psuhoffman

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

I haven't tried one of these in a while.

Snow on snow, lets do this

When I said we are now south of the "reliably snows in winter" line... obviously that line moves year to year and pattern to pattern. But the best way to explain is this... it used to be that in crappy warm winters we were south of the "snows reliably in winter" line and had to luck into a fluke event. But in colder winters we were north of the "snows reliably" in winter line and it would snow pretty regularly through the winter. Now... when its warm OMFG forget even getting lucky its no hope anywhere within 500 miles of us. Then when we get a good pattern even...we still seem to be south of that line and needing a LOT of luck and trying to get the fluke storms that sometimes end up south of the line. We are 100% getting the results I would expect if we lived in like Greensboro NC the last 8 years or so. The only question is does that continue.

I've noted for a while...even when we get runs with a really good pattern...when I go look at the snowfall the mean indicates the snow is much further north than I expect given the pattern.

The only good thing is this might prove to @Stormchaserchuck1 that a +NAO isnt the answer. In that case the +NAO is wrecking an otherwise good pacific. We need BOTH!

I do not think Feb 1-10 will be a no hope torch. But, the pattern progression is being delayed by the slow down of the Pacific forcing migrating east. It's stalling in the western pacific for about a week. This is leaving us in kind of a blah pattern in early February. I could see an STJ wave cutting under and enough cold around with that PNA ridge to get something to work if we're lucky. But the PNA ridge looks rather modest now, and the +++NAO is likely going to make it difficult to be cold enough until we get the more ideal pacific, and its likely a moot point anyways because once the wave starts to progress into the central pacific it kick starts the process of tanking the NAO again anyways. We're likely looking at Feb 10-15th or so before the pattern gets REALLY good again. I know this is not what anyone wants to hear, patience isn't the best virtue of some here, but Mid Feb is NOT too late to pull out a good finish. 1958 really got going mid Feb. And before someone says but its warmer now...2015 got going mid Feb too and that was not that long ago. You know I will lean on warming when I think its a part of the equation, but Feb and March are being affected by warming way less that earlier in winter...assuming the waters ever do cool...right now places in the tropical Atlantic are running normal temps for July FFS.

In fairness where he lives averages like 40" in moderate to strong Nino's with a -QBO. And we've pissed away Dec and likely are close to done except maybe some minor snowfall Friday in January. So he is right...for this winter to get to what we expected it will take a 30" Feb/Mar. It's not about month to month averages. Our area gets most of our snow in big big big short periods with long stretches of total crap in between. If you look at many of our winters where we get above average, and I think we all predicted that (all 3 of us in this particular convo I mean) a lot of it came in a crazy month. Look at some of the stretches in the analogs to this winter. Feb/Mar 58, Jan 66, Jan 87, Feb 2010, Jan 2016. Each of the analogs had a month where he got close to or over 30". So I actually agree with him totally here. My forecast will be a total and complete bust POS unless we do get a 30" plus Feb/Mar period. And if we are grading this winter on the sliding scale of what we should expect from a -QBO Nino during ascending solar, if he does not get to at least 30" this winter is a fail.

There is still a chance we hold onto a minor event here, I am not 100% sold it continues to slide away to NOTHING...but I certainly would be prepared for that result emotionally, even up here, given where we are now.

I saw it, its bleeding the wrong way also.

I stayed away from the thread for almost 3 model cycles and oddly it didn't seem like people were any more happy about their snow prospects going to crap. Is it perhaps that my analysis of our crappy outcomes is not what people are really upset about?

Yesterday I was hopeful this would buck the typical outcome for a NS wave coming in from this trajectory. But I think now it's heading towards what we all knew in the back of our heads was most likely. Hope I'm wrong.

The only times a NS wave has trended south it's been because it was suppressed by confluence becoming modeled too weak. It happened twice in March 2014. The problem is, and was true in both those cases, that also weakens the wave. One of those March 2014 storms was originally modeled as a 18-24" storm for PA. In the end it was a 4-8" storm in VA. This wave is so weak already that the suppression it might take to force it back south...would just mean there was no storm for anyone. Squashing it south of us doesn't really do us much good. I have almost NEVER seen a NS wave trend more "diggy" the last 72 hours which is what we actually need.

Yesterday I showed how that was trending our way. That trend the 24 hours previous was why it started to look promising. Unfortunately it’s been bleeding the wrong way since. Often it’s missed because it’s incremental each 6 hours and doesn’t always happen consistently model to model. If you play the “look for whatever gives me hope” game it’s also hard to see. But if you pull back and compare to 24 or 36 hours ago it’s gets hard to ignore why it’s going sideways for us. this is the opposite what we wanted.

I have to admit I do this too sometimes for fun

The confusion has been regarding the two waves. In some cases the lead wave, which is not the main one, was digging more, but it was offset by the main wave NOT and eventually when they phased together it pulled it all north some...but the real issue is its just not coming together. What little STJ there is gets pulled off by that weak POS lead wave and then the stronger SW comes in behind it with nothing to work with at the surface. It eventually gets going as best it can given the wrecked environment but the extra 6 hours it takes to get going might kill us since its moving past us as its doing that.

I think it's just random. We got a pretty good stretch of snow during that week in 2005.

@Ji I don't work at Carver anymore though. After 17 years, and several years of them trying to recruit me, I finally accepted an admin position running afterschool, weekend, and summer programming for the district. My office is in the city schools district building on North Ave. So your plan is to live out "grumpy old men" up there huh?

I knew I should have turned left at Albuquerque

He has gotten so conservative in old age