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Yeoman

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    Mid/Late February will be rocking. (This year we mean it!) February long range discussion.

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, Scarlet Pimpernel said:

    Let's just let things unfold as they will, however it happens.  We see the remarkable agreement across all ensembles and it has been now showing up in some ops runs more and more in the ops extended ranges.  And the extended ensembles/weeklies have been pretty emphatic through the first part of March thus far.  Don't worry or get caught up in specific dates or apparent times that "nothing much happened" or "PD is our time!"  I mentioned this before, but remember in 2016 there was talk about how we have a relative lack of snow events the 3rd week or so of January...whether due to chance or some actual meteorological reason (traditional Jan. thaw, that sort of thing)?  Then something happened Jan. 22-23, 2016...trying to put my finger on it, I recall getting some decent snow then...LOL!!!

    Sounds great, and will do

    • Haha 2
    • Weenie 3

    The “is it ever going to snow again” discussion.

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    On 3/10/2023 at 10:06 AM, psuhoffman said:

    I also don't think my "emotions" are driving my points here.  Actually, what I am doing runs contrary to emotions.  I don't want this to be true.  I think emotions are actually the reason many are so hostile and resistant to some of this data and get upset when it's presented.  Actually 90% of what I have posted in this thread isn't predictive at all...its simply pointing out data and evidence of trends that have already happened.  

    First of all this trend is not just the last 7 years.  Snowfall is a very anomalous fluky thing in our region.  It runs in cycles some of which have some regularity based on decadal cycles and some of which is pure fluke luck mixed in.  So if you focus only on one small sample size you can skew the picture.  But when you pull back and look at 100 years or more the patterns become more meaningful.  Yes there are up and down cycles within the trend line but there is a downward trend within that chaos.  The up periods are less up and the down periods are more down.   This current down cycle is no doubt a "down period" but it's worse than the last comparable down periods of this type.  This trend has been going on for a long time not just recently.  

    It's definitely more apparent in the median than the mean because within this trend there is a phenomenon that we are also getting a few super crazy snowy years mixed in.  Part of this seems to be because the frequency of HECS events has increased.  This can also logically be explained by the same phenomenon causing the lowering of the snowfall median as a warmer base state with both reduce the number of snowfalls but also increase the chances of a super big snowstorm in the rarer instances that it is cold enough.  

    There are a lot of factors here going on that in isolation each one might be hard to attribute a significant portion of this but the issue is all of these factors are all influencing things the same way, and if taken in totality I don't think its a stretch to say that is what is impacting our snow climo.  Unfortunately we are in a region that is being most affected by several of these factors when it comes to snowfall, at least median, like I said the mean is less affected because of HECS events skewing the mean.  But factors like the expanded Pacific Hadley cell, the Indo-PAC warm pool, and the warming gulf and atlantic basin are all impacting our area specifically more so than some other places.  We don't have the latitude or elevation to survive even a small push northwest of the boundary during winter along the east coast, and unfortunately all of those factors lead to that end result.  

    The indo pac warm pool is favoring hostile mjo phases which leaves more of our winter in shit the blinds patterns.  The expanded hadley cell is shifting the jet north and causing a compressed flow over the north pacific (pac firehose) directing more warmth into the CONUS than was typical in the past.  The warmer gulf and atlantic is feeding the SER.  The warmer base state of the pac is favoring la nina's in the effort to balance the heat which is a bad thing for us.   It's a nasty feedback loop for our snow hopes and dreams.  

    My emotions actually make me want to resist this some.  That is why I almost always bust high on my seasonal predictions.  You know from my posts all summer and fall i knew this year was going to be awful.  I think everyone got tired of me saying how god awful things looked wrt prospects for this winter.  Part of that was a generally bad longwave configuration but a lot was me knowing what that imposed onto the current warm base state would look like for us.  But when it came time for me to make a seasonal forecast I did go below avg snowfall but not nearly enoough below.  Because I just didn't want to fathom a snowless winter, but in my gut I kinda knew this was very possible if not likely.  But I went more hopeful in my forecast.  I did that again with right now.  I knew in my gut that given the extreme warm base state it was unlikely any patter was going to work out in a big way for us in March...but I didn't want to just give up on winter totally and I knew March was likely to be our only chance at a decent longwave pattern so I held out hope and said maybe we do get something in March.  I am actually to optimistic wrt our snow chances because of my emotions.  I sometimes ignore the data and evidence because I want it to snow and I want the data to be wrong.  

    All that said I am also sure this is also a down cycle.  We have had a run of hostile longwave pattern seasons where even in a better climo period it was likely to be a down period.  This period can be analogous to similar periods in the 1950's, 1970s, and late 80's into early 90s.  Those were all bad too...just not as bad.  I am sure we will have a better period ahead at some point...but will it be as good as past good periods... probably not and that is the issue.  I am sure the next time we get a 30" winter some will say "see the doom and gloom was wrong, everything is fine" but that isn't the point.  No one is saying it can't snow anymore.  We are saying it is snowing less.  ANd all the data proves that.  That isn't predictive its a reality we have been living for a while now.  The only valid question is "how much less".  

    The author of this novel, driven by data rather than emotions, highlights a long-term downward trend in snowfall in their region, attributing it to various climatic factors and acknowledging their own emotional bias in wanting more optimistic snow forecasts despite the evidence.

    Jan/Early Feb Medium/Long Range Discussion Part 3

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    53 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

    Something continues to be a recurring theme, great looking pattern, lackluster snow output. Yesterday’s euro control was the best example yet. 
    This 30 day mean pattern 

    IMG_1210.thumb.png.7b6698d4580ada74cfabe5c048d60e5f.png
    Still put the axis of snow north of us 

    IMG_1209.thumb.jpeg.d4cd489495299dd3bc094fb392df6e28.jpeg

    with that pattern we should be more worried about suppression. It’s been doing this a lot. Suggesting the snow will be displaced north of where I expect based on the pattern. Not saying I buy it. Long range snow means aren’t often great tools. Just flagging this in case it does happen to note the models keep showing it. 

    Hard to believe an 1100 hr model run wouldn't make sense.. Maybe it all falls in March

    • Like 1
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    Jan/Early Feb Medium/Long Range Discussion Part 3

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    1 hour ago, clskinsfan said:

    I spent the past 3 winters looking at the MJO and posting it here numerous times. I came to conclusion that it means absolutely nothing for us. We fail when it is in both good and bad phases. Enso means much more. It may be that it matters more in a Nino than a Nina though? 

    When considering the history of the modern climate, we're working with a statistically insignificant dataset to determine if any of these indexes or analogs mean anything outside of being a coincidence. Best bet is to pray to the snow gods and hope for the best.. 

    • Like 1

    January Discobs 2024

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    41 minutes ago, BlizzardNole said:

    Still struggling to get out of the 20s

    I just dug out the downspouts and splashguards so the big melt doesn't back up.  One house behind us has huge icicles on one stretch of gutter.  They must have a clog in that one

    Lights flickering?

    • Haha 1

    Jan 19th Storm OBS Thread

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    11 minutes ago, Miss Pixee said:

    AND for those of you in love with having the streets staying covered overnight for days know that I'm not a fan when you get black ice and runoff freezing underneath, especially when you're on a steep incline or slope. I've had enough trips to the bottom of the driveway in three seconds!

    Hopefully people stop loving it so it never happens again.

    • Like 1
    • Confused 1

    Jan/Early Feb Medium/Long Range Discussion Part 3

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    6 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

    There is nothing to analyze in here right now except wild speculation about what things might evolve towards out near mid February.  The pattern is pretty much shut the blinds for a while.  Yes my post was somewhat trolling, but there was a legit point in there that its going to be so warm, at least it looks like now, that even if we did get lucky with a perfect synoptic setup within the larger pattern it wouldn't do us any good.  That is a TRUE shut the blinds pattern.  

    As for the elephant stuff, I'm not trying to start that argument again.  But I don't think its totally true that in the past we had a lot of patterns where the whole CONUS was so torched that there was absolutely no hope of snow no matter what the storm track or amplitude of a wave was.  I saw plenty of "how in the world did we get 5" of snow in THAT" kinda storms when I did my case study of every Baltimore snowstorm.  I think there was a time when we could luck our way into a snowstorm even in a bad pattern once in a while if we got a perfect track wave, but that was when warm periods were warm not scorched earth torches.  

    1998 was the best example of that kind of thing...but there is a matter of degrees...all those perfect track rainstorms in 1998 had some snow mixed in not too far NW of the cities.  My area got 20" that year from like 2-4" of slop in each of those.  And some higher elevations in WV got absolutely buried in every one of those.  Lately its all rain even in some of those places.  We aren't even getting all that close to snow even in a perfect track lately when the pattern is bad.  

    Some people don't agree with me on this.  And that is fine.  It is what it is and our opinions don't matter anyways.  

    For those who have to work, here's a summary: The weather is unpredictable, patterns change, and anything is possible.

    • Like 1

    Jan Medium/Long Range Disco 2: Total Obliteration is Coming

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    24 minutes ago, jayyy said:


    Wouldn’t be historic if we had them every year or even every two years. MECS / SECS are way more common than HECS+. There’s a reason it’s considered historic.

    Also, a week to reload the pattern / cold doesn’t have any impact on whether or not we see a HECS between early feb - march. I get being jaded from the past few years but man, you really do always look for the negatives. No model, especially a long range ensemble or the weeklies, is going to be able to tell you whether or not we see a HECS by winters end. The same exact models could show a HECS potential tomorrow. Wouldn’t worry so much about things that are several weeks out.

    2021-03-29_Captain-Obvious.jpg

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