snowman19

Nice blog. Gotta agree with you and DT that the remainder of February starting next week and likely into early March is mild. I think there may possibly be a return to colder come mid-March, but at that point, I’d want to be in central and northern New England. Once you get to 3/15, you are fighting climo, sun angle and length of day and it only gets worse from there on out. That would still work for central and northern New England, but south of there, not so much…..minus some highly anomalous, freak snow event. Just to be clear, I’m not (NOT) saying it can’t snow after 3/15 south of central New England, that would be ridiculous, but there certainly are a whole bunch of limiting factors working against snowstorms at that latitude, at that point in time…..

DT, who has been on the cold and snowy train in the east since November, vehemently disagrees that arctic cold is coming back the last week of this month into early March. He does however, leave the door open for a possible change back to cold around mid-March “* **US GRAIN WX ALERT *** MAJOR PATTERN CCHANGE UNDER WAY ACROSS NORTH AMERICA End to the arctic air mass out breaks Feb 15-28 Much wetter pattern for the Plains & Midwest Although there continues to be considerable talk and speculation about a Polar Vortex disruption occurring in late FEN/ early March it needs to be pointed out that not every PV disruption means an arctic outbreak in the Central and Eastern CONUS. There seems to be this General obsession with this idea which is based on East Coast winter snowstorm sexual fantasies are not based on science. I think the idea of a late February pattern flip back to severe cold with additional Arctic air mass outbreaks is extremely unlikely. And that might also be the case for early March. IMAGE [emoji637] = the latest projections from 3 different models on the MJO. As you can see all three models show a rather strong MJO that moves through phases 3 4 and 5 over the next two weeks. And it is clearly implies that the MJO is headed for Phase 6. IMAGE[emoji638] = temperature anomalies in FEB when the MJO anomalies are in phases 3 4 and 5. As you can see in Phases 4 and 5, temperatures above normal or much above east of the Mississippi River. And if we get into Phase 6 in February… well the temperature profile shows an exceptional warmth across the eastern US. IMAGE [emoji639] precipitation anomalies when the MJO is in Phase 3 4 and 5 in FEB. As you can see it is a much wetter pattern for the Midwest and the East Coast in general. Given the extremely dry winter having a much wetter pattern as we head towards Spring is essential and very important . IMAGE [emoji640] = The North America weather regime forecast from Simon Lee over in the UK. This forecast calls for a Pacific Ridge pattern to dominate North America starting February 12/13 and continuing into the middle of March. This is NOT a good pattern for those wanting a late season cold air outbreak in late February or early March over the eastern US. It is however an excellent pattern if you are into farming as this kind of pattern will produce either normal or above normal rainfall for the plains the Midwest and the Deep South finally I am NOT ruling out the idea of a March reversal. Indeed some of the MJO models show it moving back into Phase 7 / 8 in mid-March. The weekly models are also showing a colder pattern across the Eastern conus with the return of high latitude blocking in Greenland and some kind of Ridge trying to reform in western Canada and the Rockies. but that is a long way away.”

The entire winter has been very dry going back to November

All joking aside, this has been a very dry winter and drought conditions are worsening. We are going to have big issues this spring into the summer if we don’t start getting a lot of rain. As @bluewave pointed out, the end of January snowstorm didn’t have a lot of liquid equivalent, just very good ratios with the Siberian cold that was in place, it’s not going to melt down to much…..

All joking aside, this has been a very dry winter and drought conditions are worsening. We are going to have big issues this spring into the summer if we don’t start getting a lot of rain. As @bluewave pointed out, the end of January snowstorm didn’t have a lot of liquid equivalent, just very good ratios with the Siberian cold that was in place, it’s not going to melt down to much…..

I’m starting to think if one actually does happen it will be in March, but at that point, it will basically function as an early final warming

We are talking about next Monday. We should be using ensembles at this range not operational runs

Correct. 2/21 is when winter really starts to wind down. “Prime” snow season for us is 12/20 - 2/20

What good is a March SSWE going to do? March is a spring month. There’s always a lag of weeks between when one happens and when it affects the tropospheric pattern. Met spring starts 3/1 and astronomical spring starts on 3/20. If you want a cold, wet/rainy spring then I guess you’d root for it…..

With the lone exception of the end of January storm, since November, it has, by and large, been a dry winter. We are still in drought conditions and really have been since the fall of 2024…..

Maybe my thoughts will change by the beginning of March, but as of right now, I don’t think March is another below normal cold month, which would make it 5 in a row

My thoughts on March have not changed one iota yet. As of now, I don’t think March is going to be another below normal month for cold. We have been extremely lucky to see the last 4 months in a row (since November) feature solidly below normal cold. A 5th? Color me extremely skeptical right now

BAMWX does this every winter, from November through March. If you noticed, once it became obvious that the arctic cold was going to moderate this month, they immediately started to hype a cold and snowy March. They know damn well how to keep the weenie’s clicks and subscription money flooding in and they know they have one more month left (March) to hype cold and snow and laugh all the way to the bank…..

The NWS needs to take a very long, hard look at the GFS after this winter. It has been by far and away the worst performing model, no other model has been as close to being as bad. Just an utter embarrassment all winter long and needs to be addressed