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I'd recommend taking your eyes off the models for a few days. Things won't really come into focus until Thursday at minimum. And avoid the hype posts on social media... they're going to be relentless

The 18z AIFS is a major snow an ice storm for the Tennessee Valley region...end to end.

There was some big long post with a bunch of letters and numbers. It has been removed/deleted.

Sorry if this is too much banter in here, but damn, I still vividly remember for that 2016 storm sitting in a coffee shop on the Saturday before the event looking on my phone through this forum at the discussion. The 12Z models were all coming in, and they ALL homed in on a major event. Every. Single. One. It was only a matter of how much and whether we might get some sleet perhaps, etc. But they barely wavered through the next week through that storm. I remember walking out of the coffee place just KNOWING we were in for a seriously major winter event and there was little doubt in my mind outside of the fine details. That was a freaking fun time!

The Euro alone would be blockbuster for the rest of the winter....

I would love nothing more than to bless its heart in the best way possible, instead of the usual

yep it looked strung out, and it left some energy behind at 12z, so hopefully just GFS doing its thing. As you suggested and I alluded to at lunchtime, I'm looking for trends and consistency, and north/west has been the trend of the day. Hoping we can continue that at 0z's

I think it depends on the algorithm, pivotal seems to count ice as snow on the snow depth, so I would use Kuchera.

Being in the bullseye 5 days out is not necessarily a good place to be unless all the models agree, which they don’t in this case. Even 2 days out isn’t a lock. We all know this. I’m hoping for 4”+, which would be a huge win, but I’m expecting flurries with bitter cold to follow.

Nice update from the CPC MJO desk today. Here are the bullet points: • The MJO amplified over the last week, with a strong projection over the West Pacific on the RMMbased MJO index. • While eastward propagation has not been established on the RMM index, it is highly evident in the upper-level wind field. • Destructive interference between the MJO and the ongoing La Niña base state may be helping to slow the eastward propagation of the low-level winds and convection. • Dynamical model forecasts indicate an active MJO pattern, with the signal crossing the Pacific and Western Hemisphere through late January and early February. • Tropical cyclogenesis is most likely to occur in the vicinity of Australia or across the southwestern Pacific. • The MJO is likely to play a role in the evolution of the midlatitude pattern, acting to reinforce the cold signal across eastern North America. • Following a less coherent pattern for much of December, a robust MJO signal re-emerged at the start of 2026. The enhanced phase is currently over the far western Pacific. • The spatial presentation of the upper-level velocity potential anomalies has a Wave-1 signature consistent with MJO activity. • A strong couplet of easterlies (westerlies) has exhibited eastward propagation, and are currently centered over the Maritime Continent (East Pacific). This is consistent with robust MJO activity. • A shift in the position of the strong upper-level low in the vicinity of Hawaii helped calm the active pattern that began in early January. • The low-level wind field is less coherent than the upper-level signals, possibly due to destructive interference between the MJO and the ongoing La Niña event in the equatorial Pacific. • Trade winds have weakened somewhat across the equatorial Pacific, especially north of the Equator. • A strong westerly wind burst is ongoing just north of New Guinea, over the heart of the West Pacific Warm Pool. • Enhanced convection has begun to propagate to the West Pacific, mostly north and south of the Equator, as the MJO interferes with the La Niña base state. • Suppressed convection has overspread the equatorial Indian Ocean, consistent with MJO activity. • Suppressed convection continues across the central Pacific, mostly south of the Equator. • Both the GEFS and ECMWF depict rapid eastward propagation during Week-1, followed by a brief slowdown of the index and then continued propagation across the Western Hemisphere. • Other modes of anomalous tropical convective activity such as Kelvin waves may be at play in this uneven evolution. • The MJO is likely to continue playing a significant role in the evolution of the global tropical convective pattern for the next few weeks. • The GEFS RMM-based OLR tool depicts a robust signal, with somewhat slow eastward propagation across the Pacific. • The constructed analog tool also shows a highly amplified signal, with a better established eastward propagation across the Pacfic.

I’ll take it for sure.

Good point. Also, yeah, it's a Nina right now but it's not like the models are suddenly going "OMG, it's a Nina, we better back way off on any snow amount that we're showing!" I know, that's a bit snarky, but I find that a lot of people almost think that. The thing is...this situation is showing up now regardless of the ENSO state and I don't think we can just sit here and say "oh, it failed [if it does] because Nina rather than Nino!" I don't find that to be a binary thing really. One can argue that this kind of setup would be more rare in a Nina or not as likely to happen, but it's not like if anything backs off that "it's due to the Nina!"

I am starting to get inquiries from normal family and friends asking me about the storm next weekend. It seems that the hype machine may be warming up and that word of this potential storm has broken containment beyond the nerdosphere.

I am excited about a potential 4-8er.

In an overrunning situation……. The precip field is normally further north than is being modeled from a few days out.

Ended up closer to 7”

I know we are all focuses on this upcoming weekend...but the 18z AIGFS and GFS absolutely bury most of the forum area after next weekend.

Our failure mode is apparent and it’s not a trend north

GEFS better at 18z

GEFS better

And think about it - if we had no AI models at all, just the good ol gfs and euro, we’d be excited about a potential 4-8er.

Yeah I just edited it to say that. Yeah that's what made 2016 so fun to track

It's every euro model that is run, including the op, that creates the ensemble. Each colored segment is a 24 hr period of the winter goodness that specific model is showing. 50 total

the more i look at things, the more winter i see in the extended.