February Medium/Long Range Thread

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, baltosquid said:

Something to chew on w/ regards to AI. Really had a good idea of the debacle from a long way out. We’re a bit beyond this range looking towards the 28th, so the current AI depiction has some more noise to work through than shown here around hr192, but we’re probably not far from the AI latching on to a credible idea of progression. Maybe even by Friday.

This is really valuable... but nothing works 100%, I wish it did it would make this so much easier.  But seasonal trends arent 100%, there are anomalies within the seasonal norms, I did jack that one time mid january for example.  And one model might do great with a storm then utter fail the next time.  I made a critical error trusting the Euro way too much because it was really really really good with several storms in a row, including the one that hit New England last weekend.  It was dead on perfect with that from like 8 days out.  So when it was showing a big snow around day 5 I was thinking...money.  But its performance on the last few storms did not mean it was going to nail this one.  So I agree the AI should become a big part of the equation...but nothing is 100% of it, we make the mistake of relying too much on whatever proved best "the last time" and forgetting that over the long run none of our tools is perfect taken by itself and we need to factor in everything and even then "good luck" lol 

[Terpeast]

19 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

No originally Feb 20th was "the first opportunity" in what I thought was a favorable period from Feb 20-March 15th,  but when it got to about 10 days out I did jump "all in" on that window so I can't say now...no no I wasn't wrong.  I really really liked the look...at at the 30k foot level it was really good. 

 

I mean if you just anyone these 2 panels, I mean honeslty this looks really really close to how a lot of our big snows.  If we are being uber picky maybe its more MECS than HECS...the PNA ridge isn't quite as bonkers as we would want due to the weak kicker, the H5 track is slightly NW of idea which might actually make me think its a snow to mix event if I was just looking at the h5...but if you just showed me these daily plots I would expect to flip to the surface and see a nice storm for us.  We got unlucky with some of the finer details that just went all wrong.  Weak SS wave that ran away out ahead, ULL that had a little too much depth possibly and acted like a kicker v an amplifier.  Split wave structure that destructively interfered with itself.  The ULL didn't really separate fully from the PV which flattened the flow in front.  And I think we could have overcome most of those small issues...just not all of them at once.  They were all very minor flaws...a stronger SS wave and it wouldn't have mattered.  A more consolidated wave without a duel wave structure and we would have been ok.  A full detatch of the ULL TPV split and the weaker SS wave would have worked.  There were actually more ways to win than fail for once in this setup and we managed to pull a fail out of the hat even with the deck stacked in our favor.  That's what makes this one hurt so much.  

I really think that it could have gone either way... the TPV hanging back west allowing the SS wave to pinwheel north to hit us... OR move further east to phase with the SS wave. Either would have resulted in at least a SECS+/MECS hit.

Chalking it up to just bad luck. Cookie crumbled wrong for us. Football bounced the other way. 

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, Terpeast said:

I really think that it could have gone either way... the TPV hanging back west allowing the SS wave to pinwheel north to hit us... OR move further east to phase with the SS wave. Either would have resulted in at least a SECS+/MECS hit.

Chalking it up to just bad luck. Cookie crumbled wrong for us. Football bounced the other way. 

yea...usually we are stuck rooting for a bunch of things to go right for us to get a good snowstorm...this was a situation where we just needed a bunch of things not to go wrong...and they did.  

[WVclimo]

Day 12-13 GFS with a southern slider that drops accumulating snow from New Orleans across the NW corner of Florida and up to the Tidewater of Virginia.  

[psuhoffman]

2 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Chalking it up to just bad luck. Cookie crumbled wrong for us. Football bounced the other way. 

Yea like if KC on that one play had just...oh wait, nevermind. 

[Terpeast]

1 minute ago, WVclimo said:

Day 12-13 GFS with a southern slider that drops accumulating snow from New Orleans across the NW corner of Florida and up to the Tidewater of Virginia.  

I wouldn't sleep on the 2/27-28 wave yet. Primary too far NW atm, but with deamp trends...

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, WVclimo said:

Day 12-13 GFS with a southern slider that drops accumulating snow from New Orleans across the NE corner of Florida and up to the Tidewater of Virginia.  

The nina snow anomaly map has a major minimum right over us for a reason...we are stuck between streams in these patters, so I am not saying that skepticism isn't warranted...but there are fluked within patterns and we are at a range where not much can be taken about a specific outcome yet...the general idea will start to hone in around day 8 or so....we really did start to see the idea of this coastal around day 8...then around day 4-5 the models got the details and have been locked in since.  If it still looks like a slider at 100 hours I'll throw in the towel.  

[snowmagnet]

1 hour ago, anotherman said:

The AI is becoming the new Dr. No.

Or the King.  

[SnowenOutThere]

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

yea...usually we are stuck rooting for a bunch of things to go right for us to get a good snowstorm...this was a situation where we just needed a bunch of things not to go wrong...and they did.  

I think that’s what really made the model watching this event feel so awful. It was just every run where every minor detail continued to trend the wrong way, it really felt like this Simpsons clip https://youtu.be/QiSdQtcj73E?si=x7a1hE_SEhOudiPt

[stormtracker]

18 minutes ago, WVclimo said:

Day 12-13 GFS with a southern slider that drops accumulating snow from New Orleans across the NW corner of Florida and up to the Tidewater of Virginia.  

That's a lock.  I'm deadly serious.   Watch.

[bncho]

11 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

That's a lock.  I'm deadly serious.   Watch.

it'll be in cuba

[mitchnick]

Can't make it up. Lol

[baltosquid]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

This is really valuable... but nothing works 100%, I wish it did it would make this so much easier.  But seasonal trends arent 100%, there are anomalies within the seasonal norms, I did jack that one time mid january for example.  And one model might do great with a storm then utter fail the next time.  I made a critical error trusting the Euro way too much because it was really really really good with several storms in a row, including the one that hit New England last weekend.  It was dead on perfect with that from like 8 days out.  So when it was showing a big snow around day 5 I was thinking...money.  But its performance on the last few storms did not mean it was going to nail this one.  So I agree the AI should become a big part of the equation...but nothing is 100% of it, we make the mistake of relying too much on whatever proved best "the last time" and forgetting that over the long run none of our tools is perfect taken by itself and we need to factor in everything and even then "good luck" lol 

Absolutely! It’s another “thing to watch” and I think we can say AI models are going to be consequential but of course never perfect and will have their own shortcomings. Super eager to see more of these models though. I wonder when we’ll get a mesoscale one - I figure that will take a bit longer since hallucination probably will be worse. 

[mitchnick]

5 minutes ago, baltosquid said:

Absolutely! It’s another “thing to watch” and I think we can say AI models are going to be consequential but of course never perfect and will have their own shortcomings. Super eager to see more of these models though. I wonder when we’ll get a mesoscale one - I figure that will take a bit longer since hallucination probably will be worse. 

FYI, upgraded Euro AI starts Tuesday next week in case you or anyone else missed it.

[psuhoffman]

48 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Can't make it up. Lol

You could by why would you want to

[psuhoffman]

37 minutes ago, baltosquid said:

Absolutely! It’s another “thing to watch” and I think we can say AI models are going to be consequential but of course never perfect and will have their own shortcomings. Super eager to see more of these models though. I wonder when we’ll get a mesoscale one - I figure that will take a bit longer since hallucination probably will be worse. 

If I understand the way the AIFS works...it would be difficult to have a meso scale version because meso scale feature are radically different in each and ever event based on a lot of tiny variables that will never be identical across general analogs.  But that is fine IMO, if analog based AI models can get us a general idea of what the larger synoptic features will be...I think basic meterology and climo knowledge can fill in the gaps.  If you show me a MSLP, H8 and H5 map and tell me these are accurate, most skilled meteorologists can fill in the details and be pretty accurate.  

[mitchnick]

12z AI warm/wet, cold/dry. 

[frd]

8 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

12z AI warm/wet, cold/dry. 

 

Where have I heard that before.   

Bring on spring and the sun, my vitamin D levels are low.    

[mitchnick]

9 minutes ago, frd said:

 

Where have I heard that before.   

Bring on spring and the sun, my vitamin D levels are low.    

It does drop in a big chunk of cold air into the conus at the end. I think you're better off getting the Vitamin D supplements for now.

[Ji]

On 1/28/2025 at 5:01 AM, CAPE said:

Well, we can use the rain. Other than the snow that fell Jan has been another dry month. 

my EPS snow chart tripled at 12z noon

 

[WEATHER53]

36 minutes ago, frd said:

 

Where have I heard that before.   

Bring on spring and the sun, my vitamin D levels are low.    

I cannot fathom how anyone would pay to be misinformed so frequently 

[Allsnow]

1 hour ago, mitchnick said:

12z AI warm/wet, cold/dry. 

Been locked in with that outcome for days now. Remember all those runs with the numerous costal storms last week? Ugh 

[stormtracker]

With seasonal trends, we are likely done this winter.  At least we got two events in.

[Ji]

With seasonal trends, we are likely done this winter.  At least we got two events in.

What seasonal trend? Congrats Va beach?

[anotherman]

With seasonal trends, we are likely done this winter.  At least we got two events in.

Dude

[mitchnick]

6 minutes ago, Ji said:

What seasonal trend? Congrats Va beach?

If you look at the percentage of average annual snowfall, areas around Baltimore south have done better than northern areas and that goes all the way up into ENE and NNE outside of the mountains and LES. So in that respect, there has been a seasonal trend that southern area in general did better than northern.

[BristowWx]

1 minute ago, anotherman said:

Dude

It’s too early to call it over. One more round.  

[Interstate]

32 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

With seasonal trends, we are likely done this winter.  At least we some of us got two events in.

fixed

[Solution Man]

9 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

It’s too early to call it over. One more round.  

Quote

 

May I have one more punch in the face before spring Sir

[stormtracker]

25 minutes ago, Ji said:

What seasonal trend? Congrats Va beach?

Correct