dallen7908

yes it's great to see a few hits to our south. EPS mean is still only 2+"; however, at least for College Park

The 8-14 day outlook still calls for above normal temperatures and precipitation for MD/WV/DE. However, the forecast southeast ridge appears to be less extensive than yesterday as PA and NJ are now forecast to have normal temperature. The whole east coast south of VT/NH/ME was forecast to be above average for this period - yesterday. Hopefully, we can salvage the last week of February and early March.

5 to the 51 members give DC an appreciable snow event (>2-3") between the 18th and 21st.

I chased to Canaan Valley early Sunday. 28 degrees when I arrived with a few inches of snow on the ground mostly from an overnight storm (it started on Saturday as rain there too). Spent the day snow shoeing and XC skiing; however, by mid afternoon there were muddy spots on the White Grass trails I think I heard about 5 seconds worth of pingers on the north side of the Beltway Sunday morning a bit after 6

Why do use the 90% contour line as the demarcation zone? Are you adjusting for the inherent cold bias in the GEFS?

Unknown Yes this belongs in the digital snow thread but wouldn't it be great to converge to the extreme solution for once

Yes that explains a portion of the decrease, especially in far northern MD.

I've been quietly tracking the percent of EPS members giving DC and "PSUland" 3" (or more!) for the period ending at 00 UT on February 8th. Here are the percentages for DC beginning with the 00 UT January 24th suite (360 hour forecast) and ending with the 00 UT January 29th run (240 hour forecast) (18,28,26,24,18,22, 24,18,16,10,14) and here are the percentages for far-northern central Maryland (34,46,30,38,28,28, 36,20,26,26,20). So yes the percentages are decreasing a bit as we move closer in time to the period of interest. Not sure if this is meaningful but is consistent with our winter so far.

Yes I suspect the surface reflection of the 500 hPa pattern is more sensitive to small changes in the overall pattern at higher resolution; however, perception also plays a role. I'm not sure the Euro has ever been rock steady over the 6-10 day period we (are forced to ) focus on during periods non-conducive to snow

Probably better to state that it is comparable to the GFS, here are day 7 anomaly correlations

I’m spending an extended weekend in North Conway following last weeks AMS meeting in Boston xc skiing yesterday snow shoe race today they got 7-9 Thursday and are getting a similar amount tonight

Looking forward to the cold but let's keep expectations in check given the climatology of the GFS

12/16 0.3" 1/7 0.4" 0.7" for season (College Park)

Looks like we may say goodbye to the 50s/60s beginning on the 6th with perhaps the highest 15-day snowfall mean from the EPS this season (3" with 2 HEC-like amount for immediate dC area) PNA negative throughout but some hope for a negative EPS too NAO positive for the next 10-14 days or so but could be negative late in the period Hopefully, this improving pattern has legs; however the 3-4 week outlook from CPC issued yesterday calls for above normal temperatures and precipitation.

I would be more discouraged if we wasted a -AO period during February. Sitting at 0.3" entering the New Year seems like the new normal inside the Beltway. Is it true that BWI is sitting at 0.1" or did they score a few tenths on another storm. Yes the extended range still looks to feature a ++AO, +NAO, neutral EPO, -PNA. Over days 6-10, 3 of 21 GEFS members and 3 of 51 EPS members give us 1" or more of snow. One EPS member gives us 7" during the January 2/3 time frame. Our 3 category chance of above normal temperatures is 40-50% for week 2 a far cry from the 70--80% hell we've seen during deep dark abysmal periods (DDAPS).

As last Friday's 3-4 week outlook said. "Intraseasonal variability in the tropics remains weak as there are still no strong MJO or other equatorial wave signals. The Indian Ocean Dipole remains strongly positive, although its amplitude has decreased by about 50% since the beginning of December. ENSO neutral conditions also persist; the SST anomalies in the Nino 1+2, 3, and 4 regions haven't changed much over the past month. Since there are no strong intraseasonal signals to use as Week 3/4 predictors, this forecast is based entirely on dynamical model guidance." Unfortunately, the EPS and GEFS (the dynamical model guidance) show a +NAO, ++EPO, +AO, and a slightly negative PNA during the first week of January. Bleak but does it really matter given this is not a window when it makes sense to make a week 3 forecast.

GEFS yes maybe, EPS no "Ambiguous" sum it up. Too far out there to matter.

Not according to the indices +NAO, +EPO (barely), +AO, -PNA for the early January period. Weak signal for New Year's eve storm

WRT to the cold CFS ... The following is part of the CPC 3-4 week outlook. Did the forecaster Kyle MacRitchie mean to say "over-forecasts cold in the Northeast" or am I missing something. Anyways they "forecast" a 50% (50%) chance of above (below) normal temperatures during week 3/4. They do forecast warmer than normal temperatures and precipitation over the southeast. The weenie in me says we could be on the cold end of something substantial. The ECMWF and JMA models, as well as a number of SubX models, forecast weaker troughing over Canada and suggest a warmer pattern over the eastern CONUS than the CFS does. Our calibration routine also lowers the cold probabilities in the CFS so that they appear more in-line with the ECMWF and JMA, which suggests that the CFS historically over-forecasts warmth in the Northeast.

Which is more likely, another December like this one or another February like last one? My hunch is that February 2015's weather was less abnormal but haven't run the statistics. Thoughts?

Remember Ian's article about how uncommon 1" and above snows are becoming at DCA. Well in today's Washington Post there is a non-technical article by Reid Wilson on California's drought that speculates that melting of Arctic ice may be 'contributing to a slowing of the jet stream contributing to colder wetter weather in the eastern U.S. and more persistently dry conditions in the west". I guess for every winner there is a loser. Kind of reminds me of spring 2010, when several hopeful posters here speculated that 2009/2010 could become the new norm or last winter when several scientific articles predicted that melting of Arctic ice could be responsible for warmer eastern U.S. winters and colder European winters.