Bob Chill

Don't have the heart to post this in the disco thread... looks very familiar doesn't it?

18z GEFS continues to not like the d8-10 event. Mostly rain solutions for everyone. Gefs has a warm bias right? RIGHT?! Lol OTOH- gefs looks really good for the next event in line.

The 10 count was within areas east of the mountains so a general statement because location matters as usual. Here's the 24hr snow meteo for Gburg Here's the qpf meteo. Lot's of big rainers in the bunch it seems. About 1/3rd have over 1" qpf. Considering what we're seeing on the ops now it's easy to envision the razor thin margin of error. This can all easily improve with better track/colder air etc but anyone who gets married to this "snowstorm" from long leads is setting themselves of for a disaster.

Given the general setup I would think there are mulitple ways for it to work out. Op was a unicorn. I think we can all agree there. Not seeing a number of 1-3/2-4 deals implies that this may be an all or none type of scenario. Crapload of time before it all starts really mattering. Would feel better if ens consolidate towards a more unified solution by the end of the weekend.

@psuhoffman Under the hood there are 10 out of 50 that hit the piedmont/I95 corridor. Some big hits and some lame ones. I expected more than 10 given that it's d8-10 now and not way out there. I wasn't expecting the majority to suddenly jump on the big hit parade but I was also expecting a bit more support than what it shows. An improvement is an improvement though so trend is friend and stuff.

12z EPS is better than 0z but not really close to supporting the op. EPS supports a forum divider or all rain more than a flush hit along the piedmont. Still an improvement run over run and there is a cluster of I95 hits in the mix.

That mindset plagues the human race. lol. At every single step of your life there are people more successful than you, richer than you, luckier that you, etc. Appreciate what you have at all times because in the same vein there are always people less successful, less wealthy, unluckier, etc.

Euro is showing such a basic and easy setup that I can't imagine anything going wrong

True but it's actually really predictable. When it's snowing there's a 100% chance of snow. When it's not there's a 100% chance of fail. It really is that simple.

It's nice to see things holding in time as the leads close. Appears to be our best general setup of the winter so far but that really isn't saying much considering how abysmal it's been. lol. My expectations are slowly shifting towards above normal odds of getting some sort of snow event. Temps are going to frustrate us though. No real deep cold being advertised until late in the first week of Feb. I'd hate to have a forum divider storm. General pattern looks like the typical east of the fall line is dicey at best and once you get further NW it looks pretty good.

It was a pretty good run overall. Extremely active just like the ops are showing but man is the spread huge on sensible wx. Keeping it simple is the best approach. Transition into an active pattern with some semblance of a PNA ridge and let the chips fall. I'm starting to think we won't go 15 days without some sort of winter wx. How much and when is above my pay grade.

GEFS shows some potential for the Feb 1-2 deal to work out but it also really illustrates how close we are on temps and how that could be a problem. Beyond that is typical shotgun in "who the F knows" land. ETA: need to walk back on the who the F knows comment... GEFS actually has a cluster centered around the 5th-7th. Nothing eye popping but it's easy to see

GFS is entertaining AF. No idea if it's within the envelope or way out on a tangent but if things go down similar to the GFS it's going to be really fun around here. At least in the tracking department. The shoveling dept is TBD.

The setup could easily provide a suppressed/sheared final result so I'm not ruling anything out (I'm sure you know this already). How many times have we seen a steady march from suppressed to even too far north from D4 inwards? Too many times to count? At least a couple times a year? If there was a stout -AO and/or -NAO then a suppressed solution comes much easier. We don't have either so small differences in timing result in large differences in the solutions. I'm kinda jaded this year and it feels like the entire atmosphere is working against us but the atmosphere is like the stock market. Incredibly unpredictable the further you go out in time.

Icon was trying to bring it back too...its like on its 3rd resseructuon Anyone who buys into a suppressed solution more than 5 days out has a very short memory. I'm not implying I think odds are high but I would absolutely not be surprised if that wave works out in some fashion around here. This kind of busy flow really kills accuracy beyond D4 on the ops. The fact that they are jumping around should be completely expected and not a sign of models suck

Seeing good tracks with no cold during prime climo is a giant billboard highlighting what our consistent problem has been the last 5-6 weeks. It's just one of those years where we can't buy a real winter airmass. 2-3 day cold shot in a progressive pattern carries low probabilities of frozen precip. I'd like to think the busy flow off the Pac creates an opportunity to combine enough cold with enough precip. Still very possible but ops are highlighting the constant risk we've been dealing with for quite a while now.

OMG! The 18z GFS just nailed the next 12 days and we're screwed! No reason to look at models anymore cuz it's over. Unless you dig into the ensembles for a better picture of possibilities This is one busiest ens runs inside of 10 days we've had all year. Perfectly illustrates that multiple waves and progressive flow is causing havoc on NWP. The 30th through Feb 4th is a very large window with MASSIVE spread in sensible wx outcomes. I predict wild swings on ops every 6 hours for the rest of the week. Ji might need rx meds to get him through the week. Either way he'll require daily group counseling in this thread.

I'm intrigued with how guidance is now squashing the d6-7 wave. Considering how winter has gone start to finish it would be fair to expect the squashed solution to relax as we move through the medium range. If it never happens then it's a sure sign that things are changing. Can't think of a single wave that trended south/squashed/colder from D5 on in. Might be forgetting something but overall all waves in the midwest have ended up being norther/warmer/rainier at game time.

Bring the precip. Cold doesn't matter.

Yea, got squished by the NS but setting up for an amplified storm after. Iterations of all these discrete features are going to cause quite a bit of run over run changes. We need to get one inside of 5 days before we can discuss anything specific. Anything beyond 5 days is prob a phantom. The ideas are plentiful but the most likely to be right idea hasn't shown up yet.

Here's the visual. Muli param 6z control and h5 anom @ hr144. This is an incoming snow event for sure. 0z Icon was amped up. Euro control is more sheared but provides much more wiggle room imo The building PNA ridge on the heels and atl confluence in front is a classic progressive setup for the MA. The slower amped solutions introduce to many potential problems. A quick sheared cold hit is preferred over gunning for a miller A. Not that what I think means a damn thing. I just prefer the easy road at this point.

I'm just looking at it the same way I look at the gfs beyond d7. Gives you a general idea of possibilities without having to slice and dice all the ens panels. EPS agrees that potential activity increases as we move into Feb. Seeing the gfs and euro control advertising similar setups is a step above completely random shotgun chance. We'll see how it goes

@Ji How about the 0z euro contol? 3 events and 1 big one. How about the 6z control? Incoming event just beyond hr144 The way I see it is if we actually go get 3 chances that are mostly driven by a +pna then one is prob going to work out. No guarantees in this dumb game of course. The upcoming chances appear to be better set up than any jacked up chance we've had.

Agree. It's slowly getting interesting again and under 10 days. There like 9 shortwaves and 6 surface lows on gfs. I'll go out on a limb and say it didn't just nail it... but it does show mostly rain so could be right.

I wish it was like 3 days closer. Lol. Ye ole rabbit hole won't get me... yet