psuhoffman

As long as the ridge isn’t in the 50/50 space we could snow fine in that look there in February.

Your point is correct but depending on where you were north of me, I get quite a bit more snow than Hanover just to my north in PA. Especially in marginal temp events because elevation goes down a lot just to my north. But again your main point is correct during bad periods it can be bad here also. One big difference here though is the ability to hold snowcover. I’m happy with a winter if I get at least a couple weeks of snowcover and up here that happens 80% of the time.

This isn’t a traditional strong Nino. Maybe @osfan24was too aggressive and I wish to remain amicable here. But I see a lot of contradictory stances going around. Back in 2019 the excuse why we didn’t get the expected Nino was the ONI and SOI measures were actually neutral and those are more important. It’s been generally agreed this isn’t a strong Nino in terms of how it’s affecting the hemispheric pattern. And even in 2016 we had 3 distinct windows with good treats. The 10 days in January when the hecs hit but there was a small precursor and we missed a threat after. A two week window in Feb with a couple small snow/ice events then a perfect track rainstorm that I had 9”. Then 2 weeks in March with a couple of minor events. We were very unlucky not to get more snow that winter! Lastly the last 7 years I’ve heard “we have to wait for a real Nino” so many times. Now we have one. We can’t afford it to just be ok. This has to be a great winter. It still can be. But we’ve suffered for 7 awful years. We’re facing a likely dreg winter next year. This has to be that one or two huge years we get each decade or it’s a fail given the situation.

if Feb 6-March 7 looks like that…we should get more snow. Just have to wait a couple weeks.

It was 2-3 days from starting to look very good. We might need a week to get cold after though. If the progression continues as the pace shown I’d expect us to be tracking threats around Feb 12

Wanted to illustrate why the jet extension is the loading pattern for some of our best snow. no can kick the progression is really showing at the end of the ensembles today. day 15 eps as the jet extension pulls back it leads to our best snow patters. Once A and B split it sets off the chain reaction. The key is getting the vortex out of Alaska. That’s step one. That’s happening here. Once that happens the wave breaking from B and C starts to migrate the N American ridge north. Wave breaking from A also lets the epo ridge go up over the top of B which will inject cold and allow B to press east and fill the vacuum in the flow under the ridge as it lifts north. This is exactly what happened in January 2010 that lead to snowmageddon. It’s a common progression. We don’t always take advantage to the level of 2010 but it usually leads to a very good pattern.

Nina’s since 2000 2/10 above normal. Which is a slightly better rate than neutrals.

Neutrals since 2000 have pretty bad. 5/6 below normal snow.

I couldn’t disagree more. We used to get lots of little flaws snow events in horrible patterns. Why do you assume that pattern would produce that level of torch 50 yrs ago? From my experience it didn’t. As recently as 2010 we had the exact same pattern and lt didnt torch the continent that bad! The pac jet is stronger now and is leading to worse air masses.

No you’re right. The pac jet has been on roids lately. Ever since 2016. Best theory I’ve read is the expanded Hadley cell is compressing the jet and amplifying it. So now when the jet extensions happen it’s not just warm it’s an ungodly torch across the whole continent. The problem is that’s still the loading pattern for our best snow pattern. We need those jet extensions to get to the canonical -nao -epo look that leads to most of our truly snowy periods. That awful pattern starts the chain reaction and wave breaking that leads to what we want. But lately we waste a big chunk of the better pattern when it comes because it’s so warm leading in. So warm that often the SER just links with the -nao and it does us no good at all.

@Bob Chill look familiar… that might be a worse jet extension! We got our first snowstorm 5 days after this period and it was cold smoke! Yes we were warm from Jan 15-25 that winter but as soon as the western trough split, part pulled back and the rest cut under and the nao tanked we didn’t need weeks. We immediately got cold and started to get snow. That caused our warmest period that winter. Remember @Ji complaining. But it also set off our snowiest 2 weeks ever immediately after. I could do this with many other years. Extreme jet extensions are the loading pattern for our snowiest periods in history. But the snow came 5 days after the western trough cut under not 5 weeks. That’s why I was annoyed when everyone was just tossing those perfect track waves in early January because “of course we can’t snow immediately after a torch”. Umm actually that’s how we got some of our huge snowy periods in history. Especially in a Nino!

Pac jet extensions are going to happen every winter. This isn’t some crazy rare thing. But lately we take weeks to recover. That’s the part that’s killing us and historically it’s not normal. Some of the best analogs to this winter a jet extension just like that set off the chain reaction that lead to a snow run. Usually a -pna comes before a blocking regime! But the snow wasn’t a month later. It’s was days to maybe a week at most later. We didn’t take weeks to recover. That’s what really killing is lately, the progression that historically leads to our best snow pattern is torching the continent so bad that we end up wasting most of the good pattern when it comes!

Oh so now the -nao is important.

I have one now

The difference between here and Baltimore becomes more extreme early and late. Since 2007 I’ve had 9 warning criteria snows in March and Baltimore only 2 I think. A few of those were really big storms here. And even ones that weren’t huge like the March 30 2014 8” Of super wet snow they fell in like 5 hours at the end of a storm was so much fun. March is a winter month up here. Not so much in the city.

Omg he wants a big storm. He’s said that. Baltimore hasn’t had a 6” snow since 2016. I get his frustration and he is right the chances of a BIG snow go down in the city by March. People posting examples of 2-4” snows and snows that hit west of the fall line don’t really refute his point.

Probabilities are in his favor. The gfs progression has no support from the ggem or euro. They are way less amplified with the trough. Plus more than half the gfs members and op runs recently that do have a storm it’s just a perfect track rainstorm. So when you add it all up the chances of snow is low. But it’s all we have to track so it’s being talked about.

So far no can kick. Guidance the last 48 hours has slightly sped up the pattern progression by a day or two.

The extended guidance starts the transition around Feb 7. We have a transitional week to get to good from there. But we should start to see that process at the end of the ensembles within the next 72 hours. I’d not I’ll start to get a little nervous about a can kick which we can’t afford given the clock.

I think the guidance actually targeted this week from way way out. There was a torch in front of it which was never as bad as they indicated but we did get the 2 cutters.

http://climod2.nrcc.cornell.edu you can waste a lot of time in there.

There was another event very late march 2014 where a deform at the end of a rainstorm flipped to snow. Dropped 8” here!

He was talking about getting a HECS. He is right. The odds go way down after about Feb 20 in Baltimore of a 12”+ storm. And they’ve only had a few warning criteria march snows the last 30 years. That is rare.

Don’t you live over 1000 feet? He lives in Baltimore.

Baltimore has had more than 10” in March 18 times. But…only 3 in the last 63 years! It happened 15 times in 68 years before that. But hey according to some on here that’s totally a coincidence and our snow climo is just cyclical not declining. So by that logic we are super super due!