SnowenOutThere

Tipping points are a hell of a drug. The issue is that climate change is of course gradual, the average temperatures trend up over a 30 year period, but to those living it appears as these shocking discrepancies. To the data aggregate it appears as a line ticking, then jumping, up. But to us, climate change appears as a Hurricane Helene, as another heat done over Europe, and as a realization that “it doesn’t snow here like it used to”. The 2016 El Niño and these oceanic processes are our heat transport mechanisms, and when you have major El Niño events you release a ton of heat from the oceans and thus effectively “jump” into the next, ever warmer, climate. It will snow again, we will have a HECS again (it may even be this winter!), but you will also see these droughts where the isotherm has simply shifted too far north for us to reliably get snowstorms. It is what it is.

Charlottesville had the clouds move in right at sunset. Provided some beautiful “hurricane sunset” type skies.

So that's where the high clouds came from tonight!

You (hopefully) know that I respect you as a poster so that post wasn’t targeted at your own meteorological knowledge. You’re the reason, alongside other posters and some professors, I’ve gotten this far. I was responding to the chain of thought of “there’s not much going on” in this thread because, yeah, there really shouldn’t be anything going on! It’s the awkward period of winter forecasting where you can paint big picture but any details won’t be clear. We both know there aren’t great correlations between weather and winter till October at the very soonest, so we really can’t say much till then.

Sometimes I don't even know the joke when you respond ngl. Genuinely no clue how it relates to my post please enlighten me.

A good period of upslope winds made some light rain sit over the area today and bring this event to around 1.3 inches total. Still on the low end, but better than where I was this morning. Regardless, I loved early fall rain and its ambiance, so I made sure to get some pictures while I was out and about. Might be my favorite type of weather behind snowfall. Pictures were taken by me, but some of them were edited by my boss.

I think everyone knows where this winter stands. It'll be above average temperatures, especially in December and it is unlikely we get any real sustained periods of frigid temps, save our conception of how the atmosphere behaves in a strong el nino being wrong. It's also a good bet we will have favorable storm tracks and a very active subtropical jet stream to bring in above average precip. That is all we can really say. We can then formulate that this season will be a boom or bust depending on if we get lucky with a shot of cold air at the right time, but we can't speculate on any details of that responsibly. Anything else is extrapolating or doesn't have much climatological backing. That's it. We now just have to wait through at least October, if not November/December, to watch how the atmosphere couples with the oceans.

.07 overnight with the next batch of rain looking like it slides east. Not done yet but storm total will probably be under .6 if I had to guess. Was really hoping for a nice soaking rain to go on a fun waterfall/river hike over the weekend. Might attempt some form of reanalysis to figure out what happened.

Drizzled our way up another .1 to bring me to .4 total since Monday. Am very glad this isn’t winter as this was one of the worst model misses I can remember. Would be akin to if not worse than a Boxing Day rug pull if it was snow. Wonder what went wrong synoptically to cause such a miss.

Around .3 in Charlottesville. Pretty bad model miss on the overnight-afternoon period today as most CAMs showed rotating bands of showers/storms embedded in a steady rain shield. Only drizzle since the overnight period, but they show overnight tonight as the new rainy period.

Rain shield seems displaced north of Cvill. Sorta sucks for me but happy for the nova crew

You think this storm system is a sign that we might be seeing the nino couple atmospherically? Looked briefly at the H5 maps and it seems to be almost miller-B ish though as most vorticity is coming from the north to the south (or is the subtropical jet still displaced north due to summer?)

I'm most excited for the temps next week! Highs falling to near 60 degrees will be blissful. Some of my favorite weather is early fall rain as you get storm systems starting back up. It's humid but not the same oppressive 65 degree plus dewpoints. I've been so done with our extended summer.

I mean when it comes to which models I want on my side that’s basically a list from “hell no” to “great to have”

Wonder if there could be a flood threat about to unfold on the eastern foothills of the Shenandoahs down Charlottesville and south. Bunch of slow moving storms in an extremely moist airmass drifting towards an area that will provide orthographic lift.