Henry's Weather

Canadian runs it right up the gullet

And it's also winter time. It snows during the winter. Our pattern isnt exactly like 1972-3, 2006-7, 2011-12 or similar years, so just probabilistically, it will snow. At some point. Maybe.

yeah I can't really see anything special, unless somehow PNA and NAO regions flex at the same time. It's pretty far into tenuous theory land, but I wonder if since the RNA has been so pronounced that when/if a regime change to +PNA occurs, we will see an increased chance of something significant just because of the magnitude of flux.

taking a macroscale view and letting what comes come, assured that we'll eventually get the goods, is far easier on the ole' limbic system

Looking at the long range, if we eventually make the flip from a -PNA/NAO pattern to a +PNA/NAO pattern, we have 4 potential Archambault chances, with the both the Pacific and Atlantic changing? With all that cold to our west, we'll see something significant in the next 20 days, I'm sure of it.

Oh god, we need some snow, lest we start reminiscing about Boxing Day on the main thread

white rain in West Concord

maybe forkyfork works for them

Signed on the dotted line

Ill be in Seattle from the 27th to the 2nd, so we'll definitely get a storm in that time frame

wonder what the litetature is on increasing angular momentum due to temp increase. Seems logical enough to me.

yeah im aware

Sometimes I wonder why we do all this fussing over anticipating an inevitable outcome. From an outsider's perspective, it's pretty irrational behavior. For those who aren't meteorologists/ interested in actually forecasting and/or those who get disproportionally emotionally invested in fantasy computer images (ie. the neurotic types), it might honestly make sense to not track storms and just enjoy what comes at a day-by-day level, save for a BOX discussion or two. Unless you have meaningful friends on this site, then the story changes. Just thinking out loud a little.

Is what I've circled the baroclinic zone? First off, what is a baroclinic zone and second, how would it be prevented from escaping east?

Huh... the GFS seems to ever so slightly reach neutral tilt sooner. Note the placement change of the 540 line. It's miniscule difference but it can be shown by a slight enhancement at the surface compared to 18z once the system gets going

I get you, but that large of an axis shift within 60 hrs is not trivial, so it'll be interesting to see the changes at 18z and 0z

Sizeable improvement here with the trough axis and structure. This is without a doubt a hopeful development.

Can we make an informal rule banning the creation of threat-specific threads prior to 72 hrs out, with the rare exception of consistently modeled day-7 MECS like 2016/December 2020?

yeah, I didn't mean to imply that it isnt, if that's how I came off. Still a little tenuous for people right along the coast right? Anyways, that's a minor detail at this point.

As a coastal dweller (college in Cambridge), I'd want that high west of Maine to avoid easterly winds, but favorable look nonetheless for pike on north on the 18z GEFS.

You need to start with the assumption that nothing special will happen with a system, because that's true 95% of the time. Just logically, not every threat can be a "severe blizzard", so why always forecast one? It boggles my mind. I honestly don't understand how you can handle the instability of being so relentlessly "optimistic" about systems, since you're so often wrong. At some point, you'd think you'd become more conservative, just to avoid disappointment. Significant systems are quite rare. Your understanding of a typical SNE winter should not be informed by highly anomalous years like 2014-2015 and 2017-2018, which I'm assuming are some of the years that you grew up on. Learning to dissociate your forecaster self and your snow weenie self as best as you can is a very worthwhile goal. I had to learn this skill, and am still trying to improve in this aspect.

one of my favorite storms of all time, just because of how it snuck up on us.

18z GFS's evolution is functionally identical to the ICON, which the low closing off in Central PA and swinging eastward. Pretty sweet look.