Bob Chill

My first instinct right now is to hedge on the block not really decaying but wobbling and pulsing. I think you probably agree. For people who aren't used to using ensembles, they may think "decay" means "gone". It could happen that way but my take in lr ens is simply spread smoothing the mean to a point where features get washed. My gut guess is the AO/NAO block will remain intact and as we move forward in time the ens means will show that as leads shorten on the current decayed look. In a best case scenario, this will continue for 4-6 weeks. At least for a couple. Not a week and done. That would be anomalous based on history of previous strong blocking events. Eta: I'm not talking about the specific west based nao block as much as the ao/nao domain space in general. NAO domain is quite volatile but not the AO. Time will tell but history is behind us at least

Yea, not too exciting with this setup. Like MN said above, anything southerly rarely mixes down west of the bay. Especially when its a saturated airmass. I never even get good northeasterlies during a big snow storm. Same kind of thing. It's hard to get those winds back down to the surface once deflected. The bay on the other hand, it loves southerlies. Lol. The channeling affect of the land (especially with southeasterlies) accelerate the wind. GFS is most certainly seeing that. What it doesn't see is ground truth of how wet southerlies work in the piedmont lol. Westerlies (especially NW) are a different beast. The can mix real well with the dry air, uneven heating, and topography. Westerlies tumble down like waves. High winds come in pulses. That when piedmonters can watch beautiful devastation from the comfort of our homes.

OK western crew, times are tuff and imma let u in on a Iittle secret... You'd be surprised how little snow you need to report 6"+. I thought I would get that much but not this time. Don't let me down

Setup for front end possibilities after this weekend looks much better on both the gfs and cmc ops. Better spacing and heights in the wake of the weekend system

CMC is backing down on the amp thru 78. Colder run likely at least for one model... with an ugly previous solution. Lol

Always feels like I need a neck brace when I leave this place lol. It's Tuesday. It can shift north and south and strong and weak multiple times still. Ops will still be divided in some way today. We can wrangle, bicker, and ring or just watch and wait. It's a choice. Lol. Considering the track and origin of the shortwave, my hunch is it ends up stronger than whatever the 72 hours progs are showing Thursday AM. Is that good or bad? Only Thursday knows. Lol. About the best time of year you can ask for with a marginal aka seasonable airmass. It's not going to be cold smoke in either of my yards I don't think. I'm prob going to CT wed-early sat AM. I can stay the weekend if it ends up a northern storm. Idk what to think yet. Little things mean a lot and there are a lot of little things that need to happen before really knowing what to expect. I don't expect a big memorable storm in my yard. 3-4" would do it for me to be satisfied for a while. Clean ground/grass cover with the blanket look and not bumpy shallow potatoes. Is that really too much to ask? ...don't answer

EPS is basically just as sweet but I like the PAC on the GEPS better. The entire d10-15 period looks amazing from a pattern evolution perspective. I mentioned this in the last couple days that the PAC was primed to get right and this panel shows it perfectly. Split flow, all 3 streams meeting somewhere in the middle of the conus, potential shortwaves aimed at us from the pole, pac nw, and some pineapple connection. The magnitude of the west based block showing up at long leads is jaw dropping at this point. Lovin this man.

6z Gefs has pretty much dropped the trouble to our west. Only 1 member driving a low into Ohio. The rest are money. This is a beautiful panel really. Could be the op wagging the ens but either way, track is locking in for now. If 12z and 0z tonight don't wiggle much then it's pretty safe to assume there will be few if any big shifts going forward with storm track. Significant ground truth shifts will occur every 6 hours tho hahahaha lol. Imma just hug the snowiest from here on out. Never fails... to punch my dreams right in the face

Generally speaking, that usually only happens with progressive flow and northern stream systems. Slower moving southern stream systems with any kind of block are modeled pretty well by 96-120 hrs. Doesn't mean a 20 mile shift can't destroy hopes and dreams tho lol

Not having the mids get lambasted with a primary to our west driving to or north of our latitude is a huge relief. Even the improved airmass on guidance can't offset that. Need deep cold. Seems like now we are just watching wobbles with a favorable but a bit too close track to our SE. Not a bad place to be right now. I know what you're rooting for and I'm good with that because if you get hit flush, my property in VA will as well. I'd prefer to be down there for a good storm but opposite direction usually lol

We've seen this stuff in past morph into a weaker solution with a front end thump/dryslot. Ops often back down on strength with big cutters a week out. Get a modest wedge with snow on the ground and I can easily see it be a mixed event with decent accums (2-5"). We've had many in the past buy they aren't too memorable because of dryslot drizzledrip and slush when it shuts off. Either way it looks like a juicy storm cutting west is in the works no matter what. We'll see how it goes

We'll run circles defining the hybrids. We've done it many times lol. Any storm that jumps is called a Miller b because it looks like one but me and you dont see it that way. Barolclinic transfers from a low approaching from the deep south is not a Miller b in my book. They usually have big juicy WAA in front. A defining difference from a NS Miller B that never gets going until it's gaining latitude. Just my take and separates the 2 in my brain with how I view the possibilities.

CMC is simply amped. It wasn't the elephant OH transfer solution. If the euro shows the same heights (or better) at hrs 60-72 like the gfs/icon did, we can start not worrying about the most heartbreaking type of outcome. Didn't take much at all to knock that solution down today. Very subtle shift. Same with temps. I think too many people jumped the gun on a few wobbles warm past few days. I didn't like seeing it either but long range tracking shouldn't laser in so quickly. Being reactionary to ops beyond d4 can greatly reduce personal verification scores.

Gfs already looks like confluence/cold should be improved behind the 4th wave. Maybe something mucks it up but the short range trend looks good to me.

It was an improved run and you could see it by d4. I don't pay much mind to the ICON but the run was sweet. All we should care about is keeping the primary as far south of OH as possible for now. ICON had that door closed early

Icon cleaned up some of the disjointed upper level energy with the track across the deep south. Kept dirty air away and also kept the primary track away from the danger zone. What a beaut Clark!

What a nuking on the icon. Lol. MA special track to a tee

Imo- equal chance. Storm is going to want to punch into any strength of confluence. Strength of shortwave will determine how much force and strength of confluence will determine how much resistance. Small changes in both = sizeable changes in our yards. These types of details will likely wobble back and forth for another couple days b4 we can set narrow enough goal posts to make accurate, bold, and unrealistic snowfall calls.

Just uploaded my mid range tracking app to my brain. No ads! Been waiting for this. Immabout burned out on long range guessing and broad concept stuff. 2 years of non stop practice can do that to you. If it hits south I'll be reporting from Smith Mtn. If it hits north I'll be reporting from Weston CT. If it hits west I'll be in the news headlines and it won't be pretty

Driveway and neighbors driveway during the height. I rode the edge of the dryslot. Storm never took its foot off the gas. Only been 88 years.... lol

In some parts of the world, a Guinea pig peeing on you is believed to bring good fortune. You should encourage it daily. Make it snow

It hasn't but it's changed still. We used to use early Dec as a benchmark for understanding how winter is going to break. That been fooling people lately (myself included). Last 7 years or so we usually don't know what we're dealing with until after Dec. We try to know but it hasn't worked like it has in the past based on my observations. We've been getting curveballed A LOT. Even during times that should be more guessable during early winter. Interesting to ponder but might just be chaos.

100%. This is a crappy mock up but gets the point across. Get the Aleutian low (of any magnitude) to undercut the epo and it opens the door for a Seattle to St Louis track on the NS and a classic split coming into the SW. Either stream can produce individually (NS always dicey lol) but the phase potential lights up. Add in a steep epo and the polar stream joins the party. Get the NS and polar stream to link a few times and the conus will get real cold too as the bowl carves and vodka spills in. I can see it plain as fookin' day lol.... but is this the real life, or is it just fantasy?

One thing I keep repeatedly thinking about is how March has become a "better" winter month since 2014. On the flip, Dec has become more of a fall month in these parts. Makes sense with ocean temps among other things. What's interesting is the atmosphere still seems to want to run a "normal" winter cycle just later. 09/10 started in early Dec and pretty much quit after Feb 10th. We got missed by a biggie after but for the most part winter ended then. Especially with temps. Gotta wonder if a more typical and classic Nino patten sets up in mid Jan and runs thru mid March (or later) instead of shutting off in Feb like previous similar Ninos. Seasonal and monthly guidance had that idea going much of the fall. Maybe we should all stop caring so much about Dec. Maybe the signals for a good winter come later than usual. Just tossing out ideas. Plenty of time to observe over the coming years.

NGL.... it's very thought provoking. Every part of my wx intuition says this blocking episode will run until end of Feb. Maybe longer. For those that haven't been around for a long duration block, it doesn't mean we snow a lot. It can still do anything.... rain, dry, blizzard... takes more than a block to snow here. The big positive is *IF* something sets up right, the chance of maximizing is much higher. Blocks wax, wane, and wiggle too. They don't just park. But just having a blocked longwave pattern that fights back against latitude gain can open the door to many more possibilities than quick/progressive flow.