CAPE

Yeah when I said 'next week', I meant beginning next week(around midweek) when we get some legit cold moving in for the first time in forever. Hopefully we get a week to 10 day window before the Pac ridge retros, mean trough pulls back west, and we SE ridge again. Or maybe the ensembles are wrong about that look and we roll into deep winter. lol.

Not crazy about the long wave pattern the global ensembles are continuing to advertise in the LR. Looks familiar. I know some may see a gradient pattern and think we could be on the "right" side, but not sure how one convinces themselves it will work out that way given that practically every storm this winter has tracked too far NW to snow here. Could work out if the GEFS is correct, but the Canadian ens looks especially crappy. More waiting and watching. Next week may be our hail mary window lol.

This is probably as good a run as is possible for the coastal plain with this crappo setup, and it still produces only light snow. Thus why I have been out since the beginning.

Crappy rates lad.

Still plenty to be worked out with phasing/lack thereof, track etc. One thing that continues to be consistent though is the complete lack of arctic air. Only way it works imo is a perfect phase/perfect track and a robust deformation zone. My interest lies in the period just beyond when it appears we will finally have some decent cold air to work with, and maybe even a transient -NAO.

18z GEFS gave us like 3 over the next 16 days.

They always tell us the same thing- we suck at snow.

I just saw that. Apparently heading to a basketball practice. Very sad.

I was up there for 79 and 83. Both better than 93 irt storms I experienced. eta- both beach chases in 17 and 18 were great storms too. I can appreciate 93 for the monster that it was, but in my location, it was a wet snow bomb to heavy rain to iceberg deal, and overall nothing special.

Great historic storm, but probably not even top 10 here. 1996, 2003, and all 3 biggies during the epic winter of 2009-10 were far better. Jan 1987 was better here too. Even with the dry slot from hell, 2016 was better. I am sure I could come up with at least a few more. Location!

I actually like seeing that stripe of snow to our south. The Feb 5th to 10th period holds some promise, as we should actually have some real cold back in our source region, with cold fronts moving SE to deliver it.

It was a much different set up. The only thing favorable about this one is some ridging out west lol.

The antecedent air mass for the 93 storm, although marginal, was better, and there was a mechanism for keeping LL cold in place during the WAA phase. Pretty much all the snow I got was from the WAA. About 8". No way that can happen with this event. In the 93 storm, as the low tracked up the coast(too far west for me) lost the surface and 850s, and ended up 40 degree rain. Point is that storm was quite different compared to this one wrt the set up leading in, despite the similar(maybe better?) low track. All that being said, your area has a knack for getting snow in these very marginal systems. In this case it will almost surely be dependent on impressive dynamics with the CCB, and that may end up too far west, or not get going until the storm is NE of the MA.

Exactly. I have pointed this out several times. I literally have zero interest in this storm for my yard. Blue ridge and westward it can work. Piedmont region needs like every box checked to make it work. I am interested in what happens when we finally get the Pac flood out of Canada and some cross polar flow back around the 6th.

Warner Brothers

Yeah that could always work, and produce localized heavy snow, in some cases east or south of places where precip is light/mixed and not accumulating. See that happen in early Spring storms sometimes. I would put that in the 5-10% probability at our latitude in this case. If this storm is going to deepen enough to CCB clobber a location, it will likely be to our NE.

The 850 mb temps are ok. Bigger problem is that weak HP slides off the coast. With the true arctic air bottled up well north, its going to take a perfect track, and a strong low to dynamically cool the column. IMO it is nearly impossible to get a snowstorm for the coastal plain. Would literally take perfection. Could work out for the Piedmont, but even there just about everything would have come together just right.

1.12" here so far. Still coming down moderately.

Yeah we finally see hints of relaxation up top and the NAO moving towards neutral, and if the PAC transitions from Version 2 of total crap right back to version 1, it wont do us any good, outside of a mega block developing, which is very unlikely. Hey we still have the CFS, steadfast in its commitment to a +PNA and a stout EPO ridge going forward.

Will that reset the MJO to phase 1?

0z GEFS is suggesting full on winter cancel. 0z EPS showing some signs of moving that way too.

Until the strong AK vortex relents, the chances for snow in our area, east of the mountains, remains low. Between the EPAC ridge and the AK vortex, mild Pacific air is being hurled eastward. Look at our source region. No it's not a torch pattern here, but with no HL help, it is nearly impossible to get a legit cold air mass with the hostile PAC. Until we move away from this- To this... ...frozen will be hard to come by outside of the western highlands. On the 0z EPS, after an initial shot of moderate cold into the east around the 7th, it weakens/retros the PNA ridge and pulls the mean trough back into the central US, which looks a bit tenuous. It does appear to be building a ridge up into AK though. Still signs of improvement in the NAO domain with the TPV further west and elongated. More waiting to see exactly how the long wave pattern evolves towards mid Feb. Hopefully things don't go the way the 0z GEFS is suggesting. Back to square one. Or zero.

Pouring here. If it wont snow, might as well have a spring deluge.

Dw it wont be close in the end.