Bob Chill

Best beach week ever. Stayed on a no drive beach in a sick building. We will return. 13 hour drive is the only downside but worth it. 90 in the shade already. Can wait to mow the field of bad dreams. Been a long couple months for me. Getting back to normal though. Whatever that means. Lol

Just got back from a week in Daytona. It's much cooler and more pleasant there than this polluted furnace. I should have stayed another couple months.

I went with Irene. The derecho was awesome but it was a hit and run. I had a microburst hit in July 2009 that was worse in my yard than the derecho. Also put a tree branch through my roof so memorable to say the least. The derecho was just an hour of wind with a power outage. I like long duration exciting events with a tracking exercise involved. Irene wasnt a huge event but it was a fun track for sure and it hit close enough. The recent wind event is #2. That was really impressive and unlikely to happen again. Heat does nothing for me. A heatwave will never be exciting. My all time favorite non winter event is Isabel. When we get a cat 4 up the bay with a left turn at point lookout I'll be satisfied with non winter stuff for life. Maybe this summer....

I feel sorry for the dought

Considering it's Jan....fairly widespread reports of TL would be a win in my book. Won't really know how that's going to go until radar lights up (or doesn't).

Especially with where the mean placement of the epo ridge is showing right now. It a good but further west than what happened late Dec/early Jan. Concern should be more focused on ptype than storm track. If the epo ridge rolls forward later on then we can talk about things getting squashed. For now that's pretty low on the list of things to worry about for both of our regions.

No, you guys have it right with the current disco in here....you just picked the wrong person to listen to. Lol. There are some similarities to how we kicked off met winter showing up but keep in mind the same pattern in Dec/Feb won't produce similar results. Background conditions with the oceans and continent are much different in Feb. It's much easier to get synoptic events to break right the back half of met winter. I'm not predicting a snow blitz or anything just that if we get 3 weeks of good stuff in Feb there are likely going to be some more widespread events. Winners and losers TBD.

A -AO can't offset a terrible pac in general. Think Dec 2012. Not sure how you folks fared in 2012-13 but the pac (and nasty AK vortex) flooded North Amercia with Pac air so the only thing the AO displaced was pac maritime air from Canada. lol The AO has been a fickle pain in the ass lately. We haven't had a classic long lasting blocking episode since 2010-11. It really has been that long. What we really need to hope for is the -AO showing up is a hint that a more typical 30-45 day blocking episode is on the way. The hostile pac is unlikely to hold for weeks on end. If we get a REAL -ao that lasts well into Feb then our sensible wx can turn on a dime. Basically as fast as the pac jet cuts off, the conus can get right back into business. Especially the eastern half. It's a watch and wait game right now for sure. Other than a lucky break during the Mon-Thurs time frame next week, we have a lot of waiting to do before we know where all this could be going.

It's interesting period we're entering. The warmth this week will be fairly brief but it's going to feel like Hawaii after the last couple weeks. What was originally going to be a brief cool down next week now looks like a 3-4 day window that "could" produce something with a legit Jan air mass. Then it looks like another repeat late next week with another fairly abrupt warm up but ens guidance is already starting to show that will be pretty brief too. While the shuffle happens in the conus it really does look like a legit -ao is going to try to form. Yea, I know...I know....believe it when we see it but this signal is getting kind of strong. It starts inside of 10 days and it's showing up on the ens means way out at the end of their runs. Is this one for real? Let's assume it is for a minute.... My guess is the upcoming -pna/+epo period is going to be short lived and the pac will go back to the base state we've seen all winter so far. At least in some form. Probably not identical to the way we've been in the ice box but favorable for cold in North America in general. Add in a -ao and shorter wavelengths that start showing up as we enter February and there's a reason for cautious optimism. Some winters that hit hard with cold early flip a switch and never come back. Other ones take a break and reload. I was concerned about a long term flip to warm last week but I'm starting to change my mind. I have a hunch by the end of this week we're going to be talking about how good the long range looks.

Absolutely. What makes this July stand out it was it was really wet and still came in about +1-2 around the airports. If it was dry then it could have been much worse. Easy top 5 imho. The 6-7 days of the month averaged well below normal. Mostly because of the summer coastal. EJ is disappointed because of wasted potential.

Nice stats Rodney! The precip in July is probably the only reason we didn't end up in the top 10 for heat. August is looking unimpressive so far in the heat dept. Would be nice to have a BN month.

Bumpity bump. New folks, ask any and all questions about models, storm setups, what to look for, etc.

One thing is for sure, that 7 day period in Feb 10 may not be topped for 100 years or ever. If the poll was "greatest 7 days of winter" there only needs to be 1 choice.

One of my main reasons for picking 1/16 is because I have a much deeper knowledge of east coast snowstorms. The hunt was as rewarding as the prey. PD1 was the "first hit" in the lifetime addiction so it will forever be a defining event in my life. But tracking a beautiful storm for 8 days and knocking down 30" in my yard may never be topped before I'm dead. Or in 2 weeks...

Me too. We've only had 2 bad out of the last 6. 10-11 wasn't above normal snow wise but it wasn't in the bad winter class either. We've had 4 giant and 2 really big storms in the last 6 years. Plus we're on a 3 year heater and froze the bay and rivers the previous 2 years. We probably have better than normal odds at adding another big or giant storm this year. Best of all...since this nino is so strong so late in the year we could have a sweet weak Nina next year to keep the run going...lol

That h5 loop is a 10 second clinic of exactly what to look for if you like big snowstorms. I love the trajectory overhead and off the coast. So sweet for our latitude

I changed my vote. 2016 was an incredible tracking and real time experience. The insane model runs and insane totals around the areas west of the cities led to an unimaginable period for winter wx enthusiasts. Biggest storm ever in my yard seals the deal.

Awesome loop Ian. This thread is great. Can you animate an h5 re-analysis?

I posted this in another thread. I uploaded the loop to YouTube. https://youtu.be/m5SRBhKirrQ

I uploaded this loop to Youtube. It's so cool to see how the leading shortwave that dropped an inch and destroyed a commute set the stage for a cold storm. Just a beautiful loop. One for the books. https://youtu.be/m5SRBhKirrQ

Heh, yep it was Stern. Young memories mix things up. Grease dropped a few bombs on air that were far worse.

Anyone remember when Greaseman called Air Florida on air shortly after the accident? Wow. I was 13 at the time so unfortunately I thought it was funny...now...notsomuch.

Yes, more likely but I'm sure there's been some ice during warm enso. Probably not many with mod+ or strong. Someone prob has good stats on that and can chime in. I'm surprised we didn't get more ice the last 2 years. Especially 13-14. It was a prime ice pattern but we ended up snowing instead. Weird (and very lucky) year.

Big ice is probably very unlikely this winter either way. I'm not too picky though. High impact weather is the core of my interest in this hobby. Certainly not in it for "pretty weather" (unless we're talking July 4th 2014 kind of stuff). I enjoy it of course but not something that inspires me to discuss it. lol.

Nobody can convince me that a foot of ice wouldn't be awesome to experience.