CAPE

Yeah looks Nino-ish. Look at my profile pic- very similar. Guess what h5 composite that is.

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CFS has that same general look for the last half of Dec, but with -height anomalies across the entire lower 48 lol. If only.

We can hope. Plenty of uncertainty with modeling of longwave patterns at 2+ week leads. It would be nice to have an h5 look like that for late Dec into Jan.

Nice reload. Looks more like a Nino pattern. CFS has been bullish for a while now with the HL +heights for early winter, and other LR/ extended products are in agreement. Weenie west based -NAO/50-50 low.

Temps look solidly below average through Thanksgiving on the means, although the GEFS depicts some moderation sooner(around Thanksgiving) than the EPS. The period just beyond that looks milder with some relaxation in the pattern, as the amped ridge over AK looks to weaken and retrograde over the Aleutians. Then we will see about a reload heading into December.

You mean the cold that just arrived today?

If the latest GEFS extended is correct, the Pacific pattern improves and flips the dipole, with a trough near the Aleutians and a Downstream ridge. Meanwhile the NAO domain also looks close to ideal. Pretty nice pattern heading into the second week of Dec if it's real.

Thanks, but not really. Looking ahead and seeing the potential (rather than being stuck in the despair of a shit pattern) pays off once in awhile.

I used the 6z GFS to illustrate the general setup. There will be fairly significant differences in the details from run to run on the ops at this range. The ens means suggest a weakish wave tracking NE off the NC coast for now.

It's definitely worth keeping an eye on. A little something to track other than first freeze for many areas.

Regarding the late week period and storm potential- as advertised there may be enough cold nearby to get involved(for favored areas) should a wave track close enough. Guidance has generally been suggesting a southern shortwave ejecting northeastward along the boundary at that time, but the depicted location/orientation of the NS energy dropping down with an amplified EPO ridge(breaking) would tend to dampen it and shunt it eastward off the coast to our south. Far enough out that the location/interaction of these features will likely change some. A thread the needle type deal, and fighting climo for the lowlands. 6z GFS h5 heights/ vorticity for reference-

0.64" total

Early season cold tends to drain into the intermountain west/ the N central US, and from there it can sometimes make it into the south central US. So yes, not that uncommon for places like that to see measurable snow sooner than many areas of the MA.

I made a post about the 'potential' during this period a couple days ago, and it has been discussed since. The advertised pattern has been pretty good, with possible waves riding the boundary, but climo is a major problem. Next week should feature legit wintry conditions (with some snow chances) for the western highlands, but further east, probably just some chilly weather and any wave that tracks close enough would probably be rain. Never know though- some frozen not out of the question esp inland.

Pattern as advertised on GEFS is 'getting there' towards the end of the month. The (upcoming) Pac jet retraction has the ideal ridge/trough position around AK inverted as depicted, so that could use some work. The AO is slightly+ to neutral. NAO trending negative.. moving into Dec ideally we see the NA +heights shifted a bit more over central/southern GL, with the associated trough further SE towards the 50-50 region, and some improvement in the Pacific. All that said, we see winter storms quite often with less than ideal h5 patterns. Need to get into the front end of snow climo period as much as anything.

Exactly the same amount here. The forecast and most guidance only had a half inch or so here though.

0.46" here so far. Done for now.

Modeled 'favorable' patterns in Nov look good on paper. That is all.

Lets just see if we can actually get our first freeze early next week. Looks marginal for the lowlands, but decent chance most areas (outside of DC proper) can get below 32 for a few hours Monday and/or Tuesday morning.

The pattern as advertised is decent enough, with some timing/luck ofc. Beyond that, it's mostly just too soon outside of the highlands. Looks like a bit of a relaxation for the end of the month, so hopefully we get another shot around mid December. I never expect snow in Dec, but it would be nice for a change.

Still a ways off, but the way the pattern appears to be evolving/progressing on the latest LR ens guidance, next weekend into early the following week might feature the best chance for a winter type storm, with possibly several waves riding along the boundary during that period. Climo is the biggest problem ofc. This look a month later would be more interesting.

With the -EPO/WPO getting established, cold air will be able to increase/expand in our source region via cross polar flow. Follow the streamlines.

I made a post about the potential for next week a few days ago using h5 from a global ens mean. At 7 days out just posting a snow map without any supporting discussion of the setup, well, that's not really very useful in a discussion thread. And yes, it will quickly cascade into a race to see who can be first to post a snow map for the next model cycle. Meh.

Just an opinion and not directed at anyone in particular, but it would be nice if the snow maps could be posted in the digital snow thread. They become marginally useful with additional synoptic discussion when there is an actual threat in the short range. Otherwise we will see discussion threads become cluttered with random snow maps every model cycle.