January Medium/Long Range: Chasing more snow to close out the month

[stormtracker]

What's next? 

[bncho]

Just now, stormtracker said:

What's next? 

King Euro.

[WxUSAF]

3 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

What's next? 

Spring 

[mattie g]

15 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

What's next? 

Feb 20-Mar 10 mashed potato season...

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, mitchnick said:

Timing is key again.

Timing is ALWAYS key...even in the absolute best setups...because big storms form along thermal boundaries where there is significant gradients for baroclinicity.  At our latitude that thermal gradient is very likely to include the rain/snow line!  So the big snow is never geographically that far from the rain snow like.  If the timing is off in either direction our snowstorms go from snow to either suppressed or rain very very easily even in a good pattern.    We even mixed with sleet in 96 for gods sake!   2016 was a 30-50 mile adjustment from dry slotting 95 real bad!  We never have that much wiggle room even in the best of times.  

[anotherman]

21 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Spring 

[JenkinsJinkies]

So I guess reaching climo is officially off the table?

[NorthArlington101]

Are we really canceling the entirety of the next 3 weeks? It’s February… we can fluke our way into something. 

[Maestrobjwa]

7 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

So I guess reaching climo is officially off the table?

Nothing is officially off the table at the start of February. To my amateur eyes, it doesn't look like an all-out torch right now...So all it would take is a couple more minor events and perhaps a moderate event for most to get to climo around here.

[mitchnick]

I'm thinking the operational models are coming to think the SE ridge is going to be stronger in our future than previously advertised. We'll have to wait to see how the ensembles look before we can reach that conclusion.  But the AI possibly leading the way isn't comforting. 1 or 2 runs like that with operational modeling disagreeing can be disregarded, but 3 runs now I believe and operationals jumping on board brings a lot of legitimacy to the possibility imho.

[psuhoffman]

7 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Are we really canceling the entirety of the next 3 weeks? It’s February… we can fluke our way into something. 

I am amazed that over several of the last few years...when we were stuck in absolutely hopeless winter base states with a status quo where I would take one glance at the mean longwave pattern and say "move on this is absolute shite shut the blinds no hope hell" and people would come at me with "you're too negative, stop being a deb, there is always hope" and of course there was not and we got no snow.  And now this year...we are having a pretty good season, its been a real winter, with several legit snow threats and at least one hit for most of the area and analogs say even if we strike out the next week we probably get another good patter from about Feb 20-March 20th and one last chance....and now everyone that was calling me a deb for years has decided to go full deb mode themselves.  It makes no sense..

 

It's almost as if they would rather be pessimistic when there is actually a chance...and optimistic when there is no hope at all.  

[psuhoffman]

6 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

I'm thinking the operational models are coming to think the SE ridge is going to be stronger in our future than previously advertised. We'll have to wait to see how the ensembles look before we can reach that conclusion.  But the AI possibly leading the way isn't comforting. 1 or 2 runs like that with operational modeling disagreeing can be disregarded, but 3 runs now I believe and operationals jumping on board brings a lot of legitimacy to the possibility imho.

Maybe but it was just yesterday the GFS had a snowstorm.  At that range I'd wait at least 2 days to establish its a real trend and not noise.  It's definitely troubling but I'd give it one more day before hitting the red button and moving on to tracking hints at the flip back in late Feb.  

[psuhoffman]

@mitchnick also...just looked at the long range GFS... that is an incredibly weird look, and for a few days would be really bad for us...not that I would mind a few days in the 50's or even 60s at this point!  but it would likely be temporary and I would roll the dice with where the GFS has things day 15!  It's incredibly blocky up top, the AO looks negative and with the potential to flip very negative fast...its just that WPO ridge went so poleward it cut off and became a block with a vortex over AK and at that moment thats super bad...but as soon as that moves anywhere else things could flip cold again right quick given the overall hemisphere longwave pattern.  I LOVE the way the central pacific looks... that GFS look would imply we might flip back cold even faster than I anticipated.  I'm not too mad at it.  

[Dabuckeyes]

Euro AI is not gospel by any means (yet). It was pretty jumpy prior to the last 24-36 hours. Even now, it’s still moving certain features around. It very well could be right come game time, but for now it’s silly to jump ship at hour 180

[psuhoffman]

I finally had a chance to look over the longer range guidance...and I am already seeing the seeds of the late Feb flip back colder by the end of the ensembles.  I don't think we are entering into a prolonged no hope period...by the time we are firmly into the warm up we may be tracking the flip back.  

[mitchnick]

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Maybe but it was just yesterday the GFS had a snowstorm.  At that range I'd wait at least 2 days to establish its a real trend and not noise.  It's definitely troubling but I'd give it one more day before hitting the red button and moving on to tracking hints at the flip back in late Feb.  

Don't disagree. I thought I was pretty equivocall by calling it a legitimate "possibility." Certainly believe we need a couple of days, but clearly the SE ridge looks to be a threat now whereas it wasn't so much before. So we wait and hope for a step back.

[psuhoffman]

The consensus now has the MJO already getting into 7 by the second week of February!   

Nice to see it slow and amplify in the cold phases then weakly race through the warm phases back towards cold again.  Seasonal trends... 

[psuhoffman]

Think of it this way... flip the situation...imagine if we were all warministas waiting all winter to get a nice MJO into the warm phases...we would be kinda pissed right now that after a slow amplified cold phase tour...its racing weakly through the warm phases and already headed back towards cold by the second week of Feb with hints the warm up might not last that long.  This is the total opposite of how this went most of the last 8 years.  

[SnowenOutThere]

17 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I am amazed that over several of the last few years...when we were stuck in absolutely hopeless winter base states with a status quo where I would take one glance at the mean longwave pattern and say "move on this is absolute shite shut the blinds no hope hell" and people would come at me with "you're too negative, stop being a deb, there is always hope" and of course there was not and we got no snow.  And now this year...we are having a pretty good season, its been a real winter, with several legit snow threats and at least one hit for most of the area and analogs say even if we strike out the next week we probably get another good patter from about Feb 20-March 20th and one last chance....and now everyone that was calling me a deb for years has decided to go full deb mode themselves.  It makes no sense..

 

It's almost as if they would rather be pessimistic when there is actually a chance...and optimistic when there is no hope at all.  

Its really odd behavior, and just looking at the long range runs verbatim (which is what I assume spawns a lot of the debbing) it doesn't even look that bad. I mean the CMC has an ice storm at the end of its run and the GFS still has cold on the continent, its not like they are showing complete shit the blinds. Additionally, even if we get absolutely nothing for the rest of the year I think this winter would go down as a "win" compared to what we all thought it would be. Sometimes people just are miserable though I suppose.

[Ji]

00z 20 inches

12z euro---disaster

 

its so fun to lose 20 inches in one run

[mitchnick]

Just now, Ji said:

00z 20 inches

12z euro---disaster

 

its so fun to lose 20 inches in one run

Did you really expect it to hold? Runs like that at 10 days never do. In fact, runs like that at any range hardly ever hold.

[cbmclean]

2 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Did you really expect it to hold? Runs like that at 10 days never do. In fact, runs like that at any range hardly ever hold.

Are you familiar with Ji?

[mitchnick]

7 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The consensus now has the MJO already getting into 7 by the second week of February!   

Nice to see it slow and amplify in the cold phases then weakly race through the warm phases back towards cold again.  Seasonal trends... 

7 ain't so hot in February during a Nina.

La Nada not much better.

We need 8.

[psuhoffman]

4 minutes ago, Ji said:

00z 20 inches

12z euro---disaster

 

its so fun to lose 20 inches in one run

Did you look at that 0z solution...like really look at how that played out?  There were 3 NS Sw's involved...all of them had to be exactly where they were to make that work...and the initial STJ wave was rain, but then left enough energy behind that phased with another NS SW timed perfectly behind the cold push from the initial wave and...I mean come on forget thinking you would get anything like that 2 runs in a row from this range.  I would be nervous believing something as convoluted as that nonsense even if it was 72 hours out not 200!  

The reason for the difference, other than just chaos, is one of those 3 NS waves ended up getting absorbed into the AK Vortex and never makes it into the equation this run.  Look at hour 174 and compare to 0z...the NS system just north of MN is gone and that sets of a chain reaction that leads to a different solution...the runs are actually impressively similar up until that point.  

[psuhoffman]

2 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

7 ain't so hot in February during a Nina.

La Nada not much better.

We need 8.

No and that is why the ensembles look exactly like that day 16 BUT its only a week away from getting to 8 which is ahead of schedule.  If things flip back by Feb 20 we are ahead of the game.  

[mitchnick]

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

No and that is why the ensembles look exactly like that day 16 BUT its only a week away from getting to 8 which is ahead of schedule.  If things flip back by Feb 20 we are ahead of the game.  

I posted yesterday that the Gefs extended had the wave into 8 by 2/20, but has updated today and has delayed that. No other progs get it to, or close to, 8 but the Gefs extended. So we need to root for it and to speed up. Otoh, we could always cobble something together that is neither reliant on nor wrecked by the MJO, providing it's a weak wave.

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/CLIVAR/gmon.shtml

[JenkinsJinkies]

44 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I am amazed that over several of the last few years...when we were stuck in absolutely hopeless winter base states with a status quo where I would take one glance at the mean longwave pattern and say "move on this is absolute shite shut the blinds no hope hell" and people would come at me with "you're too negative, stop being a deb, there is always hope" and of course there was not and we got no snow.  And now this year...we are having a pretty good season, its been a real winter, with several legit snow threats and at least one hit for most of the area and analogs say even if we strike out the next week we probably get another good patter from about Feb 20-March 20th and one last chance....and now everyone that was calling me a deb for years has decided to go full deb mode themselves.  It makes no sense..

 

It's almost as if they would rather be pessimistic when there is actually a chance...and optimistic when there is no hope at all.  

You mentioned at the end of last year's season that it was the final kick in the nuts for most snow lovers and I think that's how it's manifesting.

[Kevin Reilly]

1 hour ago, stormtracker said:

What's next? 

Spring 

[Kevin Reilly]

1 hour ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Are we really canceling the entirety of the next 3 weeks? It’s February… we can fluke our way into something. 

The ground hog will let us know soon!

[psuhoffman]

21 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

I posted yesterday that the Gefs extended had the wave into 8 by 2/20, but has updated today and has delayed that. No other progs get it to, or close to, 8 but the Gefs extended. So we need to root for it and to speed up. Otoh, we could always cobble something together that is neither reliant on nor wrecked by the MJO, providing it's a weak wave.

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/CLIVAR/gmon.shtml

The monthly guidance is god awful at projecting the MJO, which is not shocking considering by day 15 the ensembles aren't all that great either frankly...but projecting the MJO out to like day 15 using more reliable guidance gets it near 6/7 at that point which is logically a week away from 8.  The montly guidance stalls the wave to an unrealistic level given its behaviors this year.  I would disregard which is also why I disregard the monthly guidance in general.