Bob Chill

One thing that has bugged me since beginning of Dec is even when d10-15 showed a nice mean h5 setup there was always very few good snow solutions in the mix. I know snowmaps are flawed but they help tell a story under the hood. 12z eps is encouraging for that. Not only is the mean h5 ok but the ens are always showing an unusually high # of solutions that include snowfall considering the lead time. Best run of met winter and that's indisputable

There are 2 things the EPS is trending towards that can salvage a portion of Jan. 1) is the progression of reducing the nasty -PNA/Aleutian ridge. That has been speeding up with the GEPS/EPS and the GEFS is being stubborn. 2) is the scand ridge pushing into Greenland. That's compressing heights to our NE in the Atl and creating confluence and lower heights in our area. This is very important. If the EPS is totally wrong about the scand ridge then we're still facing some SER issues and we'll need the trough axis (assuming there even is one) in a perfect location. Here's the run over run h5 comparison. Looking better in the right places. Still a hurry up and wait situation though. lol

EPS could be too fast or it could be seeing things more clearly. We had a couple days of good/bad run over run recently but the last 3 runs have been pretty promising honestly. And the trend has been for the better. I do know this is by FAR the busiest D10-15 meteogram for my yard all winter. There's not even a close second because much of the d10-15 has been void of anything good irt snowfall all winter. I'll just hug this for now:

Best d10-15 EPS run of winter by a large margin. Implies that if things break right there is good storm potential and not just messy nickles and dimes.

EPS has been picking up a window in the 17th-20th range for a few days. 12z is the best run yet. You can't expect any type of majority or consensus d10+. There's enough decent storms under the hood this run and not just nickle/dimes to be encouraged for 12 hours.

Sounds like you think the GEFS is right then and that's fine. But there is no doubt a model war going on with the consensus (GEPS/EPS) leaning towards knocking down the SE ridge and getting rid of the western trough inside of 2 weeks. There is reason to doubt a "treadmill" of SER/-PNA for weeks on end.

With my sunglasses because that is sun angle preseason Before you check out for 4 weeks. Check out the EPS d10-15. Very nice shift with the longwave pattern and a nice uptick in legit storms down the line. Very good run and speeds up getting rid of the SE ridge/western trough.

GEFS remains an outlier down the line. I figured the 12z GEPS would shift towards the GEFS but the spread between the ens widened. This goes along with my thoughts as to where I think we're going this month. Maybe the GEPS/EPS are too fast in shuffling things around but this is encouraging. Not a great pattern but def more wintry than the next 10 days.

I use the term as a basic adjective and not inside of a technical box. Any trough that touches the arctic circle and gulf of mexico is a full latitude trough in my brain.

At least it's on its own now. EPS/GEPS combo looks quite a bit different and have been slowly improving each run. I'll toss the gefs until one of the others start to agree

NA is our acronym for North America. Full latitude trough. Get that neg tilt and close off on the way north and it's fireworks for someone. It was just an interesting panel. Total fantasyland stuff though

It's atypical but this is a big storm setup for the eastern US in general. One of the biggest NA troughs I've seen. Obviously it's an op out of range but this is an impressive panel

Agree on the rollercoaster. Lost some time on any flip but now (imho only) we're seeing some agreement on how we get out and gaining a little time in the process. Gefs is now odd man out but until all 3 global ens agree on progression and timing I'll be nervous. Give me 2 runs of the gefs showing the GoA ridge building and I'm all in. It's still not a great look but magnitudes better than the next 10 days...

I posted this yesterday but feel even better about where the pattern is going. Imho- both the geps and eps are moving towards this look late Jan. Not a big dog but certainly faaaar better than where we are now.

EPS improved with the potential around the 17th. Meteos aren't out yet so I can't compare fine details run over run but overall it moved in the right direction. It's a tight window but looking half decent from afar. Gefs is odd man out with shuffling the pac ridge/trough. Eps and geps are rolling forward to a decent but not amazing look. Pleased overall as it appears the -pna death grip is easing.

Here's 0z eps spread during the 15-18th. About 10 members with more than a dusting so 20% see opportunity during this period. We'll see how that changes over the coming week

We have a discrete window between the 15-18th when strong confluence develops to our north out into the Atl and a half decent cold airmass to work with. All ens agree on some version. The tricky part is it's transient. So once chance at something from what I see. Will be at least 4-5 days before we know if a shortwave is going to cooperate

That transient confluence and favorable atlantic around the 17th is now showing up on all ensembles. Not sure how long the window will be but imho it's one of the better looks we've seen. All kinds of scenarios on the table with a big slow moving CAD high.

Verbatim that panel is a fail because the atl help is brief and back to square one by the end. However, spread is really starting to show up with both the pac ridge and confluence above us. I'm huggin the geps until something better comes along ETA: under the hood of that mean h5 panel is a good mix of half decent solutions to our north. About half are still crappy in the east but there are enough good ones to make it interesting with storm tracks.

I'd be thrilled with an active pattern and cold around. Ice/sleet/snow... don't care. Anything but rain and 50. 18z gfs shows the same Atlantic help as the ens around the 17th. Slowly seeing some consistency on our next real window.

@psuhoffman My best guess is we end up in this regime before the end of Jan. Geps is already there in 15 days. Eps/gefs are showing signs of moving this way. Latest weeklies look close enough.

@psuhoffman over the short/medium term we really couldn't draw up a worse hemispheric pattern. I'm avidly chasing less of a disaster. Today was a good day in modeland. String a few more in a row and it gets interesting again. It's been 3 weeks since the flip in mid Dec and all of our early fears from that flip are coming true. I just want out. I know we're not magically flipping to a big dog setup. I'm doubting a big dog setup happens at all but still 6-8 weeks to go before ruling it out. But for god sakes... give us a little cookie to chew on. Something.... anything...

@Ji Look what the geps does in the npac. That's a big change from where we are next 10 days. I'm thinking a cluster of eps members are seeing the same thing and that's why the run over run change on the EPS was so big. For the first time in a while we're seeing ens guidance in the nPac to not agree out in time in the npac. That nasty Aleutian ridge may be on the move before we think...

I don't disagree there but the changes start d10 and continue. A number of subtle hints being dropped that we won't be at war with the -pna for the entire next couple weeks. I'm not saying I like the setup d15 because I don't. However, the breakdown or relocation of the nPac ridge could be abrupt. My interpretation of the 12z eps is odds are increasing for a reshuffle in the nPac. Now we're seeing period of interest around the 17th to help pass time while fighting the -pna. My hunch is we're seeing the beginning of a longwave pattern shift showing up. Right now it's all washed and muddy because of time. If there is going to be a shift inside of 15 days the signal should grow from here.

EPS is start to at least move towards an improved Pac and reshuffle. For giggles take a look at d15 control h5. Scand ridge into Greeland...