psuhoffman

Hemispheric energies are low

The cliffs notes version

We’re due and all that

It’s only cold because the wave is 500 miles south of us. Had it amplified and come north the boundary would have also. We’ve seen this run after run.

So close

In the higher elevation of western NC sure. But no one under like 700 feet is getting accumulation with those boundary thermals.

Every once in a while a crazy anomaly happens. But on that 12z run things went like 95% right and it still didn’t work with that next wave. Last weekend we had a perfect track coastal and no one even noticed as it was raining. We’re in real bad shape.

Impressive! but actually check the thermals. Surface temps are 34-37. White rain.

There is just no win to be had here. Until we see stream interaction in which there is actually a legit frozen representation to the north of storms at or south of our latitude…we are just rearranging deck chairs. There is no real path.

lol

Why...was there a se ridge? There have only been 2 warm neutral winters since 2000 and 4 since 1950. Way too small a sample to draw conclusions. But neutral is only within .5 of 0. Even a weak Nino often has muted impacts so I think it’s fair to lump all neutrals together. This is the composite for all neutral winters since 2000 We were discussing this the other day. Actually the flip in enso neutral winters accounts for a large portion of our degraded snow climo. From 1950 to 1993 neutral winters averaged 24” at BWI with 52% above avg. The last 30 years they avg 12” with 17% above avg. Enso neutral used to be almost as good as Nino and now it’s been the worst enso state the past 30 years by avg, median, and % above normal. The main cause us a persistent SER. @Terpeast speculated this winter is actually behaving more like a neutral than a Nina. I’ve also tried to point this out when people root for a Nina to fade but it’s too late. Once you enter winter it’s better if the Nina persists. Neutral is even worse! We actually have a better chance at a snowy Feb/Mar in a Nina that doesn’t fade

Warm neutral is prob better than nina.... Too small a sample to draw conclusions but the last one was 2020 and the last 4 were all below below normal!

12 bwi ens probabilities through 0z 2/6/23 1”: 49% 3”: 29% 6”: 5%

Like I said...the whole run looks more like you would expect a run in early November to look.

but what about talking about talking about climate change? I do think the compromise that its ok to talk about the affects of the fact it is getting warmer so long as we don't debate the cause or human involvement should avoid the politics side. I mean the fact it is warmer now than in recent recorded history isn't controversial or political. Its simply the debate over the cause that gets messy. But I defer to the bosses.

The rest of our lives

Forgot to update the 0z collective probabilities for 1”/3”/6” at bwi 1”: 50% 3”: 24% 6” 9%

Look at the CMC. The high is perfect and it’s still all rain. It wouldn’t matter.

Our mid winter climo is acting like November. Yea it’s possible to snow but in November we knew even if everything went 95% right it would still fail most of the time because it was just too warm and takes an extremely anomalous event and rare confluence of every factor going perfectly to overcome that. Well welcome to mid winter and…

what are we even doing anymore???

Man look at the progression of that storm. And it’s not a pac puke airmass there was an arctic high in front of it. Yes I know it moves out. Yes every one of the 500 variables didn’t go 100% perfect. But look at the h5 and surface progression. In early Feb. then look at the results. Tell me it doesn’t look the way you would expect if that was happening in early November or April not mid winter!

So now Feb 7 is “the one” ? Oh and the high isn’t perfect, it’s 4.3 miles too far east and isn’t 1060. Fail.

I understand the problem it causes but it is kinda ridiculous and difficult to avoid any mention of CC in a thread devoted to discussing weather when CC kinda impacts everything “weather”. The whole thing is stupid.

Our way is better

That actually makes sense. One of the reasons I’ve always been skeptical of this period having a high probability to produce. I’m trying to think how to articulate this. It’s like “showing your work” on a math problem you just do in your head. But think of how the flow is affected by having a huge ridge at the mid levels right under us and the Tpv right on top. The whole flow is compressed. Shred factory! That’s not the flow we want to get something to amplify near us. Ideally we want a split flow and a trough to cut across under the tpv. But I can’t because the SER is a beast so it tries to lift over the SER. That only leaves 2 likely scenarios. It can’t lift and gets shredded. It can and cuts. The in between scenario is the least likely and involved needed a thread the needle perfect balance between everything. Add on top of that what I referenced above that the cold lately isn’t even penetrating into the ridge as much as it usually does and it’s even more difficult because any weak boundary wave caused by these weaker vorts in the flow won’t have much frozen associated with them if the cold is mostly to the north of the zone of least resistance in the flow between the TPV and the SER. When I play out this steam interaction in my head the paths to win seem way harder to imagine than the fails. As @Bob Chill likes to say it’s complicated and we don’t do complicated well.