George001

Based on what I have seen on the models the bigger storm threat is next Tuesday. Models previously had that storm as a massive rainstorm, but have trended towards a snowier solution (still rain for the coast, but snow inland CNE and NNE). I was skeptical at first but have noticed some blocking developing over Greenland. However, the blocking is on the weak side and there is still a trough out west. I hate seeing a trough in the west so I’m not really feeling this one for the coast. Still worth keeping an eye on though, hopefully the strength of the blocking increases, and the trough out west turns into a ridge.

The Canadian guidance is quite ugly in the long range, with the cold air bottled up over the North Pole (likely due to the deepening polar vortex), and no North Atlantic blocking to be found. The European guidance is a little better due to a weaker pacific jet but still little to no North Atlantic blocking in early December. However, the MJO is expected to go into phases 7 and 8 mid December, which if the wave is strong enough could lead to a major pattern change. There are a few near term storm threats, but without North Atlantic blocking there isn’t much room for error and not really anything to stop them from running inland to our north and west, leading to rain in SNE. Hopefully the MJO shakes things up and leads to the development of North Atlantic blocking for late December.

A couple of runs from the Ukie supported my forecast. It looked promising for a bit, but it just didn’t pan out. It is late November so I probably should have been more conservative with the amounts despite the setup looking promising.

Most winters have no severe blizzards in New England? Where I live there’s usually one or two. The Ukie did have a couple runs where it supported my forecast but no model really had a phase with the southern stream and widespread 12+, it was always a very narrow area.

Welp, my forecast for 12-18 with an iso 24 in eastern mass is going to bust. Damn it, the gfs was right, it’s usually horrible but I have to give it credit for this one. The North Atlantic blocking did break down faster than I expected, where I went wrong is I overestimated the North Atlantic blocking. The good news is the MJO is expected to go into phase 7 in a couple of weeks. Even that Dec 5 storm looks interesting on the european guidance. Right now it’s too far west, but it wouldn’t take much to get that low to redevelop off the coast and turn into a Miller B.

The models often lose big storms in the mid range and bring them back, I believe that is what’s happening right now. The European guidance has 4-6 in my area, that’s a trend in the right direction. I like where we are at right now, would like to see us keep trending in the right direction from here.

I believe the ceiling is a lot higher, if the northern stream digs more and the southern stream ejects faster, the snow totals on the models will increase. It’s not showing it yet but I believe it is close. The pattern does not favor a progressive solution from what I saw. It favors an amplified one. Maybe it will amplify so much it rains, that’s possible. However just yesterday we saw 1 foot+ on the European guidance in some areas. Even Kevin is sticking with his 4-8 call, and he’s a more conservative forecaster than I am.

My forecast: eastern mass- 12-18 iso 24 central and western mass: 6-12 i haven’t seen any reason to change it yet.

I don’t believe in these weak progressive solutions at all, not with the North Atlantic blocking in place. The low is going to deepen a lot more than expected, and someone is going to get over a foot.

Correct me if I am mistaken but aren’t the solutions that we have seen over the past couple days purely northern stream driven, with the southern energy lagging behind too far for it to get involved? I feel like the most recent runs have moved closer to getting that involved. Ptype would be a risk, but if we can get that northern branch to dig a little more, slow down a bit while the southern energy ejects faster, would that increase the ceiling? I would think if that happens we see a deeper, slower moving low with more precip, wind, and maybe even the possibility the the low creates it’s own cold air via dynamical cooling.

You aren’t out of it yet, if things break right it’s possible even your area gets a foot.

Id like to see the southern energy speed up and the northern stream dig a little more, the way things look right now on the Euro and Canadian guidance, it has 6-12 potential in the jackpot area. However that would be a fairly narrow area, for a bigger storm we need more phasing.

Yeah ptype issues are likely somewhere considering it’s still late November, I am more worried about that than suppression.

Yeah you are probably right, ideal would probably be the entire evolution happening about 100-200 miles south and a partial but not full phase.

Need that northern branch to dig a little more for us closer to the coast. Not a bad run though this far out.

Does anyone have the snow maps for the ukie? That looks like roughly an inch of liquid in the Boston area on that frame alone, with 1.75 inches just to the south. Boston is west of the freezing line too, looks like the rain snow line would be somewhere over the outer cape on that run. That’s all snow in Boston….

I am no gfs believer but the UKMET is pretty good, and European as well as Canadian while they miss, they are close and have a low. That ridge being so far west is a massive red flag for me that the out to sea solutions are incorrect, and the low will trend north and west. I love this setup for eastern mass, La Niña induced (yes that same La Niña that some panicked about potentially ruining winter) northern branch digging south, North Atlantic blocking and a western ridge centered over Washington. Climo isn’t the most favorable being late November, but with a setup this good it can work. We have snowed earlier than this in worse setups, big difference between late November and late October/early November climo wise.

HOLY SHIT THATS A FULL BLOWN BLIZZARD!!!!!

We don’t need a -EPO for big nor’easter. There is North Atlantic blocking in place, and the western ridge is centered over WASHINGTON. That tells me that the pattern does not favor these out to sea solutions. There is plenty of room for the northern branch to dig farther south, leading to more amplification, redevelopment of the Miller B farther south, a stronger storm at peak, and a slower moving storm.

I made a big mistake, I looked at the polar vortex forecast and panicked because I saw that it was expected to deepen, but didn’t really dig into the details enough.

GFS is garbage, I don’t even use it for my forecasts. What has me on board for a big storm with the potential to become a slow moving Miller B blizzard in eastern mass next week is what the European and Canadian guidance did. The northern stream dug farther south, and the pattern as a whole trended to becoming more amplified on the recent guidance. The western ridge is over Washington on these recent model runs, if anything that’s a bit west of ideal. Yet the models are still booting the low out to sea. I am of the belief that this is an error, and the models will correct more amplified with the low due to the 500 mb pattern being modeled. There is blocking in place as well, which ups the ceiling if things do break right.

I do think 4-8 is a decent first call but I believe areas closer to the coast have a chance to really get hammered here. With the cold air in place (850mb 0 line as far south as DC 12-24 hours before the storm), and North Atlantic blocking to force the low to redevelop south, I do not believe temps will be a huge issue. If the northern branch digs just a little more I could see this quickly turning into a 12-18 type deal with an iso 24 possible in eastern mass, with blizzard conditions due to the rapid deepening of the low. In miller Bs eastern mass and downeast Maine tend to do really well. A lot would have to go right for that to happen, right now I’m leaning 6-12 in eastern mass, 3-6 central and western SNE. I really like what I see pattern wise, and with the model trends today I am now going to go big. I know it hasn’t been discussed yet, but the way things are going I do think a blizzard is on the table here, and the chances for one is higher than many would think for this time of year.

That smaller cluster south of Long Island has my attention, if we see models start trending towards that things will get very interesting quickly…

That western ridge is pretty far west, there is some blocking in place, and there is plenty of cold air. On the Euro, the ridge is a bit too flat and positively tilted, but with the North Atlantic blocking in place I do believe that it is likely the models are too progressive with the pattern. Due to the North Atlantic blocking in place, I expect the models to trend more amplified overall. The western ridge has plenty of room to trend more neutral tilted and amplified, which would allow the northern stream to dig more. If that happens and it digs far enough south to phase with southern energy, this storm could turn into a big slow moving Miller B nor’easter.

A step in the right direction on the Euro, still a bit too offshore for the big snows but I like what I see.