CAPE

QBO for Dec dropped to 1.66.

We extrapolate, don't we? I just like the trend of the big pig ridge in the Pac looking a bit weaker while a new pig ridge emerges over Scandinavia. Not quite there yet at the end of the run, but good signs.

Strongest ridge/biggest height anomalies in the NH are no longer in the EPAC at the end of the 12z GEFS run. I like that look.

Yeah pretty basic stuff. No substitute for latitude other than elevation. Near the coast, mean snowfall is biased lower despite latitude. eta- Ofc leeward side of GLs it's biased higher.

12z run yesterday was a tad better, but 0z still depicts pretty decent cold to our north in the LR. If we get cooperation in the NA, the SE ridge gets flattened/more suppressed and we could be back in the game by the 20th. And yeah that period looks toasty. Wouldn't be surprised to see a day or 2 of 70 on the coastal plain.

Way out there and this seems to flip and flop, but this might be the best NA look yet on a LR mean. If that PAC ridge is going to remain a stable feature, we need this to become reality.

Prefer it to be further sw. Baffin is the location where we want to see higher h5 height anomalies ideally. Doesn't appear to be in the cards anytime soon though.

Yeah after I looked again at the weeklies its about the same. Starts to improve the last week of Jan. Still think CPC is off on their EC probability for the MA given the strong signal for a SE ridge for the foreseeable future.

Looking at the latest CFS runs, CPC can go ahead and revise their temperature probability map for Jan.

Maybe a blind squirrel would have better luck?

Agree. In this case probably the best we can do is a neutral/slightly negative tilt. That would potentially provide some decent moisture advection into the cold air on the west side, and maybe get parts of our region under the deform band for a time. I think it is an outside shot at this point, but definitely worth watching. I would feel pretty good about chances for a few inches of snow if I were somewhere in the northern half of NJ or NE PA.

Not necessarily. The negative tilt is associated with better dynamics in the mid/upper levels and a more rapid intensification of the surface low. Because the pattern is progressive, a more rapidly deepening low would give our region a better chance of getting some decent precip falling into the colder air, especially places further inland.

Getting a bit of a negative tilt would certainly help our cause. A nice NA block would help too lol. Be a different ballgame if we could slow things down some.

Certainly an intriguing setup looking at h5. As it stands probably some flakes in the air with some accumulations just NE of our region, but time for further adjustments. I cant get too excited because its progressive in nature and the lower level temps are mild leading in. 6z Euro would imply a period of moderate snow over DE, but a lot would have to go right for that occur.

Yes. How could we possibly forget, lol. Given the different ENSO state heading into winter, who woulda thunk we could end up with the same result. Hopefully we wont.

This may be an oversimplification, but the key to me on the PAC side, however it actually ends up evolving from from 'bad' to 'good', is a shift in the tropical forcing away from the MC and towards the dateline.

If more people in our region were accepting of this/understood climo, there would be much less hand wringing when the guidance advertises a "bad" pattern. Even so-called epic patterns often result in nothing of consequence in these parts.

Currently 32. First freezing temp here since the morning of Dec 26th.

There might be. I don't look at them that often- typically it's when we are being teased with an h5 look that is promising.

Having never looked into it, I have always thought of it as a 'smart' version of the regular ensembles. I just Googled it, and here is an academic technical overview of a super ens modeling system: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015RG000513 The notion of the multimodel superensemble was first described in Krishnamurti et al. [1999]. This utilizes a training and a forecast phase. The training phase learns from the recent past performances of models and is used to determine statistical weights from a least square minimization via a simple multiple regression. That regression is carried out with respect to analyzed (assimilated) values. Given a number of grid locations, base variables, forecast intervals, and a suite of models, the number of statistical weights can be as high as 107. That many coefficients are needed because of different responses to physical parameterizations of local features such as water bodies, local mountain features, and land surface details within diverse member models. These details contribute to systematic errors in forecasts. The high skill of the superensemble comes from a domain average of the point by point RMS errors that it is minimizing.

It's there at that link- under 500 mb Analogs, go down to Analogs, click on GFS ens.

Reality is in just about every winter we get 2-4 weeks where the pattern is favorable enough for snow in most of this region. We possibly "wasted" one already, so we might have another 2-3 weeks somewhere between now and mid March. Modeled "perfect" patterns often don't work out. The upcoming advertised pattern looks like a shutout on the means, but it may not turn out that way. My guess is that one or 2 chances will materialize over the next few weeks during transient cold periods, and maybe we(someone's yard) will get lucky. If not, It tends to find ways to snow in February around here.

This is the link I use- https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/short_range/tools/model_guidance.php

My guess is they are giving too much weight to the CFS. Very little uncertainty on the GEFS and EPS wrt to EPO ridge position and the resulting SE ridge having some staying power. That probability map would make more sense for the MA and NE if there were clear signs of a NA block developing. eta- I should have said higher or significant weight to the CFS.. "Too much" is more subjective, and based on my opinion that it's a pretty crappy model in general to use for weeks 3-4.