SnowDawg

I hate seeing all this strung out, positive tilt, late blooming stuff from the OP models. Feels like it's been forever since we've had the pleasure of a storm forming back in Texas and getting to just watch it roll in.

GEFS snow mean is really trending up now over the last few runs. Hate seeing the OP GFS show the Atlantic pattern messing everything up with fast flow positive tilt waves with no room to amplify. But at least it's own ensemble trended away from it at 6z by separating the short waves undercutting the pacific ridge. Really just a few small tweaks away from being in a position to maybe score more than once in just the first 10 days of the new year.

Hard to hate this look on an ensemble this far out. Low in the 50/50 region, Canadian HP pushing in, and low pressures building along the gulf. 

26 minutes ago, Daniel Boone said:

If all pans out, much better than last year. However, still a fly in the ointment so to speak. We still have a problem with the MJO, all due to the extremely warm wpac . Notice how once it gets to the cold phases it zooms through then crawls through the warm.?.. That could spell a short cold period in early January followed by an extended nirmal to mild stretch again. Thankfully, the Nino should mitigate the mildness with that . Also, the Strat deal could really switch it to full bore old fashioned Winter late January/through Feb. 

Generally my thinking as well that things could go really great come late January into February with the delayed impacts of a strat event potentially lining up with the MJO finally making it back around to colder phases, or at the very least going into the COD and letting the strat warming and Niño control the pattern.

To this point this winter we've pretty much followed climo for a strong el niño to a tee. If this were to continue then we should get a 1-2 week favorable window in early January, which we are starting to see on the models. Normally that would be followed by a mid/late January thaw. Decent chance that by that time the MJO is heading into the warm phases for us so certainly possible. Not all bad because troughing to our west can build that snow pack over the northern plains. This sets us up perfectly for February, the banner month of strong el Niños, usually very cold and very snowy in the east. This could time up well with possible stratosphere impacts and the MJO making its way back out of the warm phases. 

1 hour ago, BooneWX said:

I’m cautiously optimistic. One thing that concerns me is the lack of snowpack over the northern states and Canada. We really need a sacrificial storm to bring the goods to that region of the continent. 

Will definitely be needed to score on any close calls, but if we get a great track and well placed high pressures I don't think it will matter at least for the climo favored areas north/west of 85. 

Moving into the heart of winter, even the slightly above average air from the northern plains advecting down will be plenty cold enough. Getting those HP's built overtop of our active STJ has been pretty much non-existent thus far though, thanks to the Pacific firehose blasting southern Canada. So hopefully that will change with the ridge retrograding.

I wish it would have dug just a bit more cause this one's looking like it's got enough forcing for some squalls to break containment.

If we can get the PNA to really pump I think we'll be in business. We need something to cut off that endless stream of lows being sent into the PNW and Canada. Then maybe we can get some high pressures to build in overtop of our active stj.

Love seeing that thing dig so far south on the NAM. Would definitely put North GA in the game for at least a nice flizzard. Too bad it's the NAM at range lol

2 hours ago, NorthHillsWx said:

This weekends storm has trended way east. Probably saves inland areas from worst winds and severe threat 

I hope it stays that way, but I'm still wary of our typical NW trend inside the last 24-48 hours.

1 hour ago, BooneWX said:

I hope this thing does track east. There’s a fine balance in this storm of getting beneficial rainfall and not having destructive winds and multi-day outages. I’m rooting for the 12z evolution even if it sacrifices a bit of rain (we’ll still get very healthy amounts anyways).

Amen, if I ain't getting a full blown blizzard out of this then I have no interest in going through those kinds of winds. Besides, nothing in the long term suggests we're gonna be hurting for rainfall so I'm all for sitting this one out.

11 minutes ago, wncsnow said:

Models have been trending east all day. New Euro doesn't give us more than an inch of rain even in the foothills. 

Wonder if it's a situation where things go east today, and then we see the usual NW trend inside 48 hours?

6z GFS showing switch over to heavy wet snow as the ULL swings through. Even down here in North GA I believe that is 100% a snow sounding even though it shows rain.

Don't envy GSP on this forecast, somewhere in the mountains could get hammered all the way down to the valleys.

This is gonna be a mess if that GFS run is right. Haven't seen a run with widespread winds like this since Irma.

Man, I'd much rather see this be suppressed and head out to sea. GFS with 50-70+ mph gusts region wide will be destructive. Really don't wanna be in the dark for days on end.

Writing is on the wall at this point that this winter is gonna come down to mid-January through February going as expected for a strong Niño. Even with a pattern change, it's gonna take a while to flush all this warm air off the continent and then hopefully build a snowpack in our source regions. The euro weeklies still look good, but they've punted any significant changes to around the 2nd week of January at this point. 

I'm just really nervous about the strength and resiliency of that -EPO and Pacific Jet. Once locked in they can be hard to ever really get rid of. May end up having to bank on threading the needle during brief periods where it relaxes/retracts, as opposed to getting any real extended cold to work with.

1 hour ago, nchighcountrywx said:

This is a shot across the bow.  Major change in the outlook 

 

It seriously feels like we've been allergic to the cold phases of MJO during the winter months. Could end up blowing January too. I know February is the best month by far in strong Niños but it's hard to be confident in that with how that month has treated us lately. Really need that SSW like GaWx was talking about above.

Man seeing that track on next weekends storm system with absolutely no cold air whatsoever to work with is downright depressing. Maybe it's a track we can repeat throughout the winter, but it just seems those big bowling ball Miller A's are so rare these days that it sucks to waste one.

3.37 here with a little more to come and hopefully a few minutes of token flakes to top it off. 

That +EPO is going absolutely bonkers and looks worryingly stable even well into January on the weeklies. Makes it way harder to get any cold air into North America. We're gonna need the PNA to do some heavy lifting. Hopefully we can get lucky towards peak Niño climo in February and actually get the Atlantic and Pacific to work together for what feels like the first time in eternity.

Too far out to mean anything yet but the last third of the 6z GFS looks great. That blocking is absolutely insane leading up to the holidays. 

3 day stretch of morning lows 25, 20, and 22 for the first 3 days of November. Pretty impressive. Hopefully the main winter months are kinder to us this year than last.

1 hour ago, wncsnow said:

New Drought monitor is not good. Severe drought spreading into the foothills and mountains. 

Dang... Need that El Niño precip pattern to get fired up sometime soon. 

20 on the dot down here in Georgia. Quite the impressive airmass this is.