psuhoffman

Hey I get 6 minutes of snow before the rain up here!

You’re always such a ray of sunshine

That’s the bar now? Rooting for a repeat of 2002. Lol

Euro and GGEM are keying on a different SW than the "threat" the other day. I didn't like the angle of the other threat, amplifying too far east, I've seen how that ends multiple times the last few years. This one has more space to work with and is amplifying far enough west for me to think it has a shot. In the end temps are more likely to be the problem here not track.

Ok now I'm interested

This is the one setup that has my interest "some". It's not a high probability but its a workable enough look and high stakes enough (if it did go right and max potential it could be the kind of storm that makes a season itself ala Feb 2006). But my god the airmass...ugh. The airmass kinda reminds me of Jan/Feb 2021 a little. Maybe you all will have to come crash up here for that one.

There is a spectrum to this. But when we are talking about any airmass that isn't initiating from cross polar flow out of Siberia we are talking about some degree of pacific maritime influence. But there is a big difference between air that originated in the North Pacific then crossed the Yukon and air that was injected directly into the CONUS from the central/south Pacific. Maritime air that originated in the central or south pacific was never going to work in any era. But recently we have seen the failure of airmasses that originated off the north Pacific then mixed with continental air over NW Canada before tracking into the eastern US. This week might not be the best example of that. The airmass is pretty bad, it does have some air injected from Canada but also some air straight off the Pac. But the thicknesses are low and the warming is happening in the boundary layer most dramatically so that is an argument that this might have worked 30 years ago. But there were better examples recently where we had air that IMO had enough continental influence that it should have been workable and wasn't even that close. IMO it's not any one single event, its that we've had so many marginal setups over the last 5 years and they just about all failed. Should all of them worked out, no. But some should imo. But I want to stop beating this dead horse. I've said my peace. Everyone knows the deal. People can take whatever opinion they want on this, nothing said now is going to change it. The data is there, we've debated it, everyone has made their case. I don't want to continue to beat this drum. We can have another discussion about this once the season is over and people are less invested in snow in the moment.

When have I ever been that way when it actually snows???

I knew your post wasn't really critical, I tried to indicate that in the last part. I am more pessimistic this year though. That is irrespective of my concerns with climate change. Even if this winter was 30 years ago I said back starting in late summer and through fall that just about every indicator I could find that has some correlation IMO with winter was wrong. This was likely to be a bad winter in any era, but add in our recent trends and...well yea I was never optimistic this was going to anything other than what it is turning out to be. I allowed the positive vibes in November and some pretty epic looking long range guidance to influence my final winter snowfall forecast. I still went below normal because I had a feeling I just couldn't shake but I went closer to median v the truly awful results I was kinda fearing. I probably should have stuck to my initial gut feeling. Still time though, and luck can work both ways...all it takes is one really lucky event for the DC area to avoid a horrible fate.

So explain to me what longwave pattern works in that background state, when even in the old “normal” we needed solidly negative anomalies to snow.

I gave up… But seriously the 12z euro had a similar thing. Perfect SW pass, sub 540, all rain from what “should” have been a 1-3” snow. Those things add up and I’m noting them way too frequently. There is always “higher” pressure to our east as a wave approaches. Calling that a high pressure is a stretch and if a very brief 5mph regional south wind (it’s not like it’s a screaming fetch from the gulf) is too much in January with sub 540 thicknesses and a track to our south please explain to me what the right setup is for what used to be a typical small to moderate snow other than the obvious “we need arctic air” which is and always has been an exceptionally rare event. Am I really that “pessimistic” or am I just rational and it simply has been and continues to be “that bad”. Keep in mind in my seasonal forecasts I’ve busted high on snowfall like 70% of the time. Not crazy high usually, maybe only a couple inches, but still I over forecast snow way more then under. Same with my individual storm forecasts. I’ve busted high slightly more than low. So again, am I pessimistic or simply realistic? BTW I know it’s mostly in jest and most aren’t actually mad at me. We joke. And you all know I want snow. I’ll be thrilled if I’m totally wrong and we get dumped with snow the rest of winter. I’ll gladly admit I was wrong and take that L. But I’m not gonna blow smoke if I just don’t see it. I do hope that fact is also appreciated. Either way love you guys and I hope I’m wrong and we turn this around.

Is it good or bad if the discussion is “which is the bigger problem”? Asking for a friend.

I didn’t say it wasn’t worth watching. But the current h5 mean favors an OTS solution imo. Trough/Ridge alignment out west is too far east. And the trough is amplifying at our longitude when we want to see that happen around TN. Remember we need a much earlier and further west development here than NYC. We’ve missed just about every single coastal storm that’s crushed NYC the last 6 years because they’ve tracked to east or developed too late. For DC to get a big snow we need a low that’s already mature tucked in just off VA beach tracking NNE. This (at least on that mean) looks similar to all the recent misses. It’s close enough to watch. But it’s not a great look right there for us.

That indicates fish storm.

@Maestrobjwa no you can’t have that list and no you don’t want it.

I see nothing overly interesting. There are some long shot scenarios I suppose but I feel like they are being elevated in interest simply because it’s all we got. I could see one work out, but if I had to wager I’d bet DC gets to Jan 20 with no measurable snow.

Extreme northeast Carroll, near me, has done significantly better than further south in the area the last 5 years or so 2020

Depends what the expectations are whether it’s worth it. The worst season I’ve had here in 18 years was 14”. Most seasons at least break 20. Median is about 35” and mean is 40. My snow climo is closer to coastal southern New England or NW NJ. That’s enough for some.

Yesterday I noted across guidance there were several mid latitude waves in the next 2 weeks with no appreciable frozen precip associated with them anywhere. Maybe some rain/snow mix on the NW periphery. Another thing logged into the journal. I’ve noted this before a lot lately. It seems we need arctic air to get frozen precip south of 40* lately. Problem is that was always rare. Getting snow at 32* in a blah airmass from a good track was always the more common way we snowed.

My daughters name is Nora Lynn

The pattern continues to look more Nino than Nina. But unfortunately not all ninos are good. Remember we like modoki ninos. Some east based ones can be ok. But the more east centered the Nino the more chance the north pacific low ends up too Far East and floods N America with mild air. Unfortunately that’s the kind of Nino pattern we’re in. The top analogs right now do include 4 ninos. But they are the 4 worst ninos lol. 1983, 1992, 1995 and 1998. 83 was saved by one big storm but was a torch otherwise. The rest were simply torches straight through.

We’ve reached the bargaining stage

Before some jump down my throat I will clearly state again that this is definitely a bad unlucky cyclical period (at least we better pray it is). But I really do believe that. Better times are ahead. The issue is how much better. I’ve seen several troubling things over the last 5 years. Like when a sub 1000mb low took a perfect track in late January without it even being a particularly hostile airmass and produced nothing but 38 degree rain. Or when several high latitude blocks linked with mid latitude ridging. DC getting single digit snow in a season I had 50”. That’s unprecedented. Usually in the past if my area does that well DC is closer to 20”. Struggling to even get below freezing at night for very long stretches. I’ve noted that the southern mid Atlantic has decoupled with locations they used to have more correlation wrt snowfall. The bad years have been awful but years that should have been good weren’t that good. Frankly the last really “snowy” cycle was the early 2000s but it failed to produce the same level of above normal anomalies in DC as further north or higher in elevation except for 2003 and 2010. Each time I say hmm and log them away. The log is getting longer then I am comfortable with. But it will snow again, very likely this season at least some. And eventually we will get another 2003/2010/2014 type season. Don’t take my frustration to mean I don’t think it can snow anymore. But I do think years in between the unicorn snowy seasons are becoming increasingly a struggle.

So we’re posting hour 600 control runs now. Ya….that’s how it’s going.

You don’t get it…or you don’t want to “get it”?