psuhoffman

For a small donation I could tell you how it ends… jk Based on the flow it had room to climb the coast I think at least enough to get DC into precip. Not sure what the pretty colors on the surface plot would show but I typically don’t pay that any attention at those ranges.

Snowfall is chaotic and can be influenced by shorter and longer term cyclical patterns. If you cherry pick any one shorter scale time period it can be made to appear stochastic. But if you pull back and run the data through a regression the accurate picture is clear and conclusive. For example, if you compare a past hostile long wave regime like the early 1970s to a favorable one like the 2000s you can erroneously make it look like snowfall was increasing! But if you compare that favorable regime in the 2000s to previous comparable patterns you see that while it was good it wasn’t as good. Inversely if you compare the hostile regime we are in now to the most similar comparable periods in the past you will see while those were bad this is worse.

I’m looking for a river in Egypt…what’s it called again.

The 7th still has potential but the wave needs more space. But it has to come from the back side not the front. RR you’re welcome. We need the 50/50 feature to offset the developing ridge over the top as the western trough develops. That backing off just leads to rain. What we need is for the western trough to trend weaker or further west. A stronger SW initially would help too. After that I think a warm up is inevitable. I always felt that way. But there are paths to avoid it becoming a disaster. We need to see signs that the pac pattern will progress and not get stuck in Nina forcing. We have the high latitude look we need now we just need the Nino look in the pac and it’s game on. Not buying the Nina pattern locking in yet. On to todays runs.

You’re right I misunderstood what you were saying. Sorry.

lol. The other day I watched one of his videos for the first time all season. I was curious. Given how awful a turn the guidance took and knowing his style I wanted to see how he was spinning it. Maybe I was hopeful he could make a rational argument I could believe why it was wrong. I don’t want to be wrong either! One thing I took away was he kept referencing 1978. But that year adjusted for today’s warmer base state would have been a disaster. Almost all the snow we got here was marginal that winter from west track systems that only worked because of how extremely cold it was. I highly doubt that pattern would work out again. I was not impressed with his spin game. It left me less confident that I was before watching because he wasn’t making logical arguments I could agree with he as just lashing out and in denial. That’s how it seemed to me anyways.

Fair enough. But it doesn’t seem anyone is in the mood for the analysis or that joke.

It may have been. If things go the way current guidance is hinting I will bust horribly. One of my worst fails ever! But I’m not convinced it’s going that way yet. Im just being honest that I have more uncertainty than I did weeks ago. Why wouldn’t I. For a time guidance supported my thoughts. Now it is universally in opposition. Unless I was in denial that has to be at least slightly concerning. The question is should I stick my head in the sand and pull a JB and just stay with a busted forecast no matter what the new evidence says? I can just keep saying “it’s coming” until March no matter what. Or do I adapt based on the best available new evidence and accept when I was wrong?

Yea unfortunately a block won’t do us any good if the trough is anchored in western Canada. That’s what I was trying to illustrate. We need that to get dislodged before anything good can come. There are ways to get there. It’s not hopeless.

Funny no one complained when I used long range guidance in my analysis a few weeks ago because it looked great and I was predicting a lot of snow. No one complained I was being repetitive when I said how great everything looked every run! But now it’s a problem when it looks awful. My analysis is exactly the same. Some just like it when it favors snow and hate it when it doesn’t.

You also missed the point. I laid out two viable paths out of that to snowier patterns.

You missed the point. The control matches the progression of the ensembles but it shows a more detailed example of how that pattern would likely play out. It doesn’t have to go down that way. The snow mean on the weeklies isn’t bad. There are also some looks on the mean height field that to me indicate there is variance to how this progresses. Some members quickly redevelop a pacific trough. I said I don’t buy the disaster scenario yet. My point is root for that look to other adjust or be transient because that pattern above won’t end well if it locks in.

The euro weekly control is a perfect example of why that won’t work. It matches that look day 15. It goes on to cut storm after storm well west of us and gives DC less than 1” of snow through Feb 13th. On the means we’re not that warm, only slightly above for the period, since we get really cold behind some of the cutters for a day or two. Im not sure in a Nino with an amplified STJ that can work. Yesterday I opined maybe it would help. But if we need strung out weak waves having a more amped up Stj just increases the odds of each wave being too amplified and cutting. We either need to get the ridge out of the central pac or have that nao retrograde into central Canada and dump the whole trough into the conus and pinwheel the pattern. One of those has to happen for that to work imo.

Yea we really need to see a trend like this in the next couple days. It’s one thing to get a temporary weak pac ridge but we need guidance to move away from building that super Nina ridge and getting the forcing stuck in the MC. Once that sets up it can take weeks to break down and we don’t have that kind of time anymore. We’ll be bleeding away prime climo. Luckily it’s still far enough out adjustments are likely and I just can’t buy it. Maybe I don’t want too but that’s a strong Nina look in a strong Nino. That nao there won’t do us any good. It’s linked with the SER and acting as a WAR. Look at hours 240-360 on the 0z gfs to see why that won’t work. An nao only helps if systems can cut under and through the 50/50 domain. With the NS diving into the west and a SER (I’m convinced that ridge is also being amplified by more than just the pna, the gulf and Atlantic is on fire also) systems will just cut up the west side of the nao ridge. That doesn’t help at all. If anything it makes it worse. Sometimes a +nao with a tpv in the nao domain can help to suppress one of those waves. The nao will work in a -pna if there is split flow and ridging over the top in western Canada. That’s why I said we do not under any circumstances want a trough there and cold in western canada. It’s a total myth that our path to snow is some kind of bleed southeast of cold. That works for the Midwest and sometimes places like central PA up Into northern New England. We are too far southeast. We’ve only had one snowy winter in 75 years where a trough set up like that centered west of us and cold bled east and it took 2 incredibly anomalous features in conjunction to make that work. If we get to that look our path out would be for the Aleutian low to redevelop and create a split flow with the ridging into western Canada causing that trough to cut off and dump into the conus then cut under the block. Until that happened any wave that amplified will cut and I don’t even think it would be particularly close. I don’t even like that look for places like state college pa.

I just noticed something in my data that has bugged me for a while and I think now I know why. The Feb storm in 1978, Westminster only recorded 7" but based on other reports in the area it should have been closer to 10". It made it hard for me to estimate what my area got since it was incongruous with the expected gradient and created a huge difference between the stations on either side of me. I don't know why I never noticed it before but the snow depth reported increased from 4" before the storm to 13" the day after. The only way that is possible is if at least 9" fell from the storm. Probably more to account for compaction. So their report of 7" is simply an error.

@brooklynwx99 the gefs ext confirms my point. The look at the end of the gefs was not a temporary transient problem. This is where it leads one week after the gefs ends and two weeks later and it still looks like garbage into Feb. I am not saying I agree with it. Just saying don’t sugar coat it. That look is god awful, just hope it’s wrong. Once a central pac ridge goes ape like that it’s a season wrecker most of the time! I’m not a sugar coat things kinda person. If that’s correct we busted and this season is not what we expected. The good news is simply it’s still at a range we can hope it’s just wrong.

yes but in this case I think the wave spacing is a limiting factor also... I would still be a little nervous this gets squashed but its looking like it has more of a chance this run. The spacing is still tight.

Icon was Jaws music worthy at the end of the run

The CMC isnt as deep with the western trough and kinda cuts it off which leaves just enough room for the system to amplfy some in the east...but its still close and notice it quickly gets suppressed and slides southeast once to our latitude. Its still extremely tight spacing. GFS does the same...the wave starts up then gets washed out. We could use a little more breathing room there.

I know...if it wasnt so far out I would even dig into the fact its wrong in fringing me based on the surface and upper level locations but whatever.

I predicted 30-40" of snow this year. people hear what they want to hear.

best part is it fringes me

2 for 2 so far

They were not snowy at all here. What I think the data on the whole shows if you dig in and really analyze it...places further north and colder are seeing their means increase. Burlington VT for example...and even some places that have been JUST far enough north to take advantage of the stormier base state. Philly and NYC. But there is a stark line near 40 where south of there snowfall is tanking.

What's sobering, and I already knew about that look...4 of the top 5 analogs to that pattern didn't go anywhere good and lead to total dreg seasons. It's not a look you want to F with.