The RNA was always predicted, it just ended up a lot deeper than originally forecast. This one could fail too but it would probably take a larger model error because there’s more wiggle room when you have a western ridge.
Yeah you basically are going to go from good snows to almost nothing. That GFS gradient is way too diffuse. Almost all that would be offshore the south coast.
Totally different pattern though. Not really analogous except in the loose sense that guidance could be wrong on the setup…but with a huge western ridge, it’s pretty unlikely we end up warm….unlike the extremely deep RNA trough where we ended up mostly on the wrong side of the gradient plus all those systems getting shredded during the times we were cold enough for snow.
Yeah regardless of 1/7, the pattern legit looks deep winter after that. Obviously getting a good system on 1/7 first is optimal, but it’s hard to see how we don’t get a lot of good chances beyond that unless guidance is clueless.
It’s all northern stream. We also don’t have a big western ridge yet when this storm happens so the flow is going to be pretty progressive…which will be competing with no downstream blocking. It will be a fast mover it looks like.
Cape could def get clipped by the goods with one more tick NW on some of these solutions.
Back in the interior we are toast barring another 2/5/16 trend. These systems are always ugly though on the northern edge of the QPF gradient. Tons of dry air and a stiff N or NNW wind vector. So you really need to be a solid 30 miles into the modeled precip shield to feel decent about getting anything.
We need the northern stream to be weaker and sheared but it isn’t playing ball. That southern vort keeps strengthening but if the northern one does too then it’s prob not enough for us.
Chris was talking about the competing forces there earlier and it’s a good way to put it.
Jerry confirmed what I was going to respond with…yeah, it’s a 5 day mean vs a single point in time map. That last map was for hour 360 at the end of the run.
Yeah Scott is right…that is the best EPS look we’ve had all winter and probably since 2018 if you love snow and deep cold going with it.
I’m still being a little cautious given the struggles guidance has had…but it’s a good sign that the start of that pattern is now inside of D10.
Fwiw, this is the very end of the EPS run. You can see the western ridge retrograding a bit but we also are forming a N ATL ridge with the PV on our side of the pole. It’s a very cold look.