psuhoffman

Very strong signal for Jan 6-7 on gefs. Makes sense. Last wave before a temporary warm up. That’s often the one for us. Not worth digging into maps or over analyzing but it’s about as strong a snow signal as you will see on that kind of lead.

The GEPS is the fastest with the pattern progression, likely too fast, but by the end you can already see the Aleutian low resuming and the central pac ridge shifting back into to epo domain. By the time the east warms the seeds of the next cold shot are already loading. This time with a -nao and a colder regime to start. We very well might snow with this initial favorable window Jan 1-6 but I’m still confident in the progression that when things reload mid January that’s when it gets REALLY good.

Next time just ask where the restroom is and to be excused. No need to do that in front of us.

More legitimate signs of the nao going negative on all guidance towards the second week of Jan. This signal is becoming more stable and consistent than the teases we were getting before. This would be right on schedule. Remember typically it’s not “nao goes neg and we instantly get a parade of snows”. While I’m excited for the potential in the Jan 1-6 range, cape covered it well, blocking would offer us an extended window beyond and history suggests we would be very likely to eventually cash in in a big way.

Get out of here with that logic nonsense were having a crazy party.

Raises hand… ”oh oh pick me pick me I know this one”.

No snark, a 24 hour snow mean on day 15 of an ensemble is about the worst tool to use to identify potential

Coop near here recorded 4” from that storm.

Does it make you feel any better to know it probably would have been snow 50 years ago? I wonder if in the future weather weenies will track “storms that used to be snow”.

Gfs has a perfect upper and surface low pass on the 29th it’s just about 5 degrees too warm in the boundary layer.

I don’t regret going into teaching at all. I do think about going back and finishing my meteorology degree someday though. Feels like unfinished business.

Funny story. One of my meteorology professors at PSU was Jon Nese who later left to work at the weather channel. I think he is back at PSU and runs the undergrad program now. But the day before I remember it was evident on WV once the upper feature was into the TN valley something was way way off. Guidance was severely missing the amplitude of the wave. I asked him “what’s the chances all the guidance is just wrong” and he said “about 0”. lol. They were probably glad when I changed majors after that semester. I lived in the weather station and looking back on it I probably drove them crazy.

I’d agree with this except in a moderate to strong Nino. In all other enso states if you look at the win % for those amplified storms it’s low. Even with a block. But man our win rate is extremely high in a Nino if we get blocking. The only fail in my lifetime was 98 because it just never got cold enough. 92 and 95 failed because we never got prolonged blocking. 83, 87, 2003, 2010 and 2016 all produced HECSs. If we get a period with a true block this winter our chances of a hecs are pretty good. Wrt 1996 it kinda makes sense. It was a Nina but had a lot of Nino hybrid characteristics in the North Pacific. Right now we’re in a strong Nino being muted by a strong Nina ish pac base state. So in the end they could have a lot of commonality. Let’s hope so.

When I think back on this hobby I don’t remember all the times looking at day 15 ensembles. I think about watching the snow creep north through VA thr afternoon before the blizzard of 96 started. I remember staying up all night in the weather station at PSU Hazleton the night of the January 2000 storm. Looking at WV the afternoon before and trying to harass any of the Mets who would listen that “something wasn’t right”. Realizing “it’s coming up”. Trust me I wish we got more of that and less of long range tea leaf reading.

Thank you. I also prefer short range. Nothing more exciting than looking at VVs, moisture convergence, fgen and trying to nail meso banding as a snowstorm is bearing down on us. Where’s that death band gonna set up. NE MD destroyed. But alas the last 7 years I’ve had way more practice looking at day 15 ensemble means wanting to gouge my eyes out as I wait for the next hint at any hope. Wrt long range, for me it’s 99% pouring over past data. What happened in every past snowy pattern. What was the loading pattern weeks ahead. How did this roll forward in the past. I just waste way more time than most looking at and memorizing historical weather data. Frankly it comes in handy with short range too. There are surprises good and bad but I’ve found more often than not things trend towards what history says should happen given the setup.

If the nao tanks the first week of January all bets are off. I want to see another couple days of movement in this direction. I wasn’t expecting that until later. But if true the -pna wouldn’t matter.

This would suck ……if you’re Webb

It’s a sample size of 3

Fringed

Correlation isn’t causation. I highly doubt the -pna is causing a -nao. And a -nao causing a -pna is almost impossibly from a wave physics standpoint. What’s likely going on is random but a function of the fact the base state has been a -pna so odds greatly favor a -pna regardless of the nao state. We had a -pna during most +nao periods also. And those were even warmer than the -nao-pna periods! The fact a +pna+nao has been colder than a -pna-nao lately is also related to the warmer pac and the fact we’ve been in a Nina base state which has a much more hostile -pna effect on the eastern US than a Nino. Note in 2019 we had a -pna also but it wasn’t as bad. Yea it sucked compared to our expectations for a Nino but the reality was colder/snowier than the other -pna dominant years recently. The weak Nino was unable to completely mitigate the pac that year but it has some effect. But I do think there is some truth to your comment wrt the expended Hadley cell and mid lat ridges linking with high lat ridges lately. Here’s my alternative conclusion. I do think what we’ve proven the last 7 years is during a hostile -pdo cycle a Nina and likely a neutral enso (which frankly weren’t great during previous -pdo cycles but could be ok) are now mostly a lost cause and the best we can do is hope if we get lucky we fluke into a few snows and avoid a total complete 2020/2023 type fail. But what we haven’t proven is whether a Nino is also a fail. During previous -pdos ninos we’re still extremely snowy. I’m betting the split flow and stronger stj will limit the ability for a full latitude trough to dig out west and for a ridge to go nuts in the east. I think a Nino can still have the canonical response. If it doesn’t as I’ve said it’s time to pack it in wrt expecting a truly snowy winter, until the PDO phase flips again, whenever that is.

What you’re basically saying then is we can’t get a snowy winter in a -PDO anymore. This winter is a good test case for that hypothesis.

Just my 2 cents…I have fellow snow weenie friends from NYC. From 2003-2018 NYC had 40”+ 9 times in 16 years. And several of the years they missed were still in the 30s. This resulted in them thinking anything less than 40” sucks. The second factor is the climo for a Nino isn’t as great for them. The chances to exceed climo snowfall decreases as you head north. Years like 2016, 1987 and 1965 weren’t as good for NYC as here, especially wrt climo and their expectations. Frankly even 1958 and 2010 weren’t as good there when you factor climo. And don’t shoot the messenger but two of my NYC friends remember 2010 as mostly frustrating because they got 40” but places south of them got way more and it “ruined” it for them. Combine their inflated expectations compared to us with the fact even if we get what I expect and a period that rivals an average of Jan/Feb 1958,1965,1987,2010,2016 that wouldn’t be as good for them…and you get their pessimism towards the current situation. Frankly what they root for is way different. They want an east based -QBO nina. Those are cold and from NYC north very snowy. They suck for us! But that’s what they want. Even if we get a snowier Nino they don’t appreciate them as much as they are warmer, nyc won’t hold snowpack which is something they care about. We don’t since it’s virtually impossible here. And places south of them tend to get more which annoys them to no end because NYC is the grandfather creator of snow and they deserve to get the most from every storm or else it’s not fair.

Ok let me rephrase that. A -EPO/+PNA is awesome but also incredibly rare. Ya it would be nice but in the last 50 years there’s only been 4 years where that was a predominant feature. 1994, 2003, 2014 and 2015. And in a -PDO that combo is almost impossible to sustain. So short of waiting for that unicorn once every 15 years type combo…what would you want to see to get a cold/snowy winter?

Ok let’s come at this a different way. What exactly would you want to see to say “it’s gonna be cold/snowy”?

In my best Lewis Black impersonation… “HOLY SHIT, HOLY Fng SHIT”. Inject that long wave pattern at that exact time of year right into my veins please!