psuhoffman

Gentlemen…

I let it know

It’s not doing much up here yet. And I actually like to analyze and chase.

The NAM when it actually has the synoptic level stuff right and isn’t off on a tangent resolves the meso details best of any guidance. The program is it’s off on a tangent every other run and it’s hard to tell when breasted it isn’t consistent in how it goes crazy. It can have feedback issues and suppress a storm. Or be way over amplified. It adds confusion imo. Frankly all the meso models do imo. I used to try to use them and it burned me so often I stopped. Now I basically use a blend of the globals and my gut instinct then at short range apply common sense to get the meso details. I’ll look at the high res models to get an idea what the details might look like but then I apply that to the Synoptics of the globals. It’s been working for me. Maybe someday they will develop a meso model that isn’t prone to wild tangents.

Thank you so much I didn’t realize my mistake.

A blind squirrel…he goes with the long shot how could the models be wrong and it shows snow EVERY time. The thing is he probably isn’t wrong about HOW it could happen. It’s just that he predicts that long shot it’s gonna snow when no model has it scenario every damn time! He actually does the complete opposite of me. I know out shitty ass climo so whenever guidance shows snow I look for how it could fall apart. And like 90% that’s what happens! When I struggle to find a realistic way it can go to crap that’s when I feel confident. He looks at every scenario and says “how could it possibly snow” and goes with that. He will be right every time it snows. And wrong every time there was any slight chance at day 10 and it doesn’t. That simple. Unfortunately my method is accurate WAY more often.

They obviously made a typo. The date is wrong. That’s the forecast for Jan 20 2034.

Nevermind, I must be wrong

The good news is if you look at the mid and upper levels...we are in what would be the comma head and deform zone IF the low actually amplifies closer to the coast. This was a MUCH better setup for us to get a snowstorm than last nights runs. Problem was the initial wave kinda ran off and the phase was sloppy AF and it never came together...but we were in the perfect location to get into it had the storm phased cleaner. A lot of runs recently...even if it all came together we were going to be too far SW based on the mid and upper level progression. I liked this run a lot better for our prospects.

yes...BTW I uploaded the wrong image and just fixed it LOL. The one I originally put was from Feb 2016. Ironically they look very similar which is why I didn't catch it right away. Which is funny because I've always held we underperformed in 2016 and that period in Feb is one reason why...but there was a perfect track rainstorm in Feb 2016, I got about 9" up here, and I think that was the one I posted first.

The main SW is digging more...that is the MOST important thing IMO. It's a sloppy phase with the STJ and the lead wave runs off and its a mess and never recovers...but we can work on all that so long as we have more dig from the main SW. Without that nothing else matters. The thing is DOA. This solution while underwhelming leaves open the possibility for a better result. Yesterday it was heading the wrong way in that regard.

NAO was negative... people at the time called it "thread the needle" but the pattern was pretty good...just the thermals were marginal and "iffy" by those days standards anyways lol. Perfect track and amplification overcame the marginal temps. Then everyone complained when it melted right after because again...the airmass wasnt cold.

For the record I actually tend to think the lack of a HECS after Presidents Day to about March 15 is just simple random luck. Truth is HECS are pretty rare. We haven't had many in January since 1980 either! Just 1996 and 2016! There is way too small a sample size. If you track smaller snowstorms like 6" plus it's clear our climo degrades QUICK when you hit March 10-20 depending on where in the region you are. But I think the last week of Feb and the first week of March if the right setup comes along it would not be too late to get a HECS. The end of our winter climo has been affected way less than the beginning due to SST's cooling by then.

If you go back to the 60's we do, since then not so much...the question is was that just random or...you know. Are we "due" or...

UKMET is mostly a 1-2" event Friday...but its a beautiful SW pass and the bullseye axis is right across DC. Getting this to track south enough is my main concern at this stage...we can work on beefing up qpf and a little more amp on the coastal later. Nothing matters if the wave goes north of us though and they never come back from that...almost never.

There was always disagreement for early Feb but all guidance agrees the NAO goes negative again by mid Feb. The Euro had a -NAO early Feb but it was always a very weak signal...it didn't go strongly neg until later...now guidance is more in agreement that the NAO starts to flip back negative between Feb 10-15. That's fine with me...Feb 15-March 10 is still prime snow climo. And there would be opportunities for snow before then in the advertised pattern. JUst not really a HECS until we get the nao back.

Here is the path to a bigger snow Friday, and its closer today than it was yesterday... Yesterday I noted that the ensemble members that had a big storm were the few that actually washed out the lead NS SW (X above) and developed something behind it associated with Y. Y is the SW that actually has the most potential to amplify. X is coming in under a pretty suppressive flow since the TPV didn't fully split or slide east. Problem is that solution was an extreme outlier and things were trending away. That lead SW is coming in a bit stronger not weaker lately. However...there is now another path IMO. Y could catch up to X. There is now a little more interaction that yesterday between these features and they do eventually phase just a little too late. IF Y can speed up some...and X can slow down some which will happy if it continues to amplify more, Y could dive in in time to buckle the flow and phase while the storm is still south of our latitude ...that would be the path to a bigger storm here IMO.

There aren't many other 12" plus examples...but there are plenty of like 6-10" examples. Not having a NAO block severely limits our ability to get a 12" plus storm because even if we get a transient 50/50 its moving out and so any long duration slow moving storm, the kind you usually need to get a 12" plus storm...is going to have issues unless its times absolutely perfect. But we can certainly get a good storm that way. 2003 was time up perfect with an arctic high in a perfect spot and not just a 50/50 but an absolute BEAST of one that because it was so strong didnt move as easy.

It suddenly changed the entire setup. Remember it was keying on that 3rd wave for a while...never the Euro which is why it lost the storm...then suddenly models shifted to waves 1 and 2. That had a MUCH lower ceiling. I know some will come on here and say anyone rooting for 6-12" was silly and foolish and blah blah blah but that was on the table with the wave 3 scenario. It was. This current one has now just about maxed out its possible potential. We got really lucky and are getting about the best possible outcome from this type of setup. But I think it was natural to be disappointed when the bigger and better setup was suddenly yanked away. I have not made one complaint about this event and whatever we get...but of course I would have preferred a more dynamic storm! Also given our recent history I think it was natural to be skeptical that we would max out like this and get lucky with the lower ceiling scenario. An areawide 1-2" was much more likely when things shifted to wave 1 and 2.

Everything is pinwheeling around the parent anchor vortex tpv. So it affects it very much. Problem is we don’t know exactly how it will play out. And there are a lot of variables. But we’re stuck in a bit of a double bind. We need that NS wave to dig a lot and stay south. The only path to a big storm I see is if the NS wave comes in stronger and digs more, that might also require more of a split between the main tpv and the lobe hanging back. In that case we want the system now to phase and pull the tpv further east. But what if the NS SW isn’t going to be stronger and dig? Then we probably lose any path to a bigger snow but in that case if we want anything even a 1-3” event DC needs a more suppressive flow to force the NS SW not to gain any latitude as it slides east and keep it under us. In that scenario we want the main tpv further west. This is too chaotic a setup for me to play it out in my mind and say for sure what need from X and Y now. Sometimes I do that when yes a simpler scenario and I can see from 5 days out “we just need X this and Y that”. This is way too complicated for me to do that with any clarity. The 2 things I can say for sure is we ideally want a stringer NS SW and for it to be further south.

There is chaos in any pattern. But get us cold and throw stj waves at us and eventually something likely works out. Nino snow climo is made a lot simpler by having a stronger stj throwing chances at us more frequently.

Oddly both ninos that had that kinda look 2003 and 2015 ended up with big snows from well timed confluence and stj waves directed at us. Obviously 2015 wasn’t to the same level but I’m not kicking those two 6-12” storms in Feb/March out a bed! I think having a stronger stj is likely the difference because that’s a cold dry look often in non ninos. I don’t count 2014 because it had a very -AO and a ridge over the tpv that acted like a defacto -nao. But add a stronger stj and you get more chances plus some of those waves end up 50/50 lows as they traverse.

One year he used IADs snow but DCAs avg to verify his mid Atlantic snow forecast!!!

Lucky for them they get either Tampa or Philly next week. They should win either of those games much easier than last night.

Just remember to apply the city/country rule when measuring snow later. You divide city snow by 2 because half of it ends up on buildings and no one cares. County snow you multiple by 2 because it's twice as nice.