psuhoffman

Explain to me again how you know there is potential?

I thought Jan/Feb 2021 was pretty good and it was so close to a big period just not quite cold enough. The last time I was this excited for a pattern was March 2018, which kind of underperformed here. There were 4 legit threats and only 1 worked out. We were also fighting the end of our realistic snow climo towards the end of that period too.

You're thinking about it wrong imo. We don't have the skill to be able to make a "this many inches" forecast from 6 days out! That's why we call them "clown maps". But if you look at the mean SLP, H5, surface and 850 temps you get the picture that the guidance is indicating there is a pretty decent chance of a wave sliding along the boundary just to our south next Tuesday. A responsible and reasonable forecast right now would be "there is a chance of a storm along the east coast affecting us early next week, and there could be enough cold air for it to be snow. It could also still slide out to sea. We will keep an eye on it and know a lot more in a few days" You can try to give a more specific forecast but the truth is we don't have the ability to with any accuracy, you would just be guessing which of the possible solutions within the typical margin of error from this range is going to happen. But the guidance isn't showing EVERY solution. There is absolutely no chance of a snowstorm tomorrow, or Saturday. Not much of one Next Wednesday. 95% of the time there is NO chance of snow on a given day! So narrowing the scope to one where there is a reasonable chance of a storm that COULD be snow in our area next Tuesday is good enough for this range and the guidance does that. If you know what is important, what is just noise, and what are reasonable assumptions to make from them.

Ok who kidnapped Chuck and replaced him with his less evil twin?

The key is this.... As soon as that canonical pacific configuration sets up any ridge and warmth in the east is living on extremely borrowed time. By the time it warms up the cold is coming again. And this time the continent isn't a blow torch so we don't have to waste weeks trying to slowly develop a cold enough profile. The next pattern reboot should come quick imo. The MJO is flying in and out of the MC. This isn't going to be a big problem imo.

Any pattern breakdown continues to look brief if at all. By the time it hits we might already be tracking a threat on the other side. Day 15 5 days later Next 30 days That's how I drew it up in my mind. I couldn't have created a better pattern if you handed me the magic crayons. If this pattern doesn't work, during prime climo, during a nino... well it just better. We aren't going to get a better chance than this to break out of our snow funk.

Well be careful with that... because a NS dominant solution would likely not end well here. Almost all of our big snowstorms need to be STJ dominant. That is why there is such a huge difference in snow climo in la nina years between DC and NYC. We are simply too far southwest for NS systems to work. They develop to late for us 90% of the time. I agree this time period has a LOT of potential, but if you want the mid atlanticn south of 40 to get in on it there will have to be a trend towards a stronger STJ component to the threat.

There is one there, it's just too weak as of yet and gets dominated by the NS making for more of a miller b screw job setup. BUT...that wave wasn't even picked up at all until recently. We just need a SLIGHT adjustment there and boom. The pattern has been screaming for that window. The longwave setup is absolutely perfect in every way. We just need a somewhat healthy STJ wave to come along during a 48-72 hour window and it will likely work out. 12z GFS/EURO were very close just not quite a strong enough wave to get it done. But its so close.

They lit up like a christmas tree

I prefer cows fart but go ahead

This one does not necessarily have to trend north. There is a TPV sitting right on top of us. Depending on how that wobbles it could even suppress the wave further. It's a chaotic situation with a ton of energy pinwheeling around the vortex but it's one where its not as sure to correct north IMO. Last time I was very confident in a north correction because there was marginal cold, no blocking, nothing to stop the mid level southerly flow, and the NS was way out of the way. There was no mechanism to suppress anything. This is a different setup.

Yea that's been the window with the most upside all along.

Euro has the same issue as the GFS. Too NS dominant, not an amplified enough STJ wave, late phase. But 24 hours ago none of the guidance had the wave at all so I'm not worried about details yet. Were talking about the wave after the wave after the wave here. We need small adjustments to get a big snow from that look.

That's the period I like best. Doesn't mean I'm not rooting for snow from the 16th or that it has no chance...but the upside if a wave can come along in that period is much higher imo.

I am not reacting too much to anything until we see things settle down run to run. FOr now guidance is still shifting all the vorts around each run. BUT...the one thing I liked most about this euro solution was how it gets a piece of the TPV out ahead of the system creating a more suppressive flow. That opens the door to a more amplified solution that still ends up frozen for us. If that progression ends up the correct one we have wider goalposts.

For this year... But really does it matter...look how ridiculously different the H5 is from last run. This is NOT close to a final solution and wont be for a while with all the moving parts behind the bomb system this weekend. So whatever it show's doesn't really matter yet. But I guess the fact that different solutions both lead to snow is something to take away, maybe we have a wider victory path than I thought.

This is true if you judge every pattern by the duality of "Snow or no snow". This is subjective of course. IMO there are many different patterns and frankly most of them don't produce snow. And even the ones that do dont always produce snow. We need a good pattern and then we still need to get a little lucky. If you pull up the mean longwave pattern its most definitely been opposite what it was prior to Xmas since...we just have not got lucky with the snow part of the equation. Mostly its been too warm.

That is the one with the best pattern support. We just need a healthy STJ wave to come along within that 2 day window. GFS almost pulled it off but the energy balance we needed was flipped on its head...too much NS not enough STJ. Flip that and it would have been a big storm IMO.

GFS came really close for the 20th. Too much NS not enough STJ. If the STJ wave was a bit more amplified and dominant the setup is there, and guidance is finally starting to see it, for that period.

I've had 50" one time in the last 8 years. But ok. I am NOT talking about what we need to get a HECS, that's not on the table with this setup. I am talking what we need to get a decent snow. 3-6" maybe. Not sure what you mean about yesterday, I've always said we needed an earlier phase but also a better outcome in the 50/50 space to offset, without that our window is very very narrow needing to thread the needle.

I can leave and you can start 17 new threads and it won't make a difference. None of this controls the weather. You know I'm right. Maybe things reverse today, but even the euro has been trending towards a messier later phase with a more progressive wave initially. We are pretty far southwest for that to work out, places northeast of us have way more time for a system to come together. We've played this game so many times, you know exactly what the most likely outcome is. IMO we want to see 2 things...we need an earlier phase so the system is organized by our latitude not just getting its act together...but then we also need a better trend in the 50/50 space or one of those SW's in the flow rotating around the main vortex to create some confluence on top to prevent that earlier phased system from cutting. If we get both of those trends we can get this to work. Late phase, late development, storm misses us mostly to the northeast. Early phase, no confluence storm cuts. We need both those things.

I know, and every once in a while things don't follow the "normal" outcomes, but we both know how that kind of synoptic progression with a late phase system starting to amplify right at out latitude usually works out for us. But its been so long since we had any snow we also know that everyone is going to latch on and hug any run that shows snow like their life depended on it only making the trauma that much worse when what is most likely coming happens.

IMO they are in the process of meeting in the middle from where they both were 48 hours ago. That should end up with us getting some pity flakes while just northeast of us gets a blizzard. We haven't had one of those in a while, time to feel that pain again.

The universe