Maestrobjwa

I'm still hoping for a one-footer this year...even if it comes via fluke! C'mon, every 3-4  year trend...don't stop now, lol

@psuhoffman Yeah man you don't have to sugarcoat anything...just calling it as you see it. Yes, it sucks that things are setting up this way...but there's no need to shoot the messenger. I mean...personally, if we gotta punt half or more of winter away I'd much rather know it now and just snow-grieve the loss than have the heightened expectations we had going into last year. Will be nice to just be surprised in a good way.

15 minutes ago, Kevin Reilly said:

There really hasn’t been a significant NAO block December to March really since 2009-2010? We scored big December 23rd 2009 and February 23rd or so 2010 off a negative NAO.   Correct me if I’m wrong.  Now  of course NAO was negative on October 30th for Sandy 2012.  

I believe you mean Feb 9-10 (and the flowing Wednesday) 2010?

1 hour ago, frd said:

The current AO sums it up.  The numbers and history don't lie.   

From Don S  - here is a  portion of his recent update courtesy 33andrain:

<<

Based on the forecast strongly positive AO to start January, the probability of a significant (6" or greater snowstorm) for the major cities of the Middle Atlantic region during the first week of January is low. Since 1950, the biggest snowfall for that region when the AO was +2.000 or above during the January 1-15 period occurred during January 14-15, 1954 when Philadelphia received 3.0" snow and New York City picked up 2.0". Boston has had numerous 6" or greater snowstorms during such cases, including one 10" or greater snowstorm. Therefore, the risk of significant snow would likely be greatest over New England assuming this relationship holds (no significant offsetting variables).

　

Some of the newer AO forecasts keep the AO at +2.000 or above through January 10. If so, that development could adversely impact Mid-Atlantic significant snowfall prospects beyond the first week of January.

>>

 

I personally don't have a problem punting the first or second week of winter...For me, since most of our major snowfalls historically don't come until after that, that's fine. But if this +AO malady eats into the prime period...that WILL be crappy. (man, I hope we can benefit from the solar minimum next year if we can't this year...provided something else in the atmosphere doesn't screw that up too) 

That being said, I'm still hangin' on the every 3-4 year trend for one-footers at BWI--I'll ride that horse till' the streak breaks! It'll be 4 years since 2016...(hey, we got a fluke in 2006 to keep the streak goin, right? )

24 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Might want to stop buy an optometrist on the way home from work 

Actually HM did make a vague mention about something in the pattern looking "sorta like"the "transitions" at the end of Dec 1986 and Dec 1982 for the Januaries that followed...lol (of course I could be reading a bit too much into it)

@psuhoffman I sent ya a DM a couple days ago...lol (was askin' something about the map from Feb 2006 you posted the other day)

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

That is exactly the opposite of what we want. I will give it another week or so before making any conclusions but I really hope this isn’t the dominant winter base state showing itself. If so it’s going to be a real struggle, even by our standards. I’ll probably check back out until things look more positive. I don’t want to repeat the obvious when it’s negative. 

Hopefully by New Years we will see the light on the other side. 

Is this similar what we know it will look like for this current stretch? (also, I sent ya a DM)

31 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

the AO/NAO were ok that winter but the PAC with that AK vortex and huge ridge in the central PAC took a huge crap on us most of the winter.  The one time it took a break we got a big snowstorm  

I see...so in that winter we managed to take a swing during that tiny window and just happened to hit a homerun, lol I mean, I'd call that thread the needle in a more general sense of getting a good swing during a very brief favorable period! 

And what do ya know...that one time was all it took for the "1 foot storm every 3-4 years" trend to continue (otherwise we would've had a drought of footers until 2009-10!) Hopefully we can get at least one swing like that this winter...even if things don't get more favorable overall (but hopefully they do)

Random question: Now I see back in 2005/06 we got that one storm that dumped about a foot at BWI and then not much the rest of the winter (I don't know why I don't remember that one, lol)...Now was that one of those situations where we lucked into something during a variable pattern (with hostile periods, I'm guessing)?

17 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

My feeling on the coming pattern is a roller coaster. Blast of cold, moderation and yes even torch, cold/dry, warm/wet, clippers, and even a KU coastal before winter is out. I dont think we are going to lock into one particular pattern that just keeps repeating....maybe 7-10 day fluxes. If guidance being all over the board isnt screaming 'chaos' or 'topsy turvy' with unpredictable changes and swings as we head into the heart of winter, then I'm not sure what does.

Now...I'm wondering if that means this ends up like the 2005/06 winter when got a single 1 footer and not much else, lol (I'm still bettin' on that 1 footer because of our recent every 3-4 year cycle for those!)

9 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

12z EPS still looks like cutter/cold dry/warm up imo. 

Next 8-10 days or beyond that?

25 minutes ago, leesburg 04 said:

Your boy looks a little human today. 

Except just now! 

On 12/13/2019 at 10:01 PM, WinterWxLuvr said:

Here I am trying to push people off the ledge and you’re trying to rescue them 

This statement has more truth than you realize...lol

22 minutes ago, mappy said:

 

Thanks guys! And yes, by far my favorite day ever. Wouldn't change a thing!  

So what was it about that day (other than the epic snow? Lol)

3 minutes ago, Ji said:

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

I’m silent because I’m withholding judgment. Since the gefs has an underdispersion issue I tend to take a 24 hour cycle of runs as one entity in my mind. It cuts down on mood swings. So while I admit 18z was alarming I’m not assigning the gefs is caving yet. But I do think it was rushing the progression anyways. 
I am disappointed so far. I thought we would do a little better to this point. We’ve had some workable looks. A couple perfect h5 tracks where low level temps were a tad too warm. A trailing wave that was a string out mess.  A couple scenarios where we needed progressive and it trended amplified. This last one wasn’t an awful look but the lead wave died and despite a good 50/50 the high was pathetic and couldn’t hold long enough to get any front end with the second wave. 
I’m not saying we should have had 10”+ by now or anything but with a little luck we could be sitting on 3-5” region wide if a couple of those went slightly better and the whole mood in here would be different. Now we go into the first dead period having struck out so far. I’ll admit that’s a little depressing. 

Yep we wasted opportunities. Boston has one of their snowiest Decembers and we got jack. Weve had 6 weeks of decent cold anomalies . And everytime we needed one Break in our favor we broke the other way. Last winter I got 30 inches lol and it was still painful

Whoa, whoa backup...you got that much (probably the most of the subforum)? I know it was a rather frustrating winter, but...dude, lol

57 minutes ago, Wonderdog said:

Recently it seems that we have really only mid Jan. through Feb as the most likely time that we get snow in the coastal plain, besides these useless mulch covering snowfalls. Although, for years growing up in South Jersey, my recollection is that the last two weeks of December was a transition period and useful snowfall was rare. But that is my questionable memory.

And for our most significant snows...mid Jan-Feb (but not the last week of Feb for whatever reason, lol) and early March has been the general strike zone even in previous decades (but if you include the 1-4" storms, I guess we did use to have a better chance in late Dec/early Jan. But these days we don't get much in that time period...so it's not as disappointing to me when it doesn't happen then. I just look ahead to the prime climo time! 

1 hour ago, Bob Chill said:

When the pac onslaught first started showing up my first thought (other than uh oh) was it might last longer than our nerves can handle. And unfortunately as it stands right now... my hunch may end up being right.

Ens agree that some sort of front/continental airmass will roll through between Christmas and New Years so I doubt we straight torch for the last 10 days of the month. Snow prospects look grim though and that's the primary reason we participate is this stupid hobby. Lol

Why should it when punting the last week of Dec and the first of Jan has become the norm? (Maybe I'm over-generalizing too much, so correct me if I'm wrong). I've come to not expect any notable snow between Christmas and mid-Jan (biggest ones don't happen until mid-Jan and Feb 20th)...So as long as this crap don't start eating into the middle of Jan...I can deal with that 

Got some somewhat steady light flurries here in Balt. City as well! Temp around 37.

26 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Or you could just ignore them like I do. 

Yeah that too, lol But just overall...what purpose to the weather community are they serving? (just for weenie runs? Lol)

13 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

We must never forget the CRAS....for good and for bad....mainly bad....really quite bad.

Why doesn't somebody just throw the useless models in the digital trash bin? Lol

5 minutes ago, PrinceFrederickWx said:

This has been such a crappy December- cold rain and fog every day. I'd take December 2015 's megatorch over this any day.

Oh heck no....the only reason I can look past that mega torch is because of the compensation we got for it the next month, lol

38 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

OP runs that are weenie runs past 300 hours with the 384 hour fantasy blizzard don't normally work out either....so there's that.

Remember the late 2017 30-hour blizzard that popped up in fantasy range? Lol

21 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Absolutely and all I was pointing out was the possibility of nasogood stuff continuing. However, when we're looking/waiting for a pattern shift it does typically start showing up on long range ops and that helps confirm that the ens may be more right than wrong. The thing that sucks right now is we have to wade through 10-14 days of a shutout pattern and a pretty bad one at that. I'd love to talk about the more reliable mid range but that's not in the cards so we're stuck picking apart uber long range ops and ensembles for a while. We do it pretty much every year and hopefully this is the only/last time.

I can deal with the rest of Dec sucking no problem. Start bleeding into mid Jan and it's going to get testy an restless up in here. 

But again, is this really so far from what we normally see? To me, punting late December has been pretty much the norm for the last 7 or 8 years, right? (and even historically we seemed to have to punt that part of the month more!)

Hey guys it's Beethoven's birthday today! Happy birthday @stormtracker, lol

13 minutes ago, J.Mike said:

How the heck do I measure this?

A microscopic ruler...and measure it in milliest of meters...lol