CAPE

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.

There are some positive signs, but not sure I would call it eye candy. Micro improvement maybe?. I also don't see the major 500 mb features in any hurry go anywhere- the mean PAC ridge and downstream trough look pretty stable. What could somewhat get us out of this rut and back in the game sooner is help in the NA, and there are hints, but that remains to be seen. My expectations at this point are maybe we can salvage the last week of January, and there is always the possibility of getting lucky before that, but odds are pretty low.

Seems it is becoming increasingly more difficult to rely on historical teleconnections and analogs because of this. That is a topic for another thread though, and we don't want to get you know who all hot and bothered. As for the QBO value, yeah you would think we would be closer to a neutral AO if not slightly negative. We know how to gauge it by looking at the surface pressures near the pole, but the actual AO values per the teleconnections are different, and the measurements can be taken at different pressure heights, so Idk.

Yeah it is what it is. We have to accept the reality of the situation- pretty likely the first 3 weeks of Jan are gone. It can still turn around though, and at least we are seeing some positive signs. Problem is, we are rooting predominately for a favorable NA to be the pattern savior at this juncture, which has not worked out so much in recent winters lol. Given my limited understanding, we have the QBO and low solar working in our favor to that end for the back end of winter. Too bad we don't have a legit weak Nino.

I just mentioned the QBO value for Dec(avg zonal wind at the equator) @ 30 mb, m/s, dropped to 1.66. It has been positive and trending slowly and steadily towards neutral through fall and now early winter. Looking at the temp correlations for winter below, that puts us in regime C. Not bad. Maybe as we get into mid/late winter, this will become more of a driver. Ofc it will help a ton if the MJO doesn't keep looping through the warm phases.

Seems all 3 major global ens are heading in the same general direction up top. We are in watch and wait mode to see if things continue to "trend" favorably.

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.