psuhoffman

@Bob Chill the whole warmer waters all around us not good for snow isn't complicated. I am NOT saying the Hudson High is definitely a casualty of warming. But keep in mind that kind of pattern wasn't a gradient thing where the storm track would just gradually shift north and maybe NYC holds onto snow longer than us. That regime is a generally warm one where storms would just take a good track and create just enough cold for a wet sloppy snowstorm. Temps weren't much different in Boston from DC. Even in Boston these were marginal events in that kind of pattern. So it is possible that if you warm the whole regime a couple degrees it flips the equation everywhere towards rain, its not necessarily a latitude issue.

@Bob Chill I don’t have the answers. I’m just speculating. You’re right sometimes we just go through stinker periods. But when does this one reach a length that’s beyond that simple explanation. The 80s had 3 moderate to strong ninos. They are all above normal snowfall and produced 4 KU and 3 other MECS between them. I do think it’s a particularly bad sign if (and I’m not there yet I seem to have more hope left for this season) a Nino can’t even break the funk. Ninos have been out funk proof way to get snow no matter what the base state period was around it in the past.

Just throwing this out there, based on that case study I did of all Baltimore warning snowfalls a few years ago, if we’ve lost the ability to snow from a Hudson Bay high regime then we have truly lost a huge chunk of our snowfall climo from 20-50 years ago. The Hudson high was the second most prevalent pattern that showed up in the case study. But I notes at the time the frequency of them seemed to be on the decline compared to the other subsets.

It doesn’t matter in terms of ground truth but I don’t think the pattern has been can kicked. But as things are coming into greater clarity it seems unlikely the first two “waves” within the pattern are likely to produce anything. The first looks like possibly suppresses and temp issues. The second has a spacing issue. A bit too much separation between the two waves creates too muck ridging in between and likely makes the Feb 10-13 period a no go. These are disappointing developments but not necessarily a can kick. As we get deeper into the pattern I think the chances will increase. Each wave break should push the ridge further north on the Atlantic side. A better nao will mitigate wave spacing issues for future threat windows. We’re not there yet for the first couple waves.

I’ve been unconcerned because the guidance isn’t in any conflict with the main feature which is the North Pacific trough. Yes as we get closer there are issues with exactly where and when waves will be. But so long as that pacific look is there it will work out. Energy out west will have to kick east. Ridges will be transient. The nao will slowly go more negative from the resultant wave breaking.

Something that needs to be resolved is the handling of the trough as it crosses the Rockies. The gfs is mostly alone is completely splitting the trough then burying the main energy into Mexico. That’s game over for any Feb 5-6 storm. Ggem, euro, Icon and even the gefs mostly favor the trough elongating then ejecting the main energy into the southern plains and crossing east either through the TN valley gulf coast. That still doesn’t guarantee a storm. Some runs within that solution still mess up the phase or squash the storm. There are other variables that need to work out also. But that first one, whether the trough splits and digs into Mexico is critical before any of the others matter. One oddity. I’m not an expert in handling energy in the mountain west. But I follow the meteorologists on OpenSnow. They do great daily write up’s for every major ski resort area. Looking at some of the write up’s for Utah, Colorado and New Mexico, they seem to be favoring the gfs trough split. I find that odd because the gfs is mostly alone in that solution. Without experience just modelology I would never favor the gfs v consensus. But again, they might be leaning on experience here and that matters. Or perhaps they are just being pessimistic (the gfs trough split would leave the ski areas dry) because it’s been an awful season so far out west. But anyways just thought I’d point that out because it’s not getting much attention, and imo how that ejects out west matters as much as what’s going on over top of us.

The same phenomenon happens when you look at a 10 or 30 day mean v a one day. As the waves slide under the block they will create lower heights along the whole track. But if you look at any one moment in time it’s not “blue” from the southwest all the way across into the Atlantic at the same time. There are waves within there with troughs and ridges. At long leads on the ensemble it will look that way because the members don’t agree on where the waves will be and so they wash out the less frequent ridges.

The main thing that changed is as the lead time shortened and timing differences between ensemble members became resolved we start to see more details like inevitably some ridging between waves. At longer leads it all got washed out making the troughs seem connected but there was always likely to be some temporary ridging between waves initially until the blocking really gets more established.

He can see the back edge of the pattern in April already

As the ridge gets undercut it becomes a defacto block, but displaced well south of usual. It's also evolving kind of opposite the usual progression where we either build blocking from Scandanavia or western Atlantic wave breaking. Early February is probably one of the only times it can be cold enough for a ridge that far south to work out. Obviously the nino jet undercutting is a big part of the equation also. I am a little worried the flow is going to be too suppressive for that Feb 6th threat. Just glancing at the h5 for that period it has the look of a carrolina snowstorm more than DC. But specific syniptic event's do not always follow the pattern script, there can be meso factors that could cause the wave to amplify more than typical. Either way I wouldn't be too upset if this first threat ends up squashed, I think we will have plenty of opportunities as waves eject from the southwest and as the ridging pulls north some later in the month they will have more room to amplify. I am not poo pooing this first threat, its got my interest, but this is just our first chance in what is likely to be a very long period of tracking coming. Hope everyone is resting up now.

Yea I mentally logged all his antics. 2010 was high on my analogs. I never understood his obsession with "east based nino" this year. First of all, I absolutely hate these semantic arguments. This is a spectrum. There is no hard divide where something goes from "east based" to "basin wide" to "modoki". But IMO this year is most definitely NOT east based. It's a basin wide. 1998 and 2007 were east based. This year has the same profile as 2016 and 2010 only it's in between the intensities of those other 2. And for me, IMO, the difference between basin wide and modoki is minor. The important thing is we do not want a true east based nino where the warm water is all banked up against south american and cools dramatically by the central pacific. That places the forcing too far east. But if you look at the anamaly locations of 2010 and this year they are nearly identical, this year is just stronger. There are trade offs, a true modoki is likely to have the Pacific low set up further west which can be ideal if there is no blocking...but it also can set up so far west it mutes the STJ influence and if you end up with blocking that can be less than ideal. There is also a correlation between the pacific low being tucked against AK and blocking so frankly so long as its not a super east based nino I'm fine. I don't engage in this ridiculous "is it or isnt it modoki" nonsense because the data says it doesn't even really matter.

Suddenly that bleep head is all over it. But seriously, I've mostly just ignored it all year, someone just posted an example of this today with BAMWX, but its become a "thing" for all these competing hypster accounts to pick a fight with each other over some inane timing difference, often intentionally being obtuse about it. Like with BAM, they go nuts about "everyone calling for cold" then cite the warmth this week, then say yea but it will get cold later in Feb, which is what everyone is saying. But they are relying on their loyal audience not knowing that and thinking they are owning everyone else. Its dishonest, annoying, and a clown show.

Omfg an ensemble mean 30 days out is never going to have comparable anomaly depth to an actual historical period. Any outlier members mute the anomaly. You’ve made this statement two days in a row and it’s ridiculous

It jumped south a bit the last 2 days already. My guess it continues to bleed that way

Not me. Just about every Nino pattern match produced multiple big storms

I know everyone thinks I think it shouldn’t snow anymore. No. My arguments are just we are losing marginal events. 20% maybe v 50 years ago. By whatever metric though and even factoring that in we’re so overdue for an epic dump. This is our chance. It’s been forever but everything’s lined up at the right time of year (I’d rather slightly late than early!) in a Nino and an stj about to go bonkers. It’s time to cash in.

Seriously it’s time to end this nonsense. Everything’s lined up. We just need the finish.

More than one

30 days.

Chuck isn’t impressed

@Stormchaserchuck1 this is what it looks like on members that have the pattern. The mean is smoothed by outliers that don’t agree.

The weeklies are a smoothed mean. You’re never going to see a -3 Stdv block on a 30 day day 10-40 mean. But if you look at some of the individual control runs they show that.

It’s classified as moderate by the ONI https://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm

lol relax, Ji always poo poo's the weekly snow mean maps. And my point is regarding the control runs, it made a huge jump south today, but yea we want to see those 50" numbers centered over DC, and yes that can happen in this type of pattern. The control run can and does see discreet threats, its just an extended regular model run, when it shows the same general pattern, and it has consistently every day lately, it can hint at what the specifics COULD look like. But yea its likely to be way off at these ranges, no one should be freaking out about it, I said we have plenty of time...but its true that when/if we starting seeing those crazy 40"+ totals centered south of 40 on some of those long range control runs is when its go time. That's the look we typically get 1-2 weeks ahead of our crazy snow periods.