psuhoffman

I'm in Florida until the 3rd. Can we extend one day... you could probably use a day to recover anyways right?

This is pretty perfect pattern for skiers. Gonna be good for New England and most of the west from Colorado north.

I’ll be back in time for the 1996 redux

I’ll be gone from Dec 26-Jan 3 so not paying as much attention as normal but I do think that period holds serious potential for exactly this type of event. I don’t think it’s a huge storm setup. Waves will likely not be amplifying in that flow. But I definitely see a healthy NS wave getting forced under us and it doesn’t take a lot of moisture to make something decent work out in that setup.

5”

Legit heavy snow

The kids made their first snowman of the season before going to bed

I’m on the first of those 2. Dug Hill ridge.

She thinks the magic sled worked https://imgur.com/a/ym1U9Ww#xlsIxX3 https://imgur.com/a/ym1U9Ww#o6BW4Dg

Very early. Snowing light. But it has the high ratio fluff look that accompanies most of the positive busts up here when a little bit of qpf can go a long way. If we just get .25 qpf it will be 4+ based on what I’m seeing.

My 7 year old just put out this little sled ornament she made at school and said maybe it’s magic and will make it snow. She has no idea…

It’s gone snow

It’s too meso scale for guidance to possibly get right. We wouldn’t even try to nail the exact location of a thunderstorm 60 hours out. This is the same thing.

My 11 year old son who is into engineering and science would probably listen and then start pulling up videos about it on his tablet. My 7 year old daughter would look at me and say "but my unicorn stuffy said it's going to snow" She is clearly the one on her way to a healthier, happier life.

I just want enough for my kids to be able to go sledding or build a snowman. They're starting to ask every day when it's going to snow.

For this type of event 60 hours might as well be 300. We’re talking about nailing down a very localized meso band. That’s like expecting the morels to get a line of thunderstorms correct from 60 hours. Juts getting typical Nina chaotic northern stream waves right outside 48 hours is hard enough. This is almost impossible. This isn’t a split flow Nino pattern where nailing STJ systems at long leads is a legit thing. The best analog in anyone’s set was 2014 and remember in that season almost none of the snows were depicted well outside 48 hours. The times it looked like snow from day 5 typically busted and almost all the snows that winter looked ambiguous at best from 72 hours out and trended into something inside that range. edit: best analog meaning the snowiest and one we hope ends up correct I’m not saying this is a 2014 clone coming. But I did incorporate some ideas from that winter into my expectations for this season. So far we’ve just been a bit unlucky. But every year is different. That year we got lucky and a lot of those waves hit us. A similar pattern won’t necessarily produce as good of results.

You're 100% correct on what the significant influences will be here. The issue is, none of these factors are things the guidance can possibly nail down to the exact mile at any significant lead time. This is essentially a meso scale event where nailing features to within a few miles becomes critical and that won't be possible until maybe even inside 24 hours if not nowcast.

We are in the game...but it's hard to get excited at all when the margin for error is so thin. Which has been true of most of our threats lately which is why I've not been to active tracking things until inside 48 hours.

If this general pattern continues we will get a snowstorm.

Not every situation follows that general rule. Several factors I weighted. I think the PDO is becoming more favorable and that matters more than an incredibly weak Nina. The fall pattern matched the snowier analogs I identified. We’re due.

I wasn't trying to be snarky or confrontational...I am sorry if it came off that way.

With a weaker STJ and a stronger NS (both typical in a Nina base state) it's not unusual for a lot of these waves to end up too weak or suppressed. There is a reason the snowfall minimum (wrt averages) is pretty much right over us in a Nina. There is a better chance of more snow wrt average if you go in any direction...we are too far south for the NS dominant systems and too far north for the weaker STJ systems in a nina pattern. This is a generalization and not to be applied to every situation...but it's going to end up truth in the means over the longer periods...what we have seen is not some bad luck, its what happens in this type of pattern. We need to get out of it.

We’ve been in a Nina ish pacific base state for a long time. That isn’t good for gulf miller a type systems.