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psuhoffman

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Everything posted by psuhoffman

  1. psuhoffman
    My conviction on this is not 100% Im open to having my mind changed on the Dec wave. But what I noted was the cold at the mid levels got in ahead of the wave. But the boundary, even up here, was a mess. Places close to 95 had snow for hours it just couldn’t really accumulate. I don’t even think it was getting colder in the boundary. It seemed to me what cold there was got in in time it just want cold enough and not sure another 6 hours would have mattered that much. But again I could be wrong here. That one I’m willing to adjust my opinion on. But Jan 7. There was no excuse for that ish.
  2. psuhoffman
    Numerical indexes don’t often match the realities of the long wave pattern. That’s why I post the h5 never index values. Anomalies in one part of a domain can skew the values. Also what we focus on as the “pna” is actually only one small part of the domain (western US) but it’s the part that matters most for our snow. When people day PNA there usually what they’re referring too, a western US trough, even if technically the pna might not be negative due to other parts of the domain.
  3. psuhoffman
    Oh I’m seeing it. But there is another thread and even if that does trend better I’m likely to do a lot better so I’m sensitive in those scenarios not to say much. I feel bad for everyone else when I get snow and they don’t.
  4. psuhoffman
    That last part is where this all comes together. Maybe right now that just won’t work because everything’s shifted north by the expanded mid latitude circulation
  5. psuhoffman
    I agree with a lot of this. But why did you expect a +pna in a -PDO Nino? There have been 4 Moderate/strong -PDO Ninos. None featured a +pna. Mean for the 4 is below. 3 of the 4 were some of the snowiest winters in history here including 2010! The one exception was 1973 which was a +QBO and has a crazy +++AO So if we agree that was an outlier and toss all 3 examples of a -pdo moderate or stronger Nino featured both a -pna and a shit ton of snow. Actually if you simply take all moderate to strong ninos the mean is a -pna. It’s only weak modoki ninos like 2003 and 2015 that feature a +pna. But Baltimore averages 40” of snow in -QBO ninos despite the fact the pna is typically negative. I never expected a +pna this winter. My analogs that produced a mean snow of 42” were -PNA city. There is something else going on. It’s not the pna because the pna was negative in past epic snowy ninos.
  6. psuhoffman
    @Stormchaserchuck1 you know what this isn’t fair to you so imma just come out and say it. I’ve been beating around the bush with you because some freak out when anything related to warning gets brought up. But it seems what’s going on is I’m saying “this should work, look at all the times we snowed with that” and you seem to be implying “that doesn’t work anymore”.
  7. psuhoffman
    The Dec “anafront” wave that I got 4”. It wasn’t actually an anafront. It was on long range guidance. It morphed into a nice caboose wave where the mid level and surface track was perfect for DC and Balt. I was actually NW of the best precip with that wave. Only reason I was the snow max was the places further east that should have been were too warm! And the 850s were displaced well southeast of the actual rain snow line, east of 95, the whole event. Historically with these trailing waves behind a front the 850 and snow line are not that disconnected! Imo if I showed you just the h5, h7, h85, mslp, and qpf plots and said “where is the snow max” you’d probably say a nice 3-6 stripe right through DC/Balt. But they got white rain instead. I know it wasn’t as significant as the Jan 7 wave. That one could have been 6-10” if it was just colder. I know the slp took a slightly inside track but that’s because of the crap thermals. The mid and upper track of that wave was perfect and with better thermals the slp doesn’t jog inside and end up under mid level low like that imo. But those little 3-4” snows being subtracted add up. I’m not saying all 3 definitely should have been snow. I’m not saying every perfect track system in a bad thermal regime was snow in the past. But a significant % was. So I take note when they all seem to fail. If we go back through the last 7 years which we all know have been the worst snow period in DC/Balt recorded history, if we simply flip about 1/3 of all these perfect wave pass winter rainstorms to snow, it still wouldn’t be some epic good period. But we wouldn’t be talking about it the same way. We would simply be in the midst of one of our more typical down snow cycles that happen regularly through history. What’s made it awful instead of just bad is this phenomenon imo.
  8. psuhoffman
    you just said the quiet part out loud.
  9. psuhoffman
    @Stormchaserchuck1 look at this 4 weeks! And if we get another 4 weeks to end winter like this it will skew the mean back towards this for the Dec-March period.
  10. psuhoffman
    Why are you posting the day 12 of the worst operational model?
  11. psuhoffman
    We’re talking about the pattern coming up. Not the pattern we just had. Most of Dec and late Jan were bad. In between was a good pattern for about 4 weeks. Unfortunately we wasted a lot of it because the Dec pattern torched the whole continent and took weeks to get cold enough. We wasted a few very good opportunities and one perfect track rainstorm in that period. But the two bad patterns will mute the mean of the one good.
  12. psuhoffman
    Btw for when I do my post analysis I’m logging that this is now going to be the 3rd wave that takes a perfect track through central/southern VA and DC/Balt get no snow from it. I don’t mean the surface low SLP is highly affected by the thermal boundary and will be displaced if it’s warmer than it should be. But the wave (look at the SW track) was perfect. Yes the loading pattern to all 3 was not ideal. But guess what we used to snow often in a less than ideal pattern by getting lucky with a good wave pass. If we can’t do that anymore, because bad patterns torch the thermals so bad that even a perfect wave has no chance, then it’s going to impact our overall snow results in a season quite a bit because much of our snow came from fluky little things like that. We’re 0/3 now this year with perfect track waves in a bad pattern.
  13. psuhoffman
    The wave spacing has changed some. And the block not being as ridiculous, it’s still a very legit -nao just not some super historic monster, has maybe moved up the timing of the wave after PD a bit. That wave after the PD weekend now looks like around the 20th and has my interest.
  14. psuhoffman
    The point is if what’s been happening the last 5 years keeps happening we are totally F’d! We are going to be in -PDO possibly for a long time. They can last decades. During these cycles, especially in winter, the -pna dominates! It used to snow during these winters. Other pattern drivers used to overcome a -pna. You keep saying -pna like it’s some revelation. We’re in a deep -pdo cycle. The pna is going to negative like 80% of the time. We have to be able to snow in a -pna or we’re F’d.
  15. psuhoffman
    No I never bought that BS. We’ve had Nina -pna patterns before in the past. And they weren’t as bad. Yes they were bad. But they weren’t 2017-2023 bad! I was SURE more was going on than the simple “blame the pac base state” BS arguments. What I wasn’t sure of was how much the issues we are talking about would mute things when we had a good enso state. Let’s say we’re talkiing about the western pac warm pool, the expanded Hadley cell, the northerly displaced jet, the warmer gulf and Atlantic. All those things are a fact. We can just agree not to talk about what they may or may not all be related too! regardless of that they all are a reality and all act opposite our snow interests. what I thought and hoped was that a strong -QBO Nino would overcome those issues. That we hadn’t reached a point where those issues now eliminated even what has been our perfect setup for a lot of snow. This isn’t a me throwing in the towel post. I’m not. I’m still bullish we get snow. This is just me telling Chuck shut up about the damn pna. Some of our best snow periods in history, and some were the analogs I used to predict a ton of snow, were -pna -nao periods in a Nino. You saw 2010 above. look at these other snowy Nino periods during -pdo periods. 1958 1964 1966 A -pna was part of the equation. It wasn’t supposed to matter in a Nino. -pna -nao ninos are supposed to be snowy! We go through -pdo cycles where an pna dominates and they can last decades! It snowed plenty in the past in those cycles. So no I don’t accept the pna as a blanket excuse for it not snowing. Baltimore averages 42” in -QBO ninos since 1950! If we end up with something well short of that then I know what it was, and it’s not the damn pna. What it is is those other factors all conspiring to make it impossible to overcome the pna like we did in the past.
  16. psuhoffman
    This was literally our snowiest period in Fing history. so please stop with the PNA nonsense. This above was the goal. That’s always been what we wanted. If you look at -pdo ninos they had a western pna trough. But they were snowy anyways! We have snowed plenty through history in a -pna. Yes lately it’s not been working. But I was told that was a Nina problem. If we fail it’s not “pna”. We can and have snowed in a pna pattern. Some of our snowiest periods ever had a pna.
  17. psuhoffman
    I think for PD our best chance is if that NS wave can get ahead of the STJ wave, provide some cold but clear for the STJ to stall and amplify behind it. If the NS wave is slower and behind it could phase but with the weaker blocking than was showing (it gets there but not until a couple days later now) that opens the door to an inland runner rain solution. I’m rooting for the NS wave to get ahead. That wave could also end to being the only show for us. That’ lacks the bigger upside of the STJ wave but could be a way to snow. I don’t buy the gfs solution of that wave running to our north.
  18. psuhoffman
    There was a redonculous retrograding block. It was short lived and then the block retrograded all the way into the mid latitudes as the tpv moved back in but for that week it was about as suppressed a jet as you can get. And it barely got the NS to dig enough to get under us. Im not saying it’s impossible to get the NS far enough south. But recently it sure doesn’t seem to be happening as often.
  19. psuhoffman
  20. psuhoffman
    We discussed this a while back as a possible thorn. The NS is simply not digging as far south. We don’t have to get into why. But the result is it’s very difficult to get a NS wave to phase in a way helpful to us with the STJ. Instead they run over the top of us and run interference. It’s a reason I’ve been bearish on scenarios that require a NS phase.
  21. psuhoffman
    Ok I did start this, but it was in reference to our current pattern. We should probably continue the sulfur and coming ice age discussion in the CC thread so the sensitive snowflakes that get the vapers when anything about warming is mentioned don’t show up to bitch and complain.
  22. psuhoffman
    Thank god
  23. psuhoffman
    Unfortunately what’s allowing it to come further north (a more relaxed flow than expected) is also allowing for thermal issues. We need that NS wave to play nice. Come across ahead and set the boundary. Or phase in behind. Riding right over the top is not going to work. It’s got a shot. I never said it didn’t. But it’s still more complicated than I like. I’m tracking it through. Just have nothing to add really.
  24. psuhoffman
    Seems pretty simple
  25. psuhoffman
    It’s not as bad as it’s been in the recent Nina’s but guidance is still showing a tendency for mid latitude and subtropical ridges to extend too far north despite blocking. Gfs even links the ser with the high latitude ridge again. For the last 5 years I’ve heard “that’s a Nina problem not you know what, we have to wait for a Nino”. Well…
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