Bob Chill

Gfs d16 setting up for a severe Boxing Day storm... just the wrong kind of severe

A simple trough progression brings winter right back to the conus. Winter is lurking and waiting to pounce. Of course if the trough digs in the west, winter won't be in east for a little while lol but there is nothing depressing about that plot in the big picture. Move the swath of zonal into Canada and we in some trouble. Serious trouble lol

Pretty tuff and dirty stuff right now lol. Building a locking block retaining wall. 60' long x 3' high. 285 blocks at 65lbs each lol. Few call that a blast hahaha. Next up is a timber framed 12x24 greenhouse. That will actually be pretty fun. Hard job but fun. You guys can set the rafters On topic post: Cold period looks very likely to break down for an unspecified period of time with much uncertainty beyond that.

12/2: T .003" zr and 5-6 sleet pellets 12/5: 3.0 12/8: 3.8 Total: 6.8

I lived in the CO rockies from 92-99 so I missed that year but I feel like I missed out lol. I was jealous of the Jan 96 storm and we got 150" that month lol. I have problems. I'd be happy to go over the entire list with you sometime. Next time you have a full week off we can meet up and get started and cover at least half of the issues.

A foot of ice is on my bucket list. I'd take a 12" ice storm over a 12" snow storm but that's just me

Still snowing here. I'll go with 3.5" for me. Might have hit 4 but the early compaction is what it is and I'm conservative with my measurements. Still snowing so maybe 4" is in the cards. This was such an awesome event. Snowed continuously from 7:30am past sunset. Cold north wind and dropping temps all day. Snow blowing off the eaves and trees. Dark grey sky when it did lighten up at times. True deep winter vibe and that doesn't come easy down this way. Very thankful for the good luck even though my friends north of me couldn't share this one. Tables will turn soon enough and I'll be on the outside looking in lol. I'm pretty satisfied for a while.

Somewhere between 3-4" around here. Been windy so measurements vary. Cold too at 27 degrees. December to remember for my yard.

Gefs is starting to pick up on a building -nao and lower heights in the east so now ensembles are diverging too. Seasonal trend is muted lr warmth and blocking has been friendly since beginning of Nov. My gut says the gfs/gefs is probably on the right track. Timing is tricky because we're so used to adding 5 days when flipping warmish to coldish but there's a case to make for a quick transition. Interesting period imo

Clean 2" in these parts so far. Lost some due to warmish start and not high ratio stuff but a beautiful scene and pretty breezy so sideways snow at times lol. Oscillating between light/mod right now. 3-4" tops still seems good unless ratios jump. Deep winter day for sure either way

2 fantasy gfs runs in a row dropping the blocking hammer after a brief zonal relax. Fits the personality of the last 6 weeks and makes sense to me. Might be too quick or a total fantasy but my gut says some version of this is coming back before 2026

Slow start here but steady mod snow now. Closing in on an inch but not there yet. Looks like the next 3-4 hours will be the bulk of the heaviest snowfall for me. 5" seems like a stretch though. 3-4" seems reasonable

IME, it's not very accurate with pinpoint stuff during snowstorms. Hourly runs are kinda jumpy. I personally don't like it much during the winter as it's often more misleading that other mesos like the 3k nam at close range. It can be good with summer thunderstorms. Especially lines of them but even then it can be jumpy beyond 6-8 hrs. Since i don't follow it much I could easily be wrong and it may be more reliable than i think.

Fantasy 6z gfs fired the first warning shot..... Return of the -NAO as well... lol

Great spot. Boardwalks thru the marshy ponds are cool and interesting. Always a blast finding shark teeth on the beach. I've never gone home empty handed and some years ago while chapperoning an elementary trip I found 10 and gave them away to the kids. Have a hunch they all remember that day still. Snow finally picking up enough here to start sticking. Pretty windy out there so sideways snow at times. I live for days like this lol

Just got the WSW text for my yard. Welcome surprise. Lowest stress warning level storm I can remember. Never expected it and here it is 8 hours before onset lol. Awesome

I've spent some time hunting our land and have yet to tag one. Ran into a 10 point buck last Sunday while working and forgot my rifle. Now I always have my rifle and no buck to be seen lol. Isn't that how it always goes? I'll try again Tuesday and do some snow tracking. Either sex season in my county thru Jan 3rd so I'd take a medium sized doe and be happy as F with that but I kinda got buck fever right now lol

Soundings on the nam look pretty good. The only level anywhere near or above freezing is right at the surface and that's at the beginning. Mid level winds are out of the east and not south like usual when it gets going and surface winds are out of the north the whole time. Mid level winds veer NE towards the end. We'll see how it goes but my personal algorithm says the snow will be dry and fluffy. Could get some decent ratio stuff where the best lift runs overhead and both our yards have some periods of that. Not too shabby for early Dec

Most interesting part of this storm is the surface temps dropping from near freezing at onset to mid 20s during the meat. I didn't get good ratios last storm due to warmish start and temps just below freezing when it mattered. Could be a lot fluffier this go around. I like my yard for this one.

More and more signs have been pointing towards the long duration +ao/nao phase breaking down and flipping back towards what we saw in the 1996-2011 period. Doesn't mean every winter will be blocky of course just that we will have more periods of blocking than we've seen and possibly some long duration blocks over the coming years. Time will tell as always

LR ensembles have done poorly with the AO/NAO since the beginning of November. The GEFS 7 day progs are usually pretty darn close to reality but the last 2 sharp drops werent modeled well and the recent one was totally missed. This is the primary reason that LR "warmups" havent materialized. Right now ens seem to agree on a flip positive for both the AO and NAO. That would support a warming trend into mid month. My gut says there will be a relax but how much and for how long is hard to get a handle on given recent trends. My guess is blocking will redevelop before the end of the month so the warm period won't have legs if it happens. Personally, I'm leaning towards blocking coming back and another period of decent wintry weather before we close out the month. Fits the pattern personality we've been seeing so far.

It has some inverted trough characteristics. It looks "weird" because of blocking mostly. The shortwave is decent but the sledgehammer above it is pounding on top so it can't really get organized with a broader precip shield. Hammer and nail effect. Backside of the shortwave is pretty sharp but the front is hammered flat

Upper air pattern is pretty potent with the neg nao breaking down but no sign of a big storm trigger yet. Just looking at the indices makes you think an Archambault type event is I the cards but the northern stream is so busy that it's running interference on itself lol. Something compact but potent n the NS could pop imho. Blocking is quite strong over the next 5 days then things unwind for a bit. Interesting and complex period on tap. Not really a setup that "locks into" anything so it would be a mistake to marry anything in the mid/long ranges

Took the dog out for a long evening walk and man it was nice. Winter appeal everywhere and really got me in the mood for Christmas. Hope it looks just like this

I've always thought that. It was just incredibly bad luck. The WAA piece was mature but it completely fizzled to nothing on the transfer. Usually when it's mature like that, the metros get some ok accum snow before the skip over and pounding NE. Boxing day was some sort of payback for 09-10 lol