psuhoffman

Surface hasn’t updated but I see the same trend on euro I noted earlier so it’s likely going to shift south a tad also.

good point

Don't misunderstand me... I am still optimistic we get another snowy pattern from about Mid February into March. I am unsure early Feb honestly. Hopefully the next round maximizes potential a bit more than this last one. It wasn't awful but we needed a little more out of a 3-4 week good longwave pattern. But the point I was trying to make is lately anytime we get a bad longwave pattern it isn't just kinda warm, its a complete TORCH. And even in a Nino when forcing is located where we want most of the winter we are still going to be unfavorable periods mixed in. We are never going to have a wall to wall no hostile period at all winter. So the excuse of "its not warming its that we are still recovering from the torch" is circular thinking and makes no sense to me. We often wont have weeks to wait for a colder airmass to slowly carve its way back into our area after a bad pattern. The fact that warm patterns torch the continent so bad that it takes weeks to recover and have a chance of snow is part of the same problem not an excuse.

@mappy I think you're needed

If the guidance is correct though...and we get a 1-2 week period like this before things recycle back to a good pattern... When this happens... Does that mean I am going to have to hear the "everything is fine" crew blame the torch we get late Jan/Early Feb for why its too warm when we get a couple perfect track rainstorms in February? As if to snow now we need there to NEVER be a bad pattern at all for the entire winter because we need weeks to build cold as if that is somehow not part of the problem!

Keep in mind some of the factors shifting it south are also leading to a less amplified wave so its decreasing the totals...so yes we get the max stripe of precip but its .2-.3 qpf not .5 like it was showing up in PA/NJ when it was there a few runs ago. But this is about as good a compromise as we could have hoped for. Yes the vort trended south slightly from 18z yesterday which was the worst run we had across the board IMO... but I think something else was a bigger factor. Look at the trend up over Michigan... The orientation of the TPV lobe left behind at the tail of the trough changed. There is more separation between that and the vort. I think this is good in this case, the less phased, less amplified solution there is not pulling the NS feature to our NW as much and allowing the coastal (whatever weak one there is) to be more the focus sooner. I think this is part of what is responsible for the sudden increase in our snow prospects...the rest being that I started a new thread of course! @WxUSAF @Terpeast @Bob Chill @CAPE @MillvilleWx you see this, thoughts? ETA: I did check and that trend is there across guidance, more pronounced in some, less in others...but seems the ones that trended the most with that are the ones that improved the most!

When I lived in Herndon we used to visit my cousins in Harper's Ferry a lot, and I picked up shifts often at the TGI Fridays in Leesburg, the difference in winters that were actually colder (obviously years when there is no snow anywhere don’t matter) was huge between Herndon and Leesburg. I know I’m 1994 Leesburg had snow over almost the whole winter when we had none. They kept getting 2-4” of snow when we just got ice every storm!

Depends if you’re grading on a curve. You probably do avg close to 40” in moderate to strong -QBO winters.

Let’s let the rest of winter play out. I’m speculating of course. Even if we get a ton of snow I don’t think it negates the idea our snow climo is degrading but it at least means a Nino still works and we can still get a big season from time to time. But maybe we go on some 1958 or 1964 mid Feb to Mid March heater and all this talk is forgotten..until next year at least.

If this works maybe I can get out of the dog house for a few days. Until the next time I post historical data that’s depressing.

Don’t go there. People are bent enough when things look bad. They don’t need you poking the bear.

A 50 is way better than a 0 but still an F

In fairness it’s been unimpressive with snow almost everyday despite a great pattern. I’ve noticed it. It’s slightly concerning. Slightly yes but with taking note. We are about to end a 25 day period with a mean pattern that matches the mid Atlantic’s best snow patterns. But the heavy snow axis was actually from Milwaukee WI to Vermont! And guess what the long range guidance kinda nailed that. Remember Ji complaining the snow means looked low? They were right. The majority of the snow didn’t hit where we expected given the pattern. It was displaced north. Now the snow means are kind of saying the same for the next go around. We will see. But if we get two periods with a perfect mid Atlantic snow pattern but the snow hits 200 miles north of us that’s kinda troubling, and enlightening. We would have the answer though. Just not the one we want.

You still reading him? I saw some posts of his you tagged last month. Took me like 3 tweets to realize he was ignore worthy.

I like Pizza

Who cares what we say in a dead thread anyways?

Wow a whole .2 QPF. How the bar has fallen lol.

This is a dead thread. There is a new storm thread. We’re just Fing around in here now.

Some dude on twitter = half the people

Sorry thought I saw a post about being in the same neighborhood. But now I don't see it, maybe it was to someone else, or maybe it never existed and I've finally lost my mind.

Could be why the 12z GEFS suddenly flips the NAO negative at the very end! We have to see if that trend continues.

I really do think we get another 20-30 day period that is favorable for snow. And Feb into March isnt too late to pull a save. But I am more discouraged than hopeful right now because of this... We already somewhat wasted this The problem hasn't been that the pattern never got to where I expected this winter. That actually wouldn't bother me as much. But the problem has been it did and it just didn't do us nearly as much good wrt snowfall as I thought it would so far. By the time the pattern above breaks down we would have had a solid 4 weeks of a very favorable longwave pattern. Now some will start to couch it with...yea but the first 15 days don't count because we had a torch before it. Well isn't that part of the problem I've been screaming about. If every bad pattern torches us so bad we need weeks to recover...aren't we kinda screwed in the bigger picture? The more hopeful take would be the next cycle of this pattern, and I do think we get another bite of that apple this winter...maybe it goes better because we are less likely for all of N AMerica to be completely torched because it will be later in the season. So maybe we don't waste weeks and a couple perfect track waves just waiting to get colder. But man we only get so many periods like this in a decade, not a winter but a decade. We wasted a similarly great pattern in 2021 imo. When we start wasting them with very little to show wrt snowfall...well that is more depressing to me than when we simply get a crap pattern all winter.

If it speeds up it certainly would change our prospects for early Feb. There is a correlation with the MJO moving through 7 and the NAO tanking. I don't think that its a coincidence that as guidance started to stall the wave in 6 or barely into 7 that was when the delay in getter the NAO to flip started to show up. But maybe the pattern progression was being rushed before.

That is related to what I said in my post above...and why the pattern suddenly took a turn for the worse on guidance early Feb. The wave stalls and on some guidance does a loop in 6/7 before resuming. That delays the pattern progression by like a week.

I put something out there a while ago and no one answered.... let's say we do finish this winter below avg snowfall... gun to your heads how many years would you predict go by before a season where IAD, BWI, and DCA all record 20" of snow in a season? LOL