psuhoffman

Gfs is the ultimate kick in the nuts. Suppresses 3 straight waves, the last of which teases the crap out of us but crushed central and southern VA…then miller b’s us when the main energy ejects.

Quicker is kinda important given the time of year and our rapidly degrading climo

That’s likely just timing differences getting resolved which will focus the negative and increase the heights around it as the correct wave spacing gets resolved. There is going to be ridging in front of that initial trough. Whether that can become a threat will depend on the strength of the 50/50 and if it ejects and doesn’t stall for days. I like the wave AFTER that one more anyways. I said around the 15th was likely when the best pattern intersects with a degrading climo to create the best opportunity. But I could see the 11-12th if that wave ejects immediately. Either way this is a good test case. The pac isn’t awful there. It’s mediocre. If that blocking can’t suppress the SER in March with a neutral pac… I dunno man. Probably means we can’t snow anymore without a favorable pac. Problem is like 50% of all our snow historically came with either a hostile or mediocre pac. That’s a big problem if we can only snow when the pac is in a perfect -epo +pna alignment. That just doesn’t happen that often.

It has THE storm. The whole thing evolves about how I’d expect the big storm just comes together slightly too far north. That’s certainly possible but the difference between that result and a big hit here is noise at that range.

Irony is I’ve been optimistic exactly one time all winter. And if it doesn’t snow I’ll have been 100% too optimistic.

I don’t interpret those that way. That paltry snow to our north is a combo of weak NS waves along the arctic boundary and cutters from the minority cluster. The big problem on the majority is suppression during our window of opportunity That was a norlun trough that went berserk aided by the increased baroclinity that time of year in an anomalously cold airmass. I’d love to experience that kind of thing. Training stationary lines of thunder snow. It think it was all of it. Not only was I saying it has no chance in the next 2 weeks but my climo observations were interpreted as “and it’s never gonna snow again”. Which of course is an exaggeration but I get it. Irony is my climo stuff wasn’t predictive. I was simply pointing out trends and data that have already happened. I was putting a highlighter on evidence many didn’t want to see. I should have started every post with “don’t shoot the messenger” lol

Your point is well taken and it’s harder to be colder in late March so what I’m about to say is kinda hypocritical but how much of that was temps v sun angle? I have the same Sun angle here essentially and those snows accumulated here mid day. I was just several degrees colder. It is totally true that light snow with thin cloud cover wont accumulate after early March mid day mo matter how cold it is. I’ve experienced that. But if you can actually get the temp below like 30 I’ve seen heavy snow can.

No one is saying it will definitely snow. Just that it could. The odds are finally decent enough it’s worth tracking a possible threat. That’s all. It snowed in some portion of this sub in mid March or later 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018 and LAST YEAR lol so this isn’t an unprecedented thing. The irony to me is some of the people who are dismissing this were willing to track all winter when we were in a pattern I knew had absolutely no chance. We are far more likely to get a snowstorm in spring with this pattern than at any date in the pattern we’ve been in. That’s not saying much. Maybe it’s 20 % now v 1% before but if you were willing to track then it makes no sense to give up now.

Earlier in the season that would be more problematic but it’s ok there this time of year. Different wavelengths and colder SSTs. It would be a problem if that trough ends up further east into the west coast.

I get it. I saved up my optimism since I pretty much knew we had no hope all winter until now so I was never invested at all in any of those. I don’t take it personal. This is a good point and it’s important to keep in mind what a “win” is in mid March. When I say I’m optimistic I’d still bet against us actually getting a significant storm. But I’m optimistic true pattern could produce one. That just meant maybe we have a 25% chance now v the near 0 one I felt we had all winter. But people need to know their local climo. If we did get lucky and a big storm it probably looks like March 18 where the urban areas get 3-5” and the 6”+ is reserved for the NW higher elevations. That’s what climo says is most likely even if we do get the storm we’re looking for.

See that trough developing south of AK helping to shift the Aleutian ridge northeast into AK and Canada. That’s new. All winter I was unenthusiastic because guidance kept underestimating the downstream impacts of the same pacific forcing. That part of the equation is finally different now.

What is going on. For the last 3 months I’ve been taking abuse for being a deb because I wasn’t interested in day 10 fantasy and was saying nope sorry that’s not gonna happen. Now I’m optimistic we might have a chance and those same people are being huge debs. WTF.

The ridge there is more a weakness between waves and not the tropical death ridge that kills all winter that dares stand before it. Look at the temps within that ridge. Actually there are negative anomalies there in some places. Now if the energy gets stuck and just sits for days in the SW like the op euro shows that does us no favors but that’s not been how we fail all year. Storms eject they just cut way to out NW over the heat ridge. Also I’d argue the longwave pattern in the eastern pacific and western Canada argues against that energy getting stuck. It should eject. That could fail but I don’t see it as the same fail. We can fail even in a good pattern.

Weak or brief waves into favorable phases against a hostile base state have little impact. A high amplitude wave, on the other hand typically can have more impact and can indicate a change in the base state.

I do worry about that ridge. But..if we get a crazy retrograding block, string phase 8 mjo which shifts the pac ridge northeast and links with the NAO block…and it still can’t win v that ridge… well you tell me? Then what? What exactly are we looking for? Can’t say “it’s the pac” anymore because the pac forcing is about to become pretty neutral and combined with the blocking certainly not something you can use to blame and excuse that kind of ridge! So yes I am concerned the ridge wins. But I’d it does that’s the conclusion of my book right there!

They make the Atlantic more important as it’s easier to back up and buckle the progression upstream with blocking.

I am hopeful for the first time all year. And yes it’s sucks it has to come at the tail end of snow climo but it is what it is. But here is why I think think time could be different. 1) March wavelengths produce different outcomes. The central pacific ridge feature isn’t as much a problem with a shorter wavelength longwave configuration. 2) more favorable tropical forcing than we’ve had all season 3) a true major SSWE that coupled with the TPV The effects of these 3 can be seen on the guidance and it’s not the same head fake as before. The pacific isn’t going to get great, but the ridge gets displaced NE some and a mid latitude trough undercuts it in the central pac. That’s a less hostile configuration than a full latitude ridge through the Aleutians! Still not great, but workable if other things are good which they are. The retrograding block links up with the pacific ridge completely which leaves no weakness for systems to cut in between which has been an issue. Mid latitude systems will be forced to slide east under the blocking across the top. All that doesn’t guarantee we get snow but I think this time we have a legit chance unlike all the other fake long range threats. Those were a false flag product of the guidance continually trying to change the result of the same forcing. That was just bunk. This time the equation has actually changed some.

I meant work to suppress the SER. If something gets squashed that means it worked. Lol

I think the gefs is rebounding the TPV too quickly.

This is it. I am finally seeing something I like. I am putting my chips all in, this is the one.

plus look at the lower heights under the Aleutians pressing the ridge into AK. If that longwave configuration there can't overcome the SER were in big big big trouble because that is about as good as its going to ever get in a -PDO. The pac isnt good but its mediocre there...and mediocre is about as good as we can hope for during a hostile PDO phase. Meanwhile we have a damn perfect in every way block. That HAS to work or its a really bad sign.

Gfs has the setup. Op splits the energy and one wave gets suppressed and the next one remains weak and slides to our north without any southern component.

Ya but I bet I made some people look

Why isn’t anyone talking about the ukmet???!!!!

Nice run to run changes