January Medium/Long Range: A snowy January ahead?

[Ralph Wiggum]

55 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Gem at the end is tasty.

There's our big bowl look!

[cbmclean]

LR ENS don't look horrible with regards to temps through the ends of the runs.

[pazzo83]

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).

[psuhoffman]

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.  

[bncho]

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.

[psuhoffman]

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.  

[Fozz]

So we have a lake cutter on the GFS that is mostly snow.

[psuhoffman]

GEFS finally starting to show a snowy signal day 10-15 

[Ji]

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

[Kevin Reilly]

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…..

[Ralph Wiggum]

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.

[psuhoffman]

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.  

[brooklynwx99]

27 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.  

EPS is really nice looking. might be cutting it close down here but it really reminds me of 13-14

[Dabuckeyes]

13 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

GEFS finally starting to show a snowy signal day 10-15 

Need a Weather Will WB map or it doesn’t exist. 

[psuhoffman]

11 minutes ago, Ji said:

oh you are talking about the Jan 23 storm. The jan 20 modeled event was severely dissapointing. Lets wait till ensembles i guess

There is a window around the 18-20 where the boundary could shift to our NW.  But it depends on wave spacing.  Right now things are trending towards a bit too much space between the departing trough/50/50 and the next wave amplifying a bit too far west creating a ridge in between.  But that can change...but even if it did go down that way we are only talking about a 2 day period and one wave that would likely cut to our NW.  After that we would be back in the game and the next wave becomes a threat...again contingent on the details of wave spacing.  We don't have blocking anymore so we would need something to time up correctly, come at us while we have the 50/50 from a departing wave, have waves come at us in pieces and not phased.  We pulled it off multiple times in 2014 and 2015.  I know it hasnt worked much lately but as I pointed out yesterday one of the main culprits for that was the full latitude -PDO induced central pacific pattern.  That causes systems to want to amplify way too much into the western US.  If the pacific ridge is displaced northeast which directs the cold into the eastern US more it gives us a much better chance.  We had that in January 2022.  

[psuhoffman]

5 minutes ago, Dabuckeyes said:

Need a Weather Will WB map or it doesn’t exist. 

I know a pure snowfall map is not the best way to break down a threat window...but I already laid out what I like about the pattern yesterday and nothing has changed.  So just for sh!ts and giggles, this is a good looking 7 day mean for a week 2 period.  First of all its 7 days not a 16 day mean... and at day 10+ you're not going to have a uniform track across guidance so you get this washed out area of snowfall, but its centered on us and extends well to our south and north...plus the "extra" snow to our NW is lake effect not synoptic, we are the epicenter of the snow max on this plot from synoptic snow.  

This is about as good a signal as you will see on a week 2 snow mean.  I was waiting for the ensembles snow plots to start to match the potential and todays 12z GEFS did. 

Again a snow map is not that useful but it shows what I wanted.  

[psuhoffman]

EPS snowfall much improved day 10-15 also

[winter_warlock]

54 minutes ago, pazzo83 said:

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).

Jan 2016

[brooklynwx99]

this is pretty much all you need to see

[psuhoffman]

I can see a win within this paradigm 

[Kevin Reilly]

25 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

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.  

Well explained I learned a lot thank you!  I appreciate your time!

[Kmlwx]

5 minutes ago, winter_warlock said:

Jan 2016

He didn't exclude 2016 - it is implied that it is included in his 10 year cycle comment.

[psuhoffman]

The long range reminds me most of very late January through mid February 2014 right now.  That was not the coldest period of that winter, there were a TON of waves in that window and they were about 50/50 rain v snow across our area.  There was an ice event thrown in, a rain to snow that thumped 70 north, and of course that mid Feb MECS.  But it was fun times.  

[Ralph Wiggum]

I feel horrible for New England. Joking of course as slight AN is still plenty cold enough for them. But funny to see as the entire nation save for FL and them is BN

[Terpeast]

33 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The long range reminds me most of very late January through mid February 2014 right now.  That was not the coldest period of that winter, there were a TON of waves in that window and they were about 50/50 rain v snow across our area.  There was an ice event thrown in, a rain to snow that thumped 70 north, and of course that mid Feb MECS.  But it was fun times.  

There were a lot of overrunning events, right? That's what the maps above look like to me

[psuhoffman]

11 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

There were a lot of overrunning events, right? That's what the maps above look like to me

It was a 3 week period of non stop boundary waves and we were riding the boundary with each one with mixed results wave to wave.  It was fun.  

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

2 hours ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

There's our big bowl look!

[mitchnick]

Idk, I never get all warm and bubbly when I  hear overrunning pattern because NE usually scores best. Hopefully, this year's overwhelmingly cold press puts up a decent fight instead of folding on us.

[wxdude64]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

The long range reminds me most of very late January through mid February 2014 right now.  That was not the coldest period of that winter, there were a TON of waves in that window and they were about 50/50 rain v snow across our area.  There was an ice event thrown in, a rain to snow that thumped 70 north, and of course that mid Feb MECS.  But it was fun times.  

I'd gladly take another Feb 2014  

[psuhoffman]

14 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Idk, I never get all warm and bubbly when I  hear overrunning pattern because NE usually scores best. Hopefully, this year's overwhelmingly cold press puts up a decent fight instead of folding on us.

It totally depends where the boundary sets up. It won’t work if the trough axis is centered too far west. Right now I like where it’s centered on the means.