PivotPoint

I like the trend on the GEFS

Ive been waiting to see some similarities between gfs/euro/eps as they all have been pretty conflicting past 7-10 days. Finally think the pattern change is a foot.

The mean ridge out west is showing some stability and the pac fire hose is finally getting blunted. Might take some time to get the lower level temps to cooperate and recover from the pac onslaught but I think we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. As bob said, NS is tougher on models at med-long leads. Just keep the southern stream adding fuel to the fire and something will catch... eventually

51 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

It's not a bad gradient/wave type of pattern. Reminds me a little of Jan/Feb 2014. More importantly... the pac jet is cut off by d8-9. D10 has split flow...

That look is not bad... not bad at all

40 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

You're cherry picking bad runs. There have been several runs that gave us snow. The euro spit out a big snow a couple days ago. Yesterday the gfs and Fv3 took turns showing a snowstorm. If what you mean is the models haven't been consistently showing a threat run after run, that's not going to happen at range in a progressive pattern. Outside 100 hours storms will shift around run to run. 

That said I'm not as impressed with the prospects the next 2 weeks as some. It's not a shutout pattern and we could luck into one of these waves but epo dominant patterns aren't a lock for our area this time of year either. I still think our best chances are late January and February. 

34 minutes ago, leesburg 04 said:

I don't necessarily disagree that I may be cherry picking I think we all do that to fit our chosen narrative...that said my cherry picking happens to be the last few runs of the two best models so theres that.

I love when people say “cherry picking” when discussing weather modeling. There is in fact no such thing. The term cherry picking can only be use in the sense of the phrase when discussing outliers and their realative distribution away from a mean. So, in weather modeling every single model run is A) independent from all other runs, B))intrinsically lacks continuity i.e. Lorenz’s Chaos Theory.

So there is no such thing as cherry picking model runs. For our snow chances, model runs typical sequence could go: Good, bad, bad, good, good, bad, good, bad, bad, get the point. In the previous data set which one would you tell another that they cherry picked — the good or bad run?

Anyways, all that aside I liked showmethesnow’s analysis above. However, I just can’t take anything at face value when talking about PV and NAO domain features beyond 3-5 days. I think it’s a fruitless exercise. The predicatablity and verification of ensembles to accurately predict those features at that range is basically as good as guessing one number out of a hundred, right. Low odds.

I look at it more simplistically. What I like is something I mention a couple weeks back when I saw the trough get dumped into the western states and stay put for a time being. Eventually, with enough reload of heights being ramped in AK and that trough axis swinging east, something timed (or better with NAO help) would provide us with some opportunities. 

But I put no stock in foguring out the NAO domain beyond 3-5 days. Never seems to play out unless it is a stable and dominant feature. Then there’s some accuracy predicting beyond that.

^

Wow. Unbelievable. Really

Congrats. Remember this cause we sure will

1 hour ago, clskinsfan said:

Pretty amazing how well the models did with this event at LONG lead times. They basically locked in on Southern Virginia a week ago and with the exception of a few off runs never changed. 

I mentioned this point a couple days ago and I agree. The northern confluence was well modeled. In conjunction with a well defined southern sw it’s actually a good combo for long/med lead model accuracy. 

To me, this is a case of the players on the field being “head over heels” better than the others player. Hence, making it easier for the models give us a predictable and REPEATABLE output.

All an opinion (of course) but observation wise, is the way I see it.

10 minutes ago, BTRWx's Thanks Giving said:

More realistic too.

Those words are synonymous brother lol

3 minutes ago, BTRWx's Thanks Giving said:

No it doesn't.  That's a 10:1 snowfall map.  Fv3 doesn't provide the depth charts yet.

You can use both. Obviously change in snow depth is more conservative but you can use snowfall to measure accumulation too

13 minutes ago, WesternFringe said:

A little late in the game for ensembles, isn't it?  20 or so  hours until onset of precip here, according to many of the models.

You’re right it is. Just searching for any trend. But yea a litt close in

7 minutes ago, yoda said:

Banned

I’m not even gonna say it 

seriously though, EPS is soon right??

3 minutes ago, nj2va said:

UKMET meteogram for DC is about 0.1”-0.15”.

That’s not as much as I was expecting but good to see nonetheless 

come on king euro 

Just now, WxUSAF said:

Holy bump on the ukmet 

If the cmc wins the day with a score for dc I’ll be enternally grateful. Albeit over done a couple days ago it has consistently said at least something for dc (minus 2-3 runs?)

Ancecdotal I think a north shift is a typical trend we see with the juicy stj sw. Also I felt since 5 days ago that the confluence being molded was probably at the very least “slightly” over done. Hopefully my pure guess was right 

8 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

It's going to get warmer for a short time. The brief transit of the vortex across Alaska will take a toll. But you cherry picked the worst day of the worst op run recently.  

This is the gefs same time 

by no means a cold look but it's mid December by then and with signs something could cut under the ridge that look is workable. No one said probable though. Honestly we are probably waiting until after Xmas to have a good pattern. 

You can see cold rebuilding into the pattern by then...

the EPS dumps the trough into the west first but that is a common bias and even if it's right rolling this look forward a few days it would get good fast. 

-NAO/AO/EPO... I guarantee you it won't stay warm very long in that look.  If all the guidance (supported by analogs) come to fruition the warministas are living on extremely borrowed time!

 

Oh, yea I 100% cherry picked that to demonstrate the lack of 2m cold on this side of the globe.

 Good analysis on your part.The one factor I see working in our favor is when you roll that image through time you see riding start to build back over Alaska and cold dumping to the west coast. We know in those scenarios it’s just a matter of time before that cold slides east and with even mild blocking in the NAO domain you can get east coast action.

What I don’t like is the mjo forecasted to go into warm phases for east coast then crash into the cod. 

But it give me an active southern jet and marginal cold air, and to your point, we can score in late December with that look.

Lack of cold air in the 10 day isn’t exactly what you’d call confidence building for our snow chances 

1 hour ago, BaltimoreWxGuy said:

Agreed. The GFS was jumpy and showed some major hits early on but over the last 48 hours or so has been pretty steady eddy. I declared this storm dead for the Baltimore area on my weather page earlier today 

Yea, I agree too. I find it pretty interesting too that the GFS (and most globals) in general seem to do better in the mid/long range when the northern features (strong NAO, AO, etc) are on one side of the bell curve or the other.

It makes sense: the more stable the input the more repeatable the output. But what’s interesting is the northern component to the consistency.

In this case, my opinion is the only mechanisms of increase  for northward movement would be driven by a)not currently modeled relaxation in confluence, b) well timed piece of energy embedded in northern flow exiting at a favorable moment which could lift the barolocnic zone between the approaching SW and NS (which in essence is a relaxation in confluence), c)not currently modeled amplification of the SW which of course, has a cap to how much it can deepen.

I give dc metro a 20% chance of dusting-1”

which would be pretty sweet!

I’m actually fairly impressed with the GFS for this storm. Going back over it’s past six runs it’s been pretty consistent while others have caught on last 3-4.

although euro has been consistently south too for most part since two days ago.

someone correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t see the NS features changing much each run so I’m thinking only way dc metro scores anything is the SW has to amplify quickly and broaden its precicp shield. Which is a tall order with all that confluence 

2 minutes ago, paulythegun said:

perhaps your comments in the storm thread were suppressed by the northern stream

lol. thats pretty good

It was payback for "storm mode" suppressing the storm 

Its amazing how close this is to our ideal spot. Just a couple tweaks

13 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

If your point is that this is subjective....well duh.  Some think something is funny and others thing its stupid.  I am probably guilty at times of posting "banter" in non banter threads.  But I try to not have it distract from the flow of the thread and side track the conversation.  And if I am told to stop or knock it off I respect the wishes of the moderators.  Maybe I still go too far for some but there are others who would and have completely derailed a thread if they weren't reigned in.    Someone has to moderate.  We know what kind of mess it would become if there was no moderation at all.  And moderating is subjective, but they are doing the best they can to manage the desire of all the members and best create good discussion in all the threads.  This seems like no big deal... you can still have the banter stuff just during storm mode do it in banter thread.  "But some people get away with it" seems like a weak sauce argument...what next "life isn't fair".  

My point was favoritism. My apologies for not making that more clear. And none of what I was expressing was intended to be taken as an argument -- more as an observation. An argument would assume I have an underlying belief that I can change a viewpoint or outcome -- which I do not believe is the case here.

12 minutes ago, nw baltimore wx said:

I totally agree with your first paragraph.  So what?  Don't add to the problem (and that's not directed at you specifically.  I mean everyone).

As far as paragraph two is concerned, I feel that it contradicts paragraph one.  Is it fair that some posts stay and some posts disappear?  Who cares?  If you know your post doesn't belong in a thread, then don't post it there (and again, "you" is general).  

 

Not sure where you are seeing the contradiction but here's a clarification:

Paragraph 1 is an observation of favoritism and an anecdotal recount of how I've seen posts handled over the years

Paragraph 2 are my personal feelings towards posting in general and why all posts I think should be left in place even if sometimes they are slight banter. Because who wants to read post after post after post of technical weather stuff without a shred of humor or symbolism to break the monotony, sheesh.

11 minutes ago, mappy said:

would you like my log-in to see what we have hidden from everyone else? we don't willy-nilly pick and choose what to delete and what not to. nor are people's posts removed out of spite or due to having "favorites". If a banter post doesn't get removed, when others may feel it should, there probably is a reasonable explanation. No one around to see it, or when they finally do see the post its hours old and not worth removing, just as an example. We have also asked that people report posts they feel should be brought to the attention of moderators, and as far as i know, not many people do that. I removed a handful of posts yesterday, pre-storm mode. Two from a forum member cursing at others, and a few others between a couple people who were bantering back and forth and you could see it was going to get out of hand. I'm not sure I have removed any since storm mode went into effect, but have seen only a few be removed, usually very off topic and just adding clutter. 

We deal with this every year, which is a shame, as you said... you've been around for a while and have seen things over time, yet we still have this silly argument year after year after year. 

I don't think it's a shame and I appreciate the explanation of how you personally handle the process. My main point was favoritism leads to obvious problems when its used in conjunction with post censorship.

5 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

You never have to fear repercussions for speaking your mind, I (and the rest of the staff) don't and SHOULDN'T work like that.  You can call me the worst admin in history and I wouldn't do one thing to you or your account and I wouldn't let anybody else do anything to your account.    It is what it is.

And of course there is some bias at play with MINOR things like banter here and there.  But there is no censorship here, so let's stop with the maudlin cries of it.   You are free to say what you want, provided that it's in the right thread.  

I appreciate you saying this. I think that all makes sense and is fair. I just don't think censorship is too strong a word. It is censorship when you take a post and completely delete it -- again, presuming it wasn't offensive or violent. Moving posts to a different thread makes sense and I can do a better job of posting in the right place myself. 

But if the post is deleted (which Ive seen happen to mine, and were not offensive in the slightest), that is censorship... don't know what else to call it. You have a better word I'm open to hear it.

18 minutes ago, nw baltimore wx said:

Yeah, I had deleted my post, but my point stands.  I think Storm Mode is only a necessity to keep threads clean.  If people policed themselves, the discussion threads would be an easier and quicker read.

Lets call a spade a spade here:

There are certain posters who are allowed to have banter comments in non-banter threads and consequently NOT have their posts disappear. These posters include red-taggers, friends of moderators, moderators themselves, and those who have tenure on the board. There are PLENTY of banter comments during storm mode in storm mode threads I've read over the years. The decision process (if you can call it a process) behind the posts that get deleted and the ones that don't falls solely under the jurisdiction of the moderators (the few). 

I, myself, enjoy the complexity and individuality of any poster's unique styles and preferences when posting in any thread. I understand the need to stay on-topic and have relevant and accurate information dissemented to the board and therefore agree with the purpose/concept of moderating. However, restricting and limiting a certain poster's "voice" while purposefully NOT restricting others  because you favor them, is in my opinion, a form of censorship. As long as the posts are not morally offensive or intended to belittle or degrade any group or individual, I say let the post stand.

Agree or disagree, thats fine. That's the point of free speech by the many, unedited by the few.

4 minutes ago, nw baltimore wx said:

Unfortunately, the need for Storm Mode is to keep posts like yours out of the thread.  If people would learn to not clutter threads with unrelated posts, we'd never need storm mode.  Just use the banter thread.

Eta:  I see your post got moved here to banter.  I'm going to assume it was you.  Well done!

This post did not get moved to banter. I wrote it in banter.

Well done to you sir! An observant one you truly are. Thank you for your comments

Lol @ storm mode yesterday... Someone should of been the voice of reason

I posted last night (in discobs thread, oops) about the 12/21-12/26 period. I see potential for building heights around Greenland and a +pna that albeit isn’t strongly depicted for this window, does show up in positive territory on latest gfs telleconnection. 

This time period the week before christmas keeps peaking my interest and has been showing potential signs of -nao and pretty decent +pna... 

Euro weeklies have advertised this period as a possible window with “potential” blocking in the favored areas

Just now, nw baltimore wx said:

 

We wouldn't need storm mode if people could control themselves and not post every inane thought that goes through their head.

I’ve been reading/posting for about 5 years. IMO this thread has stayed pretty on-topic 

wouldnt day I’ve seen a whole lot of “insane” posts. But to each their own I guess.

On topic:

the one big feature I’ll be watching (trend wise) next 48-72 hours is the ridge axis out west. It was touched on this morning and I definitely agree that our more successful outcomes tend to happen when the heights are ramped up and the line centers through Idaho. Key feature imo 

20 minutes ago, leesburg 04 said:

One thing I would say about consensus is that Roanoke and Blacksburg are consistently the jackpot. I think that means something that has never waivered

True. The trend has been that area. Need that famed northern trend to start Thursday/Friday. We got time