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

[psuhoffman]

16 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

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.

Maybe but you can't chase what's already done.  We failed in that nino.  We waited years for a nino and it failed.  Sucks...but this is not a nino so if they are chasing the lost opportunity for a big huge snow season by applying that standard to this season its a huge mistake...the bar for a W this year was just "please don't totally suck" and we've achieved that!  

[psuhoffman]

EPS is tanking the EPO and the AO is heading towards negative again by day 15.  This is the inception of the flip back to cold.  It looks like things are reloading again by Mid Feb.  

[osfan24]

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Maybe but you can't chase what's already done.  We failed in that nino.  We waited years for a nino and it failed.  Sucks...but this is not a nino so if they are chasing the lost opportunity for a big huge snow season by applying that standard to this season its a huge mistake...the bar for a W this year was just "please don't totally suck" and we've achieved that!  

True. If you had told me before the season that this is how December and January turned out, I probably would have taken it no questions asked. The fact that I'm so snow-starved and this season has not really acted like a true Nina gave me hope that maybe it would be that rare big hit, or even 2014-2015 esque, but that seems unlikely at this point. Missing completely on last Sunday's storm was rough.

[IronTy]

49 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

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

La Nada not much better.

We need 8.

You rang?

[psuhoffman]

3 minutes ago, IronTy said:

You rang?

You mean he might get one of his long range forecasts correct for the first time in like 9 years!  BTW, calling for a warm Feb in a cold enso year  is not exactly going out on a limb.  

[mitchnick]

3 minutes ago, IronTy said:

You rang?

Hang up the phone and call an Uber!

[psuhoffman]

15 minutes ago, osfan24 said:

True. If you had told me before the season that this is how December and January turned out, I probably would have taken it no questions asked. The fact that I'm so snow-starved and this season has not really acted like a true Nina gave me hope that maybe it would be that rare big hit, or even 2014-2015 esque, but that seems unlikely at this point. Missing completely on last Sunday's storm was rough.

We definitely didn't max out... But given how dry its been, which is a cold enso staple, we did ok.  We really only had 4 legit wave threats and the south and central part of this forum hit one of them and the northern 1/3 hit on another, one was a low end event, and one got suppressed.  That is a pretty good hit rate...we just didn't have much opportunity because it was so dry.  We had almost an identical pattern to 2009 and we did much much better wrt snowfall.  It's a small sample size so who is to say whether we got lucky this year...or unlucky that year...but it could have gone worse!  

2009 January looked like this and we had almost no snow at all to show for it! 

 

[WEATHER53]

1 hour 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.  

There are too many depressos who feel others should feel it 

[WEATHER53]

1 hour ago, Ji said:

00z 20 inches

12z euro---disaster

 

its so fun to lose 20 inches in one run

CAB is very very real 

[osfan24]

7 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

We definitely didn't max out... But given how dry its been, which is a cold enso staple, we did ok.  We really only had 4 legit wave threats and the south and central part of this forum hit one of them and the northern 1/3 hit on another, one was a low end event, and one got suppressed.  That is a pretty good hit rate...we just didn't have much opportunity because it was so dry.  We had almost an identical pattern to 2009 and we did much much better wrt snowfall.  It's a small sample size so who is to say whether we got lucky this year...or unlucky that year...but it could have gone worse!  

2009 January looked like this and we had almost no snow at all to show for it! 

 

That's wild. Just shows how much luck is involved even if you have a pattern that looks like it should produce well. I guess that's why our inability to fluke into more snow events in bad patterns to offset that is not helping matters, but I guess I shouldn't go down that road lol.

[WEATHER53]

1 hour 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’m not worried. I put out the Mongolian Mania  in late December and it provided.  There’s still nothing up there to mess us up. Is isn’t as pronounced as before , just very good instead of exceptional . Any winter will have a week of 40’s .

[psuhoffman]

If you ever need a reminder of how much chance plays in all this...

This was one of our least snowy January's

And this was one of our snowiest lol 

[psuhoffman]

6 minutes ago, osfan24 said:

That's wild. Just shows how much luck is involved even if you have a pattern that looks like it should produce well. I guess that's why our inability to fluke into more snow events in bad patterns to offset that is not helping matters, but I guess I shouldn't go down that road lol.

Exactly, having a good pattern is like having an extra face card in a poker hand...its good but no guarantee.  I'll go there...   This is why having our bad patterns become "god awful" due to warming is a big deal...because we don't always score in good patterns...but historically we also sometimes do score in bad ones...if we lose the ability to fluke into snow in a bad pattern it hurts our climo in the long run a lot.  That does NOT mean we can't snow and get cold when there is a good pattern...that is a totally different argument that I have NEVER made.  

[mitchnick]

12z AI ain't budging. 

[bncho]

1 hour ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

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.

Everyone was disappointed when a Nino didn't produce. That felt like a last chance.

[osfan24]

5 minutes ago, bncho said:

Everyone was disappointed when a Nino didn't produce. That felt like a last chance.

Let's just have a Nino next year. That's what I'd do. With a positive PDO.

[psuhoffman]

8 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

12z AI ain't budging. 

But does it still flip us back cold by Feb 6 like the 6z run did? lol 

[Maestrobjwa]

41 minutes ago, IronTy said:

You rang?

Yo why does he look like a really bad lawyer here, hahaha

[psuhoffman]

Just now, Maestrobjwa said:

Yo why does he look like a really bad lawyer here, hahaha

Maybe to hide the fact he is a really bad forecaster? 

[mitchnick]

E mm d of the AI run ain't so bad with Canada 

6 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

But does it still flip us back cold by Feb 6 like the 6z run did? lol 

Not cold per se, but I started writing a post that Canada is flooded with surface cold air and a front has just come through. There is still a trough in the SW and a flattened SE Ridge. Here's the 500mb/850 temp map on top and surface temps below.

https://charts.ecmwf.int/permalinks/experimental:-aifs-(ecmwf)-ml-model:-500-hpa-geopotential-height-and-850-hpa-temperature-591

https://charts.ecmwf.int/permalinks/experimental:-aifs-(ecmwf)-ml-model:-2-m-temperature-and-10-m-wind-58318

If you change the 850 temp map to North Pole from NA, you can see that most of the cold at 850 is on our side of the Pole.

[psuhoffman]

3 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

E mm d of the AI run ain't so bad with Canada 

Not cold per se, but I started writing a post that Canada is flooded with surface cold air and a front has just come through. There is still a trough in the SW and a flattened SE Ridge. Here's the 500mb/850 temp map on top and surface temps below.

https://charts.ecmwf.int/permalinks/experimental:-aifs-(ecmwf)-ml-model:-500-hpa-geopotential-height-and-850-hpa-temperature-591

https://charts.ecmwf.int/permalinks/experimental:-aifs-(ecmwf)-ml-model:-2-m-temperature-and-10-m-wind-58318

If you change the 850 temp map to North Pole from NA, you can see that most of the cold at 850 is on our side of the Pole.

Yea, while the AI has destroyed our little window around Jan 30-Feb 2, beyond that it's muting the warm up and is way ahead of schedule in how its evolving the pacific and high latitudes towards going back into a colder pattern.  If that is the trade off, losing one low probability threat for a faster flip back to a better longer term pattern... I will take that.  

[psuhoffman]

6 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

E mm d of the AI run ain't so bad with Canada 

Not cold per se, but I started writing a post that Canada is flooded with surface cold air and a front has just come through. There is still a trough in the SW and a flattened SE Ridge. Here's the 500mb/850 temp map on top and surface temps below.

https://charts.ecmwf.int/permalinks/experimental:-aifs-(ecmwf)-ml-model:-500-hpa-geopotential-height-and-850-hpa-temperature-591

https://charts.ecmwf.int/permalinks/experimental:-aifs-(ecmwf)-ml-model:-2-m-temperature-and-10-m-wind-58318

If you change the 850 temp map to North Pole from NA, you can see that most of the cold at 850 is on our side of the Pole.

That is a perfect gradient right there!  

[mitchnick]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

That is a perfect gradient right there!  

Might be firing up too.

https://charts.ecmwf.int/permalinks/experimental:-aifs-(ecmwf)-ml-model:-rain-and-mean-sea-level-pressure-3283

[mitchnick]

Surface temps BN at the end of the Eps run despite the SER.

[mitchnick]

Though not great, EPS snow mean increased this run vs 0z and yesterday's 12z fwiw.

P.s. Didn’t bother to look at threats,just total.

[psuhoffman]

5 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Might be firing up too.

https://charts.ecmwf.int/permalinks/experimental:-aifs-(ecmwf)-ml-model:-rain-and-mean-sea-level-pressure-3283

That's "incoming" right there 

[bncho]

I think that the best-case scenario for our end-of-month threat is a 4-8" I-95 and 8-12" NW, almost like a 20% reduction of Feb 11 2014. Once we get into mid-late Feb, we should see some more chances with the AO/NAO flip.

This winter is seeming like a slightly worse 2013-14. Hopefully we can get the snow in March like we did in March 2014.

[psuhoffman]

9 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Surface temps BN at the end of the Eps run despite the SER.

TORCH 

[Eskimo Joe]

3 hours ago, osfan24 said:

Yeah, that was an incredible storm N&W. For 95, it was a really fun night if you stayed up all night, but it just drizzled the next day and a ton of snow melted. I went from about a foot or so down to less than half of that by the afternoon. And then it sleeted and eventually turned back to snow briefly. I low-key hate that storm because, ground truth when it was all done, NW got like 20 inches more than me.

Damascus received 24", Takoma Park received 5". An incredible snowfall gradient across Montgomery County from that event.

[psuhoffman]

15 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Surface temps BN at the end of the Eps run despite the SER.

but which normals are they using?????