Bob Chill

The next couple weeks look a lot like late Dec / early Jan when east half of Canada was void of cold. The remnants of that anomalous height pattern cost us some snowfall with a good track. More often than not, big anomalous airmasses like to linger longer than guidance likes to think. Using that period as a guide, it's probably too optimistic to think we can flip to a snow window during first 7 days of Feb. I do believe the western trough undercuts and spikes the NAO or AO. Hopefully pac flow turns off right then and there. That would greatly speed up cooling the continent where it matters. Otherwise, we're prob normal temps at best with a though in the east until some sort of ridge deflects flow from the pac into the Conus. Right how, there is near unanimous agreement of this pattern in 2 week. Man, that's a continental problem lol If Feb 4th really looks like this, it's going to take a lot of work to reset and get back to workable. I'm gonna skip out of town to VA later this week and come back when winter comes back. Lol

Maybe? It's the only thing I keep returning to if climate has shifted. Dec is awful close to a fall month here anyways and that goes back to my birth lol. Long term cycles are weird though. Just when you think something is figured out... oops. Kinda like Judah and his Siberia snowcover scam lol. Warmer oceans obviously screw with the front side of winter. That's simple to understand. How that could change March gets muddy. It does seem winters have moved forward a couple weeks on the calender compared to 15 years ago. Idk. I just want it to snow dammit

I threw an edit in my last post. I dont want to come off like I'm canceling anything because I'm most certainly not. And I strongly believe winter will make a return. But man there were some high expectations going into this one. It would be a let down for me if @WxUSAFs guess happens and half the forum walks away sour lol. His guess is basically identical to what I'm thinking and I'd be more surprised if we didn't get another warned event. Just maybe not widespread 1-2'. The one wildcard in my head is March. For many years I expected March to be a spring month and it was right. That's changed. Maybe just cycles in cycles or maybe because oceans are warmer and it shifts climate bookends. Not sure but lately March has been better than many Dec/Jan's. March ninos are generally bad here but the front half of March can produce big storms. Maybe big storm window ends up there instead of Feb. We'll see

2015 was only snowless south of the Mason Dixon. North of there got destroyed and there was a ton of arctic air floating around east of the MS River. Very different personality to this winter in general. I haven't liked any analogs popping up for early Feb. I'd like to see that change sooner rather than later but I have zero control of that lol ETA: I'm only skeptical of some big long duration turnaround that destroys the coast. Mulitple opportunities and future snowfall are both very likely in the coming 6 weeks. Some people may not like the type though lol hahaha

Here, I'll throw ya a bone. 6z Gfs obviously figured out a jacked up way to get it done but not much needed here and it's a week away. GFS is right in the pocket of similar setups. Maybe one of the rain waves next week kicks the boundary east enuff to have more cold available. This window originally looked like rain to maine and Buffalo. Notsomuch anymore. The trough is going to dig and there are multiple waves ejecting. For now, it's still low prob/flawed but no chance models have timing figured out. If we have something to track next week it will soften the blow of what may be down the pike during first 5-10 days of Feb.

In the 22 years I've owned my house, the only flood threat that remotely got my interest was when the Needwood dam was thinking about popping back in 06. They evacuated the blowout zone so I was rooting for it for the sheer spectacle.

Pretty much what I'm thinking too. There's a lot of winter left. I'm just guessing based on what I've seen over the years. If we have another compressed week of winter with a moderate event followed by a decent or big one, this winter will get a B grade minimum from me. A 2-3 week favorable stretch has been completely elusive so far. Might happen but forces seem against

You will find few winters in the last 30 years that offered a week like this. We are NOT a multiple event snowpack town and 8 days of subfreezing with solid snowpack is a rare and sweet winter gift. For this reason alone I'll go C- minimum but that's just me

I haven't tracked the setup at all but looking back compared to now, the cold hp and boundary keeps moving in our direction. A lot of lead time so who knows if it even exists lol. But at least for now, the trend is our friend. It would be darn near a miracle or just easy #3 on our heater hahahaha

12/11/23: 0.4" 1/15-1/16/24: 4.7" 1/19: 5.5" Total: 10.6"

Couple random thoughts. I always talk about personalities of winters in a broad sense. At this point, this winter has spoken to me. It simply doesn't want to snow much up and down the east coast. Different reasons at different times but same result. North of us is suffering bad and that isn't the elephant. It's just repeating endless crappy tracks and/or setups when it matters. If you zoom out and look at the continent, our Mid-Atlantic problems are just a slice of the bigger issues plagueing the east. Will that change? Will Feb deliver? Beats me but my gut instinct is it probably won't up and down the coast. Feel pretty good about additional snowfall here in Feb. Might get a big one. But imho, the east as a whole is going to have a hard time doing a 180 and going on a heater. We turned on a dime in 2015 but north of us was already on an epic heater and snowfall to our NW was plentiful. Nobody (except our little slice) up and down 95 has had any kind of heater so far. Sometimes it's just the breaks and that's what this feels like to me. Things aren't breaking right in a broad sense and that's just the way it goes. Upcoming pattern looks to be another temp reset which is normal in any January. Now it's looking more like a problem than a break though. We had a long stretch of broad AN heights in Canada in Dec. Ens guidance agrees on another period of that. The longer that pattern holds, the longer it will take to reset. We'll prob see the way out within a week but hard to say what that looks like yet. Guidance has completely dropped the well placed epo/pna ridge idea for now. A +pna and neutral NAO is enuff to snow in Feb. A big +nao can only "easily" be offset with a big ridge out west and perfect trough axis in the east. I'd like to think a +pna takes over for a while at some point in Feb. The idea has drifted but can most certainly snap back. I'm not making any predictions or spiking anything. It could turn and rip for 6 straight weeks up and down 95. But it tuff to expect that at this point. I'll just get real happy if it does but until the personality switches, it's hard to bet against it.

Took the dog out to upper rock creek near the Ag center earlier. What a peaceful and beautiful place to walk. Not a soul out there today.

Big storms are the apex of this game but they're too rare to base my satisfaction on. When a real chance shows up I go ape shit like anyone. But the odds are low and the breaks in between are too long. I don't like living my life feeling like I'm missing anything and I enjoy living in the moment more than anything. There were a ton of fun moments over the last week. What a blast

Winter appeal and stats are 2 different things. On paper, stats so far look entirely underwhelming. But the appeal of a week of sub freezing snowpacked yards, back to back events, and having them both overperform short range will make this winter for me. I'll remember this week until death or dementia lol

4.7" with some compaction. If I knew what I was doing it would prob be 5 lol. Tied with last event. Wow.

Popcorn look to radar coming in from WV. Looks light but that look is what I've been expecting. Maybe some brief heavies pop with that stuff.

It's a decent shortwave but not enough lift to maximize. We'll see what happens. Current shield is uniform. Stuff rolling in from WV will be a test

Interesting radar loop off just off OC. Seems like a meso low. Flow turned east just north of it. Maybe it bombs to 989 before lunch https://weather.cod.edu/satrad/nexrad/?parms=DOX-N0B-0-24-100-usa-rad

Would like to see some yellow speckles start to pop on radar at some point. Better lift happening now but still nothing exciting yet.

A little compaction but a clean 4" so far. Another inch and lwx bullmap verifies in my yard. Picking back up. Band rollin thru should get me to 4.5" if it lasts an hour

Just let this one play out and skip models. Upper level stuff is a real time thing. Models are much better at upglide/fronto. When it comes to snowfall from upper level dynamics, there are usually localized areas of surprise. Models rarely nail that. This isn't a strong system but it's drawn out. We'll see how it goes.

The tail on the next band is south of Manassas. Looks more like a blob than a band now. Not seeing subsidence problems. Once it turns back on it should last a while.... famous last words...

Pretty lucky to have the waa piece come in at the coldest part of the night then upper level cold stuff during the day. Ratios may end up over 10:1 for both parts.

Northern tier posting prob gonna light up next couple hours. Lookin good for them for a while