Scarlet Pimpernel

I wrote that fine work of literature while drinking a nice Chardonnay! (and let my inner PSU flow!)

The problem is the base state of your beer fridge has changed such that the alcohol content isn't what it was years ago. We cannot use beer analogs that we did in the past. I don't even see the Laughing Cow cheese in there, and to me that's telling. In all years that the SBFI was strongly positive, that cheese was in there. I'm seriously concerned what this can mean for future parties at your house. They just won't be the same. That gap on the bottom shelf on the right near the Sprite, never would occur with all those fine IPAs on the shelf above! In previous winters, we could expect the IPAs to overcome that. But here we are. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we'll never drink beer again! But those who don't care to read the next 6 paragraphs (not included) can just stop here and I'll leave them with an artificial beer buzz. Those who care to remain in the reality based refrigerator, however, please read on...

The Oliphant in the room?

Build the world's smallest snowman???

No kidding! It goes from some decent discussion on how things could look pretty good the 2nd half of this month (and beyond?) to how everything just sucks and we're doomed no matter what. Drives me insane (not that I had far to go, hahaha!). There seems to be two lines of conversation in there...one talking about the upcoming few weeks, and another discussing how the longer term trends are all but unfavorable no matter what. Personally, I'm just looking and hoping for some decent or better chances as this winter progresses...I understand the longer term tendencies but at this point does it matter whether or not we can "catch up to the long term snow normals?" We all know how that's changed over time, but can't we just look at this winter in relative isolation and try to find some positive signs for decent snow, without relating it to the overall long term climo???

"Breaking Away" is an excellent movie for sure!

You mean THESE Cutters??? I count 4 of them...

Both are S-L-O-W, regardless, if you want to get anywhere!!

LOL, is it sucking you back in?? I've about given up much caring about this where I'm at, but yeah, now I suddenly feel a spark of re-interest!

I admit to not knowing all the nuances of the MJO, though do know the "warm" and "cold" phases...and don't know how much the ENSO state alters that. But I have noticed what you're saying here in the past few years. I can't remember which winter it was recently, but I definitely recall where the MJO was supposed to go into the favorable 8-1-2 phases, and at ridiculously high amplitude. There was a good bit of talk about how that would turn things around and lots of hope, blah blah blah...and in the end, not much changed. I'm not saying that the MJO is useless or unimportant by any means, but I just don't know how much of a role it plays or how it modulates depending on various states (ENSO, blocking, etc.). ETA: I have noticed that when things look like shit, there's all kinds of attention paid to the MJO as well as the state of the stratospheric vortex and whether it will be disrupted, etc. When things are doing fine, you don't hear anything about those, or very little.

I know, right?! As if there's some magic to whether or not one is issued. Same with blizzard warnings, I swear some people almost seem upset when one is not issued during a major storm and we "only" have a winter storm warning. FFS, people, you get 15" snow and think less of it due to not meeting the technicality of "blizzard!" (ETA... And yeah a watch is issued when the potential exists to meet warning-criteria snow over an area, and will be refined later. Not a guarantee you'll get that!)

Thanks for this description, PSU...couldn't have said it better myself...spot on! I know this particular person tends to diss models quite often, and to a point I get that. People can mis-use them or take some output too much at face value. However, as you say, they ARE guidance, not forecasts. Well, perhaps more precisely, each model is a forecast SIMULATION of what the atmosphere would do given a suitable set of initial conditions and the model's own programmed physics and thermodynamics. It will never be perfect...at least not anytime soon!...because our ability to perfectly model the atmosphere is limited, though it has dramatically improved over the decades. Even the initial conditions themselves are subject to errors or limitations, being on a discrete grid (plus observation measurement errors, etc.). I also get a little miffed at this person's occasional statements that ensembles essentially throw out "every possible solution." Or something to that effect. Ensembles DO NOT do this, nor are they intended to do so. They are intended to provide probabilistic information and uncertainty, WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THAT MODEL'S PHYSICS. Obviously there are certain assumptions, such as for a given ensemble suite of a particular base model (GFS, Euro, etc.), each member in that suite has equally likely outcome. Based on that and other theoretical considerations, this is why the use of the ensemble mean for many parameters (e.g., 500 mb heights) is considered to be the best estimate of an outcome in the medium to longer range. Or why it's good to look at solution clusters. The ops of a particular model is essentially just a high res ensemble member when you're looking at that time frame. Which is obviously why it's annoying for people to toss out a crappy looking 300+ hour GFS deterministic forecast just to make some point about how we suck or whatever. I know this is very simplified and general, what I said here, but you get the idea.

There is some pretty serious cold behind that avocado as the cutter passes, to be sure. Both at the surface and 850 mb.

@psuhoffman, this is a very interesting potential, even if it's not quite so likely at this point. I'm talking your 2nd one, where the trailing wave is actually "the" one. Haven't we seen this either occur before, or looked like it could happen but was too little too late for our area? The scenario sounds a bit familiar from previous events in the past. So it doesn't seem all that wild to keep in mind.

Sounds like the 'Noles during the UGA-FSU game from this weekend!

See, technically you didn't state what you decided to stop drinking. So it's all good!!!

Whelp...on to February and March then!!!

Yeah, but make sure you don't slant-mow!! That's cheating!

My assessment of the 12Z model suite today...

Maybe "debunked" wasn't the correct term...what I meant was, the amount of data "sampled" isn't much different nowadays for any given model cycle. Reading what you say here, however, I realize you meant the data itself will be different (of course) as you move closer-in. I can get that...and sorry if I was a bit harsh in my comment, but there's always this "thing" that different model cycles are "better or worse" due to how much data that was input to them.

Wasn't the whole "sampling" thing (@dtk??) sort of debunked some time ago? As in, it's not really an issue with today's NWP. That's always brought up with every storm still, at least in terms of the 00/12Z suites vs. 06/18Z. Things may change or "trend" (such as it is), but that's not really due to "better sampling."

LOL!!! Well, it's not the "jinxes", it's the same cadre of people who freak out when things look less favorable after they see a couple of runs that looked great. And sadly, some of those who "freak out" are the more knowledgeable ones, not that they tear hair out and whine like some others, but discussion gets slanted in a doom-and-gloom manner (and yes, talk of "trends!!!"). I'm certainly not one who wants to put my fingers in my ears and cry "lalalala, I can't hear you!" when there's not so good news, but we also don't need incessant repeating "look how all this is wrong!" with every model run that "suddenly" isn't as favorable.

Yup, that was discussed...and yup, the freak-outs are regular as clockwork!! People went ga-ga over a couple of runs that gave the DC metro area a foot (admittedly, I got excited too of course!). And you know, we could well "fail" at least I-95 east. But even with a "fail" for that area, I still think nearly all of us see some snow, and not just the less than an inch "surprise" we got back in December. I think we get on the board with decent amounts, and by decent I mean a couple of inches or so. Won't be perfect and temperatures aren't the best, but whatever. A few days ago we were all looking at rain. Of course, those farther west should score pretty big almost regardless of any solution.

Interesting discussion on all the "old" history of this site and its predecessors. I recall first finding this when it was Eastern US Weather Forums, in January or February 2009. Strangely, prior to that I was looking at the Accu-Weather forums just to see some discussion but it was a bit jumbled with the organization and didn't like it so much. Someone on there had a link or a reference to Eastern, so I checked it out and was hooked since! I didn't join at that time, just read to get information. The first "real" storm I remember following on Eastern was the early March 2009 event (if anyone else recalls that?), actually staying up late through that weekend reading GFS and Euro discussions! There wasn't as much talk of ensembles at the time. I then officially joined Eastern sometime later in 2009, in time for the amazing winter that year!! Then it got transferred to American Weather Forums I think around January 2011? So anyone who had an account on Eastern could "re-start" on AmWX. Oh and on a different topic...I know people joke (sort of) about the weekend rule and snowstorms around here! Total chance I'm sure that a decent majority tend to occur at that point in a week. But if you think of it, and if you consider a "weekend" to be Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon (I'm allowing for a day either side, for Monday holidays and for storms that may start just before and continue through the weekend)...that's 4 of 7 days. So just statistically, you should have storms that tend to occur in that time range!

Thank you, Red!