Bob Chill

It happened a lot last year too iirc. It wasn't a high snowfall winter but last winter was certainly more old school flavor than the last 15+ years. 2013-15 was an extreme/unusual pattern. Last year was different in that respect. Intuition has been prodding me last couple years that the decadal or whatever it is blocking cycle was flipping and this year is basically confirming it (for now at least). Doesn't mean every winter will be blocky but it does imply that 8 out of 10 or 10 out of 13 will be blocking friendly based on history. We can worry about that later after the NAO does some magic this year haha

Euro AI is rain to snow. Block and confluence flexing and forcing. I don't have high hopes for anything until the pac trough backs off but to get something to work we need a gnarly block and all models are showing something to that effect.

British Columbia with the mic drop lol

Ops have most definitely led the way picking up on flips at times but it's pretty logical. Beyond 5 days, ops are about as accurate as a single ensemble member. They basically are a single ensemble member. There are times when ops consistently diverge from the mean long range pattern and its the first sign of a change. Works both ways though. Sometimes ops consistently diverge from the mean at long range only to cave in that direction (for better or worse lol). That said, it always grabs my attention when ops keep spitting out a cold pattern in the lr when ensembles are grim. It can be the first sign of a flip that isn't showing on the means. You can take it a step further and sort through individual ensembles and see how big the camp is that agrees with the op and see if that camp starts growing over time. Gives more confidence to the idea. Make sense?

Persistent trough in the goa/pacnw is a bit of a dagger here without real help from the AO. Cold fronts can sweep thru the east but storms will almost certainly track far NW of us. Hopefully it retros and the pna rises within 2 weeks or the blocking hammer drops down. Patience for now....

Down to 13 now. It's been a heck of a winter run since Dec 1st. Nice to know we can still get legit fast starts. Dec has been a punt month for years lately

I don't trust the CFS all that much but it looks good for Feb. -EPO, +PNA, -AO, and a sprinkle of -NAO. Active southern stream/split flow....

19 and still plenty of wind but managed to see 2 meteors in 10 mins. Hopefully wind lays down by 10pm or so. Crystal clear night for watching the geminids

13-14 was the only year in my 25 rockville tracking years where i was honestly seriously tired of it by the end. Last couple march events felt like a chore. And here we are... where I'd trade a kid to experience it again hahahah

VDay 2014 was one of my faves iirc. There was a lull before the ULL pass and it dropped another 3.5" of high ratio/big dendrites on top of a foot or so. It was already a snowy winter but we hadn't had a big storm up until that point.

I'm so down with a Roanoke/Richmond > DC/Baltimore shellack and Philly fringe/NYC bust storm.

NAO is typically more volatile than the AO so it's usually the other way around. It's actually not all that common for the GEFS to mess up the AO in the D7 range like it has. Why it's been happening is well over my paygrade lol but something is causing it. Maybe strat stuff. Hard to say. I find it pretty interesting though The AO affects storm track and jet patterns across the continent so it's an important index for storm track. NAO is a key ingredient to a big/slow moving storm so for us in the MA, it's important. Up in the NE a big -NAO is often a net negative. Snowfall correlation in the MA is more closely tied to the AO vs NAO. We're due for a neg ao/nao combo and big storm. 2016 is the last classic mauling. Going 10 years without one isn't very common. Let's collectively will one our way and have it exit south of NYC for old times sake hahaha

AO is my #1 thing to track and NAO is #2. No matter what the pna is doing, a -AO keeps the door open for snow chances 90% of the time and a +AO is the opposite of that. Quite the AO spike going on and it was missed completely by the gefs. It's no coincidence that my 2 snowfalls this year coincide with the -AO. Being south of my old yard means less wiggle room so it's logical for me to live and die by the AO more than you lol. Right now lr ens spread is split with a return to a neg AO d10-15. Interestingly, the nao is prog'd to go negative in the mid/lr and thats prob what is keeping the door open for CAD events. Storm track looks unfriendly but cold getting boxed in can still work even if imperfect. If we can get a neg AO/NAO combo going before the end of the month we could be right back in good times.

Great pics northern peeps! Nothing down here obviously but wanted to strongly recommend spending some time tonight skywatching for the Geminids. Saw 7 last night in like 5 minutes. Red, white, and blue colors. We were looking SE around 1030pm. Moon was still down so great dark sky conditions. Last night and tonight are the peak.

Prob a good guess. Same thoughts here. The only real way to overcome a GoA or PacNW trough is -nao and some sort of 50/50 if you want a classic storm track. Enough signs of CAD to not write off the next 2 weeks but it looks fairly hostile. Those deets can get sorted at shorter ranges. I'd sure like to see the AO do another steep drop. Models haven't been doing well in that dept. Even 7 day progs have been slow to catch those moves recently. Maybe another is in the cards before month end. Patience is always needed at times every winter in these parts.

I'm convinced it's a dna hardwired trait. I was obsessed with snow when I was 2 and my parents didn't care for it all that much. There was no conditioning and I was too young to understand science. Simply born this way... for better or worse... probably worse

936-1212 lol. The ink was worn off the buttons on our kitchen phone hahaha. When snow was in the forecast I would burn it up late afternoon waiting for the update. Great memories that few can relate to outside of this forum. I'm pullin for you folks up north. It's a tricky setup but I really hope it comes through and swipes the metros with a satisfying snowfall. Nature's Xanax and things like that

Im not a huge fan of wxbell numerical index plots. Im not sure what algorithm they use but it's usually overstated to reality. Good trend though! Ensembles have struggled with quick shifts of the AO/NAO in both directions since early Nov. Part of me didn't want to believe the shift strongly positive but I finally caved to the idea after 5+ days of guidance showing it. Of course as soon as I caved things started uncaving haha. Wx is a cruel hobby but never boring. If blocking does in fact reset back to favorable, we're right back in the game even with the Pac being a bit hostile. I like CAD overrunners. They may get messy but they are rarely dry. Fingers crossed

Not showing up well in the ens (yet?) but ops keep printing variations of a legit -nao in the d10-15 range. Primary reason why they are spitting out some winter wx. Can't really buy it yet but if ens shift towards the idea my interest will jump considerably. 0z EPS had some hints of the idea and 6z gefs took it a step further....

Check out the blocking too lol. Don't think I've ever seen this before... the legendary banana block haha

Nothing wrong with a long range op showing probably the only way something can work with the prog'd longwave pattern. The second half of Dec is looking hostile but not impossible. Shutout patterns are the worst thing a weenie can endure. Progressive CAD type setups seem likely coming up but combining that with precip is something the mid/short range has to figure out lol

2 hours of flurries/lt snow but no accums. Was hoping to squeeze .2 to hit 7" for the month but the minor accum stuff ended up south of me by 20 miles. It was nice dendrites for a while so SnowTV looked pretty good for a bit

How warm isn't really the problem imo. It may be just run of the mill +3-5 departures and not really feel "warm". The issue is the longwave pattern and what it means for storms. Ensembles universally agree on a persistent -pna with low heights in the GOA and PacNW area and a positive AO/NAO combo. That pretty much kills snowstorm chances. The only path would be backdoor cold fronts/CAD and it's a stretch to get things right for a snowstorm without some kind of block. A transient 50/50 could work but that's threading the needle and most certainly not something we can track at long ranges. Tracking temp departures isn't something that excites me lol. I like to track snow chances exclusively and I'll need to concentrate on other hobbies for a while. I'm probably in the minority but if the upper level pattern is super hostile for snow chances, I'd prefer it to just be warm and dry lol

It makes sense to have the pendulum swing after a persistent cold first half of Dec but unfortunately the next pattern will prob be persistent for several weeks at least and it's one that pretty much closes the door on snow chances. The closest analog is second half of Dec of 2021. Jan 2022 did produce a storm but it was a weird one. My Rockville yard loved it but it was another of a long string of small maximas and forum dividers. Not saying I expect a repeat or anything just that the trip out of the current progs has produced in the recent past. We'll see how things unfold over the next couple weeks but I'm not a big fan of a persistent GOA low with no blocking. I really don't want to see that become the winter personality. My gut says blocking will return but that's just a guess. I'm not expecting a quick flip back to deep winter based on current progs. Would likely be more of a frustrating grind through the first half of Jan. If the GOA low becomes a mainstay, posting quality and fun factor here will decline precipitously lol. ETA: I think I'm remembering the early Jan 2022 storm incorrectly. Does anyone have a final snow map for it? ETA2: I figured it out lol. It was 2 storms in a week. That's why I remembered it being really good. Rockville got just under 10" combined and areas SE got smashed. My new yard got hit good too but it was before we bought. I'll keep tracking analogs as we move forward. I don't like what I see right now but there's a case to be made for an abrupt shift after we endure the next few weeks

I never had much hopes for this one. Downhill trajectory across a dozen+ mountains to my west doesn't work on the lee side basically every time. If there was any hint of a southern connection I would have been more interested but pure NS running downhill always runs out of gas by the time it hits the blue ridge.... and I'm even east of that... a clean inch would be a major win for my yard.