psuhoffman

Keep in mind that’s not a departure from normal as a %. Places like DC can’t have large numerical deficits because they only avg 14” a year compared to somewhere like Deep Creek that averages over 100”. So even if they are less below avg in terms of % they can have a larger numerical deficit over time.

Pac low centers too far east flooding N America with warmth

Maybe someday you’ll make a post worth reading. Unfortunately I don’t have the patience so I’ll never see it since you’ll be on my ignore list.

The boundary layer is warming fastest. Those of us with elevation are suffering less. The UHI obviously is suffering the most.

I’ll be doing my end of season analysis soon but the main take away is I am way too optimistic. I predicted below normal snow and we got none. I got excited exactly one time for the possibility of a snowstorm and we got no storms. So I was 100% too optimistic and hopeful. In short I was a huge weenie. In the coming years I will do my best to be more pessimistic so that I can offer you all the realistic accurate analysis you deserve.

I said for us. 2021 ended up much below normal snow in DC and Balt despite extreme blocking for about 6 weeks in prime climo. That is definitely not producing.

Work for who? It has actually been 5 anomalous -NAOs without producing much if any snow here since we had the last affective one in 2018. I wrote about it back after the December fail that one of the reasons for our snow drought over the last 7 years is that blocking is not working at the same rate it used to. It's still too small a sample though to say its more than just a random thing. But combined with some other unsettling trends its worrying.

The SS wave that was supposed to be our threat doesn’t even exist on the ggem anymore lol

2020???

Everything is almost identical to the 6z run that gave us a lot of snow. The one difference is the SS wave had simply trended less amplified

I didn’t get 4 flakes

They were progressive waves in a fast pac flow. We just had cold and got lucky.

If that Nino can alter the N pac flow such to get true cold into the pattern it would work. If not…I doubt the results will be any better.

If by chill you mean the pac jet stop being amplified with waves racing into N America I don’t think we will see much of that ever because it’s an effect of the expanded Hadley cell compressing the flow and increasing the jet. That seems to be a new permanent base state due to…something.

@Heisy the next pac wave hasn't really trended that much faster...it did trend significantly more amplified at 6z v previous runs...and it's slightly faster...but the bigger problem is the SS wave is a little slower which narrows the window between the two NS waves. But here is the bigger issue with that...and one we have run into in the few split flow blocking regimes we have had lately (this killed us several times in January 2021 for example) is the awful thermals of the mid latitude airmass stuck under the blocking...means we need such a suppressive northerly flow that it ends up suppressing the storm also. The reason the SS wave is slowing down is the increased confluence in the flow behind the first NS wave. We have been celebrating that trend because we know cold is going to be iffy at best and so we wanted that...but there has been a correlated slowing of the SS wave as that trend happens that has resulted in a suppressed solution. Basically...our path is so narrow because with such a marginal airmass we need so much northerly flow to get enough cold down here...that it becomes too suppressive for a SS storm to amplify at our latitude. Yes part of that problem right now is the time of year. But we have also had that problem in mid winter. January 2021 we had a couple waves where we had a great split flow longwave pattern but the airmass was putrid and we had this same equation...we were rooting for more confluence and we got it...but both waves ended up suppressed and torn to shreds by the flow even though we were barely cold enough to get snow even had the storm not been suppressed. For us to have a good chance for any given storm to work...the airmass has to be cold enough to survive some southerly flow ahead of the wave. If we need the flow to be out of the north to be cold enough...that usually isn't going to work because in a split flow that is going to suppress a SS wave 90% of the time.

The euro has been too amplified with most everything. It’s hard to quantify the March effect since we don’t necessarily know what the same wave looks like earlier. It’s already baked unto the models. The Gfs is under done. The euro over. That’s the most typical error at this range.

Things have to trend good now. If it falls apart this far out it won’t hurt enough. It has to get better and better until we actually believe, truly allow ourselves to think this is the one, it’s really finally happening, then and only then can it be the total soul crushing knock us to our knees and make us sob uncontrollably like March 2001 and December 2010 were a fun day at the park experience that is the only fitting way this can end.

Huge improvement

Euro is just over amplified. Typical bias at this range

Gefs better

It's not that simple... because we are also dealing with the timing of other features...its the play between the NS wave before and after the SS wave that matters also. There is a window between the two where space is open for a SS wave. If you slow down or speed up either of those NS waves it changes the window. This run the SS wave was towards the very end of that window...but the bigger problem was it was too slow and not amplified enough...got caught under the flow and cut off down there.

yes...ggem was perfect except it was just a few degrees too warm. We just have to hope it goes down like the GGEM and its simply a few degrees colder. Not going to over analyze it.

It was 12 hours too slow...lost it's window. Cuts off too far south and slides east. But the GFS has the setup we need...just needed a slightly faster more amplified SS wave and it would have been a good outcome.

It's taking too long... flow ahead of the next main pac wave is starting to erode the cold. Storm could also end up suppressed...but this was close enough to a monster solution (the only kind that can work for us really) that I am fine with it. If that SS wave was 12 hours faster and slightly more amped it would have been the exact result we wanted.