psuhoffman

My opinion of NWP has not changed one bit this year. Inside 72-100 hours...when they are actually meant to be useful... they have been fine. There have been no major busts inside that range. Even this weekend...that was a weak sauce wave and anyone shocked it gets squashed doesn't know how to interpret guidance. The signs that COULD happen were there. It's not a major bust that such a weak wave trended a little weaker/souther. It wasn't a major shock that the December storm trended a little north some at the last minute...major juiced up STJ systems almost always do the last 48 hours. If you know how to add a little bit of sound climo/physics common sense to the guidance they have been and are very useful inside the medium range. At 100-200 hours they give some clues and general ideas but not specifics. Exact storm tracks will change and details wont be perfect...but the guidance has been "OK" there also. Outside 200 hours they are very very low probability. The verification scores day 10-15 are barely above climo. The CMC has been running BELOW climo actually lol. They sometimes can be useful in years where they are picking up on the major pattern drivers well. This was obviously not one of them. But that is common. People were asking about 2013/14 and there were several times that year where the 10-15 day looked pretty bad and in reality we ended up with snowstorms during that time. Models kept trying to pump the SE ridge and in reality it kept being suppressed by pressing cold and pieces or lobes of the TPV peeling off and coming across to our north. In that case it was kind of similar to this year. TYPICALLY a -epo +nao driven pattern will not end well for us. The boundary USUALLY ends up to our NW. That year we kept getting perfect ancillary influences to help but the guidance wasn't seeing it well at range and kept pulling the cold back. It never happened other than one period around xmas (just forecast a warm xmas period every year). I never use the NWP at 15 days as the basis of my forecast. I didn't use the seasonal guidance as the basis of my winter forecast. I used "guesses" about the dominant pattern influences based on the current conditions in the fall and then looked at analogs and basic pattern recognition. That forecast was supported by the guidance and so that added a degree of confidence (falsely). But I never used the NWP at those time ranges to form a forecast, only to support it. Day 10+ guidance should never be more than just a small puzzle piece in putting together a long range forecast. Frankly I think being upset at NWP this year is silly because we humans were no better. Myself at least, I kept falling for the same things the guidance did. Why should I hold the computers to a higher standard??? I saw the same exact things they saw and that was why I kept getting fooled by the looks, the guidance was showing what I expected also. Maybe there was a feedback loop there where the guidance was helping to blind me to other factors, but that is shame on me not them. In the end it was a bad year for long range forecasting because some of the assumptions made by humans and computers about what would drive the pattern turned out to be wrong. It happens. We move on. But nothing that happened this year changed my opinion of numerical based weather prediction. YES its working....I am gonna bob chill troll our way back into this! Hopefully my little fun last night didn't annoy you too much but my god it was getting crazy with the immediate emotional stress reactions to every model run and I decided to have a little fun with CAPE. IF....if if if....the evolution we fear is correct there would still be an opportunity around the beginning of March. As the trough out west lifts northeast it would compress the flow and create confluence to our north. That would temporarily suppress the boundary to our south for a while. There would be a window to get a wave to stay under us around then. The GFS keeps hitting that time period and there is support for that. But it would be temporary and then by March 7-10 Winter would be over if the NAO goes positive. The NAO really is the key to that evolution. IF the NAO stays even just slightly negative it would force the trough under it and suddenly its not a bad look. But if the NAO doesn't cooperate and that trough lifts... its game over once that happens. One thing about that though. In a conversation with Ian and HM, Ian said something interesting about a month ago...how many winters has the NAO been mainly positive and then just flipped hard negative in the middle of the winter. The answer is not many if any at all recently. Even in winters where the sensible weather flipped and there was blocking...there had been some bouts of major blocking earlier in winter...it just hadn't worked out. But there are not a lot of examples where there was no major blocking at all through mid winter and then it just flipped late January or early February. I took note of that...but should have weighted it more obviously. However...there are examples where there was no blocking all winter and it flipped in late Feb and March. The sudden changing of the wavelenghts that time of year changes the equation. So perhaps blocking might be more possible as we head into March. Maybe... not counting on it just saying its not as statistically unlikely from a historical perspective.

I brought up that possibility to Bob when the cutter went poof. Maybe I am doing this. These stupid fail scenarios I come up with (even before the models show that) end up right way way way too often. Maybe I should stop doing that.

Weren’t you paying attention. Next year is 2016 without the fluke HECS. Then two Nina’s. But 2023 will be rocking...if the mjo doesn’t screw it up again.

Lol that is an awful match. Pna is the only similarity.

I was 100% goofing around because some were having an emotional stress reaction to every run! That said the pattern is not heading the right way. It could flip around yes. But hard to feel great about the trends right now.

Wow NAM is REALLY amped. 989 mb!!!! with the low up in Canada suppressing our storm...

The cfs flipped today. The last 3 runs are just like that weeklies look. SE ridge never goes away kidding aside I really think there is more to the se ridge than the pac. I think it’s a cause more than an effect in this pattern. Even once the pacific gets right and pushes the trough out it’s just forced up and over the ridge. The se ridge isn’t being caused by the western trough. That’s making it worse yea but I startee suspecting and now I’m convinced there is another factor here that I’m missing that’s causing that feature to persist regardless of the look out west.

We’re due!

They obviously don’t want that.

Our children’s children have a chance.

I will. I’m out. It’s not worth it. I’ve been planning on Colorado or Northern New England for a while. I think it’s time. Why have to wait? Go somewhere where a disaster is only getting 75”! I’ll still pop in now and then to say how great the weeklies look though!

It will snow again. We might not live to see it but it probably will snow again someday!

We are probably done for a while. We missed our chance. This was the low solar modoki nino year that should of been a huge snow year. But fluke things like the sswe and mjo ruined it. Last time we had a weak modoki nino we transitioned to a super nino. We got lucky with one storm but odds favor that not repeating. So next year is likely a repeat of 2016 without the HECS. Think December 2015 but all winter! After that we probably have a couple years of Nina to get through. But by 2023 we might have a shot again. Just have to get through the next 3 bad years first. It wont be all bad. We might get at least some snow. Odds favor maybe 3-4” next winter for the season. Maybe a couple 1” events and 2” on the front of a cutter that washes it away. After that the two Nina’s probably are 5-10” years. A few healthy 1-2” clippers. Maybe if we’re lucky a 2-4” event somewhere. By 2023 we might get another warning event. If another sswe doesn’t screw it up again.

It’s over

It’s funny I had totally forgot about them until you said what you did about the eps and then I went and looked. It was exactly what we expected. I kind of started having that not good feeling when the NAO again failed and the trough starting to trend towards lifting instead of progressing east. That goes nowhere good. Last night when I saw the eps lifting the trough over the se ridge I thought the weeklies are gonna be ugly. They didn’t disappoint. Flat out horrid awful run. Couldn’t be any worse. The se ridge holds straight to spring. Watch this will be the first time all winter they are right!

You don’t have to project. Last nights eps was very similar and the new weeklies show exactly what it ends up as

I see it too

Id like to see that se ridge gone though. It gets harder to win a boundary war in March. 18z gefs looks like total crap day 8 on imo.

Dunno if your kidding but that’s kind of what the guidance is trending towards imo.

Let me know when your posts will be changing to less awful.

It’s going to snow in VA Saturday. Next week it will snow somewhere in the northeast. Might be way north of us but he cancelled for the northeast and New England too remember! He was exaggerating and going to bust anyways.

Am I the only one that notices huge changes day 10 on the gefs and eps? The trough starts shifting east but over the top of the ridge. But trough east of Hawaii. Epo ridge in better alignment. What maddening is something else is obviously pumping the se ridge. It’s not the western trough. Look here that’s a mess. But the pac is fine. We saw the shift we wanted. And it kicks the trough out but it gets shunted over the ridge. Something else is causing that se ridge. That said such a huge sudden shift in guidance could indicate changes coming. Maybe they are just picking up on the changes. But I’m starting to wonder why the se ridge doesn’t want to budge!

Mother Nature doesn’t let me call plays. If she did we would all be too busy figuring out where to put the 300” of snow to be on here.

Isotherm is brilliant but he has been wrong on almost everything this year so was everyone else