psuhoffman

Not saying the day 7 thing has no shot. Just that will need a lot of luck. I don’t see it as a high probability event. I could see us get a high probability setup later. That’s all. But luck is the biggest variable in all this.

I co-sign. I know no one wants to be patient when it’s almost March and we are starving. I want snow right now too. But that period makes sense given the progression. The retrograding block will eventually link with the pac ridge and once that happens it will apply enough pressure on the mid latitude flow that the thermals will start to press further and further southeast. This is a typical progression when a blocking regime begins after a very hostile temperature regime. Blocking started early Jan 2016 but took weeks to get the thermals right. Took about 7-10 days after the block in 2018 before we were cold enough. Jan 2021 had great blocking but it wasn’t until early Feb that we had our best chances for snow. If it’s already cold (as if that’s ever true anymore) we can snap right into a snowy regime with a block but when we’re coming from a hostile thermal regime it usually takes time.

Cmc and icon suppressed. Like I said with so many waves this is unlikely to be correctly depicted on any given run. But it’s a long shot Imo. Needs perfect timing and has no margin for error with marginal cold at best.

I don’t think he’s trolling. I agree it’s a good thing the pattern is active. I know we’re running out of climo but as the block retrogrades the opposite will happen under it. As the ridge links with the pac ridge it will start to apply pressure under it and the thermal boundary will sag southeast in the means. By mid month the default base state of the boundary is likely to be far enough southeast for us to have a legit shot. For now seeing how active the wave train is bodes well for later. All this is about the mean. These changes don’t happen linearly or smoothly. The boundary will shift around and progress in a chaotic way. It’s possible we luck out before mid March if the chaos we’re to break our way. But later is when the mean configuration is likely to be more favorable. chuck was just pointing out how wet the pattern is which bodes well when the boundary does get right. We won’t be able to afford weeks of dry. We’re gonna get one or two wave shots at this at most before climo degrades too much.

Too bad Matt’s not around much anymore. Would have been entertaining

Shame there isn’t a sub here where they discuss New England weather. …yes I know he is trolling.

I actually agree with Chuck

Too late, books full

Keep in mind phase 8 is not as good in March as earlier in the winter...Phase 1-2 are really the best phases as we head into March for cold/snow here. That's one of the factors why if it wasn't for the fact climo is deteriorating I said I would favor late March for snow. We might end up having to see where the end of our workable climo intersects the start of the best pattern coming up. None of that means we can't get lucky with something BEFORE the best pattern period actually begins. Luck is a HUGE part of all this. Always

I think in the macro sense DT is right that often these west to east amplified waves that we need to not gain any latitude to work out...don't work out. Usually they either get squashed or cut. That's because the balance you need between suppression and amplitude is delicate. That said...they do work more often in a blocking regime AND later in the season. So given the micro here I wouldn't discount it. My biggest issue with it is simply the complexity between all the waves here and the lead time. It's a realistic progression imo, but the issue is we are talking about 3 waves in pretty close proximity that will all affect one another and at the lead time we are still talking about how likely is it that the guidance is getting those details between all 3 waves correct? Usually when we have seen guidance nail a snowstorm from this range its a much simpler situation with a split flow, a strong STJ wave being ejected into a blocking regime. That is the kind of stable setup guidance can be expected to have a reasonable representation of even at day 7. But whenever we need to resolve multiple waves and energy transfers between streams the odds its being modeled correctly outside 100 hours goes way down.

I am not saying these waves before have no shot, but just my gut from the way this is progressing, our best chance at a big snowstorm will be around mid March. I might even say late March but by then the pattern is fighting against the clock. I think mid month is when the best pattern and still workable climo might intersect.

You live in the right region!

There are like 5 progressive waves in between now and that event and the exact outcome of each is going to impact the eventual results for the one we're looking at...and even the one we are looking at is a complex multiple wave system where the trade off between each wave will impact the outcome.

I know we're just having fun and it's been just awful so I totally get it...but we do all know its way way way way way too soon to be worrying about operational run play by play right?

The larger picture is terrifying though. Look at the larger mid latitudes across the CONUS. And you can see where snow is increasing to the north in Canada as the boundary is more north so areas that typically were cold/dry in winter are now getting more moisture and are still cold enough. This makes logical sense. It's also clear the impact of all those monster HECS east coast storms the last 30 years. But the median, which I care about much more because that is more indicative of what our typical winters will be most of the time, and what we experience 8 times a decade affects my mood way more than those 1 or 2 anomalies, is tanking. Also...if we continue this trend and start to lose some of those HECS storms...that little area of blue along the coast will creep north or disappear completely. This is also visually discredits something I've seen a lot lately where people post about how its snowing somewhere out west without the context that its at 8000 feet in elevation which has NOTHING TO DO WITH OUR CLIMO! I ski out west a lot. It's raining more often at places like 5,000 to 8,000 feet a lot now...but yea it still snows a lot at those elevations...and yes at 10,000 feet its still going to snow a ton and maybe even more if we increase precip due to warming...but that has absolutely NOTHING indicative wrt our climo. Its a totally different phenomenon. Or showing how its snowing more in Canada...so what...they want the boundary to be further north up there. We do not. That map shows that at our latitude the trend is VERY CLEAR.

It's actually slightly depressing though, that there is still that much SER in the means with that look everywhere else. The PAC ridge has shifted well east into AK there...there is a ridge bridge over the top to the NAO domain, strong 50/50 signal...and yet there is still a SER in the means... yea sure we could get super picky, the pacific isnt PERFECT...but if we need perfect to squash the SER we are in big trouble in a larger scale sense. That should be plenty good enough there to obliterate the SER totally...it shouldn't be showing in the means at all IMO.

IF that 50/50 signal is real its a great trade off since that feature is one of the main positives of a -NAO anyways...and often it lingers beyond the collapse of the NAO which is why often some of our big storms come AFTER blocking...like Jan 96.

Don’t worry, next year there will always be next year.

Yea it snows here so often we should be optimistic

For those that obsess about how fast our snow melts... getting like 6" of snow and 4" of sleet is actually better than 16" of snow...because it takes forever to melt sleet. Back in March 2017 I got like 5" of snow and 4" of sleet and it took several very warm days to melt it because of how dense the pack was. I remember in 2003 driving back from Penn State places further south that had more sleet mixed in with the snow still had snowcover a week after the storm long after the powdery 20-30" in PA had melted away.

I was trolling... I believe at the time what I said was "Maybe if we are really lucky and everything goes perfectly we can get a great late season block like March 2001 or March 2013". But sure obviously there are similarities, both 3rd year Nina's, both had early and late season blocking. 2013 was also similar in that it was a neutral after a prolonged nina and in many ways behaved like a nina and also had late season blocking. But no 2 storms are exactly alike. I don't fear March 2001 as others do. Give me that setup 100 times and we would get a lot of snow 60 or 70 of them. Same with December 2010 or March 2013. Just because those specific examples of a perfect H5 pass with a NAO block didn't work doesn't mean that setup wasnt good. The setup was fine, but some details didn't go our way in each of those cases but those details will be different every time. The boundary layer won't be exactly as warm as 2013 every time. The convection might not set up the same way. March 2001 and Dec 2010 were nearly identical to January 1996 at H5 but both had details go wrong to make the result very different. You got to play with fire to get fireworks...but sometimes you just get burned!

I am supposed to be out of town that weekend but everything is refundable, if we were actually going to get that type of storm I would cancel in a heartbeat. I actually make sure any plans I make during the winter are fully refundable so I have that option "just in case".

I doubt guidance would tease us as bad inside day 5 like that anymore. The extreme south bias on the GFS is gone, it's pretty good with the general track of large synoptic features inside 120 hours now. I was pretty young and inexperienced then also...but looking back on it I probably would have seen the warning signs if that setup played out again. Leading it it was very warm and we were relying on a perfect track and a bombing system to dynamically cool us to get that snowstorm. The fact that a lot of the guidance showed that, now I would still find that troubling and feel unsure of that kind of outcome even at short range. Relying on needing everything to go absolutely perfectly is living dangerously.

@stormtracker unfortunately that other map was counting a lot of sleet and ice as snow. But it was still a big event before the flip. This is closer to what really would fall if that was correct.