February Medium/Long Range Thread

[Heisy]

.

[87storms]

.

Quite possibly the most important storm of the season

[BlizzardNole]

2 minutes ago, 87storms said:

Quite possibly the most important storm of the season

That's an understatement for our cursed area!  I just hope that, if we do get a big threat to materialize, I don't let the shell shock from these last two failures ruin the tracking and anticipation for me 

[Bob Chill]

15 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

18z GEFS is north and more amplified than 12z.  Are we going to worry about over and under amplified at the same time now?  
 

Trurh is both could happen, because we are in such a good pattern look they a miss in either direction is equally likely. Or a hit. I shouldn’t tell anyone how to feel. I promised I wouldn’t do that. But imo you’re gonna drive yourself crazy stressing every op run shift in this upcoming pattern. Let’s see what things look like in a couple days as this get inside 140 hours. That’s been about when guidance starts to get a somewhat clearer picture and converge at least a bit. And that’s amazing btw. Used to be 72 hours before I’d even take general ideas seriously. 
 

As for blue wave, it seems a little suspect to use the same feature to explain both over and under amplification. I’d have to look at it more but sometimes we try to find order to chaos when it’s just chaos. 

This place gets too neurotic for me during the second half of winter. What's wrong with just accepting that multiple solutions are on the table an it would be a fools errand to marry any one of them? I actually hate seeing ops toss out a little group of good storms at 10+ day leads. Then whichever one shows the highest total immediately becomes the minimum bar. And when it actually does pan out... a 10 day lead op signal goes the distance... and it's 4-6" instead of fantasy 10-12", it's a failure and the mood of the board is so-so at best (or downright bitter at worst lol). It's getting old to put it lightly lol

 

I think people are overthinking the NYC snowhole. Imo- it's just reversion. Why's aren't permanent. They're just required to "even things out". NYC prob broke every snowfall record during their decade heater run. That's not entirely free and you gotta pay some of it back. They'll go on another heater soon enough. I was totally unsurprised when the roidal -PDO suddenly broke down this year. It was time and repetitive storms (for weeks) took care of it like nothing lol. I think we make parts of this hobby way too complex. The more I simplify how I look at what's important (to me), the better my batting avg with my guesses. Less is more I think 

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

1 minute ago, Bob Chill said:

This place gets too neurotic for me during the second half of winter. What's wrong with just accepting that multiple solutions are on the table an it would be a fools errand to marry any one of them? I actually hate seeing ops toss out a little group of good storms at 10+ day leads. Then whichever one shows the highest total immediately becomes the minimum bar. And when it actually does pan out... a 10 day lead op signal goes the distance... and it's 4-6" instead of fantasy 10-12", it's a failure and the mood of the board is so-so at best (or downright bitter at worst lol). It's getting old to put it lightly lol

 

I think people are overthinking the NYC snowhole. Imo- it's just reversion. Why's aren't permanent. They're just required to "even things out". NYC prob broke every snowfall record during their decade heater run. That's not entirely free and you gotta pay some of it back. They'll go on another heater soon enough. I was totally unsurprised when the roidal -PDO suddenly broke down this year. It was time and repetitive storms (for weeks) took care of it like nothing lol. I think we make parts of this hobby way too complex. The more I simplify how I look at what's important (to me), the better my batting avg with my guesses. Less is more I think 

 

Exactly!  Thank you for a voice of reason, Bob.  There will be several solutions every model cycle and as I said a few times already in here, no point in fretting over every ops run at this point in time.  I will say that I do like seeing the ops at this range showing hits, or hints of hits.  I'd almost be more worried if nothing was showing up while the ensemble mean pattern was looking amazing (kind of like last year?).

As for NYC, didn't they have that run of 40"+ for like 3 years in a row during the heater you were referring to?

Thanks again for your thoughts and very "Chill" attitude and viewpoint!

[Maestrobjwa]

39 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

18z GEFS is north and more amplified than 12z.  Are we going to worry about over and under amplified at the same time now?  

Let me go on the record by saying I never worried about over amped. Just what you yourself laid out yesterday with the SER-NAO. Otherwise I liked how amped the wave was.

[psuhoffman]

15 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Let me go on the record by saying I never worried about over amped. Just what you yourself laid out yesterday with the SER-NAO. Otherwise I liked how amped the wave was.

Ok but the result of that SER was an over amplified wave 

[TSSN+]

44 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Btw this storm was only slightly more amplified at range. For like 24 hours the max snow was across MD and Southern PA. That’s a cows fart away from this end result for that range. That’s a noise level error for 8 days out!  
 

The actual failure of this week for our area was actually the second wave. If you dug into the ensembles that showed a “can’t miss” huge snow total it was from multiple waves this week. A lot of them done an initial wave going to our south. But they hit us with a second or third wave.  Where they failed was not seeing that we would only be on the cold side of the boundary for one day. They had the boundary stay south of us for 4 days as wave after wave passed.  
 

What about the fact the models were under amplified on the next wave Thursday?  What about the wave 3 weeks ago that hit PA and screwed DC?   It’s selection bias to only count the storms that  were under amplified and not the ones that ended up more. 

Gefs and eps was wild numbers for this system showing like an 9” avg at the same range as this next one. I’m just waiting till inside 3 days to get excited about anything 

[psuhoffman]

32 minutes ago, TSSN+ said:

Gefs and eps was wild numbers for this system showing like an 9” avg at the same range as this next one. I’m just waiting till inside 3 days to get excited about anything 

No that’s fair. Caution with long range is prudent. But it’s not true that under amplified has been the trend for every way. We’ve also been screwed by over amplified.  2 days ago a wave went to our north!  The next 2 waves after today will both be over amplified!  The storm I got 6” during the eagles rams game was more amplified than models indicated.  We’ve had some bad luck with storms missing us on both sides. It’s just bad luck. There hasn’t been a seasonal trend of everything being under amplified. 

[mitchnick]

18z AI still is a miss next week with light stuff onshore and a big storm offshore that clips ENE.

[Ji]

18z AI still is a miss next week with light stuff onshore and a big storm offshore that clips ENE.

Amazing how fast this fell apart lol

[TSSN+]

2 minutes ago, Ji said:

Amazing how fast this fell apart lol

Supposed to fly out of dca Friday for Vegas so ideally it can stay that way haha or hit Thursday or Saturday 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Nice -5 AO rainstorm, 2 weeks from the coldest of the year, tomorrow.  I still contest that 90N is too far north.. >95% of classic -AO cases were further south.

[mitchnick]

8 minutes ago, Ji said:

Amazing how fast this fell apart lol

To be fair, the AI had a decent storm in 1 run and it does move around a lot post 5 or 6 days.

My biggest concern is the -5 AO. We still could get crushed, who knows. But I've wasted a lot of time on phantom ensemble storms this year with a low rate of return. And what makes it really sting is that we're BN on temps. More salt in the wounds. I'm not going anywhere yet, of course, but I'll be damned if I'm having any fun with this "hobby."

[Stormchaserchuck1]

6 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

Feb 20 Setup 

@Stormchaserchuck1 close enough to 50/50?

Need it to hold when the storm moves east.. I still say the pattern is colder than average and above average precip, so snowstorm is probably high probability but a Gulf of Alaska low is not there, and 50/50 low is a little more progressive for when the storm arrives. There is more spacing between waves in the mid-latitudes, vs having it all slowed down. I don't think "coming out of -AO" produces the same snowstorm window as coming out of -NAO.. but I'm not 100% sure on that. I think -AO during the pattern favors snowstorms, but when you are rising up to neutral NAO from negative that has high major snowstorms correlation, especially with 50/50 low lingering. 

[Maestrobjwa]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

Ok but the result of that SER was an over amplified wave 

I feel like ya wanted to trip me up here...but I concede. An overamplified result would be the SER-NAO thing. I actually hadn't put the two together in my mind for some reason. Alrighty then, lol

[Heisy]

Mitch Ai was so close, if we can back the trough up a bit and get phasing faster it has hecs






.

[psuhoffman]

18 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Nice -5 AO rainstorm, 2 weeks from the coldest of the year, tomorrow.  I still contest that 90N is too far north.. >95% of classic -AO cases were further south.

It’s too soon. Regardless of where the block is we’re still in mjo phase 7 right now which is common for when a block forms, and it’s why there is usually a SER as blocks form. It takes a wave or two before the trough is in the east and the storm track is suppressed.  
Think recent major blocking episodes. Jan 2016, block initiated 10 days before the blizzard and we had 2 major rainstorms before the cold got in. March 2018 major rainstorm to start the month before the cold. Jan 2021 we had a couple rain events before the boundary got consistently south of us.  Even back in 2010 when the block started to reload we got a rainstorm in Jan before the cold established. Look what a mess the 2010 Block started with! 

Took a week to fix that. Blocking doesn’t immediately mean snow.  Actually we almost never get snow the first week after the AO or NAO starts to tank.  Our snow chances start to increase significant after week one and as the blocking is relaxing. 

[winter_warlock]

37 minutes ago, Ji said:

Amazing how fast this fell apart lol

Fell apart?? Still 7-8 days out lol

[mitchnick]

10 minutes ago, Heisy said:

Mitch Ai was so close, if we can back the trough up a bit and get phasing faster it has hecs






.

This is 3 runs in a row it's looked nearly identical to the 18z run...maybe 4.

Too early to get fired up, but if it does change for the better, it will just pick a random run and then stick with it. Give it until at least Friday. 

[psuhoffman]

One thing I agree with  @Stormchaserchuck1  on is most of our big snows, like HECS level have a trough under Alaska. That really amplifies waves in the east. That’s why the next wave around the 25 might have an even better shot as the pacific jet extends. But we have had plenty of lesser snows without that feature. And a few HeCS without it also. 
 

But regarding the location of the block…

I guess this is a bit north 

Shame this 

and this

were in the same exact spot or those two periods might have had a chance to be snowy around here. Oh well sometimes it just doesnt come together. 

[Heisy]

Icon was going to go off this run




.

[mitchnick]

Icon hopefully a hit with this look, but the vort off of Maine will likely shove it south unless it gets out of the way.

Just now, Heisy said:

Icon was going to go off this run




.

I was in the middle of my post damn you! Lol

[mitchnick]

[pazzo83]

well who do we have here

[psuhoffman]

5 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

was gonna be real close...the trough was amplifying and going negative real quick at the end...and the vortex was moving off...but would it capture and tuck it in time?  It was gonna be a close call for an absolute monster if it did.  

[mitchnick]

Heisey, looking at the 700 and 850mb RH maps, that vort off Maine is a buzz saw and looks to me it's a crusher.

[Amped]

22 minutes ago, Heisy said:

Icon was going to go off this run




.

That's a hall of fame fantasy run if extrapolated