ORH_wxman

It’s not a good pattern but it’s far from the worst. We don’t have an AK vortex and we have split flow. We’re in the game if those two criteria are met. Hopefully it trends a little better too given the tropical forcing.

‘15-16 was an awful winter. It stayed bad. We did get some snow events but it wasn’t enough to revive winter. The mid-Atlantic had the HECS but it only fringed us. You might be thinking of 2014-15.

In split flow, we can sometimes get away without it. Jan ‘06 was an example…ditto for periods in the ‘83 Nino and more recently we did ok in late Dec 2012 with that type of look. The first half or 2/3rds of Jan ‘87 was similar as well. I think we were like +3 or +4 the first couple weeks with 3 warning snow events. But you need that split flow with lower heights down south for it to have a chance. Otherwise it’s parakeets and pina coladas.

What about 2015-16? We had basically nothing at this point.

It’s still a split flow look too. So I think we’ll have chances even if it’s above average. My gut still says we trend colder with that look though as we get closer. Anytime I see the core of positive height anomalies centered from Hudson Bay over to northern Labrador, I’m skeptical of big warmth for us. The tropical forcing still argues for a bit colder than that look but we’ll see. At least it’s active. Nothing worse than pure zonal flow with no systems.

18z NAM looks a little colder than 18z RGEM, but pretty similar. Both have the burst of precip. RGEM might be tougher for south of MA/CT border.

Def a north-south gradient at 925mb...Kevin is kind of on the line while ORH is like -1C.

Had something like this the day after the MLK 2010 storm....it was actually the event that put Kevin into his infamous MLK meltdown....he was already teetering on being screwed in the storm a day and half earlier, but this little potent vortmax/ULL swings through but he's slightly too warm in the BL with heavy rain showers while just north over the border, we're pounding quarters with 1/4 mile vis and got a surprise 3-4". I even took 3 pics that day....still have them. Sometimes those events are almost as fun as a bigger storm....because you weren;'t expecting much.

Decent crosshair sig on the soundings too...hopefully it happens. These seem to be coin flips though....sometimes you get some nice bands of moderate to heavy snow and other times it's almost nothing. Pretty potent vortmax though, which is what you want to see to try and generate some lift.

18z NAM has a good burst of snow Friday. It's been on and off all the models. Just have to watch that one....the only reason it's even semi-interesting is the atmosphere is quite unstable friday. It gets pretty cold aloft with e marginal boundary layer and that can produce some heavier bands if anything materializes.

'83 was a super Nino....the pattern is definitely like that for a couple weeks here. About 4 days before the big KU, there was another big storm that hit interior SNE hard, but the coast had a lot of ptype issues.

The bolded is a good thing on a scientific forum....people should be exposed to heterodox opinions as long as those opinions are in good faith and backed with evidence. I think when evidence-free claims are made, that's when people perceive it as trolling and they are often correct.

Quite the spread on the EPS between Maine and the SE coast, but it's a strong sig. Can't say much else at this point

Also, we typically have at least a few threats kind of show up out of nowhere inside of 5 days every winter but that hasn't really happened this year. Those "surprise" threats typically take our attention away from clown range. Probably 12/11 is the only one that really ramped up inside of 72-84 hours this season and even that one was mostly a clipper-esque system that got western SNE the best.

I'm not sure what people are supposed to do on a weather discussion forum though.... How many times have we said a severe setup looks "interesting" but then we get a couple pulsers and that's it? Prob like 100s in the last decade and a half. But that's what we do....we look for potential understanding that a lot of times, the potential never materializes into sensible wx. If the potential always materialized, big storms or big severe outbreaks wouldn't be that exciting.

Gonna be squashed....too much confluence from the TPV lobe. But 9-10 days out.....caveats as usual.

Get mostly shunted south this run

Gets pinched a bit south as trough narrows....but at this lead time, def still very much on the radar. That SPV extension has been trending SW on the Euro steadily though. It's an interesting trend not just for the 12th if that storm even happens....but for the 14th....it probably sets the stage with a fresher antecedent airmass.

Yeah the 9th doesn't look all that impressive....it's been on a lot of runs bit I would be surprised if anyone saw more than advisory amounts from that. Decent chance it's mostly nothing too. Doesn't seem to have a lot of dynamics with it and airmass is marginal. Still worth watching though. But the higher end potential is definitely with the two waves after the 9th.

I was just recalling how brutally cold that month was and then I was thinking how funny it was that February 2015 was like a full 1.5F colder than Jan 1994, lol. Not for temp departure either....raw temp average. Jan '94 had 7 sub-20F high temps.....Feb '15 had 9 of them (in a month that is harder to get them too). Each month had 10 days of 0F lows or colder. Of course, Feb '15 easily takes the cake for snowfall....lol

From a purely synoptic standpoint, the GEFS look pretty classic for 1/14....you have your ideal ridge placement over the Rockies...shortwave undercutting the split-flow ridge in Canada and confluence in SE Canada. Miles to go, but at this lead time, that's all you can ask for.

Nice scooter high for the 1/14 threat.

GEFS also has the Jan 11-12 signal....but obviously not full-on crazy like the OP run....

Yeah only thing that kept it from being a top 3 alltimer for me was the big thaw in February and maybe that we didn't get a true top end storm....it was still a grade A winter though. The brutal cold day after day in January with deep snow pack was a caricature of deep winter....it was great.

Yeah we used to have 510 thicknesses with storms hitting Bermuda on every GFS run beyond 240 hours....now it only gives us unphased fish storms when it's like 3 days before a KU.