CAPE

It is a bit yes. That being said, this is occurring at the time of an *apparent* significant change in the pattern, and it is still a week out. There are likely going to be some changes. Absolutely would not be surprised if things are being rushed a bit, and nothing of consequence(frozen) happens next weekend.

6z GEFS looks good to me.

Its right. Gfs caved and was always bs How did it cave? It's but another op run, and the same idea is there. Still a snow-ice to rain deal. A bit less of a front end thump this time.

0z CMC has the arctic air dumping further south and east into the center of the country by next weekend, with some moderate cold bleeding south and east of that. Develops an initial wave that moves along the front with a rain/snow mix for our area, then as the colder air gets further entrenched on the east coast on Sunday, it develops a low along the coast to our SE and snows on NC and SE VA.

Yeah there are 4-5 big hitters in the mix. The 16th might be a bit soon but its still a week out so who knows. Seems the general improvement in the pattern is incrementally trending sooner on the guidance.

^ A trip to Canaan or Deep Creek looks like a good bet.

Not bad for the 18th - 25th of Jan window.

Pretty consistent signal for that time frame for a frozen/mixy precip event. Could be fun times a bit sooner than we all thought. Minus Merksy ofc.

Agreed. Its winter. I want winter weather.

At least there will still be cutters when a sw amps to our west with that +NAO, so not totally dry.

Yeah it has the look of a tendency towards that overall. I will be in chase mode until the very end of the month. Mountains, or with that look maybe a coastal scraper will take me back to the beach.

Some respectable cold right here.

Yeah that is a really decent h5 look. Nice to continually see the ops spit out these chances, and sooner than we all thought a few days ago.

Interesting. Snow/ice to rain look.

Other more established(knowledgeable) posters have said the same thing. @WxUSAF comes to mind. Mersky seems to have a need to brag about "predicting" something he likely read multiple times elsewhere.

I will answer this wrt occurrences in the troposphere, because thats what we are concerned with as it directly impacts sensible weather. It's pretty common during winter for vortices to shed off and rotate southward in the troposphere, especially when a ridge builds up into the HL region. You can see this on the 6z GFS panel that Ralph posted with that big anticyclone building in the EPO region. Better yet go and advance through the run at h5 and you can see the process occurring. Models do ok with predicting them, but getting the timing and depth correct is difficult at range.

A raging +AO is almost certain death to snow chances around here. If we end up with sustained +heights in the EPO/WPO space, it would be difficult for the AO to be severely positive though. A neutral to somewhat +AO is probably what we are looking at going forward.

I think both the EPS and GEFS look generally okay beyond day 10. Last 2 runs of the GEFS don't look quite as good in the HL region as the 18z h5 map I posted last night, but still acceptable. If you look at the teleconnections, interestingly the most recent runs of the EPS and GEFS both have the AO trending very close to neutral by day 15. Not sure if that works out, but if the AO is going to have a tendency to be in the positive phase, we need the EPO ridge to be as advertised on recent runs(strength and position) and become a sustained feature going forward.

So now the gefs looks better than the eps haha..its like a tennis match Yeah and if that HL look is legit, there will be a series of cold fronts moving through and the tendency for eastern ridging will be replaced by a mean trough.

Looking better and better up top. TPV displaced southward and ridging building over GL. Got the EPO ridge going a bit bonkers too.

Judah never predicts winter will end. He is busy figuring out another creative way to take credit in case things do flip, despite his theory failing yet again.

The weeklies from yesterday might provide a hint as to where we go going forward. If you haven't taken a peak, it looks familiar.

Prior to today's 12z run(which ji seemed to suddenly approve of lol), the EPS was showing incremental improvement in the Pacific. PNA has been trending towards neutral. Aligns with the latest MJO forecasts, taking the MC wave into the COD after briefly moving into phase 6. Should it reemerge, it looks like it would be in 7,8. or 1. In contrast, GEFS has been taking a high amplitude wave into phase 6. I guess what I am saying is, there are signs of a less hostile PAC, particularly on the EPS. Absolutely want the HL blocking, but hopefully it wont have to be the sole savior for winter.

If -ao is our best indicie for snow.... PV becomes elongated in the LR on the GEFS, and maybe the building upper ridge near Scandinavia can further perturb it. QBO continues to drop and that should correlate to a weaker PV. We shall see.