Mid/Late February will be rocking. (This year we mean it!) February long range discussion.

[87storms]

6z gfs at 150 + 0z euro at 234
0z cmc also shows support for feb 17

This week might be the pattern transition/hand-off.

[Terpeast]

2 minutes ago, 87storms said:

This week might be the pattern transition/hand-off.

Models/ensembles have trended warmer towards the end of Feb, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they trended back colder once the pattern change takes hold this week and the convection fires back up in the IO. 

[Terpeast]

Op gfs forms another -EPO block at 300+ hours, but ensembles don’t have that yet. Something to keep an eye on whether we see another -EPO show up along with -NAO  they keep showing

[DarkSharkWX]

https://twitter.com/scweather_wx/status/1756672093997986055

[BTRWx's Thanks Giving]

6 minutes ago, DarkSharkWX said:

https://twitter.com/scweather_wx/status/1756672093997986055

I consider that very little change.

[Weather Will]

WB 12Z GFS, snow on snow in Northern PA this week.

[DarkSharkWX]

[Weather Will]

WB 12Z GFS, President's Day weekend blizzard.

[NorthArlington101]

WB 12Z GFS, President's Day weekend blizzard.

Beggars can’t be choosers

[Maestrobjwa]

Alright experienced minds here...on a scale of 1-10 how weird is this setup we're looking at for PD weekend/the day after?

[Stormchaserchuck1]

11 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

This was literally our snowiest period in Fing history.  

so please stop with the PNA nonsense. This above was the goal. That’s always been what we wanted. If you look at -pdo ninos they had a western pna trough. But they were snowy anyways!  We have snowed plenty through history in a -pna. Yes lately it’s not been working. But I was told that was a Nina problem. If we fail it’s not “pna”. We can and have snowed in a pna pattern. Some of our snowiest periods ever had a pna. 

Dude.. the -NAO is so weak now. I was right, when storms start cutting on models, and surface goes warmer, the models are usually adjusting the upper latitudes too. That's what happened. The blocks you and brooklynwx keep showing are ridiculous. We are no where near that -NAO strength. 

There is no disconnect also. It's fitting what we've seen over the last 2-5 years. But like I said before, when we are hitting -PNA at the end of this cycle, the SE ridge flexes/EC gets warm.. I'd watch for that later in the month and possibly next Winter. 

[Weather Will]

WB CAN at Day 9, pattern is chaotic, just too soon to tell....

[Terpeast]

Just now, Weather Will said:

WB CAN at Day 9, pattern is chaotic, just too soon to tell....

Yeah, the models are totally lost on handling this pattern change and what comes soon after. 

[psuhoffman]

19 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Dude.. the -NAO is so weak now. I was right, when storms start cutting on models, and surface goes warmer, the models are usually adjusting the upper latitudes too. That's what happened. The blocks you and brooklynwx keep showing are ridiculous. We are no where near that -NAO strength. 

There is no disconnect also. It's fitting what we've seen over the last 2-5 years. But like I said before, when we are hitting -PNA at the end of this cycle, the SE ridge/EC gets warm.. I'd watch for that later in the month and possibly next Winter. 

The point is if what’s been happening the last 5 years keeps happening we are totally F’d!  We are going to be in -PDO possibly for a long time. They can last decades. During these cycles, especially in winter, the -pna dominates!  It used to snow during these winters.  Other pattern drivers used to overcome a -pna. You keep saying -pna like it’s some revelation. We’re in a deep -pdo cycle. The pna is going to negative like 80% of the time. We have to be able to snow in a -pna or we’re F’d. 

[snowfan]

That window around the 24th is looking great for tanning, mulching, lawn mowing and early spring fishing.

 

[psuhoffman]

20 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Yeah, the models are totally lost on handling this pattern change and what comes soon after. 

The wave spacing has changed some. And the block not being as ridiculous, it’s still a very legit -nao just not some super historic monster, has maybe moved up the timing of the wave after PD a bit. That wave after the PD weekend now looks like around the 20th and has my interest. 

[Ji]

WB CAN at Day 9, pattern is chaotic, just too soon to tell....

So stop talking in absolutes then

[JenkinsJinkies]

So is it safe to say that this year being AN for the metros is off the table?

[snowfan]

Just now, JenkinsJinkies said:

So is it safe to say that this year being AN for the metros is off the table?

It is still too soon to tell. The 3 major reporting stations are roughly 1 sizeable event away from climo. We have roughly 5 weeks left to achieve AN near the airports. No one on this board knows how it’ll play out.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

10 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The point is if what’s been happening the last 5 years keeps happening we are totally F’d!  We are going to be in -PDO possibly for a long time. They can last decades. During these cycles, especially in winter, the -pna dominates!  It used to snow during these winters.  Other pattern drivers used to overcome a -pna. You keep saying -pna like it’s some revelation. We’re in a deep -pdo cycle. The pna is going to negative like 80% of the time. We have to be able to snow in a -pna or we’re F’d. 

This isn't that favorable of a 500mb

+WPO/+EPO.. NAO isn't that strong one way or another, CPC actually has the NAO positive for the Winter so far. 

I agree that the base-state is -PNA/-PDO right now. It may be connected to the +AMO cycle and general Hadley Cell expansion. I think these decadal cycles wane eventually.. I was half expecting us to have a Winter like 57-58 this year.. the PDO went from ridiculous negative to nonmatter that Winter. 

[nj2va]

2 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

So is it safe to say that this year being AN for the metros is off the table?

I would definitely not say that at all.  I’m halfway to average and I could easily hit above normal with one storm.  

[blizzardmeiser]

8 minutes ago, snowfan said:

That window around the 24th is looking great for tanning, mulching, lawn mowing and early spring fishing.

 

Toasty. Signs of early spring?

[Terpeast]

1 minute ago, nj2va said:

I would definitely not say that at all.  I’m halfway to average and I could easily hit above normal with one storm.  

Same, it’s not over yet. (Even though it feels like the fat lady is clearing her throat about now)

[JenkinsJinkies]

3 minutes ago, nj2va said:

I would definitely not say that at all.  I’m halfway to average and I could easily hit above normal with one storm.  

Yeah but PD is starting to look like a rug pull and if the temp map posted earlier verifies there's freakish warmth to close out the month. Which kills the chance for the 24th.

 

Yes the region got a good bit of accumulation on the 2nd day of Spring in 2018 but how often does that happen?

[psuhoffman]

Btw for when I do my post analysis I’m logging that this is now going to be the 3rd wave that takes a perfect track through central/southern VA and DC/Balt get no snow from it.  I don’t mean the surface low  SLP is highly affected by the thermal boundary and will be displaced if it’s warmer than it should be.  But the wave (look at the SW track) was perfect.  
 

Yes the loading pattern to all 3 was not ideal.  But guess what we used to snow often in a less than ideal pattern by getting lucky with a good wave pass.  If we can’t do that anymore, because bad patterns torch the thermals so bad that even a perfect wave has no chance, then it’s going to impact our overall snow results in a season quite a bit because much of our snow came from fluky little things like that.  We’re 0/3 now this year with perfect track waves in a bad pattern.  

 

[nj2va]

2 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

Yeah but PD is starting to look like a rug pull and if the temp map posted earlier verifies there's freakish warmth to close out the month. Which kills the chance for the 24th.

 

Yes the region got a good bit of accumulation on the 2nd day of Spring in 2018 but how often does that happen?

That’s a 2 week OP temp map…it’s not worth even looking at.  I don’t think anyone can confidently say what will happen the next few weeks.  We’ve had plenty of snow in March in the last 10 years.

[psuhoffman]

6 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

This isn't that favorable of a 500mb

+WPO/+EPO.. NAO isn't that strong one way or another, CPC actually has the NAO positive for the Winter so far. 

I agree that the base-state is -PNA/-PDO right now. It may be connected to the +AMO cycle and general Hadley Cell expansion. I think these decadal cycles wane eventually.. I was half expecting us to have a Winter like 57-58 this year.. the PDO went from ridiculous negative to nonmatter that Winter. 

We’re talking about the pattern coming up. Not the pattern we just had. Most of Dec and late Jan were bad. In between was a good pattern for about 4 weeks. Unfortunately we wasted a lot of it because the Dec pattern torched the whole continent and took weeks to get cold enough. We wasted a few very good opportunities and one perfect track rainstorm in that period. But the two bad patterns will mute the mean of the one good. 

[psuhoffman]

14 minutes ago, snowfan said:

That window around the 24th is looking great for tanning, mulching, lawn mowing and early spring fishing.

 

Why are you posting the day 12 of the worst operational model?  

[Weather Will]

I hope there is something to track by next weekend.  One 6 plus inch storm would definitely lighten the mood in here....

[Terpeast]

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Btw for when I do my post analysis I’m logging that this is now going to be the 3rd wave that takes a perfect track through central/southern VA and DC/Balt get no snow from it.  I don’t mean the surface low  SLP is highly affected by the thermal boundary and will be displaced if it’s warmer than it should be.  But the wave (look at the SW track) was perfect.  
 

Yes the loading pattern to all 3 was not ideal.  But guess what we used to snow often in a less than ideal pattern by getting lucky with a good wave pass.  If we can’t do that anymore, because bad patterns torch the thermals so bad that even a perfect wave has no chance, then it’s going to impact our overall snow results in a season quite a bit because much of our snow came from fluky little things like that.  We’re 0/3 now this year with perfect track waves in a bad pattern.  

 

Jan 7 is the obvious one. What were the other two?