psuhoffman Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 1 hour ago, cbmclean said: Well put, but La Nina + -PDO + bad MJO leave me with low expectations for FEB. I am uncertain where we go following January 20th or so. But I am a lot more optimistic than I was a month ago. I was on the record expecting Jan 20 on to be pretty bad...so it still would not surprise me. BUT... the PDO is now about neutral and heading the right way. The Nino is incredibly weak and has failed to assert much dominance on the pacific longwave pattern. The high latitudes have been more favorable than I expected. Could it all fall apart and flip to typical Nina Feb torch...sure, but some of the more neutral PDO nina's didn't even do that. Feb 2006 wasn't that bad and we got a MECS. I am now ambiguous on my expectations post Jan 20, I could see it go either way. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mitchnick Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 31 minutes ago, Heisy said: Right, once it gets to around day 5-6 it starts locking up pretty well. Sunday will bring the 20th day 7 so hopefully by then maybe we’re tracking something. . You're wishing my life away! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said: I am uncertain where we go following January 20th or so. But I am a lot more optimistic than I was a month ago. I was on the record expecting Jan 20 on to be pretty bad...so it still would not surprise me. BUT... the PDO is now about neutral and heading the right way. The Nino is incredibly weak and has failed to assert much dominance on the pacific longwave pattern. The high latitudes have been more favorable than I expected. Could it all fall apart and flip to typical Nina Feb torch...sure, but some of the more neutral PDO nina's didn't even do that. Feb 2026 wasn't that bad and we got a MECS. I am not ambiguous on my expectations post Jan 20, I could see it go either way. Been an interesting year. Feels like a changing of the guard from the persistent hell last 7 years or so. We don't even talk about the pac jet this year heh. Agree on your mjo posts. Imo- When the mjo is persistently bad, it's not the root cause of our woes, it's just another instrument in the symphony working against us. Works both ways too. LR models have busted badly breaking down a favorable mjo too quickly. I see the mjo as a persistence indicator. Like when it's being stubborn in general and it coincides with delayed or busted prog'd pattern flips in the conus. That's a really bad sign but it's certainly not all caused by the mjo. Persistence trumps climo and long range models are very climo based. We see this over and over. Majority of winters have 1-2 dominant features and they don't always line up with enso climo. Figuring those out in advance is hard of course but these features can often dominate a winter no matter what lr models say. Imo- things are lookin pretty good for us down the line 7 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hstorm Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 33 minutes ago, psuhoffman said: I am uncertain where we go following January 20th or so. But I am a lot more optimistic than I was a month ago. I was on the record expecting Jan 20 on to be pretty bad...so it still would not surprise me. BUT... the PDO is now about neutral and heading the right way. The Nino is incredibly weak and has failed to assert much dominance on the pacific longwave pattern. The high latitudes have been more favorable than I expected. Could it all fall apart and flip to typical Nina Feb torch...sure, but some of the more neutral PDO nina's didn't even do that. Feb 2026 wasn't that bad and we got a MECS. I am not ambiguous on my expectations post Jan 20, I could see it go either way. Bold early prediction! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 29 minutes ago, hstorm said: Bold early prediction! I could blow smoke up your arse and pretend I know what's going to happen like some others do. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbmclean Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 1 minute ago, psuhoffman said: I could blow smoke up your arse and pretend I know what's going to happen like some others do. He was just joking at the Feb 2026 typo. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WxUSAF Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 GFS a hit for MECS-LK Day weekend. Looks sorta like a repeat of this past storm in track. 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonjon Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 3 minutes ago, WxUSAF said: GFS a hit for MECS-LK Day weekend. Looks sorta like a repeat of this past storm in track. Yeah, that seems like a big change from prior runs. Good sign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 11 minutes ago, cbmclean said: He was just joking at the Feb 2026 typo. DOH 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 7 minutes ago, WxUSAF said: GFS a hit for MECS-LK Day weekend. Looks sorta like a repeat of this past storm in track. I would like a redo, with a slightly less suppressive 50/50 location next time 6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris78 Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 8 minutes ago, WxUSAF said: GFS a hit for MECS-LK Day weekend. Looks sorta like a repeat of this past storm in track. Can we please nudge it a little further north this time? Only asking for 50 miles or so. Asking for several Northern crew friends... 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hstorm Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said: DOH No harm, no foul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 BTW, I am not so sure we actually want storms to look "suppressed" in the long range anymore. That was a guidance bias 20 years ago, and we still say "just where we want it" when guidance has some southern wave day 10, but is it really what we want? How often has that worked out lately? Actually over the last 5 years or so a lot of our snow was rain on the guidance day 10. More that I can remember than storms that were suppressed and trended north. Pattern recognition is important here. When a model run shows some snowstorm day 13 despite the fact that almost every pattern driver is wrong we can be 90% sure its going to end up rain. But when the pattern in general is good, I am getting to the point where I would rather see a wave over or even slightly north of us than squashed in the long ranges. If cold is nearby there are multiple paths to win. A wave can end up weaker and south, it could come out in pieces, a lead can cut and a caboose can get us, a lead wave can become a 50/50 for a following wave, we can get a front end CAD thump... But guidance has become pretty good at picking up on suppression and its rare anymore that some wave thats down in the deep south and suppressed off the SE coast ends up coming up the coast. Its been a really long time since that happened. 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mitchnick Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 Gem at the end is tasty. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WxUSAF Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 1 minute ago, mitchnick said: Gem at the end is tasty. Looked a smidge warm, but it was about to cook 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattie g Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 2 minutes ago, mitchnick said: Gem at the end is tasty. ...as long as the nothern vort doesn't crush things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heisy Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 The wave the gfs has isn’t the same progression as the euro Ai….cmc is more in agreement, and boy does it look like it’s gearing up at the end ofthe run. . 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
North Balti Zen Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 51 minutes ago, psuhoffman said: BTW, I am not so sure we actually want storms to look "suppressed" in the long range anymore. That was a guidance bias 20 years ago, and we still say "just where we want it" when guidance has some southern wave day 10, but is it really what we want? How often has that worked out lately? Actually over the last 5 years or so a lot of our snow was rain on the guidance day 10. More that I can remember than storms that were suppressed and trended north. Pattern recognition is important here. When a model run shows some snowstorm day 13 despite the fact that almost every pattern driver is wrong we can be 90% sure its going to end up rain. But when the pattern in general is good, I am getting to the point where I would rather see a wave over or even slightly north of us than squashed in the long ranges. If cold is nearby there are multiple paths to win. A wave can end up weaker and south, it could come out in pieces, a lead can cut and a caboose can get us, a lead wave can become a 50/50 for a following wave, we can get a front end CAD thump... But guidance has become pretty good at picking up on suppression and its rare anymore that some wave thats down in the deep south and suppressed off the SE coast ends up coming up the coast. Its been a really long time since that happened. This post is so good I want to take it out for a nice dinner. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph Wiggum Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 55 minutes ago, mitchnick said: Gem at the end is tasty. There's our big bowl look! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbmclean Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 LR ENS don't look horrible with regards to temps through the ends of the runs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pazzo83 Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 1 hour ago, cbmclean said: He was just joking at the Feb 2026 typo. would be kinda funny if we had massive blizzards every decade on the 6th year of that decade. So far it's the trend since 1996 (I'll give us Feb 2006 since DC north was pretty good). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 Regarding 12z Euro...I know it ends up Ice to rain, but I'll take my chances with a gulf wave approaching us from the TN valley with a 1045 high over upstate NY. There are so many paths to a win there, basically anything other than it phasing early and bombing out to 989 in the lakes and I'll bet against that at this range. 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bncho Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said: Regarding 12z Euro...I know it ends up Ice to rain, but I'll take my chances with a gulf wave approaching us from the TN valley with a 1045 high over upstate NY. There are so many paths to a win there, basically anything other than it phasing early and bombing out to 989 in the lakes and I'll bet against that at this range. 100%. We threw away Jan 6 for being a "cutter" in late-December. Lately things have trended from rain to snow, warmer to colder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 8 minutes ago, bncho said: 100%. We threw away Jan 6 for being a "cutter" in late-December. Lately things have trended from rain to snow, warmer to colder. Some of us had a strong suspicion that wasn't going to cut based on the longwave pattern. Ji pointed it out! This is more complicated, we don't have a ridiculous block, but there is cold around and there are plenty of other ways to get a snowstorm if cold is around. We basically just can't have all the energy phase and cut, any number of other solutions end up with snow for us with that scenario. But it COULD cut, there is no block to stop it if a strong wave comes along...but I'll still take my chances with that look. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fozz Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 So we have a lake cutter on the GFS that is mostly snow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 GEFS finally starting to show a snowy signal day 10-15 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ji Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 19 minutes ago, psuhoffman said: Regarding 12z Euro...I know it ends up Ice to rain, but I'll take my chances with a gulf wave approaching us from the TN valley with a 1045 high over upstate NY. There are so many paths to a win there, basically anything other than it phasing early and bombing out to 989 in the lakes and I'll bet against that at this range. oh you are talking about the Jan 23 storm. The jan 20 modeled event was severely dissapointing. Lets wait till ensembles i guess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Reilly Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 20 minutes ago, psuhoffman said: Regarding 12z Euro...I know it ends up Ice to rain, but I'll take my chances with a gulf wave approaching us from the TN valley with a 1045 high over upstate NY. There are so many paths to a win there, basically anything other than it phasing early and bombing out to 989 in the lakes and I'll bet against that at this range. But it’s La Niña that’s the way….. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph Wiggum Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 I see 36 hrs, maybe 48 thru the entire GEFS run with temps AN. BN is the theme here. Recent years we would have been total opposite and tracking a 36 hours cold snap. My wallet and heating bill dislikes this, but my heart says let's go colder and longer please. We need pipe busting cold, ice, glaciers, and 15 foot snow drifts. LFG. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 Just now, Kevin Reilly said: But it’s La Niña that’s the way….. Not necessarily, there are two types of Nina base states. One with a flat pacific ridge and more westward displaced north american trough (typically in western canada or worse into the southwest US) and one with a more poleward pacific ridge which pushes the downstream trough eastward and extends cold into the eastern US. In the former nina type the eastern US is a torch and there is typically no snow anywhere near us, think years like 2008, 2012, 2023. The storm track doesn't matter at all in these years since there is no cold to work with. In the latter(years like 2001, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2018, 2022) our typical fail mode is that storms tend to develop too late for our area and miller b us. The STJ is suppressed and the northern stream systems get going too late. Places just to our northeast Philly to Boston did much better in those years. In neither type of nina are lake cutters the primary reason we don't get much snow. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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