ORH_wxman

The thing that the euro used to be great at was being the first to sniff out a distinct trend. But it no longer has that superiority. It’s still the best model, but now we often get headfakes from the euro because unlike 10 years ago, when it shows a big change from other model guidance, it’s not always correct because other model guidance isn’t as inferior to the euro than it used to be. Years ago, if models were showing an exciting solution and all of the sudden, the euro shows a big trend at 108 hours, other guidance would almost certainly cave to that way more often than not because the euro was such a better model. Nowadays, if the euro shows a unique trend that other guidance isn’t showing, we stop and say “is euro out to lunch or is it trying to score a coup like the old days?”….and the reason we say that is models like the GFS aren’t pathetically inferior to it any longer. Only modestly so.

Yeah I think that’s part of it. We also have more model runs than ever. Everything seems to run 4x per day now…so that gives a better chance of seeing model guidance change. Or we bother to scrutinize every shift and pretend it’s not noise when sometimes it is. Like dendrite said earlier, we used to wait until 7-8pm for the 12z euro to come out and that was the only euro run…it didn’t even run at 00z until like 2003 or 2004 maybe?

Yep…first week of Dec is pretty hostile still…esp outside of interior elevations. Climo rapidly gets better though as we move beyond that. Hopefully after the mid-month warmup, we can start cashing in during the 3rd and 4th weeks of the month…would be nice to have a snowy holiday period.

Yeah the relative performance of the euro has declined but not the absolute performance. Maybe it will reclaim some mojo in El Niño where it seems to have a strength with a bunch of interacting shortwaves. Despite all the handwringing, this threat is starting to evolve kind of close to expectations…best chance of snow is NNE….CNE is precarious but has a legit shot…SNE is a longer shot. 12/6 doesn’t seem to have enough room but too early to totally write it off. This all seems pretty consistent with our original thoughts…we just have a bit more confidence that 12/4 is the main show now and not 12/5-6.

The models were a lot worse back then. I forecasted with them for years…we knew some of the biases better, but their skill in every single metric was worse. I think many forget that we used to weenietag people for getting too excited about a 144 hour storm threat…now people actually take them seriously. And there’s a good reason for that….models actually sniff out storms at 144 hours way better than they did in 2008 or 2009. Hell, I remember we tracked the 12/17/20 storm from like 200+ hours out, lol…it was consistently there on guidance. That type of stuff almost never happened back then.

Euro was trying for 12/6 too but it just doesn’t have enough space. We need 12/4 to lift out quicker.

Hey there’s a reason it was called “Dr No”….lol

Their skill is definitely superior to what it was during the glory days of the euro…the problem is the Euro isn’t like 2 tiers above the closest competitors anymore so now we actually have to try and figure out which model is most correct. Prior, we could just sort of hug the euro inside of 108 hours and cruise to success. There were certain times I did not trust the euro back then…it wasn’t as good with CAD back then as it became later on (I tossed it in the trash prior to the Dec 2008 ice storm when it showed rain up to NH border in ORH county) and once in a while it wasnt great with rapidly deepening storms (ala 12/9/05 where it shat the bed)

I don’t think 12/6 is going to have enough room. Other guidance doesn’t like it. The 12/4 system doesn’t look very good either outside of far NNE unless we can get some trends toward the Euro today (which we haven’t…we’ve actually gotten worse trends so far for 12/4) Theres still some time to change things, but so far my best guess is we likely are stuck in the least optimal scenario…12/4 ends up way too warm and 12/6 gets suppressed. To be fair, this was also the most likely solution over the past couple of days.

I’d just refer to it as the 12/6 wave. Seems to be on its own with that idea for the most part since yesterday. Though there’s been a very small number of EPS members that try to show it too.

NAO was defacto negative imho that year. You have a pretty typical height response in the Atlantic and higher heights from greenland too Baffin Island region. My guess is there was too much low heights near Hudson Bay and maybe norther Greenland for it to register negative officially but the pattern over the CONUS resembled more of a -NAO than a positive one…likely due to the AO being negative.

00z EPS barely had any snow into MA. It had 1” near the NH border in ORH county and 1-2” in N Franklin/Berkshire counties. That is different from the OP run of the Euro which did have some snow into SNE at the end.

Fwiw, 06z EPS did come decently south. Get another tick at 12z and it's pretty interesting.

Euro already folded at 00z. It only had that solution yesterday that showed snow 126-132 hours out. Even in the old days that would’ve been a tough lift from that range. It’s wheelhouse was a bit closer than that. This one is still likely to change a few times but we’re probably going to want to see a colder trend at 12z to realistically get much of this forum back in the game outside of far NNE. CNE doesn’t need too much shift colder.

Yeah and I think many years ago a similar thing happened at SEA…they laid a new runway down and it really messed with the temps. I’m not aware of anything weird with the ORH ASOS though since 2020. I know they did move it from one part of the airport to another at one point in the past 10-15 years but that was well before 2020 IIRC.

00z EPS are pretty skimpy for SNE. There’s a few decent members but definitely a lot less than the 12z run which isn’t a surprise when looking at the warmth of 00z OP run. 06z GFS was another continuity break. Goes back to the Dec 6th idea which would be a colder look…but that idea has the least cross-model support and even the 06z GEFS aren’t that enthused. I think we’re gonna want to see some colder solutions on the 12z runs today to realistically entertain plowable snow in SNE.

I miss the 2003 and 2006 days of yore. Took them for granted back then.

Great pics. Was that the 2017 gathering? I remember me, Scott and Jerry looking at the NAM that night and thinking “hmmm, the 12/23 system doesn’t exactly look like a cutter…that looks really icy”….turned out to be legit icing right into BOS during that.

Yeah I feel like updates are way more frequent than years ago. I used to keep up with the updates without much effort back then and the biases were better catalogued. Even accounting for having a much busier life outside of weather now, it’s really hard to keep up with the changes even doing searches for 15-30 minutes.

18z GFS still focusing on different shortwave. It uses the 12/3 shortwave to bring rain even into NNE and then behind it gets colder to set the stage for 12/5-6 sort of like the 12z…except it fails to amplify as much as 12z so it’s nothing.

There are still a few members trying for Dec 6th too. Not as many as 12/4 but still worth keeping an eye on.

Maybe we move to 12/20 Wednesday? Bruins are off that day and Celtics are out playing in Sacramento that night so we’d be in good shape.

Normally we’d be pumped at a 126-132 solution on the euro but this thing has been changing every run so it’s prob gonna be a couple more cycles before confidence is high

That was a legit hit on the euro even for SNE. Not biting yet but there’s a nice little Hudson Bay block that forms and really holds that high in place.

Fwiw, I’d root for more of a GFS look as I think it’s a much tougher lift to get any part of that 12/4-5 impulse as significant snow in SNE. It’s probably better to use that system to drive down a better antecedent airmass in its wake and set the stage for the follow up wave to amplify into that airmass.