ORH_wxman

Yeah the euro was trying to get us too on that 12/3-4 system. We’ll see. Volatile solutions in this setup so I’d expect a lot of swings in guidance. We’re still in clown range anyway but these are the types of patterns you can oscillate between 60F cutters and cold SWFEs until you get inside 6 or 7 days. (In the old days it might do that until 4-5 days out)

We’ll have a torch spike on the cutter the first few days of December (whenever that thing actually cuts…still wiggle room on guidance)….but we may drop the hammer after that. Canada is frigid and we start getting that cold -WPO cross-polar press. It’s hard to stay warm with that look. I’d be surprised if we didn’t have multiple SWFE threats between 12/5-12/15. Might even be able to sneak something a touch sooner. Esp NNE.

It's funny how the objective D11 analogs right now all point to years with SWFEs in early December.....top analog is 11/29/91 (big SWFE on 12/3/91).....2007 shows up twice on the list....so do 1972, 1978 and 1983 (all 3 had early Dec SWFEs...'78 was more of a front ender cutter, but still)

Gonna be several shots at a SWFE i think in the first 10 days of Dec....pattern has that look.

Wonder when the GFS and foreign guidance is going to converge on Tday. GFS still like a full day slower with that trough. Foreign models all have the front offshore by Tday morning.

Holiday period is way out there a month-plus from now, but none of the guidance has that period as a torch right now. If anything, it shows up as pretty damned cold on weeklies.

BOS will prob get colder post-Tday on that weekend. Into the 20s I’d think.

Ironically it seems the worst offending decade was the 1990s…no October or early Nov snows and plenty of late ones. You wouldn’t think so in an otherwise fairly snowy decade.

Remember the glory days of 2002-2010….so many epic December events on the forums…Xmas 2002, Dec 5-7, 2003, 12/9/05 , 12/13/07, 12/11/08 (ice storm), etc

Yeah every month had major events....'02-'03 and '95-'96 both seasons (not October in 1995, lol...but still November to April) 2014-15 had a dud December here which kind of ruined the wire to wire vibe....too bad because we slammed over the interior on T-day eve that year with a nice warning event. '17-'18 was very solid Dec-Mar, but not much in April or November that season.

Thanksgiving Eve into T-day morning has been trending colder too. Not expecting much winter precip here but interior CNE northward might grab something. If we somehow tick it another nudge colder, then maybe it gets interesting down into interior pike region. OF course, maybe it's not much at all like the Euro had....

It was pretty close to wire to wire over interior SNE north of 84. They cashed in during both the Xmas ‘02 event and the early Jan ‘03 event with basically very little melting and that lasted until the big February snow events which added more pack to an already good one. We did get an ugly cutter in very late February that year. There was a cutter about a week before Xmas too that kind of put a gap between the Thanksgiving week/early December snows and the Xmas event. But again, pretty close to wire to wire…esp for SNE standards.

That whole 11/29-12/1 period is semi-interesting. There’s going to be troughing most likely entering the Midwest so if we have some local confluence/cold press ahead of it, then we might be able to sneak an event in there. OP euro shows a colder look on that today. As usual, best chance this early is going to be interior and prob some latitude as well, but something to watch.

This is really hard to measure so hard to say the magnitude of the impact. It probably played some role. It was hard to really amplify ridges over the Rockies last winter. I’m sure there was a level of poor “luck” involved too in the sub-synoptic wavelengths.

‘70-71?

It was fine last winter. We just couldn’t get the big storms.

Been a lot of -NAO showing up even on the warmer ensemble looks. That’s a good sign though because when the PAC finally relaxes a little that will help us a lot. You can see it in some of the OP runs heading into early December….the weeklies show what happens when you keep the NAO look with a better PAC. The PAC will prob be a bit stubborn for a couple weeks so I wouldn't really get too anxious before the first week of December.

First week of December is the earliest to see anything interesting I think. Maybe the interior CNE and northward could see something Tday week if things broke right.

Bz is strongly north so you're not gonna see shit anyway. Get that back to -35 like last night and then we can talk.

Seems like most long range guidance is very bullish on a lot of Atlantic blocking going into December, so as long as we can at least get a serviceable Pacific, it could be a favorable setup.

We'll want to eradicate those lower heights near AK as we get deeper into November....lots of low heights up there over the first half or 2/3rds of November on the ensembles and weeklies. Euro weeklies have been insistent on pushing them out by late November, which would be a good sing for a fast start, but always watch for the delayed pattern shift. Sometimes it's rushed.

We've had big area increases over the weekend, so pretty safe to call the area minimum now too at 2.7055 million sq km.

We've potentially reached the extent minimum on Jaxa (4.55 mil sq km on 9/8). We're about 50k above that now. We'll see if there are enough drops in the coming week to offset gains. If we have indeed reached the extent minimum, it would rank 14th lowest. Area is even murkier...we're only about 10k above the min of 2.70 million sq km. We're currently 5th lowest for area. We'd need to drop below 2.63 million sq km to reach 4th lowest.

Years ago, we ran strong -QBO against cold ENSO and there number of cold Decembers with fast starts was pretty significant. 1956, 1970, 1974, 1981, 1983, 1989, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2011, 2017, 2021 The only duds in that group are 1974, 2011, and 2021....and 2021 was a weird one with extreme bitter cold in Canada not that far away from the northern tier of CONUS. Only '74 and '11 had true awful death vortex pattern.

2012 (lowest), 2016 (2nd lowest), and 2024 (third lowest) are the top 3 lowest area minimums. 2016 and 2024 were quite close to eachother whereas nothing as come particularly close to 2012 since then. Area in 2025 is currently 7th lowest on record for this date. edit: I think you meant highest minimums..... Highest mins for area since 2007 are: 2013: 3.61 million 2014: 3.57 million 2009: 3.54 milion 2018: 3.23 million 2022: 3.21 million