NittanyWx

The antecedent airmass being marginal is a legitimate aspect of forecasting this storm. Not sure I understand this comment. Modeling is fair game inside d7 as are the slight synoptic differences. Some of y'all get so emotional when there's a storm around and I don't understand why.

I would much prefer an overrunning scenario vs a coastal for more frozen precipitation locally in this scenario. That said, this can work under the right sense of synoptic circumstances. Looking to amp just enough via a combination of a deepening low (but not too deep) and just enough ridging out west to not overwhelm a marginal Canadian HP and not be suppressed. It's doable, but it still requires a few things to go right. The 10th in my view is unlikely to deliver frozen precipitation for most. I believe the EC Ens this afternoon will likely end up too cold with that.

We're definitely not in a Nina-like background state

As discussed, the 6th-7th window is the one opportunity I dont totally dismiss regarding snow chances. Still need a few things to go right to make it happen, but some HP in east Can is helpful. You need to amp this some, but a deep bombing coastal low probably overwhelms marginal HP help for most in the area.

In places where there are statistically significant El Nino correlations? Yes, absolutely.

Yes.

As an aside, the insistence on seasonal forecasting is kind of strange because increasingly the value I see being added is in days 10-30. I don't think it's a crapshoot anymore regarding temperature regimes. You can add value there and increasingly its the window the energy and retail clients are seeking value added by meteorologists in. I get asked more about week 3-4 than week 2 at this stage in my career.

Must be mild because the NYC forum is back to fighting each other. For the record, bluewave has been solid. Not perfect, but no one is. He's done a better job recognizing source region issues than some red taggers. Can we move on now?

The hill in this case is a 500 foot cliff

I think the EC Weeklies are again showing a +EPO reward of NE. Given all I've discussed about this lately, I don't think it's something you can ignore outright in favor of seasonality and hard transition to +PNA. There's a transitional window you're gonna need to deal with and there is a risk of more Pac air. Hence my comment about last 10 days of Jan.

Im not one who would qualify as someone who had a favorable view for snow this month until perhaps past MLK and you can look at my posting history about it.

I'd also say that I'd adjust +1 C from any analog in the 50s. Gotta be honest with the current state of our climate and account for it if you're gonna use it as a forecaster. This is the type of stuff that trips up the cold crowd on WxTwitter

FWIW I think the time to push panic button is if you're not seeing PNA height rebuild last 10 days of Jan. So you're getting an idea of that in about 10 days.

It's very difficult to get a weak source region to deliver anything now in the east. Possible isn't probable and that's the view I'm taking 1h Jan. We're missing HP in eastern Canada for any length of time outside of that Jan 6-8 period (36-48 hours or so) and that would be the only window I'd say 'maybe' at the moment for the bulk of SNE. I don't think a coastal works there for snow though outside of the far interior. Think you'd need overrunning into N/NE winds from the retreating HP. That said, I do think it's a good thing that you've got at least some cold air this side of the pole mid Jan. The way out of this mild pattern is gonna have to start in the west. For me personally the game changed once you saw that massive jet extension because of the damage it did to NA snowpack buils and the sheer amount of Pac air over the continent. At that point any way out was gonna take some time and several step changes. This is step 1 and 2. For the end month period to deliver, you'd look to see this trough slide eastward around the MLK period and seasonal rebuild of Nino induced heights out west.

I'm glad you got to experience that storm here because forecasting it was a pain in the ass.

Never done TV. Did radio for 8 months at the start of my career. I had some coverage in Willimantic, CT and Keene, NH among my radio stations.

We haven't had it to this degree. We are at record low snowcover right now nationally and for NA.

I think the giveaway was threefold on how bad the source region is/was: 1) Snowcover, or in this case the complete lack thereof 2) Lack of appreciably anomalous HP upstream And 3) +25s in the front weeks for N/NW Canada preceding this h5 change. While I don't disagree you generally will get better performance at h5, I think this was a situation where the forecasters had enough in front of them to say 'you know, I don't like the source despite the h5, I'm not gonna paint this significantly colder than the model because I don't see a mechanism where I can tap into anything'.. The play was to reduce the much much above for a small period and get closer to normal. But I think by mid-Dec you had a lot of reasons to question whether even normal is valid.

Go, avoid the tourist traps. Definitely do the sunrise bike ride at the volcano.

Yeah exactly on your last point, which I think was well articulated over the past few weeks. Could snow isn't will snow. And I think the main gripe I'd have if I was rooting for cold/snow is that plenty of folks shared the h5 of the weeklies as a sign for 'massive changes and improvement', yet there'd be no one sharing the t2m, which accurately showed the air being advected via PNA spike was mP due to an extended jet. Here's what I mean...two weeks back I was asked what I thought about the weeklies at work and I had the h5 charts sent to me and the following: 'seeing on twitter a lot of folks think this is a colder pattern east for New Years...thoughts?' My response was, did they share the 2m charts? The source region sucks, this isn't gonna deliver anything meaningful/prolonged in early Jan. The 2m charts were pretty damn warm at the time: Well, here's what we got at h5 surrounding New Years: I dent think that's a bad job by the weeklies at all. I do think, however, that it was a bad job by certain forecasters ignoring the source region and assuming that the Pac jet would magically ease and cold would just appear. There were plenty on here who disagreed with that premise, but I'd say that was more the minority opinion at the time. For what it's worth, the EC Ens has also had a cold bias, so risk is this may come in even warmer/closer to Euro weeklies. As forecasters, there is some element of strategy to what we do and what we communicate. If I see an h5 that's 'better' but I see no source air to advect, I'm not gonna ignore that source air and say 'you know what, the weeklies are way too warm because of h5 and it'll roll forward colder' personally. I'm not saying that to tout my forecast, I'm saying that because I think people got trapped up at h5, whereas some correctly (several in here to their credit) didn't see the mechanism for getting meaningful cold into NA for anything more than a slight step change/transient cool shot that wouldn't last without reinforcing HP and an airmass that wasn't cold to begin with and had no snowcoveras it was advecting into the region. So, yes, it can snow there, but a lot has to go right. I think the conversation was skewing more towards 'this is a hell of a lot better and split flow is exactly what you want'. The premise being there was longevity to a colder look and this would be normal. My point was the weekly didnt show that, it showed a better h5 but still a very marginal airmass. It's only 'exactly what you want' if you have a source airmass. Still keeping tabs on Jan 6-7, but outside of that there's not much in this for early Jan on either cold or snow

Already went a couple years back. It's a beautiful place and the people are truly special. Surfed Kuta and Uluwatu, did the temples, spent time with people and got to speak with several regular folks there. It has a special energy about it. If and when I retire I'm doing 2-3 weeks there with the Mrs.

In terms of sensible weather impact it's already dead. Indonesia is one of my forecast regions.

Yeah I'm more looking at it from a week 3/4 prog from the EC weeklies than inside the week 2 frame. I got a few charts I'm gonna share a bit later on today to articulate what I'm saying. As far as the EC Ens goes, it has had a bias for several weeks of heights and temps being progged too low d 8-15 for most of this winter.

You're missing what I'm saying...my post was about weekly h5 view on the EC weeklies for first week of Jan being the basis for a colder early Jan forecast. A point forecast would be averaged into a week 3 mean...

I think you should be feeling good about how this pattern looks at a long lead time. I'm also not calling anyone out specifically.