The Iceman

1 minute ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Also, has sort if a 2014ish look to the longwave pattern if I remember that season correctly. Had the overrunning pattern and it locked in most of the winter. 

Exactly what it reminds me of as well. -EPO/-AO/+NAO. It's a solid pattern as long as you are set up south of the boundary. 2014 produced high end WWA/low end WSW events over and over again and even the cutters were thumps to rain. Not good for high end events but I think most would enjoy a 2-3 week period of multiple 3-6" type storms over one and done anyway. Just want that ridge out west to set up a bit further east so that we are S of the boundary.

2 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Some astronomy dude in NY sub says we have one chance...Feb 4-6. Maybe a Feb 83 or Jan 16 vibe...MECS then meltoff starts next day is what I got from his post. 

I don't get that vibe at all from the projected pattern in the long range from the ensembles. Looks more like a gradient/overrunning pattern where anything strong will cut but weak lows will ride along the boundary. If the boundary sets up north of us, we are fooked as DT would say but if it sets up S of us we could see several moderate events in quick succession until the pattern breaks down again. I don't really see "the big one" potential then warm up like we had in December. Ensembles show a lot of cold air on our side of the continent late month to work with, it will just depend if it bleeds east enough. 

While it's encouraging to see the looks in the long range progress, I want to see it get into the day 5 range and see what the long range looks like then. For all we know, this pattern change could last a week or two and shift back into where we are now. While that's still better than wall to wall pac puke pattern, I'm still skeptical we are in for a backloaded winter. I think it's more likely is a a 1-2 week window where we will have chances to score then we go through the cycle again especially with Nina climo in February.

1 hour ago, Newman said:

I think I ended with 7" 2019-2020. This winter I'm only at 1.8 so far, and that's from 4 or 5 total "storms" lol. A nice 2 or 3 inch storm would be nice at this point.

7"?  You did well that winter. I had 1.5". PHL had .3"

Gfs doesn’t even have the 2nd storm. This is going to be the time where it actually leads the way despite being a dumpster fire all season long in the mid range.

Too warm for an overnight event with a weak low passing south of us during what should be the coldest time of the year. Our climate truly is broken. 

Its way too early to cancel winter but I will say it’s pretty eerie how similar this winter is playing out like 2019-2020. Got cold in December but didn’t have the storm tracks so we were warm/wet then cool/dry. PAC air flooded the continent by the end of December into January and we had a lucky c-2” event at the beginning of January then nothing else. Now we have a c-2” event Sunday and nothing on the horizon. Pattern changes were teased in long range for weeks on end but never materialized until mid-late March. We have the models showing hope again now for late month with a workable pattern but given the large scale changes we see in the day 7-10 range right now, it’s impossible to have confidence beyond that. Hopefully things play out better than 19-20 we also got incredibly unlucky a few times that season but the similarities thus far are striking imo. 

12z euro for the 14th system is uglyyyyy. night and day from the GFS/CMC. Looks like it's going to be a straight cutter west of chicago. Probably going to lead the charge again like it did for the Christmas system sadly. Still wants nothing to do with the sunday/monday light event too. True Dr.No style.

Just now, Ralph Wiggum said:

I mean, we couldn't ask for a much better 850 low pass for our areas than what the gefs mean is showing. It's all textbook tbh:

The problem is that there's just not enough cold air in place nor is there a source to tap into as you said above. Outside of a thread the needle situation or full phase/manufactured cold, this one is going to struggle to snow in SE PA unless we see some big changes to the airmass in the coming days.

2 minutes ago, ChescoWx said:

All about tracks - put a low 50 miles off the delmarva....it snows with 52 degree water temps

The CMC has the low 50 miles off the delmarva and it's still mostly rain SE PA.

Sunday night event is GFS/ICON vs everyone else. Not a good camp to be in. Probably another trace event.

Just now, JTA66 said:

The good news is the 12z GFS should ease any suppression fears for next weekend 

That's a nice 3-6" event...of rain  It honestly reminds me of the feb 2021 storm that lingered for days and days except with no cold air this time.

1 hour ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

You know me....I will be here til the bitter end of the season tracking and trying to find any positives I can. Murphy's Law with me is usually I'm overly optimistic in the LR and we fail every time....or I punt and we enter a pattern that is producing. I'm not punting yet  and honestly until cold air gets reestablished up North I can't be optimistic in the LR. We are in a thread the needle game for a while longer. It would be nice to just get a clean event...a half decent non amped wave sliding under the region with cold air established on our side of a boundary.....no timing worries, no phasing concerns, not relying on a 50/50 or some telleconnection acronym to progress into a specific phase. Rant over. Now let's get some flakes flying Sunday night. 

That's what Sunday's event SHOULD be but the airmass just isn't cold enough. It's pretty unbelievable that we have precip type issues in what should be our coldest climo with a good storm track and it falling overnight. This would be an easy WWA event in most winter's but as is we are going to be lucky to see a C-1" ending as light rain... Even in crappy winters, we used to be able to score minor events in these kind of set ups. 

5 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

JMA is a squasher fwiw. So we have everything from Buffalo cutter, to cold heavy rain, to a miss just South. I mean, the setup is what we want to see for an ECS, but where that plays out is TBD. I'm nowhere near all-in yet tho as I mentioned last week, transition begins around the 6th-8th, weak signal for the 11th. Then around mid month we have legit trackable events. So here we are, progression repeating like Dec, just prime climo now.

Eta: I still want to choke on my own vomit at the lr ens but that also doesn't mean they are right....because honestly I don't believe they are.

What do you mean, everyone knows the ensembles have 100% accuracy from 15 days out when it shows a dumpster fire for snow in the east. They only flip flop when it shows a solid pattern. Weenie Handbook pg. 26. 

1 hour ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Well, the 2 threats in the MR are either doa or on life support. Looking at the lr ens don't exactly give a warm (pun intended) fuzzy feeling either. Tho we seem to have had the lr ens means fail verification quite regularly lately, so maybe we can verify opposite the crud looks depicted. @RedSky we just took a 13 yard loss on a 2nd down sack. 3rd and long?

Looking like threat 3 in the long range is our last hope for awhile. Maybe we can pull off the one HECS then winter over like 2016? Similar to 2016 it’s been showing up consistently on the OPs and ensembles from a long way out. It’s a brief favorable window before the pattern goes back to hell. Maybe we get lucky again? Right now it looks like the pattern leans towards suppression and though that hasn’t been an issue this winter, it’s typical in Nina’s that you are sandwiched between cutters and suppressed. Im not all in on this threat yet but it’s definitely our best look of the winter so far. If that one fails though we are almost certainly looking at futility through at least the end of January. We can’t possibly have 2 all-time snowless winters in a 4 year period can we? Since its 3rd and 30, hopefully Mother Nature has Gannon as the d coordinator….

Up to 65 here now for the high. Wiggum Rule in effect 

1 hour ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Soooo we've moved ahead from 2 discrete threats in the mid range that could get us on the board to a fantasy storm at Day 10ish because it is a better setup? OK, got it 

I haven't, I'm hoping we get a 1-3" "surprise" from at least one of them. Euro wants nothing to do with either of them though at 12z... Threat in the long range is basically noise to me at this point, lets see how it looks once we get into the mid range. A precarious set up that may lead to a SECS isn't something to be overly excited over at day 10. We've seen much better set ups this winter basically go to complete shit. In a progressive flow like we are in, there's almost no shot the models are nailing that set up 10 days out. Something to keep an eye on but I'd much rather focus on getting on the board for now and there's 2 threats in the mid range with that potential albeit minor. 1-3" will feel like 6-12" after the winter we've had so far...

OT but was looking out west at some of the snow forecasts, this one at Mt. Shasta is wild! 73 to 95" of snow with gusts up to 115 MPH over 36 hours. Imagine witnessing that, basically a snowicane 
 

3 hours ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

I'm not going to disagree with you here. But I will just say ens can't even agree on some of the longwave features next week so it is tough to say we punt. I mean, if you are just using a seasonal look and siding with that moving forward I see your theory. I'm holding out hope still....MJO is finally looking to progress into 8-1. *IF* that happens it could be a game changer. I'm certainly.not willing to hang my hat on it but we are starting to see some changes in ssts in the equatorial PAC and with the jet retraction next week, so there is hope. Maybe you can get the punt team ready on the sideline, coach, but I wouldn't get them on the field just yet. 

I will say it's pretty encouraging that the mid range has 2-3 legit threats for measurable snow. None are perfect threats and all are looking fairly minor, but I'd be fairly surprised at this point if none of them bring measurable snow. They look messy, ie rain to snow or snow to rain, but I'm growing more confident that we at least see a 1-3"er in there so we at least will be over a trace on the season hopefully... 

Ridge in the west showing up a few days ago looks to have been a mirage. All major ensembles showing the trough out there through 384. January looking more and more like a punt month. Hopefully we score a measurable light snowfall with those shortwaves next week because after that looks like it’s time to close the blinds again.

6 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

I was hearing a lot of the "we feel like it doesn't snow much anymore" from folks on my FB page - so I updated some of the analysis and charts on snowfalls for the Philly burbs of Chester County PA. The data says the last 3 decades including just the 1st 2 seasons of the 2020's have all averaged above average snowfall. (see graph below showing the average snowfall by decade since the 1890's.

Or what about we don't get any large snowstorms anymore? So how about a breakdown of significant (6"+) large (10"+) Major (15"+) and historic (20"+) snowstorms by decade

And finally the thought that we don't get any big snow seasons anymore? Well below are the top 20 Snow Seasons - 3 of the Top 10 and 6 of the Top 20 snowiest winters have all happened since the year 2000

I mean our climo naturally doesn’t give us sustained winters other than rare exceptions but if you look at the last 5 years I can understand the sentiment… 17-18 was a well above normal snowfall year but 3/4 of it fell in those 2 big events in March. Most of prime winter was spent in agony waiting for a pattern change. Plus I feel like most of the general public does not remember March snows because they are gone in 2 days. 18-19 was around normal snow but most of it fell in one-two events with one in March I believe. 19-20 was an all time snowless winter. 20-21 was largely a 2-3 week winter capped by the monster storm in February. Last winters snowfalls were almost exclusively rain to snow or snow to rain events that we nickel and dimed but none had much staying power. So in the last 5 years we’ve really had 1 winter with multiple weeks of snowpack(20-21). I can understand the sentiment of “it doesn’t really snow anymore” because when it does snow of late it rarely sticks around longer than a few days because either the pattern changes, it changes over mid event, or it’s March. There hasn’t been a real sustained winter since 14-15. And when you compare the 5-6 year period from 09-15, the good winters from that had much more staying power and multiple snow events in actual winter.

8 hours ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

This is a solid look. Pattern progression mimicking past 4 weeks. Should see legit opportunities by mid month latest and moving forward from there. Is @The Icemanstill on a bridge preparing to jump? Wish he would see the light.

Alright Ralph I’ll bite. The looks advertised on both the GEFS and EPS after day 11 look solid. And should get us favorable storm tracks. However still concerned about temps. GEFS has cold building and leaking into the lower 48 by the end of the run but EPS still doesn’t show a great air source. Combine that with warm ocean temps and I think 95 will have precip type issues even if we get good storm tracks. But still a more wintry look than wet. A lot better than these next 7 days at least. Have a happy new year! let’s hope the look holds the next 5 days.

12z GFS:

500 MB isn't going to save us from the continent being flooded with PAC air

2 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

I don't think u r looking at recent GEFS. Haven't seen the eps they have been putrid anyway. Clear your cache.

Looks great: