LakePaste25

The low temperature this morning at ERI dropped down to -7. This is the coldest temperature recorded since February 2015.

Erie is at around 50” on the season and the lake is about to freeze. Which means at the airport, we need another 50” to hit average and we’re relying purely on synoptic. That’s a very tough ask. 13-14 was above the 105” average and even last year was.

Likely real but it will potentially take longer for the Northeast to warm up due to the tendency of CAD. I’ve been burned too many times by this setup, so now I’m careful to say it’s an instant torch for us.

During 23-24, we did have Nino like jet extensions/CONUS torches. But, whenever the jet retracted, it snapped back to an Aleutian ridge Nina regime with cutters. There was maybe a 1-2 week period in Jan and another 1-2 week in Feb where we actually had an E US trough if i remember correctly. Usually we would see less aleutian ridging in a typical Nino.

This could take some time to make it to the northeast as we slowly scour out the cold air and also risk CAD setups. I’m eyeing early Feb for the warmup here.

models have been over-amping -epo’s most of the winter thus far, which happens to have downstream consequences of storms not phasing early and cutting. i would be careful to take the default position of “every trough will come east.” it’s important to understand the upstream model biases in play.

Makes sense. if you over-amp the -epo in the long range and then deamplify, the cold comes east rather than dig for gold in the west.

Looks like classic PV/+TNH coupling

Week 2 12z EPS guidance show more interest for the coastal cities. Not a strong signal, but it’s there. Week 1 should stay n/s dominant and confined to the lakes.

The 6z Euro has a clean, amped ridge out west and clippers digging for gold. I have not seen this pattern since Jan/Feb 2015.

Makes you wonder if we will ever see anything like 2014-2015 again due to that pesky MC forcing. Then again, February 2015 was generationally cold here and rivaled January 1977 in terms of anomalies (-15), so it would be tough to repeat that even without the warming.

it’s possible but we need to wait and see. 2014-2015 was headed that way until it fizzled out in the fall. Ultimately, we did go strong/super the following year (15-16). 23-24 was pretty much inevitable that it would be strong due to all of the warmth held up in the west pac after 3 nina’s.

I agree that pattern generally does not support sustained blocking. That said, I wouldn’t rule out an opportunity while that pattern settles in and while the blocking decays.

Something to watch out for. If this materializes, it would trigger a positive East Asian Mountain Torque (+EAMT), which would extend the pacific jet and help push that aleutian ridge eastward towards the west coast (+PNA).

Agreed and makes sense. February here i’m expecting canonical Nina, which is usually a mixed bag of 60+ degree torches, rain/ice/sleet/snow overrunning events as the SE ridge waxes and wanes. January colder and mostly snow.

Yeah i guess my question is why we need the warm pool to extend east this year and not last year. For feb it makes sense. What is different about this January vs. last January when we had a +PNA?

Yeah and he even states this earlier. I’m not necessarily trying to call him out for being wrong but i’d like to know what has changed and is giving us a more canonical Nina.

You’re asking the same questions as I am. I asked him directly as well. The warm pool looks similar to last year unless i’m midreading something. Maybe it’s because the Nina itself looks stronger this year.

It’s important to note however that Eric Webb was calling for a similar pattern as last year back in November (+TNH). His main caveat is that -PNA episodes would be more frequent this year. So far that is the case, and if @40/70 Benchmark is right, we could improve things by mid Jan. The phase 8 hype was clearly over the top and the MJO entering phase 8 (and then collapsing into repeated fast-moving KW’s) is what is about to give us this pattern. You’d almost want to see the MJO re-emerging over the MC in phases 4-6 to enhance the standing convection over the Indo-pacific warm pool, which would inject some more momentum into the pacific jet and help nudge things eastward.

It is also one of the coolest stations during summer heatwaves due to the overgrown tree canopy, so this cuts both ways.

Classic CAD setup which denies the coast of the torch. So despite it being warm just about everywhere else, we’ll constantly hear about how it’s “not a torch” because the most important cities in America will be cooler.

the warm pattern is coming As expected, the cold pattern that was in place this month is unlikely to finish with any significant I-95 snowstorms (there will be a light/moderate event this weekend). The H5 pattern on the ensemble mean left little room for little amplification, and the EPS snow mean was not supportive. It’s always important to lean into the pattern before hyping big snowstorms with every cold pattern.

Models have been placing the block too far west, which impacts how much it bleeds into the EPO domain. Take the 11th-14 for example. A week ago, the EPS had a positive EPO for this time period. Now, it has a deeply negative EPO.

I don’t have the data for N NC, but RIC had a major snowfall in December 2018.

those could be coming next fall from the same suspects LOL