psuhoffman

That’s perfect. You see the handoff happening around day 12. That’s a big dog setup.

I fear that first wave after the likely mlk cutter is probably suppressed. It’s not 100% but that’s a really suppressive look in general and it would take a really significant SW imo to work. Or for the look up top to relax which can happen but we’re discussing how they look now now how they might look later. (I haven’t looked at anything yet today). I was looking at how both set up what imo could be our best shot before some kind of relax/reload of the whole pattern. That might be just beyond where the ensembles end as the tpv in the 50/50 relaxes. I’m slightly troubled that the block is fading so fast. But that could be error. We want the block to relax but it needs to hold somewhat until the flow becomes less suppressive after the cutter that finally pulls the trough east. I thought last nights gefs run set up that period better. It also was set up better for the wave in the 15-20 period imo so it was just better imo. But eps wasn’t bad. Just slightly off on some important details which will change some anyways and could become what we need easy.

Coastal explosion

I agree with Heisys analysis of the 0z eps. It wasn’t what we want. There is a reason almost none of the members had snow near us or even south of us. They had amazing agreement and most progressed the way he laid out. But that doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s day 10 stuff and gfs geps were better. EPS prior runs were better. It could flip back today. But that one run in a vacuum wasn’t good. It was very close. But the key part to watch is when the TPV elongated or splits as most guidance hints after the cutters, we need the eastern extension of the trough to be deeper than whatever hangs back or dumps west. Remember when I said the lower heights in the 50/50 space are key. If you look at all the examples of our -pna wins what they all have in common is the heights to our northeast are lower than the heights in the west! The gefs of course just dumps 90% of the energy east and pops a western ridge. That’s better but actually could be too suppressive given the retrograding block and monster 50/50. Here’s the good news. That leaves us needing a compromise between the two as a best case and that’s actually historically the most likely solution. I know years ago ncep used to go with a 60/40 compromise between the eps gefs to draw up their long range guidance.

@Terpeast Maybe if we’re really lucky we can get a 10 day pattern like this so we can get a few more perfect track rainstorms

Not much based on my cam

I approve where the death band is

Last 8 years

As long as it amplifies and pulls the trough east in its wake we win either way. It sets up the next wave. Stj will keep em coming.

I’ll take a poodle puppy at this point

Sometimes we get a 1-2” pity event. But no we don’t often go from 12 to 5” and that’s because we don’t often get moderateevents anymore. It’s all or nothing so unless we get fringed like some in that early Jan 22 storm it’s big or go home.

As long as you let them score 10 for my parley

I’m holding. Not saying I’m not getting a little nervous. But I have a sneaky suspicion either things line up for a typical Nino run at some point and we hit my forecast or it doesn’t and we don’t get even close.

His methods are fine but his stubbornness to incorporate them with more modern technology enhanced strategies is the issue. The best use both! I disagree. I saw several people commenting from 120 hours out that we were in trouble knowing what was likely the final 100 hours. The globals from range struggle with mid level warm layers. Blocking is the one exception when the southerly flow can be suppressed. But otherwise once we get inside 72-100 hours we ALWAYS discover the mid levels will warm more and the snow area shifts north. So assuming you applied basic model adjustment 101 I feel like they did great.

I doubt thats the one. I’ll just be happy of it can stay far enough south that I have options to drive to snow with the kids to ski MLK weekend. If Killington VT can stay snow I’d be thrilled. That’s where I’m at with that wave. I do like our chances after provided one of these cutters can knock down the war.

There is a net positive snow correlation to an nao and you’re crapping all over that. Cherry pick much! But my point was in this specific pattern we’ve been in that epo ridge when it pops has just been causing an even deeper pna trough. Instead of pushing cold east lately the more the ridge pumps in AK the trough just sharpens and digs southwest like it’s allergic to going east. In that reality a epo ridge hurts.

One thing that sucks about how good the guidance has become is what was once 2-3 days of tracking is now 7-8 days of it. Yea this shifted away from snow in DC but if you pull back guidance was pretty darn close on the Synoptics from 7-8 days and had the wave identified from 2 weeks. And this is becoming common. Most of our snows lately are on the radar from over a week away now! Even that fluke anafront snow was on guidance 6 days out! I don’t like it. It’s too much. Even 2016 when it did hit I was worn out from over a week of that shit by the time it got here. This was more fun and less emotionally draining when stuff would pop up 48-72 hours out.

Just a reminder when I looked at every 5”+ snowfall at BWI by far the single most important factor was lower heigjts in the 50/50 region. There were very few snows without that! Most of our examples of a snowstorm in an otherwise crap pattern are due to luck with a system tracking through that area at just the right time to overcome other pattern flaws. But you don’t see many “otherwise good pattern” snows with a ridge in the 50/50 space. A ridge there is an absolute killer to our chances to have confluence and hold cold as a wave approaches. We would have to get increasingly lucky with well timed perfect track boundary wave basically. Not impossible. But if we want the odds of snow to go up dramatically we need to knock down the war nao link.

You just jump from one problem to another don’t you? The epo ridge did us no good. It’s just been causing an even deeper pna trough. If that’s the case we’re better off with a flatter ridge to get the western trough to broaden and shift east v digging into the SW! We don’t need more arctic air. The continent is cooling sufficiently now. I know today is disappointing and it is bothersome we can’t seem to win in marginal non perfect setups but if we had blocking today this could have worked. And the next shot of cold is colder. We don’t need some arctic wave here. Frankly the colder looks bother me. We rarely get a big snow from that kind of overwhelming cold. What we need is to get something to amplify far enough east to cut off the NAO from the WAR with a wave break. That’s the single most important thing to improving our chances of a snowstorm.

I’m pretty sure the mjo was in the null phase then

I have a theory about the mjo. I think its relationship to the larger pattern is symbiotic. Yes the mjo forcing affects the long wave pattern. But one reason for those correlations is imo when the mjo is in synch with the larger pacific base state (example MC forcing in a Nina) it will both spend more time in the warm phases and have the canonical warm phase look because the larger pattern supports it. But fast waves through phases contradictory to the larger pattern don’t have as much impact. It’s why the 8/1 passes haven’t done us much good the last 7 years. On the flip side there are examples of warm phases during cold periods that didn’t cause as much of a SER either. So on the one hand I’d say history suggests a brief 4/5 pass won’t hurt us too much during a Nino. But with things leaning warm lately is that still true? Is anything even slightly hitting the warm button too much now? Dunno. This year is a great test case in many ways imo.

Or did they? We went from way too warm to just a little too warm.

I don’t know about the SPV but from experience we don’t really want that epo ridge migrating to Siberia. That usually isn’t good in the immediate aftermath. But I have no idea about his winger cancel nonsense nor are we sure that’s right or not just temporary.

Thanks. About 7 hours. Left early but into tire trouble in reading. Getting back on the road and it’s just starting to snow lightly here so I’ll be able to get back ahead of it.