psuhoffman

Oh no you said it. He might be jumping off a building right now. Ive posted the data to back this up. Years that started like this one didn’t end well 99% of the time. But I’ve been too timid to flat out say it. But I feel it.

Don’t worry CFS says a pattern change is only 20 days away!

It’s not just anecdotal it’s verification scores are a mess

You think I spent thousands of hours pouring over every text and studying every snowstorm we’ve ever had because I don’t like snow??? Dude I know. But you need to just accept it. Seriously. Try this…assume it’s never going to snow again. Just accept that. Then what are you going to do? Ball up and cry forever? Or…find other things to invest in emotionally that bring you joy. Or move to where it snows. Or chase snowstorms. Take some control of your situation. Own your story. Do what it takes to make you happy instead of wallowing in defeat. Man up and deal.

Ya we probably aren’t talking enough about the fact the Gfs has been a real train wreck since the last update. People say this all the time and usually it a joke but they really did break the thing. Not that it was great before but honestly I found the Gfs more useful 10 years ago when it had more consistent biases and I felt I could adjust and figure out what the error was. Now the only consistent bias is being horribly wrong.

@Maestrobjwa I suggest you learn to laugh about this. It’s all you can do. Ignoring it won’t change it. Getting upset won’t make you feel better. Just laugh and find other things that give you joy in life. Or chase the snow. Or move somewhere that gets snow. But for the love of god don’t stay here and be depressed that it’s not snowing when you know it’s not going to snow 99% of the time.

It’s not my position. 90% of my posts are simply statistics, observations and guidance products. It’s not my fault all the objective evidence sucks. Back in October when I was saying this season was likely gonna hurt that was me making forecasts and opining. You had more of a case then. But now all I’m doing is posting what we’re all seeing. I didn’t make the models say that. I didn’t make it +10 all over the continent. I didn’t issue that NWS forecast. And you know how bad it is. Yet you continue to read then complain when it’s exactly what you know it will be? What do you want a hug? Ok I’ll try. Here’s an uplifting nugget. Life sucks but it’s ok because someday you die.

@Ji thank god the mjo is going into phase 8 or it could be a 110% chance of above normal!

I’m about as pessimistic as I’ve ever felt wrt snow but I don’t feel it’s unwarranted

Dulles got 15. Where you are now got 18-20”.

Feb and March 2015 were pretty awesome.

I remember in January 2015 you were all getting mad at me for being too optimistic because we were getting screwed but I kept saying be patient it’s gonna turn around.

Lag to some degree. But over the last several years it seems the cycle is this…whether by ridge or trough we get a period where the pac flow attacks and within 48 hours obliterates cold from the whole continent. Then it takes weeks to recover once the flow weakens and before enough cold can build another pac onslaught slams the door.

Ok. That looks great. It’s gonna be a snowstravaganza around Jan 25.

I'll still be posting moron...probably more so now Don’t worry. The longwave pattern might look great but… Temps still look mostly torched everywhere in N America except the desert SW from constant storms.

Anyways I feel like we’ve exhausted this topic. Time to go back to day 15 pattern chasing. Maybe this time it actually works out. We’re due and all that.

That comment wasn’t specific to here. Over the last 7 years we’ve had several comps to this pattern with a favorable longwave setup in a torched thermal regime and they all ended this way. This winter I’ve noted a lack of snow to the NW of waves even well to our north on several occasions.

Jan 1990 is a pretty bad comp to now. It was an awful longwave pattern regardless of background temps. A better comp looking at some historical analogs would be Jan 1992, Jan 1987, Jan 1964, Jan 1998, Late Jan early Feb 1983...and some others. The majority of the comps I see weren't that great, they were all above average temp periods...but guess what, almost all of them also featured some snow. Jan 1992 is the top analog and DC had 4" that month which is close to average. Jan 1987 is a top analog and DC got 2 snowstorms that month. Feb 87 is another decent analog and that month was very warm but DC got a 10" snowstorm from a wave that snuck under them despite it being 50-60 degrees a couple days before and after the storm. Same with some of the other analogs...they were all pretty warm but also most featured some snow. Even 1998 featured quite a bit of snow not that far NW of the cities. My area NW of DC/Balt had several snows by now that year. This year just perfect track rainstorms. I think the degradation is there. It's not like we went from epic cold periods to torch...but some warm but still able to snow periods have become absolute no hope torch patterns IMO.

Isn’t it up to us to look at the permutations presented by various simulations and determine what the most likely outcome is? I’m not sure what your point is. Do you think we have the ability to make simulations that are perfectly accurate at 5-10 days and are choosing to intentionally have variability? If so why?

no its because we didnt get a triple phased bomb cyclone to happen in exactly the right spot and stall and we didnt have a -4 std dv nao block with a full latitude EPO PNA ridge centered exactly where we need it with a 1050 arctic high over lake Placid and a storm that phases exactly as it reaches the NC coast and tracks to 37 miles east of Ocean City, not 36 miles, not 38 miles...it has to be 37 miles, and the deform band sets up right on top of us for 17 hours...not 16 hours because it takes at least 17 straight hours of heavy precip to dynamically cool the column. If all that didn't happen its obvious the problem is that all that failed not because it was too warm.

VIce and MDECOY both had a point, they were just obnoxious and ridiculous in how they presented it. And both have a penchant to exaggerate beyond reason. Example...was VIce right about it warming yes...but he claimed Cape May would be under water in 20 years. And he would try to destroy every thread to force people to talk about the issue. MDECOY was right its been bad but then he claims he has had no plowable snowstorms in 8 years. That's just ridiculous. I didn't engage when he said that a few weeks ago but I know where he lives...and I know there have been several storms that were like 4-6" at every reporting station around him and plenty cold enough over that period. Just last winter where he is got like 4" from the late Janaury storm that happened overnight with temps in the 20's. If he didn't get a plowable event from that then his roads must be heated or something. They are bad posters because of how they engage in discussion not the main points they try to make.

yea we can still snow, hope my pessimism regarding the situation NOW isn't interpreted as a "its never gonna snow again". But I think its becoming pretty impossible for us to get snow during "non cold" patterns when there are lots of examples in my archive of all snowstorms at BWI of a fluke snowstorm in an otherwise very warm pattern. Those don't seem to be a thing anymore. That's a problem when were in a warm pattern a very large percentage of the time. My other concern with these long range looks is unless my memory is wrong back around xmas didn't the period RIGHT NOW look like that on the guidance? I thought we were supposed to "flip right back to cold" by January 10 or something back when this current torch was starting. I was skeptical back then...arguing that historical climo data argued we probably wouldn't just flip back cold so fast...and climo usually beats guidance. Hopefully that doesn't happen again...but the longer we go into the season warm the less likely we are to suddenly flip cold according to past records in enso neutral and cold. Maybe the fact we have been in a more nino pattern though could mean its more likely this year than in past similar enso seasons. Hopefully...Im grasping here.

But we used to get a lot of snowstorms around here from a hudson high setup and a positive NAO. They were very marginal in most cases...storms where the snow fell mostly at 32-33 degrees and in many cases they did mix and were like a 6" snow in DC and more NW. Lately those setups aren't even close anymore. A 50/50 was always necessary for the southern mid atl to get a 20" snowstorm. But we used to be able to get a messy 6-10" storm that mixed without one from a setup like this. Yes maybe with a true block and a locked in 50/50 this could have worked out...but man come on how much snow are we really gonna get if we need to stack this many dominoes our way to get snow?

Yea I think we're just cooked here. I held out hope there was a way to get lucky...it's a good pattern to get systems to track under us. We used to be able to make that kinda thing work mid winter. But this just can't work out. The 12z GFS was damn near perfect from a longwave setup POV and it wasn't even close. I guess the truth is unless we get cross polar pure siberian air involved we have no chance anymore. ETA: it doesn't seem north america can sustain a cold profile anymore once cross polar flow is cut off. The pacific wins and obliterates any cold from the entire continent. This has happened over and over again in recent years.

@CAPE we were talking about this as a test case for a Hudson High setup. I think we might have the answer. Those setups are almost never arctic air cold. It would be almost impossible to have true cross polar flow in that setup. They need to work with a domestic airmass. But look at the setup on the GFS (right or wrong doesn't matter because it wasn't cold enough). Look at the predominant airflow. It's not straight mid lat pac puke. The predominant flow is out of the Yukon! Yes its mixed with the southern stream flow off the pacific but that is ALWAYS going to be true. If polar continental air is obliterated and dominated by the pacific air that will always get mixed into the equation simple because were at the mid latitudes and the pacific is what is upstream, it's never going to work. Even with a predominant flow that should be good enough, I am not saying truly cold, this would have been marginal in any era...but its not marginal now, its a straight torch. Yea we can point out the strong pac jet but thats been non stop for almost a decade now. At some point we need to just accept that as a permanent thing now. In that paradigm this setup no longer can work.