Volcanic Winter

6 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

IMO the risk next week is suppressed/sheared not cut. But we’ll see, and very good support for a strong MJO wave propagation 4-7. The question then becomes do we see 8-1 come February? I think it gets mild to very mild for the CONUS after 1/20 through 1/31 then the tropical forcing questions begin….

What are your thoughts on Feb? Originally IIRC you thought Feb had a chance at being pretty decent, any other thoughts on that?

2 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

Those of us who read your work and your commentary know the time, thought and effort that goes into your forecasts. There's no question that they are original content. Ignore the noise, don't let it bother you, and keep doing what you're doing.

Agree. It’s a holistic, exhaustive way of evaluating everything into a workable forecast. Idc if @40/70 Benchmarkis “wrong” or “right” in terms of verification, he puts a ton of work into it and follows a clearly identifiable overcurrent of logic. 

Works for me, I appreciate it. If nothing else it works as an outstanding overview of the parameters leading into the winter season. 

And for someone like me who lacks the depth of meteorological knowledge that many of you have, it’s a great learning tool (which is what I’m here for…).

23 for a low, currently 40. Let the rain begin .

23 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

Yup, January 2021 I was at 15 then flipped to sleet/rain abruptly.

The Feb 1 storm? I had 5 inches at home and 18 at work. Doesn’t matter, had snow, would do again. 

At least there’s a wave or two to track right now that aren’t guaranteed Lakes cutters. At this point, I’ll take it. 

Edit: Pretend I made a Q instead of an O. Thx

1 minute ago, weatherpruf said:

As a retired therapist I can tell you I never once had a client complain about lack of snow, but I had plenty get depressed over winter, snow or not. Most people just hate it. Way it is.

I would be seeing you in the summer complaining about how much I hate the blinding sun and heat, and how much I crave the winter cold and darkness.

Be honest, how many meds would I be leaving your office with?

I feel bad if anything for the lower MA crew. They really haven’t had a significant snowfall since 2016? That’s what I was hearing, but I’m not very familiar with their snowfall stats. 

Certainly hasn’t been great the past few years but Jan 2018, Feb 2021, and Jan 2022 were all good enough to keep me from the ledge. I’d probably be over it if I hadn’t snowed appreciably since 2016. 

The NE crew are a whacky bunch of strong personalities mixing, I genuinely think they’re hilarious. I don’t like when anything devolves into petty insults and fighting, but in general their bickering makes me laugh. 

Hey most of us are here for the same thing with various levels of actual meteorological interest. Those that contribute to prognostication should always be able to state their opinions and perspectives without being mocked for it. I’ve seen a lot of that this year and I think it’s uncalled for, though less on this forum than others thankfully. 

Disagreement and debate is a key part of scientific discussion. 

1 hour ago, snowman19 said:

You’re not kidding. The other unbelievable anomaly is a very strong MJO wave going 4-5-6 during one of the strongest Nino’s in the last 44 years….

Isn’t that what happened in 2015-16? Didn’t the wave stall in one of the right side phases at high amplitude? 

I don’t really have a good grasp on MJO tendencies between Niña/Niño, just seems like a continuation of the MJO wanting to hang out and amplify in phases that can be counterproductive for us. 

1 minute ago, EastonSN+ said:

I am sure we will get one this decade as well. 2022 was close.

If only 1/29 were a little more NW. I could’ve had what LI had (think some spots were over 20 inches, I had 16), and the immediate metro would’ve done a lot better. 

What I remember most fondly of that storm was the cold, 22F at the peak. Cold powder. Real winter stuff. 

Strong storm, it’s just a shame it only scraped the area.

We’re definitely due a region wide all snow event. I don’t mean a HECS, but just something with cold air in place and favorable storm dynamics. Was even thinking something like that Jan 8-9 event from 2022 that pretty much gave the entire metro 5+ with no mixing that I recall (even here was powder all the way). And then hey, let’s go from there. HECS are amazing but I’m the guy that likes multiple events with a recurring winter vibe instead of one and done + torch.

Hopefully today’s event was the building block. 

5 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Fortunately, there should be more opportunities in coming weeks.

Yeah, I like the constant wave activity. Eventually we’ll connect on a broader hit. 

Happy the northern crew is doing well! I held the rain down here as long as I could .

How have the various ensembles been performing with respect to the broader patterns so far? What’s been the most accurate? 

8 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

If only the temp was below freezing here. Hate looking at wet pavements. 

Happy you saw some flakes man, it’s been a torrent of rain down here.

My wife is on the phone with her parents in Milltown and they have a decent amount considering. Wasn’t expecting anything really for them or we could’ve gone up for dinner!

23 here right now. Would be a perfect winter evening just prior to a solid snowstorm. 

One day. Keep the faith gentlemen, we have a ways to go. 

And congrats and good luck to the northern crew that’s going to get something from this. Enjoy it!

17 minutes ago, EastonSN+ said:

Why can't it cool, or another area of the Pacific warm to offset? Or the western IO warm up faster to keep forcing there (MJO phases 1 and 2)?

We need more years/time to officially declare this as definitive going forward imo.

Again we can agree to disagree that's fine.

I do agree we need more time to evaluate, and I do think we sometimes draw conclusions prematurely without enough data to be more definitive. It’s difficult to separate changing climatology / warming (in a year to year sense I mean) from natural variance anyway, though I believe strongly this post 2016 period is offering clues. 

I do want to add that the majority of what Bluewave does is retrospective analysis without much long range forecasting. He’s not predicting so much as evaluating recent recurrent failure modes and recognizing similar warning signs in the short range. 

With respect Easton, there’s more to the area’s winter climatology than snowfall in a vacuum. Compare the temperature trends vs earlier snowless periods, we were likely colder and drier with less frequent, less amplified, and less juiced storms dropping less snow in general. It seems like the equation is different now with temperature becoming an increasingly large inhibitor to the area’s snowfall since 2016. Add back in any decadal variance such as pac cycles and IMHO that gives this the potential to be more severe than past droughts. 

Doesn’t mean there weren’t warm and wet low snow years back then either, of course those always existed. It’s more about frequency and intensity IMO. 

All IMHO. 

Just now, ILoveWinter said:

Of course, it's a rain event lol  

Easier to see shifts in the storm when you’re tracking the rain snow line over several dozen miles. Think about it, though I definitely understand the sentiment lol. 

27 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

We will get below 19 between the 15th and 18th imo 

Also hit 22 this AM, tied for my coldest of the season. This is basically my average low right now, and because we get so normalized to the increasing minimums it feels almost like anomalous cold. 

GFS output gets 4'' down to even me, that's a discard for now. I guess optimistically it's nice to still see some favorable wobbles, but yeah.

I mean, don't forget how insanely crowded NJ -> NYC / HV / LI -> SW CT is. Any plowable snowstorm is a big deal which requires the activation of a lot of resources to keep the area functioning. Of course we're used to snow up here unlike the south or something, but this region is still enormously overcrowded which makes any snowfall a bigger deal than it would be in a less populated area. The broader DC to BOS corridor is just stupidly dense with people.

So I agree that sometimes the media really overhypes or bites too early on potential snow events, but they also genuinely are a very big deal in this area (especially once we're talking significant snowfall, 6+ inches, which was at least semi-plausible going back a couple days).

1 minute ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Mm.. so long as we're still (apparently) in a bit of flux as to whence/how much we phase these S/W components that allows some gray area in the probabilities down to central NJ.  Pushing it perhaps ...but non-zero.   You won't have cold very far away, and if future guidance modulates/interacts these aspect soon and you implode the column ( cannot be outright ruled out yet) than you could flash over for a time -type of thing...  Also, there may be mood by street lamp light time light activity after the fact in the cooling BLs below the inevitable inversion

Thank you, Tip. I follow you on the NE boards and you're honestly one of my favorite posters. I appreciate your musings and thoughts about things and find you extremely informative. Good luck to you as well (not sure exactly where in NE you're located, but hopefully you're seeing something from this)!

I'm cooked here in northern Ocean Co, but I'm so excited most of you will hopefully, probably see something respectable out of this.

Reel it in!

Just stinks with all the QPF that will be flying over my head, but what can you do. The airmass is so extremely marginal when the storm approaches the low would have to be much further east for me a chance, so I'll consider it my penance for doing better than most in 1/29 a couple years ago!

Regardless, this has been such a fun week having this to follow & as always you guys kill the analysis. Pleasure to read through.

40 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

Yes. 
 

but weaker, generally a 3-6 snowfall across the metro 

Probably a win if it gets more people in the game and is a plausible outcome. Take it and set the table for later in the month / Feb, right?

We’ll see where things go overnight and tomorrow. 

Just now, the_other_guy said:

you guys are throwing in the towel on snow in the city a little too quickly. 

I think there’s a middle ground that acknowledges unfavorable shifts without throwing in the towel. There’s still time for more favorable corrections but I think we’d like to see them overnight into tomorrow to know a better outcome may still be on the table.