psuhoffman
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Everything posted by psuhoffman
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@CAPEIf the pacific pattern retrogrades to the degree guidance is now suggesting we only need the nao to be mediocre. This is a new development. Guidance backed off the nao but then improved the pac to compensate. It’s not quite 2003/2015 levels (both true modoki) but those years overcame a raging positive nao at times. If the pac gets to the look on guidance by New Years a near neutral nao is fine. Just don’t have a strong tpv sitting near Baffin and we’ll be ok with that pac look. It’s not a hecs look but given the Stj could be productive. And who knows you get a well timed 50/50 and Feb 2003 can happen despite a +nao. Get our flow out of the NW with a trough as that STJ is directed at us and I like our chances. I know I’m changing my tune a little on the Nao but I didn’t expect the pac to retrograde as much as guidance is now suggesting. That changes the equation in our favor some.
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I think this is overrated, at least wrt getting snow. If you’re rooting for some 1977 or 1994 type arctic outbreak it’s important. We had a snowy 2 week period in Jan 2019 when there was no snow cover around us. I remember this same debate. I just got 4” and held snow cover for 4 days! It’s mid Dec. All we need is a slightly colder airmass in Jan-Feb for that to work for most here. I file this away with soil temps, sun angle, day before temps, pressure in Pittsburgh and other distractions that come up every year.
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Improvements in the Atlantic on the EPS last 3 runs
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Ask him how a western trough worked out the last few years
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Webb has become a whole clown now https://x.com/psuhoffman/status/1735818062962524506?s=46&t=JDI46BeqOMUGnLaA2k6MTw
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Some of y’all are funny. A few days ago when guidance looked like crap some wanted to push back. Now things look legitimately good and now it’s time to Deb?
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There was an arctic shot in late December but we only got a coating of snow with it. The first 2 weeks of January were very cold but dry. There was a 1-3" clipper that was it. IAD had 11 straight days with a high below 40 degrees early in the month. From the 14th to the 28th was mild as we got a bit too much PAC. Similar to now. Then things reverted to the pattern of Dec/Early Jan and it was away we go. The not so good 2 week Jan pattern is below. But it was really only 2 weeks that whole winter where the pattern was not so good.
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Canadian weeklies updated. They flip the NAO negative around New Years and run the table. Also develops a nice EPO-NAO ridge bridge. Cue Chuck to point out the PNA is negative though.
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That's because snow is an anomaly here and at our elevation and latitude it takes way more factors to be in our favor than not. Kinda like a golf swing...takes multiple things working in unison to get it right...any one little thing can F it all up.
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First of all, the reason Siberia can get so cold is it is a much larger land mass and sheltered from any marine influence. It is much further and the body of water that is typically upstream from them is the north Atlantic which is much smaller and cooler than the pacific. Second, the predominant longwave pattern or flow. Look at this below. I have highlighted the pac jet there. How would any cold from Siberia be able to get here given that flow...cross polar flow is completely cut off by the pac jet blasting across N America. Furthermore how would our source regions even be able to develop home grown cold with that flow blasting warm pacific air across the whole continent. It is not always cold in Siberia, well WRT normal anyways... right now it is...see below But the flow shifts and becomes more progressive and that cold is forced out into the pacific and quickly gets obliterated as it mixes with the pacific maritime airmass...so look at next week It's now warm in Siberia, but its still not cold here its just warm EVERYWHERE...literally the only cold in the whole hemisphere WRT normal are two small pockets over Greeenland and Alaska, both of which are under a TPV at the time. 90% of the land masses across the whole N Hem is well above normal. As for your other questions regarding how much of this is random v "you know what". I can't say. I can say the pacific pattern which is responsible for this is partially cyclical. We are in a hostile PDO cycle. But I can also say that there are some factors contributing to this which make it worse which have been linked to "you know what". The expansion of the pacific basin circulation which is linked to warming has compressed the jet speeding it up making the problem worse. The warm pools in the western Pac/IO are making this worse and also linked to warming. And of course as the pacific warms that's going to be a problem since that is what is upstream of us. I have no idea what percentage of this is just cyclical and what percentage might be warming but its likely some of both.
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Another good euro weekly run if we’re keeping score. Just worth noting yesterdays flip back to a -NAO wasn’t a one off fluke.
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Except for the 3 blizzards many still got more snow that winter than like 5 of the last 7! There was a 3-5” snow for the western burbs Dec 5. A coating late Dec. 1-3 early Jan. 4-7” late Jan. 3-5” early Feb. 1-3” in MD late Feb. And that’s ignoring the ridiculousness of “except for 3 blizzards” but yes I know you’re mostly kidding.
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Most of the area got a coating just before new years and 1-3” around Jan 8th. It’s wasn’t as snowless as you make it you were just getting frustrated because the pattern had way more potential and we were hecs hunting.
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That’s why getting the TPV out of the Baffin area is so important. We don’t need Canada to be “cold” but we do need to get enough northern flow in eastern Canada to prevent it from being 100% maritime air and to get some cold transported into our area. The TPV is far enough northeast there to allow the flow to turn NW behind it. Still not ideal but 1000 times better than where it is now.
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I guess we could live with a crap longwave pattern if we just keep getting lucky with thread the needle perfect secondary developments and h5 cutoff lows.
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I can't believe they still put out those exact same maps as when I was at PSU in the 90s. And they were crap then!
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It's also possible we might get the Pacific longwave pattern to retrograde just enough that a more neutral Atlantic could work also. It's a scale, the more help we get on one side the less we need on the other. Historically the easiest way to make this whole thing work though is if we can get a true -NAO. That would make this whole thing a lot simpler. But we do need the TPV to get away from Baffin. Sitting there is going to create a strong west to east flow under it and blast maritime air across.
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That’s definitely a first step. But so long as the nao stays positive the flow to our north will be west to east and pac maritime air will dominate. The pac trough would have to retro really far for that equation to work, see 2003 and 2015 for what that would look like. But I don’t think we’re likely to get that. Ultimately until the nao goes negative we’re going to struggle with temps and be rooting for a lot of convoluted things to go right to overcome very marginal at best thermals.
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He knows 90% have no idea what he’s talking about. The way I look at it…to simplify, in a true west based modoki Nino like 2003 and 2015 the N pac trough is likely to set up far enough west that the nao isn’t as critical. In a super east based super Nino like 1998 the pac trough will be displaced so far east and dominant the nao won’t matter we’re screwed. But in all the rest the NAO is critical in determining our fate. If the NAO is negative enough to buckle the flow we will get enough trough in the east for the equation to work. If the nao is positive there is nothing to stop the pacific airmass east of the pac trough from just blasting across the CONUS under the positive NAO. Luckily the tropical forcing in a Nino is such that it also has the e highest correlations to -nao of the enso states. Add in ascending solar, descending -QBO and a weak spv and we “should” be good. Right now Webber can troll because with a raging pos NAO that pac configuration won’t work. But watch what happens if the nao flips.
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They went back to flipping the NAO/AO negative by early Jan and run the table that way. PAC backs off some creating the “it” look for mid Atlantic snow. I don’t bring them up everyday. I tend to view them over a period of time for trends. I brought them up the other day not because they suddenly were bad but because they were bleeding the wrong way consistent for 5 days. I finally thought it was worth mentioning after multiple worse runs. Usually I wouldn’t bring them up again so soon except since I seemed to start a mini shitstorm (it’s a technical term) with my observation of the negative I’d point out they had a very good run today. I disagree. As long as you don’t freak out over every single run. Each run has the same exact value the old 2 runs a week had. Only now you don’t have to way several days to see if it was a fluke. You can watch trends. Come to some conclusions quicker perhaps. More data is better so long as you aren’t emotional about each run. I know that’s a big ask though.
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https://x.com/webberweather/status/1735025491352912155?s=46&t=JDI46BeqOMUGnLaA2k6MTw his troll game is A+
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Frankly some of our snowy Nino periods were even warmer than people realize because snow cover severely depresses temps.
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Euro weeklies bounced back in a big way today.
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I’ll admit I judge a pattern purely by how likely I think it is to produce a snowstorm. I could care less if it’s +3 or +20 or even -5 for that matter, if the long wave configuration is unlikely to produce snow it’s all the same to me.
