ORH_wxman

12/29/84 is the warmest December day on record for many sites (in terms of anomalies).

It's definitely anomalous for January but it happens every few years I'd say where we get a huge SE ridge bulging up and sending huge height anomalies into our region along with temps over 60F.

It's not an exact match but the western ridge axis and theme of +AO/+NAO with the low heights just extending straight down into New England are the same. Obviously we can't expect the historic snowfall to repeat but it should be a favorable pattern for some larger snow threats for our region. GEFS and GGEM ensembles are a bit west of the EPS with the ridge axis...esp GEFS (though they have been trending toward EPS) so we may see a bit of a compromise as we get closer but even that would still be a very good pattern.

EPS continues to be out of control weenie-ish in the long range. It looks a lot like 2015

The AAO (Antarctic Oscillation) is southern hemisphere....that's their version of the AO. Did you mean AO?

The 1/17-18 setup looks semi-favorable because we get some transient ATL ridging into Greenland and transient 50/50 low which helps out a bit...it could still obviously fail. The PAC is still reshuffling at that time but the WPO/EPO block is folding over which eventually realigns into a more of a PNA/EPO ridge combo.

Yeah there's a couple chances for more snow...admittedly, the closer we get to 1/20, the better...no doubt about later January looking better...but 1/17-18 is looking like a favorable period for something.

Euro not biting on the big cold with the wedge this weekend....probably correct too. I feel like the wedge will be dirtier with 30s/40s and not temps of 18F within 25 miles of 60s like some of those clown GFS solutions.

GFS more amped this run.

I like the branches drooping a bit in the later pic

Yeah, if you measuring solely retention, your way is better than overall snow cover days....someone on the west side of the green mountain spine could have snow cover most of the winter but that is largely due to the extreme frequency of snowfalls there but not their retention ability. They'll melt down quite a bit of what falls during cutters but it's always being replenished so bare ground is very rare....unlike to the east of the spine (or nestled down in it) and especially your area which could get much less frequent snowfalls but rarely torches any snow fully down to bare ground once you get a few inches established.

We're gonna wedge on Sunday I bet....might not be frozen, and could be a miserable 37F rain, but I bet at least pike-north drains. The topography will want to force it...you'll get the little mesolow protrusion into the Gulf of Maine off Cape Ann or something that will drive everything SW.

There's no doubt though it looks way better after about 1/16 or 1/17. Still possible we sneak in a snow threat next week.

I'll be out on the deck Saturday if it's dry. Grill something good.

Dropped the cold trend it had at 18z. Looks more like the warmer globals this run.

That's a high end windex event for NH there. Where it's widespread 1"+ with lots of 2-4 lollis mixed in.

Definitely two opposing forces. Very strong arctic high but also a beast of a SE ridge with a deep trough to the west. It will be interesting to see which one ends up winning from this point....whether we trend warmer or colder from here on out.

Big southward trend on the high pressure press for this weekend on clone range 18z NAM. Is this just the clown range NAM being the clown range NAM or start of a real trend?

Already a pretty big change by d9-10 The clown range is getting really weenie-ish though...almost looks like 2015 with the EPO/PNA phased ridge there with low heights basically from Baffin Island to Quebec right down into the northeast. Before that happens though, we get some ridging in Greenland around D9-12 which may help out with any storms threats in the flatter PAC look.

There's been a slow but steady trend for the Atlantic to become better the past few runs of EPS.

What's your definition of retention? The line you drew seems to bound roughly the "75 days per year" of snow cover which is defined as 1" or more on the ground. It's not a bad definition...2.5+ months is a lot. But some might argue 2 months is a lot too. The max depth might be another way to define it. Those same areas typically seem to approach an 18 inch (or more) depth most winters. Partly because these same areas highlighted are traditionally the last places to turn to liquid rain in a lot of our storms with CAD/freezing rain. So they don't melt as much in those types of storms which are somewhat frequent.

Someone check Jan 1932 and 1950 too...I bet there's some disasters in there. Don't have the climate data at my fingertips though to see specifics.

I remember the 1995 disaster because we had one of our few snow events right before it happened. Stuff vaporized in minutes, lol.

Wonder if Middleborough to his east picked up up a 4 spot...they were rotting under a narrow intense bandfor a while while Bob was on the edge of it