Bob Chill

Phantom mid range threat to help offset the waiting game coming up. Don't care if it's real yet. Just keep it around so we don't focus solely on bad stuff.

Progressive flow has been the theme for years now. Imho- much of the volatility has to do with a complete lack of stable blocking. Progressive unblocked flow compounds nwp errors very quickly. Wait until the next time we have a stable -AO. Models will suddenly look genious from 10 days out.

Global models cover the entire planet but we only focus on a tiny crumb of real estate. Accuracy is relative. Globals are no doubt more accurate than 5 years ago in general.

The biggest problem with aspen/Snowmass is accessibility. Unless you can spring for direct flights, the 5+ hour drive can be tiring. Great terrain tho. Especially highlands. Snowmass is a great powder mountain but not very challenging overall. If you haven't been to Jackson Hole then consider that. They're having a fantastic year already. Mountain is stupid big. Choosing between the rockies or wasatch is easy... hang with the mormons and bring a snorkel just in case

Gfs ticking colder at the surface. Someone could get a decent ice event out of this on top of whatever snow falls.

Depressed because my entire life revolved around backcountry and powder skiing and it was over. There are actually lots of busts and roller coasters in the rockies. Many warning events that I woke up to partly cloudy and 1-2". Took a couple years before figuring out the right setups for the area I lived in. The biggest storm cycles were jet/orographic driven and not synoptic. Those big 4 corners lows that pummel the front range usually suck west of the divide. What's happening now with moist pac jet on W-NW flow is prime for the northern half of the state. Breckenridge has had almost 3 feet in the last 48 hrs. That's a very big storm and not very common.

I think it's hard wired into some people. Been this way as long as I can remember and I'll never change. PDI was my first huge one but I remember plenty other decent events before that. I remember walking a mile from shore on bay ice in 77. People we're literally driving cars across ice. I know a handful of weenies in real life but I'm the worst. When I lived in the rockies I figured it would satisfy my craziest snow dreams. The only thing it taught me is you can never be satisfied. My yard got over 300" in 95-96 and the ski areas got 4-500. I was depressed when the season ended.

Would be a legit ice event up your way. 10 hrs of precip @ 32 or less. Icon doesn't have a cold bias as far as I know. I've seen it be too warm more than once.

18z euro bumped everything north from 12z. Europeans clearly don't understand the spirit of happy hour. Prob sitting around drinking tea and eating stale crackers and stuff.

@C.A.P.E. This panel is encouraging. Not that I think it's some sort of storm window or anything but you can see the spread favoring cold or snow/mixed versus warm rain. If the Pac was likely to lock in and screw up the rest of the month we wouldn't see panels like this.

2013 was pretty good after the heatwave before Christmas. It was a good month in general with a reloading -epo to start and end the month.

Def uptick in # of solutions that deliver at least some frozen. More have frozen than all rain by 2:1. Of course the existence of the storm itself is very much in question. Something to watch before we close the blinds for a spell. 18z gefs also had a splattering of events in the d13+ range. A good sign that we get cold again sooner rather than later.

An old buddy of mine out in CO texted me a pic of him skiing waist deep powder in whiteout conditions today. I kinda want to punch him in the kidneys. Am I a bad person?

I've been specifically talking about mid level temps with reference to warmth or torch. This is a legit shot of maritime air as it covers nearly the entire continent. It may never hit 60 degrees the rest of the month but it's no doubt at least a temporary shutout. At least a week from how it looks now but not much longer (hopefully)

Yea, the beginning of the invasion starts in about 5 days so we can't call it fantasy range anymore. Interestingly, the lr 18z gfs shows a sensible wx version of what both the gefs and eps are showing irt turning cold again. If we can see the way out before we even get in I don't worry much.

If missing on a crappy lame warm front with a brief period of snow before a big period of rain sends someone over the edge then they have no business even reading the directions let alone actually playing the game

It ticked south. A few more ticks...lol Sometimes the short range trends work out in the right direction. Sounding at onset is ok up to 850mb. Warm nose pressing in at 800mb so snow to sleet may happen kinda quick.

Like the icon, gfs is baby bumpin towards a bigger thumpin

I'm expecting this event to be quite depressing in my yard after 15 minutes of snow flips to 10 minutes of sleet flips to 8 hours of rain.

The full latitude trough off the west coast down the line about a week or so looks to scour the entire continent of cold air and replace it with a massive slug of maritime air. The AO or NAO can't fight that off. This stuff happens so it's not shocking or anomalous. Let's assume it does happen.. it can either be transient or part of a longer term pattern. EPS/GEFS/GEPS all show it being transient. 12z EPS actually looks half decent by the end of the run and made a move towards the GEFS.

Not punting the whole month. Just don't like what I see beginning in a week. It's not all that uncommon to fail during a -AO/NAO regime. December 2012 is a recent example of the Pac completely screwing up decent blocking. The blocking event on tap popped up rather abruptly and it's good to see. I know you know this but just because we get a -NAO going doesn't mean we instantly hit deep winter. If the -NAO hangs on for a month then there should be multiple chances down the line with above normal odds for a big event.

I'm not sure there's a way to avoid a significant Pac air intrusion at this point. As the days go by the signal keeps getting stronger. First it showed up on ens d10-15 and now we're starting to see ops agree inside of d10.

Euro is a legit torch towards the end. CMC/GFS would be the same if the phantom storm wasn't there. If it's going to happen then lets just get it out of the way sooner rather than later.

Euro with a baby bump south with the warm front/waa

There is definitely some merit to the idea so I'm not saying the GEFS is flat wrong. However, we've been caught in a bad pac rut many times over the years. The vast majority of times it takes longer than expected to get out of it.