CAPE

Not a thing of beauty or anything but EPS showing continued improvement in the Pac. PNA trending towards neutral in the LR, mean trough is further east, and the SE ridge is flatter/suppressed. Still has +heights building around Scandinavia, but not making much progress towards GL yet.

Graphically:

EPS has been ever so slowly trending towards a neutral, and possibly a +PNA over recent runs. Good sign.

There is still a weak signal for something around the 17th on the GEFS and to a lesser extent the EPS. Something to keep an eye on, as beyond the next few days there probably wont be much winter weather to be tracked for a while.

Towards D15, the latest EPS and GEPS are still showing signs of slight improvement on the Pac side, especially the EPS, and have +heights from Scandinavia building into GL, the GEPS in particular. GEFS looks more bleak, and suggests we have a long, long way to go.

I wouldn't know...

C'mon dude, it is clear you are on the payroll of 007. No worries. You aren't the only one.

There have been some hints of improvement on the PAC side for the fist time in a while. Latest MJO forecasts suggest tropical convection may actually progress off of the MC, and there are subtle signs of improvement in the central/eastern PAC on the EPS and the GEPS, including an increase in the PNA beyond D10. Might be noise. We should know in a few days, lol.

The EPS looks similar but the trend towards neutral is at a slightly lower rate. GEFS shows a slight increase then levels off.

So I am not hallucinating. lol. I have a feeling the EPS tellies are going to have the PNA rising towards or above -2!

I see some slight improvement in the PAC on the 12z EPS at the end. Pac ridge is weaker, slightly further east, and the trough seems to be on the move east. Or maybe I am hallucinating.

One of you NW of the fall line people should start a thread.

12z GEFS continues to have a modest signal for something frozen between the 16th and 18th with a cold front that temporarily knocks down the SE ridge. We can track this until it disappears lol. Otherwise it's wall to wall SE ridge and mild, and still hints of higher h5 heights building towards GL from Scand at the end of the run.

Prime window runs from mid Jan to mid Feb historically. Some of our bigger snows have occurred mid to late Feb, and once in a while early March. Lately March has become more of a winter month.

Some wet flakes and maybe a coating would be nice, esp given the advertised pattern over the next couple weeks. I should head to the western highlands. Looks like some decent winter out there over the next few days. Will be hard to come by in the very near future.

That looks a little better than yesterday's forecast, which had it weakening just as it was moving into phase 6, then into the COD. Looked like from there it might loop and flare up right near the MC again. Hopefully the strength and forward momentum will take it into phase 7 before it weakens.

I have said exactly that several times over the past couple days.That is my expectation, especially imby. Your area could more easily luck into something.

We do pretty well at failing in those too lol. At least we wont be complaining about warm/wet followed by cold/dry.

It wasn't too difficult in Feb 2015. Winter essentially started mid Feb. We might have to hope we get that chance this year lol. eta- One thing of note here- when we look at the advertised h5 pattern on an ens mean, we get the general picture, and in this case, we can clearly see it is stable and unfavorable for snow here. That being said, there are always perturbations/relaxations in the 500 mb pattern that are less discernible on a LR mean , even one that features a sustained blocking ridge. Although our snow chances are severely limited based on the advertised mean long wave pattern, it is not zero.

Pretty much all guidance has a major convective wave over the MC going forward. Beyond that it dies out, but really shows little impetus to progress into the WPAC and towards the dateline. Most likely it will flare up again in the same location(phases 4-5). That big ass Pacific ridge is not going anywhere if that continues. The only way out over the next 2-3 weeks is significant help up top.

Problem continues to be the monster Pac ridge. Until it weakens/shifts/morphs into something other than what it is, the SE ridge will be a mainstay. IF we can get legit +height anomalies up top/in the NA, then the bad Pac can be mitigated somewhat, and compressed heights to our N/NE should suppress/flatten the SE ridge some.

Figures we get would get a locked in, stable pattern that is the exact opposite of what we want, heading into prime climo for cold/snow.

It is not a meteorological impossiblilty, as the 6z GEFS has demonstrated. As you discussed earlier, something well timed on a trailing front with a previous cutter acting as a temporary 50-50 could get it done in a bad pattern, with a ton of luck. The EPS snowfall map over the next 15 days says it all wrt to the general location of the boundary, and is what you would expect. Places like NY state and northern half of NE can do pretty well in an overall crap pattern. We envy their climo, but we live with ours lol. At our latitude(esp mine), we watch and wait.

@showmethesnow 6z GEFS likes it.

That is ugly lol. I just looked at the 0z and 6z GEFS, and IMO there were incremental steps back compared to 18z run wrt pattern improvement in the LR.. This is going to require some serious patience. I don't think there are any quick fixes to get from where we are currently to a favorable pattern for snow. My mindset is expect nothing but mild/rain, with transient cool shots after cutters, through Jan 20th. Keep watching the means to see if noticeable improvement gets pushed back, or maybe occurs sooner. I doubt the latter at this time though.