psuhoffman

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.

Not there but cam says it’s snowing at home

It’s ok it gets us with the next one. Pattern is loaded on both. Today was good trends across guidance imo. Off to sleep. Driving to here in the morning. If the snow won’t come to you…

Clipper

Ggem wants to replay 2010. It’s got a Feb 5 2010 type storm then tried to pull off a repeat of Feb 10. @Stormchaserchuck1 that’s what SHOULD happen with a -3stdv block during a Nino.

That’s an exaggeration. Every few years if we’re lucky he might get an inch or two.

yea we’re certainly not getting lucky with several long term hostile cycles converging

It depends. So you can drill down on a specific factor. The expanded pac Hadley cell. The IO and Western Pac warm pool. The warmer Gulf and Atlantic contribution to TNH. The MC forcing issue. But if you pull back they all have a common thread!

Except that’s not an option I agree there is more going on here. The TNH pattern has been persistent even during blocking which used to be rare. I think the AMO isn’t helping either. Along with warmer gulf and Atlantic it’s pumping the SER more than the last -pdo period.

No…if there is an explanation other than “the elephant” I’m open to hearing it.

You have to normalize for today’s heights. It’s where the troughs and ridges are that determines the long wave pattern. What was barely a positive then is a bright red torch ridge now simply because of the much warmer background state. example look at 1950-1957. look at the heights now. same long wave pattern just the heights are higher EVERYWHERE

-pna

Enough pointing out the -pna. We’re in a -pdo cycle. The pna is going to be the dominant base state so long as we’re in this pacific cycle and that could last a long time. The PDO runs in both short and longer cycles. We were in a -pdo predominant from the 50s through the 70s. 80s-2016 it was predominantly positive. We’ve clearly flipped negative. And might be in that the rest of our lives do stop pointing out the obvious when the pna is going to be negative almost all the time! instead what do we need to snow in a -pna?????…We snowed plenty during previous -pdo cycles during a -pna. The typical way was with a -nao forcing the western trough to broaden and energy to cut under the block into the southeast. In past -pdo cycles +AO/Nao periods were god awful but -AO/NAOs were snowy. 1958, 1060, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1978, 1979 all were extremely snowy with a predominantly-pna! In all those years the nao is why. The composite of our snowiest winters during the last 30 year -pdo cycle. but focus just on the pac it’s its same exact pac pattern you keep saying is why we won’t snow. But we got dumped with snow in all those years! So why isn’t the nao working anymore? And if it isn’t since we’re going to have a -pna just about all the time what do we need to snow in a -pna?

Cutter cutter cutter cutter suppressed

This wasn’t subtle at all. Up your troll game. Maybe it did that with 2016, but it did the same thing in 2021 with the Feb 1 storm. Like 24 hours out it had a run with 50” in MD north of DC. Next run was 55” near Lancaster. Next run Allentown. I know usually kuchera is overdone when there is no mixing. But in this case it does a much better job near the rain snow line by calculating the very low ratios in the barely snow or mix area. The 10-1 is way overdone along the transition area.

I have IKON not EPIC lol so we are looking at opposite mountains. But one of my best college friends has a place in southern VT so it was an easy choice. If you were going up to PA for a mountain not on your pass and you care about the skiing, Elk is by far the best ski mountain in PA. It's a little further, north of Scranton.

Once the tpv gets to about 95-90* we have a shot. West of there and I find it hard to believe a wave doesn’t cut. Question is when does it get there and how suppressive is it.