CAPE

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.

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.

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.

Yeah maybe this is something to watch. 6z GEFS looks a bit better than 0z, so maybe a bit of a trend. Mean trough is broader and extends further east, with the EC ridge pushing more into the W Atlantic.

As anomalous and stable as the PAC ridge looks on the means in the LR, we are pretty much relegated to watching the HL region on the Atlantic side for some help. It's likely just the usual end of run smoothing, but the 0z EPS seems to weaken the anomalously low h5 heights over GL with the TPV moving west a bit, and is also hinting at ridging from Scandinavia expanding into that region. Looking for signs of life..

The further north you go and/or at higher elevations the less critical it is to have all the weather index "stars" aligned. The upper MW/GLs and NNE can still do okay with the advertised crapola pattern. If the trough does in fact lock in out west then obviously the mountain areas out there will do quite well.