Yeah we will have to see how the pattern progresses. Hopefully we get a relaxation of the Pacific Pig ridge in conjunction with a -NAO period, but the current pattern has been persistent since early Jan.
Very end of the month into the first few days of March still looks like our next best shot. Pretty weak signal for frozen on the GEFS and EPS though. Root for the CMC ens mean.
Beyond that, who knows. Maybe the SSW will save us, but I doubt it. This Nina/TNH pattern seems locked in.
Lets see if it translates to an improving h5 pattern. Oh look, a SE ridge about to link up with a -NAO!
We are stuck with the same general mild pattern with storms tracking west until that Aleutian ridge weakens. Some of the extended products get there, but might be too late for most of us. Always the chance we time something perfectly as the boundary briefly shifts southward heading into early March.
Those 3 are really just one- the persistently strong Aleutian ridge. Until that dies or shifts, the other 2 remain. We have seen plenty of evidence it cannot be mitigated by a transient -NAO or 50-50 lows. I don't see a legit sustained west-based block setting up anytime soon, and it is debatable if that would have the impact we need.
As it stands now on the ens means, our next best opportunity lies in this window. Yes, the perpetual 10+ days away, and this chance will probably vanish in about 5 days, to be replaced by another "promising look" 10 days later.
Making a move to a location with a "slightly better" climo in our general region probably won't make much difference at this point lol. Hell it doesn't even snow on Mount PSU anymore.
Need to move to the western highlands to notice a significant difference.
No notable signal for frozen in our region on the 12z EPS until the very end of the month. Only about 2 weeks away!
Time for a new 'March will be rocking' LR thread? Maybe there is another word that can be substituted for rocking.
The extended products depict a favorable pattern progression into early March, weakening the Aleutian ridge with the PNA trending neutral/ positive, suppressed/absent SE ridge, and a negative NAO(on the GEFSx and EPS weeklies). H5 looks really good for mid March period.
It's going to be difficult to mitigate a persistent extremely negative PNA/ SE ridge without a legitimate -NAO. The depiction on guidance in the LR has a slightly negative NAO with the ridge displaced too far north/east. Have to see how that evolves going forward but as advertised that won't help much.
It's still a relatively weak signal at this point. The majority of members have a low tracking NW for this period.
4 or 5 have a coastal with significant snow.
New edition of the weeklies isn't bad at all at h5 though. Not sure I would say it went in the wrong direction. The last run was ultra weenie and not likely to transpire.
The last edition of the weeklies was useless as it was initialized off a run where the EPS went all in on HL block forming. The next run it went right back to blue up top.
GEFS has a -NAO beginning to take shape at the end of the run. Still a relatively mild look for the east verbatim. We shall see how the pattern evolves going forward if the NA is indeed improving. Would help if the Pac cooperates a little.