CAPE

3 games in 11 days coming off the bye. 3-0 All dominant wins. LFG!

MV3!!

No left fade lately. Just down the middle.

Anyone feeling sorry for the Steelers fans? The Chiefs might actually be very good right now, despite the smoke and mirrors routine for much of the season, not looking great and getting every call and every break. And Mahomes is always money when it counts.

There is still a storm signal for the 4th on the 12z GEFS, but a bit weaker than the last 2 runs.

It's cold, it's gray. Actually feels like Christmas day. Enjoy the holidays everyone.

Snowstorm on the 8th then the avocado drops.

There is one monster hit, but there are 4 or 5 others with frozen for the MA plus one that's suppressed south. Pretty solid signal on 2 of the last 3 GEFS runs for a potential D9-10 event.

The strongest signal on the EPS continues to be around the 8th.

7-8 members have frozen for the MA in the 4-5 window, biased somewhat southward. 2 big hits.

Solid signal on the HH/Xmas eve GEFS for the 4th-5th.

Multiple signals on the latest EPS from around the 3rd on, but the 8th is the strongest. Actually favors frozen south of us.

It tried. Just different timing between shortwaves and not enough spacing this run. The 0z Euro tried too. That is definitely our first window of interest. 6z GEFS has 7 or 8 members that imply frozen for our general area in the 4th-5th timeframe

I think the extended tools are probably most useful to take a peak beyond the end of the latest ensemble run by a week to 10 days, but not 20 or 30 lol.

18 here this morning. I think the forecast low was 23 or something.

The combo of Nina and the TPV position/NS energy rotating southward around that complicates things. We end up with more LP to our north/northwest than we want. Wave timing becomes more critical to get the outcome we want.

Also the extended products that far out aren't very reliable- as we all well know from last winter's perpetually advertised epic pattern that never materialized.

I made a post about this a day or 2 ago. As long as the EPO ridge persists that pattern isn't hostile. We can have a SER and still get a wave to track underneath. Exactly what happened in Jan 22 when we were apparently in a complete shit the blinds pattern a week or 2 prior.

The 5th might be a bit soon. Agreed the 8th and beyond probably offer increasing chances for a winter storm.

Yeah not sure the conventional ENSO criteria means that much anymore. We still know a favorable look for winter weather for our region regardless..at least we hope that's the case.

The h5 look on the GEFS for the 8th is pretty much what we want to see for a MA winter storm. A -EPO with a southward displaced TPV, -NAO with lower heights off the Canadian Maritimes. Cold enough at the surface. The surface pressure depiction isnt ideal but this is still pretty far out. As depicted there is energy digging into the SW in conjunction with plenty of NS vorticity associated with the flow between the EPO ridge and the TPV. The timing and interaction between these shortwaves will determine ultimate outcomes, and tracking it will be nerve racking lol.

Jan 5-6 and again around the 8th or so look to be the 2 windows to monitor for a potential winter storm going forward. Sporadic signal but its there, esp on the GEFS.

The -EPO seems like the most certain feature to develop in the upcoming pattern. The exact state of the NAO has been the unknown imo. My wag is we see some transient -NAO periods going forward, but not a sustained NA block. That can work with a persistent EPO ridge and a bit of wave timing. Blocking in the NA was more favored last year and it never really materialized despite being persistently modeled in the LR. The state of the QBO and Solar argue against it this winter. Probably a little patience is required wrt the change in the h5 pattern to something more favorable, considering the modeled unfavorable/milder pattern hasn't even occurred yet.

26 after a high of 33 Pretty good chance there won't be any precip here regardless of form.

You don't 'ignore' the global operational runs outside of day 5. They are a tool same as the ensembles are. The trick is to know how to use them. In the h5 maps above the general pattern is actually very similar, but one is a higher resolution op run and the other is a mean constructed from 30 differently perturbed lower resolution ens members, each potentially with differences in timing and location of features.