psuhoffman

@WxUSAF there is actually one fairly recent really good December -epo/AO/NAO/pna pattern match. Not a Nina though.

Not really unless you go WAY back…nothing the last 30 years. The closest comp would be March 2018. This is a lot more typical of a Nino longwave pattern up top actually, but the central pac makes this a super rare look overall. Not a lot of great comps. Even the top analogs aren’t really all that close for the best analog. But the best matches Imo were periods in Dec 1970, 1978, and 1989.

Yes

Euro bout to be like…

@WxUSAF watch the EPS go the other way now

@CAPE we agree 100% on the less ideal NAO look up top...but the reason I said its not hopeless is that while the latest depictions of the high latitudes are not a true block and really just higher heights from the extension of a full latitude ridge... that look can quickly/easily become good. For example...if a system were to amplify into the lakes/northeast...the heat transfer from that into the high latitudes could pump the ridge...and eventually cut it off into a true block. It wouldn't take much. Then we still have to deal with the whole no cold air anywhere problem...but one thing at a time. Just saying...while its disapointing, even if expected, that things aren't perfect...I would much prefer where we are now over seeing some consolidated blue ball of death up top. That would be game over...a central pac ridge with +++AO/NOA is the stuff our total shutout winters like 2020 are made out of. This currently blah pattern at least leaves the door open we could head in a better direction. I have a low bar.

It does...but I have a theory that the MJO has a more symbiotic relationship rather than a pure cause/effect one with the pattern. Convection in regions 8/1 is preferable yes. But convection there is also an effect of a nino pattern. So in a favorable pacific pattern we tend to get the MJO cycling through phases 8/1 strongly...and we get a great pattern...creating the "correlation". Phase 8/1=cold/snow. But I've also noticed that often when the pacific base state is in a bad phase...and the usual suspects are relying on the MJO to get into cold phases to "save us".... what happens is even if the MJO does eventually make it weakly into phases 8/1 it doesn't do us any good. The impact on the pattern isn't as extreme, and often by the time the pattern even starts to evolve from the awful one we are in...the effect wanes and the base state re-establishes. To simplify...waiting on the MJO to save us when we're in a bad pacific base state has mostly been futile over the years.

@frd I agree with most of what you said...and its not hopeless, but one thing I wanted to point out...there have been a few times I can remember people "banking" on the nina fading thing...but I see no statistical evidence it really increases our chances of snowfall. In the last 50 years there are 4 Nina's that were fading significantly during the winter season. 1971-72, 83-84, 2011-12, and 2016-17. None of them had a blockbuster finish. Almost all the snow in 1972 did come in Feb but it was from one really fluke storm, maybe the weirdest of all the KU's that defied pattern and normal expectations. 1984 did turn colder and blocky in March but didn't do our area that much good...we did get a couple moderate snowfalls late. 2012...ya no. 2017 we got that ice storm in March but that was about all we got from the late season. Furthermore, several Nina's that didn't fade also had a period of blocking and or cold/snow in March. 1999 and 2018 notably. Statistically there just isnt any proof that a nina fading during winter helps our snow chances at all. I think due to the lag affect its just not a factor...unless the nina fades by the start of winter...its too late to help us much in establishing a new winter pacific base state.

I few years ago I hypothesized based on observation that the MJO impact is most significant when it is in phase and conjunction with the base state and often has little impact when its weak and out of phase with the base state. For example...a strong phase 8-1 during el nino will initiate a great pattern. But when we were waiting all winter for the MJO to weakly meander into phase 8 during a Nina...when it did finally do so it had no real impact other then to make the pattern perhaps a little less awful for a week.

@CAPE unfortunately we've been seeing a lot of what we typically get in a long range pattern fail. Over the last 5 years guidance has often teased the progression of the pacific when in reality it quickly retrogrades into its hostile base state, or fails to ever even get out of it. One troubling feature, even on the better looking long range guidance, the central pacific ridge is still healthy and centered exactly where we don't want it. The EPS at times is getting a good look by extending that ridge all the way into western N American and even at times linking with the AO/NAO. But that's just tenuous at best and unlikely a sustainable longwave pattern. So long as the main heat transfer in the pacific continues happening north of Hawaii we are going to have a really difficult time getting true cold air and fighting off a SE ridge. The other issue is that the NAO isn't a true block. The actual block there now was originally supposed to retrograde to Baffin. Instead the "block" is being squezed out and what we end up with is simply higher heights up top mostly due to the fact there is no cold air anywhere on our side after the TPV slides out. The higher heights we see up top is mostly a useless feature in terms of doing us any good wrt a pattern favorable for snowfall. On the positive side, things could be much worse. The amplitude of the pacific ridge is not as great as it was during some of our worse periods. There is no blue ball of death up top. The pattern is close enough that it could still evolve towards a better place down the road, even if I am skeptical. Problem is...the pattern being "ok" doesn't really do us any good anymore most of the time. As I was lamenting with @WxUSAFthe other day, we don't really luck our way to snow in marginal setups very often anymore. We really need a true cold air source and favorable pattern to get snow.

delayed but not denied

Thanks to the Dalton Minimum coinciding with Dickens writing we get to obsess over snow happening on one specific day every year.

But 2 things can be true. Getting the timing wrong is a bust. Failed forecast. Yes. But there is also a difference between a pattern change taking longer to complete or a new pattern taking longer to mature then initially expected and it just not happening at all. Sometimes it’s just a total fail but sometimes it really is just a timing thing. And shouldn’t it be about where we go from here not lamenting what some already got wrong?

Always good to have newbies. Don’t worry you’ll figure it out after a while.

So I’m not the only one who does this lol

https://fb.watch/hbQYHocZGI/?mibextid=vTn5qL

Just don’t

Fixed is highly subjective

Let me preface this that I don’t necessarily buy into this ATT. But…there is a lot of assumption that once the cold enso pattern breaks our pac issues will be alleviated. But we did have a Nino and a neutral winter recently where the pac was every bit as god awful and there are some speculating this current cycle is more related to other factors not enso.

I have hope. Just being pragmatic and keeping my expectations in check given the evidence of how this usually ends in a Nina. But there are plenty of encouraging enough signs. It certainly could be worse.

Statistically there has been a slow decline for the last 100 years. It happens in an uneven way with cycles within the longer trend but it’s there.

My fear is by the time the pac improves we lose the Atlantic. That’s been a common theme. I’ll take the pac to increase chances if some snow given temps are the bigger problem lately, but truth is we’re unlikely to do very well without both cooperating I’ll try but it would be somewhat subjective since you can’t simply add a couple degrees and keep everything else the same. Example: there is some good research implying the central pac ridging is being enhanced by warning. That’s going to encourage a -pna which in turn pumps the se ridge which is also being further enhanced by warmer SST in the GOM and Atlantic. So the whole storm track can be shifted hundreds of miles and a whole pattern radically altered by relatively minor warming.

@WxUSAF we probably can still work with a marginal setup between like Jan 10-Feb 15 or some crazy small window like that, maybe…but we seem to also get our worst patterns during that narrow window often.

This is 100% but I continue to observe the fact that over the last 10 years we seem to need increasingly anomalously perfect patterns to get snow. The days of lucking into snow with marginal setups seem a thing of the past.

Or start a go Fund me project to turn all of central MD and NW VA into a huge lake. Sell It as creating a sustainable freshwater source for the megalopolis or something, only we will know the real reason.