CAPE

Well this is nothing new. Been the norm since at least July lol.

Oh I see it, lol.

At this juncture, there are still a range of possibilities. The mean is the way to go as a general guide.

The mean is where its at, other than going all weenie over a cherry picked member or 2.

Lookin' good!

Gettin' Hot In Herre..

I know you are into music. Expand your horizons. Get some range, dude.

Another bust low. 34 is going to be the high again today. Forecast high was 40. That's a major bust. I guess all that snowpack just to our north, along with weak sun and mid/high level clouds is having an impact.

Yeah, so much for that Jan SSWE!

Much better look in the NA on the 12z Euro ens.

When the SPV is going all Nelly, we usually have our -AO.

I am starting to get some 2009-10 vibes wrt warming Strat and and Trop over the HL. Pretty close to a SPV split on the latest GEFS, and IIRC there was a strat warming event and a PV split in Dec 2009, which kicked off a severely -AO/NAO winter. Not in that territory, but looking pretty good going forward.

Yeah I like seeing that10 days out.

Good to see the latest GEFS runs building the NA ridging further NW closer to the classic position in the LR. I figured we would see that adjustment, with so many recent op runs depicting a perfectly placed monster of a west based -NAO. EPS still has the +heights focused a bit too far east but seems to be incrementally improving as well.

Was 21 here this morning, with no snow cover. Plenty of frost cover though.

There are some good scholarly papers on the TPV/SPV relationship(and correlation to the AO), and its complex to say the least. They are completely separate entities, and sometimes there is little to no interaction(coupling) during winter. The reality is, for sensible weather, we are far more interested in the TPV, which is actually larger(multiple vortices), and directly influences our weather. We want a pattern that can disrupt and dislodge these vortices, and bring them south. That's how we get the cold down into the midlatitudes. It can happen at times even with a relatively strong SPV/+AO, as occurred 2013-14 with the big EPO/WPO block. In general though, when we have a persistently negative AO winter(which we clearly want) the SPV is a weakling, and it gets that way largely by transfer of heat into the upper trop/strat. eta- @Ralph Wiggum Good read here: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/98/1/bams-d-15-00212.1.xml

I am inclined to agree with this, but I have to keep the faith since I apparently called for a while Christmas.

Latest GEFS for early Jan. This isn't a good look if you are a polar vortex.

We are never that exciting.

Looks like the severe thread might get a little action lol.

Latest take from Mount Holly- Thursday into Friday the upper level low that was over the central United States is forecast to merge with another upper level disturbance diving south out of central Canada. The GFS has these two waves constructively interfering with one another with rapid deepening forecast. The ECMWF shows something similar, but is slightly slower. The CMC is by far the slowest here. Either way, the upper level dynamics with this system look very impressive with a 150 kt jet streak and accompanying 150/300 m height falls. Latest forecast soundings show a very impressive veered wind profile. The LLJ is also very impressive, with the 925/850 mb layer average forecast to be around 70 kts. Out ahead of the approaching cold front showers and some embedded thunder will be possible, with a change over to snow on the backside of the cold front also possible.

For those into snow maps, both the GEFS and EPS have an inch or less for late next week, exception being the western highlands ofc. Still 5+ days out with some variations in play as usual. My guess is either rain followed by a quick shot of snow, or the usual rain on the warm side of the front followed by CAA.

I might get tired of it by the end of next week if I don't actually see a few flakes. Or one, lets start with one.

18z GEFS mean is an inch or less for the Xmas miracle(aka CAPE) storm. I need to work on this.