing us and historically it’s not normal. Some of the best analogs to this winter a jet extension just like that set off the chain reaction that lead to a snow run. Usually a -pna comes before a blocking regime!  But the snow wasn’t a month later. It’s was days to maybe a week at most later. We didn’t take weeks to recover. That’s what really killing is lately, the progression that historically leads to our best snow pattern is torching the continent so bad that we end up wasting most of the good pattern when it comes!  

[psuhoffman]

@Bob Chill

look familiar…

that might be a worse jet extension!  We got our first snowstorm 5 days after this period and it was cold smoke!  Yes we were warm from Jan 15-25 that winter but as soon as the western trough split, part pulled back and the rest cut under and the nao tanked we didn’t need weeks. We immediately got cold and started to get snow. That caused our warmest period that winter. Remember @Ji complaining.  But it also set off our snowiest 2 weeks ever immediately after. 
 

I could do this with many other years. Extreme jet extensions are the loading pattern for our snowiest periods in history. But the snow came 5 days after the western trough cut under not 5 weeks. That’s why I was annoyed when everyone was just tossing those perfect track waves in early January because “of course we can’t snow immediately after a torch”. Umm actually that’s how we got some of our huge snowy periods in history. Especially in a Nino!  

[Bob Chill]

6 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Pac jet extensions are going to happen every winter. This isn’t some crazy rare thing. But lately we take weeks to recover. That’s the part that’s killing us and historically it’s not normal. Some of the best analogs to this winter a jet extension just like that set off the chain reaction that lead to a snow run. Usually a -pna comes before a blocking regime!  But the snow wasn’t a month later. It’s was days to maybe a week at most later. We didn’t take weeks to recover. That’s what really killing is lately, the progression that historically leads to our best snow pattern is torching the continent so bad that we end up wasting most of the good pattern when it comes!  

Seems like the extensions are more powerful and static than they used to be. You know more about this than me. I'm just using intuition. They often blast the entire continent. Maybe that's normal but I really don't remember massive recovery periods after "thaws" like we've been seeing. Could be a cycle in cycle that hasn't been figured out yet. The longer i live the more I recognize longer term patterns asserting influence that goes against what is predicted based on enso/climo/seasonal guidance. Maybe we should be expecting pac jet problems instead of being confused by them. Just spitballin'

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, Bob Chill said:

Seems like the extensions are more powerful and static than they used to be. You know more about this than me. I'm just using intuition. They often blast the entire continent. Maybe that's normal but I really don't remember massive recovery periods after "thaws" like we've been seeing. Could be a cycle in cycle that hasn't been figured out yet. The longer i live the more I recognize longer term patterns asserting influence that goes against what is predicted based on enso/climo/seasonal guidance. Maybe we should be expecting pac jet problems instead of being confused by them. Just spitballin'

No you’re right. The pac jet has been on roids lately. Ever since 2016. Best theory I’ve read is the expanded Hadley cell is compressing the jet and amplifying it.  So now when the jet extensions happen it’s not just warm it’s an ungodly torch across the whole continent.  
 

The problem is that’s still the loading pattern for our best snow pattern. We need those jet extensions to get to the canonical -nao -epo look that leads to most of our truly snowy periods.  That awful pattern starts the chain reaction and wave breaking that leads to what we want. But lately we waste a big chunk of the better pattern when it comes because it’s so warm leading in. So warm that often the SER just links with the -nao and it does us no good at all. 

[Allsnow]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

No you’re right. The pac jet has been on roids lately. Ever since 2016. Best theory I’ve read is the expanded Hadley cell is compressing the jet and amplifying it.  So now when the jet extensions happen it’s not just warm it’s an ungodly torch across the whole continent.  
 

The problem is that’s still the loading pattern for our best snow pattern. We need those jet extensions to get to the canonical -nao -epo look that leads to most of our truly snowy periods.  That awful pattern starts the chain reaction and wave breaking that leads to what we want. But lately we waste a big chunk of the better pattern when it comes because it’s so warm leading in. So warm that often the SER just links with the -nao and it does us no good at all. 

Lots of truth to what you have been posting lately. It’s nice that we finally took advantage of a below normal week with some moisture. 
 

I just hate the fact we are going into the same jet ext/pattern as we did to start the winter which took a month and two weeks to give us one cold week.