December Medium/ Long Range

[WxUSAF]

GGEM gifts central MD a white Xmas miracle 

[WxUSAF]

Monday morning low temp forecast:

GGEM: low 0s (lol)

Euro: low-mid 10s

GFS: mid-upper 20s

[Interstate]

Also could get a little NE MD magic on Friday. 

[Scraff]

1 hour ago, WxUSAF said:

GGEM gifts central MD a white Xmas miracle 

1-2” for everyone would be a beautiful gift. Hoping it’s on to something and leading the way…

[Paleocene]

All the globals look like 30s-40ish for highs on xmas day. A normal christmas??

[Maestrobjwa]

18 minutes ago, Paleocene said:

All the globals look like 30s-40ish for highs on xmas day. A normal christmas??

That's what it looks like--and given what we've been facing the last 9 years, I don't think any of us should complain about that! Now a cold rain would be annoying tho...give me a cold dry Christmas over that any day, lol

[stormy]

21 minutes ago, Paleocene said:

All the globals look like 30s-40ish for highs on xmas day. A normal christmas??

From 1991 - 2020, my normal high was 44 and low of 26.

[psuhoffman]

One thing I find "interesting" is the guidance right now for early January has more of a nino than nina look.  Take that for what it's worth...something to keep an eye on as it get's closer.  If we can get the high latitudes to cooperate and even just some STJ involved it would increase the potential significantly.  

[CAPE]

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

One thing I find "interesting" is the guidance right now for early January has more of a nino than nina look.  Take that for what it's worth...something to keep an eye on as it get's closer.  If we can get the high latitudes to cooperate and even just some STJ involved it would increase the potential significantly.  

It is Nino-ish to a degree. Not sure about STJ contribution, but if this look verifies we have a mechanism between the EPO ridge and the stretched TPV for Polar air to chill Canada pretty quickly with cold moving southeastward from there. Maybe after this pattern reset and being further into winter we get better luck with NS wave timing. A little -NAO action certainly would help to slow the flow a bit and hold the cold in instead of exiting stage right as a storm approaches. AO/NAO looks neutral here.

[mattie g]

3 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

GGEM gifts central MD a white Xmas miracle 

And an inch or so in my neck of the Fairfax County woods.

Mother f***er...if my kids woke up on Christmas morning to an inch of snow on the ground with a few flakes still flying, I'd roll over and die a happy man (maybe bad timing to die then, but whatever).

[psuhoffman]

42 minutes ago, CAPE said:

It is Nino-ish to a degree. Not sure about STJ contribution, but if this look verifies we have a mechanism between the EPO ridge and the stretched TPV for Polar air to chill Canada pretty quickly with cold moving southeastward from there. Maybe after this pattern reset and being further into winter we get better luck with NS wave timing. A little -NAO action certainly would help to slow the flow a bit and hold the cold in instead of exiting stage right as a storm approaches. AO/NAO looks neutral here.

That is more Nina, but I'll be honest I'm not wasting much time on the extended post ensemble guidance, the skill beyond week 3 is so low it's really just for fun.  But the genesis of the January pattern is now within range on the end of the ensembles.  This is the look that had my interest on the EPS and its been there for a few runs...GEPS also...a little less so on GEFS but I think its just slower to get to it.  

This is more so a nino pacific look, along with the correlated Atlantic side blocking and a split flow across N Amer.  This would be a rare look in a cold enso season.  But enso has not been as reliable lately so who knows.  I am not making any definitive calls on anything yet, this is all way way way out there...but I've taken heat for pretty much debbing on everything this season so far...so I thought it was worth it to say this is the first time I've seen anything that at least peaked my interest and made me take a second look.  

[CAPE]

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

That is more Nina, but I'll be honest I'm not wasting much time on the extended post ensemble guidance, the skill beyond week 3 is so low it's really just for fun.  But the genesis of the January pattern is now within range on the end of the ensembles.  This is the look that had my interest on the EPS and its been there for a few runs...GEPS also...a little less so on GEFS but I think its just slower to get to it.  

This is more so a nino pacific look, along with the correlated Atlantic side blocking and a split flow across N Amer.  This would be a rare look in a cold enso season.  But enso has not been as reliable lately so who knows.  I am not making any definitive calls on anything yet, this is all way way way out there...but I've taken heat for pretty much debbing on everything this season so far...so I thought it was worth it to say this is the first time I've seen anything that at least peaked my interest and made me take a second look.  

That would be a pretty good NA look by traditional standards/ if we looked at it in isolation. Specifically in this case what that panel represents is a step in the transition from the prior Pac puke onslaught with a torched Canada to the pattern being advertised a few days later on the latest EPS weeklies. That is the same look depicted on Jan 1 of the weeklies, and it ends up like this by the 6th-

 

[poolz1]

So far the 12z GFS and CMC look a bit sharper and diggier for the Fri system.  Would be nice to back ourselves into a light event.

 

[Weather Will]

Can only go up from here....WB 12Z GFS for Saturday.

[rjvanals]

6 minutes ago, poolz1 said:

So far the 12z GFS and CMC look a bit sharper and diggier for the Fri system.  Would be nice to back ourselves into a light event.

 

Coastal is a loss at this point but maybe we can get some mood flakes with the system dying in the Ohio Valley 

[CAPE]

Just now, rjvanals said:

Coastal is a loss at this point but maybe we can get some mood flakes with the system dying in the Ohio Valley 

That's the difference on the latest runs for western areas- the low associated with the weak clipper stays more intact. For eastern areas the inverted trough thing never works out at our latitude, and if some light precip does manage to fall temps are warmish, so probably light rain or maybe a snow tv mix.

[Maestrobjwa]

4 minutes ago, CAPE said:

That's the difference on the latest runs for western areas- the low associated with the weak clipper stays more intact. For eastern areas the inverted trough thing never works out at our latitude, and if some light precip does manage to fall temps are warmish, so probably light rain or maybe a snow tv mix.

I always wonder what these things would be like if we didn't have mountains, lol

[poolz1]

24 minutes ago, rjvanals said:

Coastal is a loss at this point but maybe we can get some mood flakes with the system dying in the Ohio Valley 

Yeah, the ceiling is about as low as it gets especially for west of the Bay.  I'd be happy with a solid coating kind of like the other day.

[bncho]

3 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

One thing I find "interesting" is the guidance right now for early January has more of a nino than nina look.  Take that for what it's worth...something to keep an eye on as it get's closer.  If we can get the high latitudes to cooperate and even just some STJ involved it would increase the potential significantly.  

Maybe we can get a miracle like Jan 22-23, 2016 or  Jan 6-8, 1996.

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, CAPE said:

That would be a pretty good NA look by traditional standards/ if we looked at it in isolation. Specifically in this case what that panel represents is a step in the transition from the prior Pac puke onslaught with a torched Canada to the pattern being advertised a few days later on the latest EPS weeklies. That is the same look depicted on Jan 1 of the weeklies, and it ends up like this by the 6th-

 

My thought process in ignoring the extended guidance is that over the last several years they’ve had a tendency to want to revert the pattern to a generic enso look almost immediately so that by the end of week 3 they always look like whatever the mean composite for the current enso is. That’s not been working out so well though and twice recently it completely busted when those products wanted to establish a canonical Nino pattern.  Will that day 15 Nino look immediately progress towards a classic Nina pattern by day 20, maybe. But based on recent performance and trends I’m not assuming so. 
 

 

[psuhoffman]

Let’s hope the extended guidance isn’t correct. Yes it’s a cold look but assuming those day 20-30 looks are correct I don’t like the long wave configuration at all to get a meaningful snowstorm. Maybe a clipper or a weak wave but there is no STJ and the trough axis is too far east to amplify a NS wave in time. It would be a frustrating pattern imo. 
 

Let’s hope the day 15 is correct and it doesn’t roll forward to that. 

[cbmclean]

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Let’s hope the extended guidance isn’t correct. Yes it’s a cold look but assuming those day 20-30 looks are correct I don’t like the long wave configuration at all to get a meaningful snowstorm. Maybe a clipper or a weak wave but there is no STJ and the trough axis is too far east to amplify a NS wave in time. It would be a frustrating pattern imo. 
 

Let’s hope the day 15 is correct and it doesn’t roll forward to that. 

You'll get dry cold, with some warm/wet interludes, and like it.

[cbmclean]

I see we have finally made it into phase 6 on the MJO as of yesterday.  We had spent the entire month in 5.  Looking to pick up speed and head into 7.  Will that do anything meaningful for us?  I have no idea.

[Maestrobjwa]

12 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Let’s hope the extended guidance isn’t correct. Yes it’s a cold look but assuming those day 20-30 looks are correct I don’t like the long wave configuration at all to get a meaningful snowstorm. Maybe a clipper or a weak wave but there is no STJ and the trough axis is too far east to amplify a NS wave in time. It would be a frustrating pattern imo. 
 

Let’s hope the day 15 is correct and it doesn’t roll forward to that. 

And besides...has there ever been a time we've had an STJ in a non-nin̈o?

[WEATHER53]

2 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

That is more Nina, but I'll be honest I'm not wasting much time on the extended post ensemble guidance, the skill beyond week 3 is so low it's really just for fun.  But the genesis of the January pattern is now within range on the end of the ensembles.  This is the look that had my interest on the EPS and its been there for a few runs...GEPS also...a little less so on GEFS but I think its just slower to get to it.  

This is more so a nino pacific look, along with the correlated Atlantic side blocking and a split flow across N Amer.  This would be a rare look in a cold enso season.  But enso has not been as reliable lately so who knows.  I am not making any definitive calls on anything yet, this is all way way way out there...but I've taken heat for pretty much debbing on everything this season so far...so I thought it was worth it to say this is the first time I've seen anything that at least peaked my interest and made me take a second look.  

And more Mongolian push reloading 

[rjvanals]

Interesting that the 12z models still give us a bit of hope for WAA snow on Christmas 

[CAPE]

28 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Let’s hope the extended guidance isn’t correct. Yes it’s a cold look but assuming those day 20-30 looks are correct I don’t like the long wave configuration at all to get a meaningful snowstorm. Maybe a clipper or a weak wave but there is no STJ and the trough axis is too far east to amplify a NS wave in time. It would be a frustrating pattern imo. 
 

Let’s hope the day 15 is correct and it doesn’t roll forward to that. 

That day 15 look is devoid of cold. Those +heights in the NA are a remnant of the bad pattern leading up to it. We can't snow with that. The pattern needs to progress to the -EPO/TPV combo to bring the cold. The risk is cold and dry, but gotta have the cold. The trough will probably broaden/shift west as the ridge axis does(typical Nina). Keep the EPO ridge and time a wave or 2. That's how we win lately in a Nina. Forget big snow. Forget your 40" climo average. Be content with a few light/ moderate events. Beach chase if there is an offshore bomb.

[87storms]

23 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

And besides...has there ever been a time we've had an STJ in a non-nin̈o?

I'm beginning to wonder if the STJ even exists anymore.  The lack of a consistent southern stream or fetch of moisture from the GOM is actually starting to get a little weird.

[HighStakes]

Euro remains considerably colder for the weekend against the GFS. Also negates any significant warm up after the cold shot.

[Maestrobjwa]

7 minutes ago, 87storms said:

I'm beginning to wonder if the STJ even exists anymore.  The lack of a consistent southern stream or fetch of moisture from the GOM is actually starting to get a little weird.

It was active last year, was it not? But we couldn't get any stable blocking.