George001

What’s your seasonal total so far?

Didn’t you get over a foot of snow in the Jan blizzard? I consider the difference between a bad winter and a true ratter to be no storms with a foot or more of snow. That’s the difference between say 2018-2019, which sucked but had one storm with over a foot of snow in my area, and 2019-2020 which was a true ratter. Also, it’s bowling ball season. We still have time for another blizzard, which could change the overall grade of the winter. I read that 1996-1997 had like 20 inches of snow the ENTIRE WINTER in Boston, until the early spring April fools blizzard brought the seasonal total up from ratter to average.

I think we’re going to get a bowling ball, the only issue is wave spacing on the models right now. I do not think that will be an issue at all, as with the North Atlantic blocking in place timing shouldn’t be too much of an issue. There will be plenty of time for the northern energy to phase in and catch a piece of the southern energy. This time of the year thermals are a concern, but if the low location is good and it’s strong enough it will create its own cold air. A possible scenario is the storm starts as rain, but then as the low deepens it creates its own cold air via dynamic cooling, leading to the rain transitioning to some snow. The North Atlantic blocking in place ups the ante, leading to the storm slowing down. When combined with the bowling ball low closing off quickly, a storm loaded with QPF is very possible. The question is how much will be snow. Right now the surface maps have the low too far south, but the upper air pattern suggests that the low has room to come north.

Upper air pattern on eps for next weeks nor’easter threat

Miller B?

Just because the weather has gotten milder lately doesn’t mean snow is done. Big ridge out west, trough in the east, and most importantly we have North Atlantic blocking! With the late March shortening wavelengths combined with a favorable western ridge placement and North Atlantic blocking in place, there is an incredibly strong signal for a BOWLING BALL!!!! We go bowling every year in that early spring timeframe, but we kinda suck at it. The problem isn’t that we aren’t capable of throwing strikes, we have the strength to put enough juice on the ball to knock all the pins down. The problem is we have the command of the Red Sox bullpen last year, so absolute dogshit. That’s why most years when we bowl, we only knock down 1 or 2 pins at most. Often we will chuck a gutterball, and our worst bowling sessions (March 2012), we chuck that shit into someone else’s lane, they get pissed, complain and you get kicked out of the bowling alley. Other years, like April 1997, our wildly innaccurate arm somehow manages to chuck it right down the middle at full speed, a clean strike. This is very rare, but when it happens, it’s a thing of beauty. This year, we have whiffed and whiffed, and are on the last frame. We have chucked the bowling ball, and it hasn’t gone into the gutter or someone else’s lane, it actually looks like it’s going right down the middle. Will it stay the course, or sharply hook left/right, leading to a whiff? We will find out next week!

It was a warm fall but that doesn’t matter too much in terms of what happens in the winter.

Whatever it is the gfs is smoking, I want some of it.

The euro is holding the energy back in Mexico. That is a long range Euro bias, as it gets closer in there’s a decent chance we could see it start ejecting more energy. This would lead to a nor’easter threat.

95-96 looked like a decent analog because due to the strength of the La Niña and it being east based. Unfortunately the polar vortex deepened to record strong levels, which wasn't supposed to happen, especially considering how weak it was in November, but it did anyways. Hopefully it’s weaker next year.

This was forecast was a fail. Goddamn polar vortex didn’t stop deepening. I’ll make a new post in a month or so when there’s 0 chance at any more late winter/early spring threats to talk about where I went wrong.

Nina isn’t bad for New England. We just need the polar vortex to cooperate.

I hope it stays weak so 2014-2015, 1977-1978, and 2004-2005 become better analogs rather than say 2009-2010 or even worse 2015-2016 being an analog for a stronger nino.

That would be nice, SNE does well in weak ninos. Just gotta get the nino to be west based.

Damn looks like this ended up being a nice storm in NNE after all. Some of the guidance close in was light on the QPF, so the 10:1 snow maps weren’t impressive. Was it high ratio snow?

No high to the north, no blocking, storm not closing off, yeah too many factors working against us for this one. I know it’s way too early to say for sure, but what are your early thoughts on the Enso state for winter 2022-2023?

Yeah it’s all rain here and 40 degrees. This storm was always a long shot for us closer to the coast. It’s too bad, it’s a strong storm too. If we had blocking this would have likely been a blizzard, hopefully next winter the polar vortex cooperates more. Can’t really complain about winter for my area though, left some on the table but regardless, slightly above average snow with 20 inches in the monster blizzard late Jan.

Somehow it’s below freezing in DC, and here it’s raining out.

decent chance for Worcester to catch up, Boston’s probably getting nothing for the weekend storm while Worcester has a shot at a few inches on some of the snowier guidance.

Gives me nearly half a foot lol (with ratios probably less). Im not really expecting any accumulation here, didn’t see the trends I was looking for for my area in the upper levels. It would be nice if that’s right though.

The low can create its own cold air, and 2m temps aren’t even worth looking at this far out. If the upper levels are that cold, that’s all snow.

This Saturday isn’t the last threat

Was the 18z 3k nam glitched or something? It had the low getting down to like 900 mb.

What are the odds that this turns into a full blown coastal and it snows 6+ inches right down to Nantucket? Im rooting for a slushy foot, nothing too crazy. NNE is likely the jackpot zone either way. For those really big totals we need the low to close off. It’s a long shot, but when I see a sub 980 low se of my area my first thought is that it’s going to trend a lot snowier.

It looks like they are trending more towards blowing up the second low rather than the first one. That puts us in the game because if the first low blows up, the front hasn’t come through yet, so the low goes west and it rains. With the second low blowing up though, it gives the front more time to come through and the entire evolution is farther east.