Bob Chill

Weeklies say the pattern over the next 2 weeks is here to stay through mid Feb. 18z gefs is down right hot d15. I think today is rock bottom. Seriously. It can't get much worse. Weeklies are often wrong so I'm not saying I beleive it and think we're doomed for 6 weeks. But seeing basically an identical pattern set up for 6 straight weeks isn't fun to look at.

Don't make is more complicated than it needs to be. For right now we're dunski and there is nothing showing up anywhere that says that's going to change. If/when it does then it will be discussed in minute detail. All PSU is saying that just because it looks like a disaster now doesn't mean it's a lock for the next 8 weeks. There are escape hatches to keep an eye out for and until then play golf and stuff.

Ensembles have done an excellent job this year. There has only been one notable time where things made a big shift in the medium range and that was the brief -AO/NAO period we just had. That sorta popped up unexpectedly. Other than that d10-15 has done quite well. Especially since mid Dec. People who don't think models have any accuracy beyond 5-7 days are flat wrong this year. EPS has been killing it.

Jan 16 had a nice west based -nao

There's some splitting hairs going on. Nobody can predict months in advance and nobody claims to. However, there are reliable clues that can indicate good and bad well in advance. The AO being the biggest one. Dec is going to finish positive and not by just a little. Forecasts are for that continuing into Jan. Possibly strongly positive. For that reason alone we currently have and will continue to have below normal snow chances and well below normal big storm chances for the foreseeable future. That's not a guess. It's a fact.

12z EPS is showing a legit SE ridge at the end of the run now. Hope the d8-10 deal works out if we're heading to SE Ridgeville

Between today's 12z and last night's 0z, I'll take the 12z version any day. Last night was eye candy but it's a moth fart away from being on the rain side. A constant theme this year from medium to short range is less suppression, less cold, less blocking, and more rain. The 12z run had deep entrenched cold and tight spacing. That's the first time I've seen an op try and run precip into a large/established cold airmass in a long time.

It's a good TN valley overrunning setup. Shortwaves are pretty tight so amplified is unlikely. I liked the run a lot. Gives us a chance during a rare occurance of a solid antecedent airmass. Many of the EPS hits are weak wave/overunning deals. Not surprised to see the op throw one out. Would be nice to be tracking a legit threat under 6 days away. Getting closer...

I agree with @showmethesnow. We have at least 2 pna ridge spikes and EC troughs on tap from 1/5 - 1/10. First one is prob a lost cause as the antecedent conditions suck. The second on is much more interesting and is what both the gefs and eps have as our first legit window. I don't give a crap what ops say every 6-12 hours as we're still too far away for any type of reasonable accuracy. Keep the window open and maybe something breaks right. We could spend most of Jan chasing progressive troughs. Keep them coming and it will accidentally snow on us

Next 10 days are essentially a shutout. Seeing signs of life beyond that but who knows how things will shake out. I say we get snow by mid month for no other reason than having cold around during the heart of Jan requires the least amount of everything else to go right to get some snow. It does look like cold is returning in some fashion. Need a little luck

If you completely ignore the disgusting -pna and focus soley on the NAO domain... this panel would be encouraging. Even as is it's not that bad. Roll the pacific forward and we have a big storm setup... Gefs and EPS keep hinting that big UK ridge may press into iceland or even greenland. This is the most stout I've seen yet and about the only thing that can save us from the disaster we call the pacific

EPS has been gradually upping the odds after the 6th or so. Been a slow crawl from the depths of despair but 12z eps is the best run in a long time. It wouldn't be totally out of bounds to say there may be a legit threat window between 1/7 - 1/10....

Might want to stop buy an optometrist on the way home from work

The best feature on the euro op is the PNA ridge position. If that rolls forward then it's a decent east coast snow pattern. Problem is that it's a 10 day op run so the chances of the d10 panel being correct is a tiny sliver above 0%. The flip to a more conducive winter wx pattern is holding in time though. It might be 10 days away but it's not getting pushed out in time... yet

There's really not much to analyze right now. Full agreement on the next 7-10 days and it's not pretty. When/how we get out of the shutout will prob take on many shapes and sizes over the next week. The only important thing to track (imo) is the date where we're actually back in the game 1/6-1/7 seems to be holding in time for now. Hurry up and wait is all we got

Still at least 7-10 days of dead space to get through but ens are def trending towards at least normal snow chances beginning sometime around the 5-7th. I don't see any chance before then unfortunately.

Starting to see a trend towards some sort of weird hudson/quebec blocking ridge splitting flow and suppressing storm track in the mid latitudes. That and the UK ridge pushing polward is helping block the Atlantic. It's an odd type of setup but workable...

Heh, 18z gefs is a straight weenie run d10-16. All the hits are during that time. I scanned the members and most hits are coastals and not improbable weird crap. Prob a random blip as it came out of nowhere or... the gefs just discovered utopia

I was in the rockies that year and 2 things happened I'll never forget... my hands literally froze to the steering wheel of my truck and a tear froze my eyelashes together and I couldn't open my eye until I pulled the ice off. Don't remember exact lowest temps but -30 to -35 was common

The Pac air flood leading into Christmas was discussed at length 2 weeks in advance and people predicting shutout and warm conditions into the holidays hit it on the head from 1-2 weeks out.

Something less obvious worth keeping an eye on is the UK ridge pressing towards iceland/greenland. That can help block up the atlantic and fight off ridging in the east. This plot is a run over run change and not a height anomaly map. You can see the tendency for higher heights in that region as well as lower heights in the Atl near the 50/50 region. The UK ridge is pretty stout by d8 so it's prob not a phantom and could play an important role on how we get a flawed event down the line instead of suntans.

@psuhoffman Yep, once the big +AO showed up in combination with crappy ridge/trough alignment in the ePac leading into the holiday I knew it was going to be a problem for longer than just a week or so. I said as much when the crappy Pac showed up before Christmas but there was know way to now if it was going to dig in an hang around for a while. It's safe to say it's going to hang around for a while now. I didn't have high hopes leading into this winter as I was thinking a dud was on the way back in Sept/Oct but Nov came in like a lion and made me second guess everything. The big +AO during the first half of Dec was the first warning sign. The recent flip to a -AO was a bit promising but it didn't lock in. Now that we're back to a pretty sig +AO regime it's time to trim expectations and just sit back and hope a fluke/flawed event pops up. We're half decent at that around here so I'd be surprised if Jan went snowless.

It's not the pacific. It's looking at an op run waaaay beyond any type of useful range and expecting anything to be remotely correct that's a problem. It makes no difference what the gfs shows in the long range. Nothing is changing the fact that we are in an extend hostile period that may continue for the next 2 months or it might flip to deep winter out of nowhere. There is literally nothing worth tracking winter wx wise for the next 7 days minimum.

Yea, I thought that was a little silly honestly. @leesburg 04 says it well. There's a big difference between big game hunting and simple winter wx tracking. Is there any sign of a big dog pattern? Nope, not even close. Are there signs of enough ingredients available for some winter wx? Yea, all guidance has the door open for our most common way of getting snow... jacked up imperfect pattern that may accidentally work out. What's saving us now is no sign of a SE ridge. Amplifying progressive flow should deliver multiple winter airmasses during early Jan. We just need some good luck. We've had a couple bad breaks already. Time for equilibrium to kick in and throw us a bone.

@psuhoffman find me some analogs of what the eps and gefs are evolving into in the next 7-15 days. Lol. What a jacked up pattern. -PNA/++AO but is still lining up cold delivery (could be extremish cold) into the east. Hypothetically... if we get 3-4 separate shots of cold continental or even arctic air I think we can pull off an event before mid Jan. Def not a long track type of event as flow rippin and bucklin all over the mid latitudes. Just need choas to take over and get things lined up right. Ice, mixed, or even cold powder is possible. It won't come easy or be spotted from a distance but it does look like we're back in the game in early Jan