psuhoffman

No idea. Eagles have the better roster by far but they have the best QB/Coach. My gut says either the eagles dominate and win by 2+ scores (or a game were KC scores late to make it look close but it really isn’t) or KC wins a close game again.

Ok I cracked the code. I’m gonna need you all to tell anyone you share weather advice that the last week of February is going to be beautiful. 70 degrees. Tell them you would bet your life that there will be no big snowstorms after Feb 20. They should schedule an outside BBQ in shorts that week!

@mitchnickI think I found the answer wrt ensembles. You know how is the EPS arill has us in like 8” mean over the next 10 days but it’s from 4 waves and none are that high prob. It was similar thing but condensed. Looking at the GEFS and eps from 3-4 days ago the snow was spread out over 60 hours. That’s not unusual for ensembles at range to have timing differences. But the thing is liking at the precip mean it’s clear there was always uncertainty over when and how much to amplify a wave this week between Tues and Thurs. But the big error was they were too far SE with the thermal boundary because even the members that had the trailing wave more amplified had it as snow! We got those means because the members couldn’t agree on exactly which wave but it didn’t matter. They were all snow. What happened was the operational shifted to this solution if a stringer second wave at the same time the guidance realized the thermal boundary was going to press NW after the initial cold push. There were ens members that had this type of progression but they showed snow for the second wave. The unifying error was that they through it was going to be colder than it actually is, or that the boundary was going to stay SE of us all week instead of just one day to be exact.

This could still be decent for DC south, we should probably check out and let them have their fun.

The only one that is too far south is that weak frontrunner wave that happens to come along during a very short window of opportunity when the boundary is far enough south as a transient arctic high slides by to our north between waves...had something actually come along during that 24 hour window we could have got snow...but its such a short window. Otherwise the whole period is what the H5 says it should be...waves going to our NW

That isn't helping if we want to get some snow from the lead wave thingy, but the bigger issue if we wanted to actually get a legit snowstorm from this whole setup is the energy consolidating too much with the second wave. I'm not even sure its accurate to call it that...its really just a bunch of weak waves along the boundary...and a few days ago models were keying on amplifying the whole thing sooner and not leaving any energy behind and that timed up the wave with our very short window of cold in an otherwise hostile period with the cold boundary to our NW. Now they are waiting and amplifying a day later and...well no bueno. The thing that confuses me in this whole mess isnt the result this is exactly what history says should happen, but why in gods name were all 4 ensembles (I saw the UK ensembles were nuts also) so damn sure out of all the possible variables and waves that it was going to amplify exactly the right time to hit us in such a short window we had for snow. That's just weird to me, because there are so many ways this could have gone...so many small tweeks that send it in another tangent...yet all the guidance was like NO WE ARE SURE ITS THIS EXACT WAY and it was the only way that lead to big snow here...and obvsiously they were all wrong...I'd love to dig into what that was about. Why they erroneously saw certainty in what I always saw as in inherently volatile unstable setup.

In reality the storm is going to our NW...a little front runner wave sneaks out ahead when there is still cold and might give snow to our southeast...but in the larger sense what happened is more energy held back and is amplifying a wave too much so that it goes to our NW...which is kinda exactly what this pattern says is the most likely outcome, unfortunately. It's why I had a hard time getting excited by those crazy snow means, it just didn't fit the longwave pattern.

If the spacing was a little less between the two displaced TpV lobes it could have been a better threat but it’s probably, like you said, a rain to snow deal because of that. If the storm ahead of it trends more amplified it might have a better chance. But it’s not unusual for it to take one wave amplification after a block develops before we get the setup right for a bigger storm here.

To be fair I actually started calling for that period before the models latched on by about a week. But…it doesn’t ALWAYS work. Im not perfect in these calls, frankly I think it’s impossible to be with long range stuff. Remember last year. I utterly failed. So even if I get this one right I’m only 50% on these “bold” calls recently. Have to go way way back many years to find the last time before those that I was really excited about a window a month out. It’s been mostly crap for a while.

I’d prefer it a little more tucked 966 lol

Actually when I made the call for mid Feb to Mid March it was based on analogs and timing out seasonal cyclical progressions of the AO and MJO. At the time no guidance showed much, but it emboldened by feelings when they came around to what I was thinking. They all aligned. Analogs to cold enso years when we get a significant -AO in early January have another drop sometime mid Feb into March. I didn’t by the collapse of the MJO because the guidance did that last cycle. I timed it into 8/1/2 for Feb 15 on. And the AO has been in a very consistent cycle of huge drops and slow rise then repeat and it was timed up to so the same mid Feb. Basically everything is look at to try to decipher long range clues was pointing the same direction and that rarely happens. The only thing to give pause was it was going against the recent late seasonal patterns as you pointed out. But I just have the sense we’ve broken oit of the dominant pacific cycle of the last 6 years. Not saying the pacific is great now but I think we are in the middle of a PDO phase change and we are not seeing the same degree of hostile influence we did recently. So I went with my gut that this would be different and another cycle of -AO and hopefully snowier was coming. I also like the idea of cycling the general Jan pattern again but with the shorter wavelengths of late winter. Should be a stormier period.

I think after the wave around the 16th passes we have a solid week where any decent wave is a major threat.

Oh none of this has changed my mind about what’s coming. I always liked later in Feb better once the blocking gets going and has time to impact the storm track.

A couple days ago the runs that gave us 12-18” that second wave didn’t even exist. The models were totally wrong on which wave to amplify. They were keying on the wrong SW all along. Now they’re jumping on a SW they washed out before and it’s canibalizing our storm.

The weaker wave 1 gets the worse wave 2 will probably be

Unfortunately this run continues the trend that the further south wave 1 the further north wave 2. It’s a lose lose. There was a path to a win win if both waves split the energy just right. But a stronger wave 2 is the worse case scenario.

It’s continuing to trend towards holding back the energy and washing out what was our storm as just a lead wave in favor or a trailing wave. The problem is that trailing wave is behind the high and so we might lose the cold window unless it trends faster and less amplified.

I’d buy that at this point if I could. @Terpeastis right it’s bouncing around based on minor changes but the larger trend has been less amplified which fits the seasonal trend but isn’t what we want.

Damn physics

It’s possible but more iffy imo because the PV is still centered to our west as it drops and rotates under the block leading up to that event which opens the door to it amplifying too much and pulling north too far west. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen but I’m less sure of that. Any waves between Feb 19-23 it would be really hard for them to cut to our NW given the flow, assuming reality is anything close to what all the guidance (and history of blocking progression) suggests. That’s our first really high probability window imo. Before that we have shots but they are all flowed to some degree.

The last storm we had during blocking a week out it was way up to our NW cutting and ended up fringing me to the south. I’m not worried at all yet.

If we get multiple 6”+ snows out of “my pattern” I’m retiring from ever making a long range prediction again and walking off like John Elway.

Yea if part 1 trended north…I wonder if the relationship is inverse. Meaning a north wave one means a south wave 2 because wave 1 takes more of the energy and the return flow behind it suppresses the boundary for wave 2. Some were assuming a south wave 1 means south wave 2 but I think it’s the opposite.

Lol this sounds kinda like an acknowledgement that we’re in trouble up here with this one. It’s ok we know. We’re hard to it. But ya it’s been crazy weird. Again due to my elevation I’ve been lucky that some marginal events worked for me. But lower elevations from Baltimore north it’s been by far their worst stretch ever. Longest period without a warning snow by a large margin! I can’t explain it. It’s as if there is a force field making every storm go north or south. To rub salt in the wound a couple storms that imo should have broke the curse ended up with bad boundary temps that cut what should have been an 8” snow to a 4” slop storm. I can’t explain it. Probably just chance like getting heads 5 times in a row. Unlikely but it happens.