SnowDawg

EPS again says it's too early at this point to give up on the threat. Mean low pressure track is south and east of the OP. Many members are establishing a defined low as early as the northern gulf/FL panhandle area. Then it's a mixed bag of inland and offshore tracks. Snow means increased a bit over the mountains from 0z.

I think the wedge boundary may be protecting us from the higher winds for now at least.

Your guess is as good as mine. We're talking OP models at 10 days, we'd be just as well off throwing cans of blue and orange paint agaisnt the wall.

Looks temporary. Blocks still in place and another shot on its way SE with PNA starting to push north. With that block and 50/50 in place, if the PNA can pump enough for a wave to dig I'd say that's a threatening look for around the 20th.

EPS mean is way SE of the OP with the low track. Members are all over the map, so no real consensus forming at this point. If you take the GFS progressive bias and the Euro's amplification bias, an in the middle solution might work for a light/moderate event for at least part of the forum. I'm not leaning one way or the other at this point, there's probably still big model shifts coming as these two big storms set the playing field.

3.59" already and radar remains juicy. Definitely heading for 6+ at this rate.

That first wave that came through was all sleet here. Silly as it may be, was nice to see something other than rain for the first time all winter lol. Now to enjoy the last few moments of dry, as that slug of moisture coming in from the south is looking mighty impressive.

So you're telling me there's a chance...

16th/17th definitely a consistent threat both on OP and Ensemble runs at this point, but it's gonna be a tricky one to track given the uncertainty that these two anomalously strong storms between now and then are going to cause in the models. Particularly the 2nd one this weekend, as it appears likely to phase with the TPV lobe and exactly where that big low sets up ahead of our target wave will have big impacts. Ideally, we need it to trend east as close to the 50/50 region as we can get it, as opposed to further west where the 12z GFS showed it.

16th/17th was really close and certainly not a bad look 9 days out. Ensemble actually has a suppressed look for that storm at the moment.

I think it's clear that at least for a period, cold air supply will not be a big problem. It's gonna come down to storm track. Really need a well timed PNA spike to keep a wave from cutting, but not so strong to suppress the pattern too much and send it out to sea. Snow is never easy in the south.

I wouldn't say it's a delay, the first cold shot arrives right on time it's just transient because the PV lobe is stuck out west instead of slowly sliding up under our NAO block. I think at times, especially with these anomalous pv type cold shots the models can have feedback issues with the Rockies. This was the December 2022 cold blast on the Euro at day 10, stuck in the Rockies. We ended up cold and dry though which is certainly a worry. As always there's more ways for things to wrong than right, especially at the lead times we're talking. We may have an idea but I doubt we've seen yet just how this is going to go on modeling.

Considering how much he's enjoyed destroying all our hope the last few years, this is one person I'm glad to see on board lol https://x.com/webberweather/status/1743727117710368793?s=46&t=BVabKZBl0JP2qfoqs7LgyQ

Last I saw was this from the Euro weeklies a couple days ago.

Yeah I can't remember the last time ice was accurately modeled in my location. Either it busts warm like last night, or the surface cold ends up just deep enough to support mostly sleet. The latter has been a saving grace several times in the last 10-20 years for me, while just to my south they have had some devastating ice storms.

Been warming pretty steadily here for a bit. Getting a moist south/southeast flow at the surface raising temps and dews.

I mean sure I guess, but we have barely even had a long range genuinely favorable look for winter storms this winter. This brief early January window was the first period that looked promising at a distance, and arguably we got two near misses out of it. One sheared and suppressed to the south a couple days ago and one CAD setup without enough antecedent cold air or strong enough high.

Genuinely jealous of people who didn't fall into the trap of this hobby. Weather models are basically crack from what I can tell. Everytime I try to tell myself to just stop looking, I find myself waking up at 2am just to sneak a peak at the Euro lol

Sorry but, throwing in the towel first week of January during an El Niño is crazy. 80% of NC winter storms in Niño years happen after Jan 8th. 50% still after Feb 5th. We are just now beginning to move into a period where our most favorable climo can be seen on long range modeling, and while everything is not perfect there's more going for us than agaisnt us. You may well end up right, but this is the south no snow is always the best bet.

Classic case of the Euro looking worse simply because it only goes out 240. That mid-month time period is exactly when we should expect the blocking to start shifting the cold eastward. Everything over the top still looks great on the Euro though, blocking going bonkers by the end of the run and the NAO retrograding westward.

We had temp issues anyway, still in the 40s, so really wouldn't have mattered but I was definitely shocked to not even see so much as a sprinkle.

Man I hope that happens. I will happily stay up Friday night for a nice front end thump of snow. Haven't seen snow on the ground imby since Jan 2022 and even though rain would eventually ruin it, it'd be nice just to see again lol

If the blocking is as advertised then this flip to -WPO may be the last piece of the puzzle we need, allowing the cold to bleed eastward off the plains. Frankly, this can be better than an arctic blast being dropped right on top of us and suppressing everything to Cuba. But the question as always remains, will these positive changes ever actually come to fruition?

Yeah, almost certainly MJO related. EPS moved towards the GFS idea of getting into phase 4, instead of stalling into the COD at phase 3. Just one run, so could change. And even so, any warm period would likely be brief given the changes still advertised in the higher latitudes, and that the MJO is still likely heading into the COD even if it does get into phase 4 for a bit. Mid January thaw is an expected part of strong Niño so I'm not panicking over it yet. I think the writing has been on the wall for a while now that our winter will be make or break on peak Niño climo from late Jan through all of Feb coming through for us. Lucky for us it really only takes one good storm down here.

I think the GFS/GEFS is showing it's progressive bias with the MJO, leading to its outlier warm signal. Both EPS and GEPS are stalling around phase 3 and look about as good as we can ask for by mid month. Just look at this ridge bridge over top of north America, with a crazy strong west based -NAO. 5 day average for the 12th-17th.