psuhoffman

I can count in one hand the number of times in the last 50 years we had blocking that lasted longer than that in one run or persisted all season. Other than super rare years like 1996 and 2010 we’ve always had to rely on hitting during a 2-3 week window. And it’s not always going to come in our preferred 8 weeks of prime climo. Some good years had to work with early or late blocks. 1960 it was March. 1969 and 1970 were December. The best snow of 1987-88 was in November! Nov-Dec 89 and 90 saved those years. Snowed a lot early 02 03 and 04. Only big snow was Dec 07/08. Dec 09!!! We can’t always afford to toss everything before Jan 1 and After Mar 1 as if it doesn’t count. Plenty of years we’re decent only because of what happened early and late.

This is getting dangerously close to over the line but it used to be rare to get a good pattern in December but when one happened it wasn’t that hard to get snow. Even in the recent past. Nov/Dec 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013 all produced snow across our area. It never felt like it was super difficult to get it to snow if the pattern was ok. The reason snow averages are so low in Dec compared to Jan/Feb was big snows were rare early because with warmer waters I do think big wound up amplified storms are difficult to stay snow and without those 10”+ storms there is nothing to average out the 0 snow years. But getting 2-4” in December was very very common until recently.

I suspect we aren’t actually far apart here just focused on different things. I know it can still snow in a good pattern with a good antecedent airmass and a good individual synoptic setup. I don’t think we’re losing big storms. A setup that would have been a mecs or hecs will probably still produce the same result Imo. A setup that would have been a cold smoke wave will still snow. We agree on that. What I’m talking about is what used to be a bad pattern that might produce 2” (or sometimes even more) from a flawed setup is now often a total shutout. We used to get a lot of small to sometimes moderate snows from a crappy pattern/airmass but a lucky fluke good synoptic setup within that larger crap pattern. Let me illustrate what I mean. One of the best examples of what I’m talking about Imo was a storm in 1997. All of North America was flooded with MP +5 or more anomaly air. But a temporary Hudson high caused a system from the SW to slide across under instead of cutting like every other wave in that pattern and we got a 3-6” snowstorm across the area. I think it was 3” at DCA and 6” at IAD. Look at that h5 for the week leading up to that snow. The airmass was garbage. It was 60 and 50 a couple days before and 40ish the day after even with snow cover. The snow fell at 32-34 degrees. What I’m saying is there is no way on gods green earth that pattern produces a 3-6” snowstorm anymore. That look now isn’t just hostile it’s a downright torch and we would by way too warm. And people would be saying “but the antecedent airmass was warm and the pattern isn’t good”. But that didn’t used to be an automatic death-knell to snow. We used to be able to get SOME snow from a bad pattern if we got lucky. That’s the best example because we remember a 6” snow. What was more common was a 1-3” slop event. And getting those in bad patterns was why Baltimore used to rarely have a single digit snow season and now they happen 50% of the time. Or why Baltimore used to have a 50/50 shot at 20” and now it’s like a 20% chance. Our good patterns are still good. But our bad patterns are now no hope shit the blinds forget about it torches!

Other than the NAM the last 24 hours the coldest guidance (euro, Icon) has trended warmer while the warmest (Gfs) trended colder. This is convergence. Problem is even the coldest solutions aren’t cold enough for most so a compromise wont be a good end result.

Icon flipped from the coldest to the warmest solution in one run. Lol.

Yea this isn’t the best example but on the other hand it has been possible to get some snow from a flawed marginal airmass. I saw plenty of them. Most aren’t storms we cite. Some 2.7” slop fest in an otherwise bad period isn’t something most remember usually. But they filled up our records and made a total shutout year a 8” year or a 5” year a 12” year or a 12” year a 20” year imo. There is no one example that’s proof. But I think the accumulation is. The fact we’ve had several “everything went 100% perfectly and it still was just too warm” examples recently. The Super Bowl storm in 2021 was the worst. Prime climo. Wasn’t a horrible airmass. I mean it was but it shouldn’t have been it was a mix of cp and Mp not pure pac. Storm took a perfect track. And 95 just got rain. Over the years we are consistently underperforming the analogs too. This year our top analogs to various patterns have been bad. But not total shutout bad. At various times 1985, 1998, 1954, 1991 and 2005/6 were top analogs. But the periods each of those years cited produced some snow. Nothing epic but a lot of 1-3” type snows near the analog dates. Even 98 didn’t snow in DC but it did in the area. Up here has 15” by now in 1998. IAD had like 5” by now. Yes the analogs say this year should be bad. But not this bad. What used to be low snow patterns are now no snow patterns. That’s what the analogs keep saying recently.

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For me I totally agree. But some are acting like this is torture. If so…just stop. Nothing will change. It will still snow or not snow. No reason to do something that has no impact if you don’t enjoy it.

I actually enjoy this. I like the challenge. I like the analysis. I like the banter and debates. And I like the camaraderie. Yes I would like it all more if it was snowing. But being here isn’t why it’s not snowing. If I wasn’t doing this it still wouldn’t be snowing I just wouldn’t be enjoying this discussion with you guys. So honest question/point… if you really don’t like the tracking and only want it to snow….why not just stop tracking and simply enjoy the snow when it comes?

Yea I see it too. I’m very confident had it gone out far enough given the setup there would have been a lot of hits.

18z eps is same for Sunday but a lot better as the next wave starts to get together. Way more confluence over the northeast. I really think had it gone out further it would have been a good run for next week. Not worth much but hey I’ll take it.

Yea ok and if the Giants beat the Eagles Saturday and some joker says “but it’s awesome if you just root for the Giants” they’re getting punched in the face.

both Gfs and euro have a very sharp cutoff between significant snow and nada with waves taking very similar tracks along the boundary. Again very 1994 ish just without the crazy ice on the warm side of the boundary because we don’t have an arctic airmass in place.

But he is somewhat right. That is a day 15 mean though...there is a spread and probably some members that aren't bad. But if the H5 anomalies actually end up centered where that mean has them...we are not getting any snow in that pattern. Any wave of any amplitude would track to our NW. The best we could hope for is some ice maybe from trapped low level cold. That is an awful look for a snowstorm.

Yes because if you are only on the edge of the boundary on a mean...anytime a wave comes along the boundary will be north of you. Like I said in my post earlier today...any wave will have a southerly flow ahead of it and try to lift the boundary. Our precipitation events often come at the warmest furthest north point for the boundary in a given pattern. We need the cold anomalies to be well south of us for our area to end up on the cold side during a precipitation event.

A week ago there was a battle between the GEFS and EPS for this week...the EPS had a great look and the GEFS was mediocre...GEFS won! Guess who is more likely to win this time? lol

I obviously don't think it will be nearly that cold but the similarities could mean the boundary between warm/cold could set up in a similar area...just not as cold on the cold side. But if you adjust that pattern from 1994 50 miles one way or the other it can be great or completely awful. Not far south of DC had nothing but cold rain most of that winter while not far north had one of their snowiest winters ever.

I did compare this pattern to late January into early Feb 1994 yesterday. Wasn't there sort of a similar gradient through our area then? I was in western Fairfax County that year just south of Herndon and it was awful. We kept getting pure ice storms while 10 miles NW of us would get a few inches of snow...and another 10 miles NW of there was getting even more. I visited my cousin in WV about an hour NW of me several times that winter and they had like 10" of hard packed snow/ice cover each time while my lawn was bare. It was torture.

Looks like Ralph settled it... snow line sets up northwest of 95 even with that solution LOL And my book gets a little thicker.

are we taking bets on which

The Sunday wave is gonna be difficult to work out...even for the NW crew, because the airmass in front is just so awful. Even with a pretty good track, if the wave has any amplitude to our west the southerly flow will wreck what little cold there is easily. It's not no hope...but we need a lot to go right. The airmass gets progressively a little better after each of these waves so we have a better chance next week imo.

GEFS is a fucking thing of beauty for next week. Best possible signal in every way from an ensemble at that range. It's the GEFS so take it for whatever you think its worth but damn. See I was ninja'd by everyone lol

@Maestrobjwa I can't answer your question. It's hard to say exactly how much the base state has degraded. It's hard to know what a couple degrees would do. It's not as simply as "its 42 and rain so it would be 39 and rain". Changing the equation some could cause the storm to transfer to the coast sooner moving the whole boundary hundreds of miles after. A storm might not develop at all if its a little colder and the boundary doesn't have enough baroclinic instability to initiate the development. This isn't the best example of warming hurting our climo though. We always struggled to get snow from progressive wave patterns. It takes perfect timing for that to work here. The problem I have been alluding to is that recently what used to be a better way for us to get snow in marginal temperature regimes has been failing consistently because marginal temp profiles are now just flat torches. So now we are actually rooting for a pattern that frankly isn't really historically the best way to get a lot of snow here. But it's also a colder pattern and not a total no hope shutout one so people are rooting for this just to have a chance to get some snow. That's my take on all this.

But there is a logical physical reason for that. We've been dealing with total continent wide torches people forget how hard it can be to get a lot of snow even in a cold pattern around here. I am about to generalize so please don't post every exception to the rule...but 90% of winter precipitation (or at least the type that we are tracking) comes from warm air advancing over cold air. Storms ride along the boundary and in front of any wave the southerly flow will try to push the cold boundary north. That is necessary to getting the WAA precip responsible for most of our snow anyways. But...given our location, northeast of the Gulf, along the coast, with very little elevation....if we don't have some mechanism in the northern stream to prevent the boundary from advancing north...we are going to be toast most of the time unless we just get incredibly lucky with timing. Storms are naturally going to want to lift as they get close to the east coast with all the heat gets added from the gulf then atlantic to the southerly flow of any approaching wave. This is why blocking is so important. Our best setups are when something tries real hard to lift north but it cant...its blocked...and the result is all that warm air trying to press into the cold and we get crushed. But what is way more typicaly is there isn't something to prevent the boundary from lifting and so we are cold behind waves...and warm up as the next approaches. Cold dry warm wet. Its basic wave physics.

I thought we weren't having this conversation in here anymore?