Bob Chill

1 hour ago, stormtracker said:

Right where I want it.  Looks like I should be safe from missing something from being down in this godforsaken state. 

Good for you but sucks for me lol. I'm driving to Boulder CO Jan 7-8th. I can't control jack but sorry folks... I gotta root against this one... and then I gotta root against storms thru the 16th until I get back. Sorry folks x2 

Just now, bncho said:

It's actually not getting shunted as far south as 6z. HP in Canada is slightly more north than 6z.

That's a primary problem. HP is weaker too and it really needs to be 1035+ to stand ground and make things work. 1030 or less will get pushed out of the way. Especially in the mids. 12z run wasn't what you want to see.

49 minutes ago, bncho said:

Curious as to what your other analogs are for this setup—maybe it could provide more insight into possible outcomes.

Mixed bag and nothing super interesting. Dec 28-31 2008 & Jan 13-18 2000 would be the other closest. Jan 3 22 was a flukey storm and not a common setup. Analogs favor warm overall but the strong block brings in the chance. OTOH, analogs show past history isn't that dire rolling forward into Jan. The only rat showing up is Dec 2012 and it's not a strong correlation. I remain confident there will be winter wx here in Jan.

52 minutes ago, Chris78 said:

A couple mores ticks south for the seasonal trend. 

Congrats @Bob Chill ?

Lol. Stranger things have happened but I'd put the odds on that as near zero. HP under the block is way to weak to bully anything that far. You guys are in the game for now. Jan 3 2022 redux. 

12 minutes ago, JakkelWx said:

didn't jan 3 2022 suddenly appear out of nowhere because of a block?

That analog has been top 5 for 3+ days. Right now it's top 3. It won't come easy but if I still lived in Rockville I'd be pretty interested rn

6 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

 Some stretches are gonna suck, others may be decent. I still don’t think this is a one track winter. 

Exactly. All too often there are 2 modes of thinking here... wall to wall good or door to door turd lol. Through history the vast majority of our winters fall in between. A general mix of good periods and blind shitting. Simply guessing an in between winter is the highest odds and the most common outcome. This winter sure feels like an in-betweener to me 

3 minutes ago, Steve25 said:

I don’t know how you all feel about Webb. In my time following him, it seems like he’s been about as informed and accurate as anyone I’ve come across. So him saying this does feel like a massive sucker punch. 

I don't follow anyone about long range stuff and usually stick to my own thoughts but wasn't Webb on the cold/blocking train just a few weeks ago? When all guidance was unified in the general idea?

Of course it didn't work out and here we are but wouldn't it be the same mistake to jump all in on what lr guidance is unified on now? Long range weather is one fickle beast. If it was easy to predict beyond a couple weeks we could all just be energy traders and retire in a couple years. But it doesn't work like that. Not even close really. 

I never thought this would be some kind of awesome snowy winter but to marry the idea that it's "mostly over" already is a blunder imho. Analogs are nearly unified that the way out of the current persistence is a cold and/or stormy period in the east. It makes sense to me as the winter see-saw has been part of the personality already and likely to continue (imho only). I personally don't agree that things are dire and a persistent hostile snow pattern is here to stay. If anything, I expect a 2 week period in Jan to be pretty good for chances. Luck and timing hold the cards for production but my money is on real winter returning for a decent period in Jan. Guidance is currently starting to pick up on the idea late in the first week of Jan. I'm starting to expect that trend to continue. Wait and see for now. 

1 hour ago, Terpeast said:

End of both eps and gefs begin to fade the SER, hint of height rises in the west. Large scale features largely the same, though. 

Looks like ens are filling in with 2 camps now. The mean shows no major shift with large scale features but under the hood looks more promising. Fairly deep (semi stable?) trough diving down and height rises along the west coast. Could be the first sign of a way out of the current doh! pattern lol. Ops are obviously hinting at the idea with the 6z gfs going straight nuts lol

1 hour ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Maybe I've asked this before...but given this I'm even more surprised surprised at your call for 18" in the contest thread. I mean my layman eyes saw that as a bit bullish for a nina, but what do I know? Lol

Pretty simple thoughts based on 2 things that my intuition keeps bringing up. 1) I expected blocking to be on the friendly vs hostile side and 2) we're over due for a decent coastal that gets everyone. Not a giant storm as they are pretty rare.  Just a decent coastal that has a pretty uniform 1"+ of qpf and drops 8-12" across all 3 airports.  

I also don't think this nina is all that strong nor will it influence the winter door to door. Both of my snowfalls had a southern connection to precip already. Northern stream action is the bulk of our snowfalls and storm chances in every enso phase. Jan 2016 came onshore in the pac nw. The main shortwave was northern stream. But it tapped the southern stream when it mattered and went nuts. People get too hung up on northern stream being anti snow. It's only anti snow when the gulf or Southern stream is closed for business. So far this year, gulf moisture tap has been decent. I don't see why that won't continue at times. 

12 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

 

I'm guessing that's the reason the cold is still in Canada and not Mongolia?

The mechanism to build continental cold is alive and well. We don't need cross polar flow or arctic express stuff for snowfall. All we need is Canada to produce high pressure in the lee of the rockies. Where we get into serious trouble is when the trop PV is pushed over on the other side of the pole and Canada is flooded with Pac maritime air. Which has happened multiple times in the last handful of years.

Right now the only serious problem is a persistent trough in the PacNW pumping up heights/ridging downstream in the conus. This bottles up cold high pressure to the north and storm track well to our NW. It's a crap pattern for snowfall here but it's also only one roll forward or retro move away from things being conducive for cold and/or snow possibilities becoming less hostile. For the time being it's a sit on your hands period and wait and see. It's not a multi step process to be back in the game. It's really just one step.

12 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

They correctly picked up hints of a colder pattern before the real cold came first half of Dec. Same thing happened last Jan. While I take weeklies with a grain (heap) of salt, they may be onto something here. An extreme -PNA doesn’t usually last, it’ll revert to at least neutral if not positive. 

Analogs have been pretty consistent showing periods leading to cold and/or stormy stretches. Jan 2022, 2009, 2000, 2011 etc. Right now boxing day is showing up lol but I'm pretty sure that's only because of the NAO and not a legit storm threat inside of 2 weeks.

I agree about the dagger -pna. The persistence and duration is frustrating but it's not unusual/uncommon and it's also not a sign of extended disaster. The winter see saw in that region happens more often than not and when it flips it can be abrupt. Not the same thing as a zonal pac jet destroying hopes and dreams for months. 

I was never bullish on snowfall this winter but I continue to expect enough action to keep this winter out of the turd category. A single lucky storm can tip those scales as well. Can't rule that out for a couple months.

53 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

This is pretty perfect pattern for skiers.  Gonna be good for New England and most of the west from Colorado north. 

Been quietly thinking the same thing. Taking my adult kids to my old stompin grounds in Summit Co, CO Jan 8th-15th. They had an abysmal start this year. I have some friends still living there and they said I used my snow shovel before them lol. They said it's the worst start ever and they've lived there since the mid 90s. Thankfully that's changing quickly. 

12 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Is this the year the can warmth just gets can kicked?

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

2 hours ago, SnowenOutThere said:

Tbh I think it might be my proudest joke I've made on the forum. Though I'm not sure I ever really bought into the full doom and gloom we had in here for a little bit. I know its bad practice to use the OP runs but aside from a couple days they never really showed a horrific setup. It always seemed like last year(s) when the ensembles showed a great pattern and the OPs were meh to downright bad the ens ended up adjusting to that reality. I do wonder if there is some science behind the possibility of OP runs aiding in pattern change analysis or if its just confirmation bias. 

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?

34 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

I just feel like those kind of events never ever ever work out for us. GEFS/GFS always shows it but never happens.

EPS/AIFS pretty much say shut the blinds for this week, which probably won't surprise anyone. Next very tiny window might be early next week before we hope something opens up around or after the holidays.

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

6 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

And you probably thought it was always going to be that easy!

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. 

18 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

FOREVER.

Remember the days of yore when we had 989 Lows off of ORF.  Been a long ass time.

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

18 minutes ago, H2O said:

Is it just me or by looking at those graphs , the models do a lot better with the NAO than AO. 
 

personally I rather have a NAO in our favor. But if PNA is ridic neg we gonna need a bottlenecked Atlantic to make PAC stuff slow down and give us events

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

24 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Honestly, I  don't base my thoughts strictly on these man-made indexes that are actually different depending on which site you use that comes up with the index numbers. Would I prefer a +PNA? Sure, but it can snow with something other than that with a well timed threat. And considering how many systems we saw come off the Pacific in the last 3 weeks, we'll have our chances, which is all we can hope for at any given time.

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.