psuhoffman

It has to be good for something. God knows it can't get a thermal boundary right from D1

Sorry I was looking at the gfs not the euro lol. But euro is a good run too. Implies by day 10 it gets cold. Gfs is a good run. Cutter day 8-9 sets the table. Day 10 the whole Conus is COLD and the next system getting organized in the gulf. Euro and gfs agree that after the day 8-9 storm it gets cold enough that some real threats should show up after.

Maybe not but I doubt that first storm day 7-8 has much of a chance. After that it might be game on.

Where are you seeing it? Tropical Tidbits isn't loading and the two other sources I know of one only goes out to day 10 and the other hasn't updated 6z yet.

This isn't really just an early season problem. Anytime a blocking regime establishes but the antecedent airmass over the Conus is warm it takes a while. We can look at the last two significant blocking periods as examples. Last year the blocking started to establish the very end of February but we then had to waste a couple perfect track storms to rain early March before enough cold got into the pattern to support legit snow threats. January 2016 was the same and that was mid season. I distinctly remember a perfect coastal track storm but it was too warm. My area mixed with slush bombs when the precip was heavy but that's it. The boundary layer was torched still. It took a week or so and a few rain storms before we got a real threat. So even in mid winter if the airmass is warm when blocking develops it takes a while. Unfortunately typically that's the case as when we get blocking it's often the result of the PV being bombarded by waves and like this case both a retrograding ridge and a Conus ridge combine to displace and weaken the PV and create high lat blocking. But the Conus ridge also scours out all the cold too so we start the new pattern with an awful airmass in place. Im also not concerned about needing a "perfect" pattern. This isn't a Nina. There is no glaring flaw we have to overcome this year. Remember the years where it just seemed to want to snow? A cow in Ohio would fart and we would get snow. My gut says this is one of those years. The pattern the last few weeks has been decent but ambiguous in most ways. Far from perfect. Yet we have had numerous coastal systems that in winter would have been a snowfall event and one actual snowfall out of an only half decent pattern in NOVEMBER! I feel that even if we only have a decent h5 pattern at times this is a year that can work.

Fortunately we don't have to wait for you're snark. I see your in mid season form also.

The mjo cycling the cold phases repeatedly is one of the best signs imo. Keep it cycling like that all winter and it would be hard to fail.

That was the first storm I meant but I had the wrong year. I meant dec 2002 not 2003. The 2003 storm was good in the typical nw spots but did little in the cities.

There is no easy answer to this and it's two different answers depending where in our region you are. History has shown places west of the fall fine with some elevation can get a decent snow event in December much easier. But I think you are more focused on the urban corridor. The best 2 ways to get it done there are an incredibly anamolous cold shot or a perfect h5 setup and a perfect track surface storm in tandem with just enough cold to work. If you can get a reasonably cold airmass and a perfect track it can happen. Or very anamolous cold and a wave. But the problem is getting that. Both are rare in December. Cold just typically hasn't had enough time to build enough to press the jet this far south on average. When we do get cold it's typically a quick shot then out. But I don't remember too many instances where we got a perfect setup and it failed simply because it was December. More often the real problem is getting a perfect setup this early is difficult. By perfect I mean cold enough air mass and a system to take the perfect track. Even this storm yesterday could have been more snow in DC had it taken the perfect track. An h5 through PA and a surface storm up the Delmarva inside ocean city is a flip to rain track for 95 even in January. One of the most impressive things was the result given that unfavorable track. I wouldn't honestly expect to do any better then I did here with that track even in winter. Had the h5 tracked 100 miles south and the surface system tracked off the coast instead of inside it D.C. Could have had a warning criteria snowfall. In the last 20 years there have only been 4 systems pre xmas to get significant snow into the coastal plain that I can think of. One was dec 5 2003. That was a miller a/b hybrid that was pretty weak at the surface and h5 but took a perfect track and had the advantage of a nino stj. There was a weak frontal wave in 2004 that dropped 3-6" east of D.C. A clipper in 2007 that maxed out and then of course 2009 which was the ultimate perfect h5 and surface track. So 4/20 years had a signoficant snowfall on the coastal plain pre xmas. That's only 20%. But 2 of those were modoki ninos so it's 2 out of the 4 modoki ninos in the last 20 years. Not bad odds if we look at it that way.

12z FV3 and 18z GFS start to tease us with an early December threat. Obviously well supported by the pattern.

I've never seen the EPS and gefs in better agreement on day 15!

Have we decided who is the reaper and in charge of the panic room this year?

Thank you for your contributions!!! I've been thoughoughly impressed by all the discussions lately. The winter/long range/storm threads have all been excellent. Stayed on topic and when there was banter it was funny and then back on topic. And some of the posters seem in mid season form already with their A game. So far the quality of this regions threads have been impressive imo!!!

That panel screams incoming.

I wasn't disagreeing with you either just agreeing with your caveat that it's really far out. I'd rather be in a good pattern worried about super long range bad looks (not even bad just mediocre) then in a crap pattern waiting for a super long range better one.