ORH_wxman

This has been our mean pattern since 2016…obviously there’s a couple of good winters in there but that pattern is pretty familiar at this point. The flat Aleutian ridge with some poorly placed weakness in the Bering/WPO region and the western troughing of course. When the mean ridge anomaly in the east is on top of our head, it’s gonna be tough sledding

Some argue that CC has changed the large scale pattern to a “new normal” where we are like 3-5F warmer than the 1991-2020 baseline winters. I don’t personally buy that theory but if you torch for 8 out of 10 winters then you might start wondering. We’ve had pretty warm stretches before compared to climo (late 40s/early 50s was somewhat similar…big western troughs many of those years too until it flipped in the mid-1950s) You def notice it in the “tail distributions” too and not just marginal setups. For example, an extreme pattern that used to produce 60-65F in February might produce 70F now even though in the means we haven’t had 8 degrees of warming. But yeah, overall, December is a month you get a decent number of cutters anyway. Esp the first half of the month. Our big problem going forward isn’t cutters per se, it’s a positive WPO and expanding Aleutian low that is interfering with the flow in a negative way. The Aleutian low almost becomes a GOA low for a time which rolls the sharp PNA ridge over itself after about 12/22 and warms up the CONUS until the low retrogrades back west (which would prob be closer to the end of the month.) Guidance has been very volatile though on this. Even the 12/19-12/22 period is a lot colder now than a couple days ago on EPS.

You might be far enough west to not get wiped out. Does Stowe village hold CAD well? Not familiar with the CAD microclimate there. Track of low make it so you prob don’t spend much time at all in the true warm sector. Maybe none of your location CAD’s well.

A lot of it is for clicks. You keep the hype and the bait up and you’ll get clicks. I do think there is potential to get something in the 12/20-12/25 range but it’s far from a huge signal or lock. It isn’t clear how amped the western ridge is going to be. You see something like the OP Euro go bonkers with the ridge and then look at the EPS and it’s trying to roll it over which usually is bad for us. Guidance isn’t quite sure what to do with the Aleutian low right now. Some guidance tries to push it east a bit during that 12/20-12/25 period (acting more like a defacto GOA low) which actually would force the PNA ridge to roll over and warm us up and limit big storm potential at the same time…then it retrogrades and we go cold/stormy later on deeper into the future. Other guidance at times has not moved it as far east and keeps the PNA ridge building up and would likely produce a colder week leading into Xmas and better chances for a winter storm.

I wasn’t in Ayer but I was in ORH for it and we got 18”. Not quite the jackpot but close enough. We got 6” per hour at the peak.

Yeah your area is basically a lock for it I think.

Correct. Tonight is mainly north of rt 2. But as the mesolow passes by us overnight, it is going to tuck the sfc cold back south into MA. I think anyone from NE MA outside of 128 into central MA needs to pay attention. Could get quite icy…assuming we drop temps into that 30-31F range and not 32-33F. Some of the guidance has upper 20s in NE MA and in that Rt 3 corridor near ASH to Billerica.

There could be a big problem with FZDZ over much of the interior (esp pike northward) tomorrow and into tomorrow evening. Big cold tuck showing up on guidance. The question is how far below freezing it drops. There’s a decent difference between 31.5F and 29F

Yeah makes a big difference for NW New England. VT never warm sectors and dendrite-land maybe for only 3-5 hours. Diminishes winds too except out in eastern half of SNE they are still ripping.

I don’t think the tuck will directly affect wind potential. The tuck happens well before any wind event. The winds will be almost totally dependent on the main sfc low track and strength…a weaker low traveling almost overhead will keep winds to a min while a very strong low further west will cause them to rip.

3k cold tucks nearly into BOS. There could be some problems in NE MA and SE NH. I mentioned this yesterday and a little while ago @wx2fish mentioned it.

Still some decent spread on ensembles for 78 hours out

NAM is def solidly east of other guidance. GFS was furthest west. GFS solution would be warm sector right into Canada. Something like NAM would keep interior CNE/NNE wedged almost the whole event.

Dec ‘89 had a huge snowstorm in Savannah I think on the 23rd-24th. Epic for them.

Def looks a lot better post-D10 than the last couple cycles.

Let’s rip to 60 on GFS that’s pretty solid.

I don’t think pure dooming is any better fwiw. There’s legit disagreement around the week of Xmas.

Hopefully it looks more like the 06z GFS at the end. Split flow with very poleward PNA ridge. Keeps central/eastern Canada and even down into NE in the icebox.

PNA ridges rolling over into central US while WPO tries to go positive will torch us. Aleutian low is supposed to retrograde which would give a much colder pattern but if it takes it’s time then it will make Xmas week pretty mild.

There’s actually a pretty decent cold tuck signal showing up. Doesn’t really occur until after most of that first batch of precip but it could end up affecting NE MA and SE NH later Tuesday with freezing drizzle or black ice.

There was one just a few years ago I think in 2019. It wasn’t quite this prolific for amounts but it was like 6-7” and then 1-2” east of the spine. I remember winter hill had like 2” while 10 miles west had 6”.

Lol that thing belongs in a hotel lobby. Epic. Great tree though.

Nobody in CAD land is getting wiped out from Wednesday. Warm sector won’t last long enough. Could argue your area never gets warm sectored at all depending on which guidance we use.

Yeah he’s in Clinton MA which is a decent spot but not for the 12/5 event. That was one of the worst spots. They got a bit of downslope but also it was a QPF min there up into NE MA and SE NH.

Yeah in 2020 I had cover from 12/5 until the grinch storm. 2017 was the last time we had good cover well before Xmas (12/9) and made it last right through the holidays. It’s hard to keep early December snow cover this far south.