psuhoffman

@RevWarReenactor I hear all your arguments. I am not saying you are "wrong" I am just offering another perspective. Basically I am NOT saying this is normal. What I am saying is there is no such thing as a "normal" snowfall winter here. Our climo is to have wildly divergent winter patterns...the majority of the time that pattern is SUCKY for snow...and we are too far south. If you average all the patterns together...we are south of the mean location of the rain/snow line. Add in that sometimes when we do get the right combo to suppress the jet near us...we don't always get a storm. It could go south of us...or out to sea. So the fact is we go long long stretches without any snow at all or not very much. And then we get periods with a lot...either a whole season like 1996 or 2014 or an epic period within a season like 2000. What you call "normal" is just both the good and bad periods averaged together. But the reality is we don't have a "normal" winter. We have a mix of good and bad and everything in between...but if we tried to categorize what our normal breakdown is its about 25% good, 25% mediocre, 50% bad. That is "normal". So what I am saying is to have a year like this...or a string of them, is normal in the longer sense. We had several good years in the last 10...but they happened to come in a string of them together...and now we are getting a string of bad ones together...that is just how it works sometimes. I am looking at it on a longer term scale than you. For the last 10 years we are actually running above normal on snow. We are very likely to get another big year in the next few. That is not just playing the odds...given we are hitting solar minimum soon the odds are we start getting some blocking soon and that drastically increases our chances of a big year. The years leading up to a solar minimum tend to have a +NAO and that stacks the odds for bad years...so in a way we are kind of seeing that play out. In that way it is "normal". I am simply saying there is no such thing as "normal" not that this is "normal" in the shorter scale. In the longer scale...having runs of good and bad winters is our normal climo. You have to step back and see the big picture. I didnt hear people complaining during 2014 and 2015 that all that snow wasn't normal. I dont remember people complaining during the 2016 HECS that all that snow wasnt normal. If all we ever had was years like 2014 and then "normal" years...our average would be way higher than it is.

You just can’t help yourself.

I love how he used the TNH as an excuse why it wasn’t snowing along the east coast last winter and then used it as a reason why it would snow this year. Solid reasoning.

We also lost the handful of “crazy uncle” members that thought the cutter next week could be snow from day 9/10.

N@Ralph Wiggum I warned you about the NAO. When I researched for that really pessimistic post I made in early Jan that some got upset because it really crushed our hopes for this winter...I said we needed to see a base change flip by mid January or it was trouble. That’s because I found no examples of similar pacific patterns with this string of a AO/NAO combo for the whole month of January that flipped better in February. All the examples where the AO/NAO flipped for February the AK vortex +NAO pattern wasn’t as entrenched or as strong. All the good Feb examples showed signs of a flip up top by Jan 20th. At this point there is very little chance the AO or NAO improves before very late Feb or March and I’m skeptical it happens at all. Things are following the progression those analogs indicated. What could chance is weakening the AK vortex and getting enough epo ridge to maybe give us a chance. That’s all I’m rooting for. Things are evolving to what I expected. A less crappy look where we could get lucky. But by no means a good look. AK cold can work but the issue is the shot is dumping west first and by the time it translates east it’s weak sauce. After that we need the epo to help some. Guidance keeps kicking the can on that and pulling it further west of where we need it. Unfortunately climo for this years pac and NAM base state is winning over long range guidance everytime.

@Ji lol wow he is pulling out the last play he had left I guess. Thing is that wouldn’t end well. Given the trough axis if we did get a full phased bomb it would cut to Chicago.

Yup...I do think it’s undeniable that “bad” years are getting worse. DCs ability to eek its way to something like 8” in a crap year like this is being hurt by marginal events becoming harder and harder to work. The early Jan storm was an example where 30 years ago DC might have got 2” instead of .2. This weekend if some light precip does make it in maybe in the past DC adds another 1-2” but now it’s likely white rain. So I think what we’re already crap years are worse. 3” instead of 8”. 1” instead of 5”. And that sucks but is that really the big deal? Would that many people be happy if DC ended up with 8” instead of 3”? Likely the same people would be whining because by the standards of the past that 8” would be crappy. So long as our “good patterns” still produce that’s the most important thing. We just haven’t had any. If we start to see good patterns not working anymore that’s when alarms will go off for me. It’s probably coming eventually but I don’t see that yet.

We have 2 threats I see...a trailing wave after the cutter...or a west to east wave around day 11-13. But we would need it to stay progressive. Amplified systems would cut.

Not shocked. It wasn’t the kind of wave that was likely to impact the PV much. And every attempt to dent it has been brushed aside with ease. I’m focused on how to get a progressive wave type deal. That’s all we can try to work with given we’re likely stuck with a raging +AO/NAO. Maybe March but honestly my gut says the NAO stays + straight through.

None of the 3 24 hour networks are quality news. Way too much punditry. Im not sure if CNN has become as bad as Fox wrt false or misleading news because I stopped watching it. We were better off when people got their news from respected outlets and there was ONE news not alternate narratives to fit different agendas.

Yea it was good up in PA but not nearly that good. Had about 50” up there. It must have come down pretty hard in that late March storm then because I don’t remember it being a long drawn out event. That band just missed me in PA.

Thanks. I’ve always wondered what that storm in 2014 did here. I was in Pine Grove PA. We had 8” there. One of my favorite storms. No lull. Just 8 hours of steady heavy wet snow. That was a rare juiced up progressive wave. I’m still kinda bummed I missed 2014. We had good snow up in PA but got fringed a lot compared to down here that winter. A few of those good storms here I was just super cold and dry up there. How much did you get from that really late March coastal in 2014 that started as rain but then stalled and hit this area with the upper low?

It’s our fault. That’s obviously what viewers want to see or they wouldn’t be doing it.

It’s the previous 6 hours precip rate.

No joke many years ago I flipped on Fox and Friends accidentally having never actually watched it and I thought it was a parody. The way they were “acting” and exaggerating their expressions and reactions so over the top...then I realized it was REAL and it was a depressing sobering moment. Not for any political reason. I don’t think the segment was even political. Just that it was so transparently fake yet so many people liked that kind of “news” production. I don’t think CNN lately is any better.

Kinda...except honestly whenever it’s a borderline temp issue it almost always ends up breaking good up here. So I get the excitement of the suspense but with a payoff. If I was in the city I’d want cold smoke every time. But those really cold waves tends to be hours of light to moderate snow. I do enjoy when it’s puking heavy wet snow bombs up here more. Some of my favorite storms here weren’t the numerous 2’+ storms but just a good 6-10” wet snow paste job like October 2011 or the early Dec 2009 storm, not the big one, or the Feb 2016 storm that was a 33 degree 7” snowstorm up here. November 2018 would have been higher on my list except I was stuck in Baltimore and didn’t get home until the snow was ending. That sucked. I also missed some of the really heavy wet snow that fell the first day of the 2 day 14” March 20-21 2018 storm. The second day was colder dry snow but the first day was 8” of really heavy wet snow but I only caught the last hour of the good rates.

They simply use the output of each member to calculate odds. Eps is less jumpy because it has more members and more spread typically. Gefs is underdispursed. NCEP is aware of it. The whole system is being changed to operate off the new FV3 core soon. I’m not sure an index probability would be better because the index is based off the individual members output. And their results are impacted by that too. We only know what the indexes are now. (Bad just in case you weren’t sure) but we don’t know in 5/10/15 days...those estimates are based off the models so can be just as wrong. There are some pattern analog progression models but they don’t seem to be any more reliable because patterns often evolve different based on different factors. There are SST long range models but they mostly busted BAD last year and this year. I don’t blame them...I busted both years because I tend to lean heavily on SST analogs for long range and lately the correlations are failing. I need to look more into some of the methods Anthony and Tom use wrt angular momentum, walker cell strength. Those correlations seem to be more important that canonical sst anomalies in a changing climate where waters are in a warmer state. I know HM busted this year but he has stated that was partly because he broke some of his own rules this year. Everyone makes mistakes!

I’ll admit I agree with @Ji on one thing. Missing a heavy wet snow is depressing. That is my favorite. When we snow at 32* and it’s paste that sticks to everything and perfect for making a snowman or fort with the kids. Of course the problem is for me to get a wet snow is invariably has to be raining in DC. Not that I’ll kick the idea of 8” of cold smoke on the gfs out of bed but those kinds of storms always have less suspense and excitement.

You’re welcome. You weren’t interpreting it wrong. It means exactly what it says. The DC area is between the 50-60% chance of 3”. Is what it is. I’m just adding historical context. The fact that it’s all in a 5 day window though actually does make it more impressive. It’s not from a shotgun effect of 5 or 6 low level threats over 15 days. That’s typically a not so good thing. Additionally, I know it being 10 days away sucks but seeing that high probability for events that are 9+ days out is actually impressive. It’s hard to get high odds at that range, for obvious reasons. Keep in mind that map is very course and won’t pick up local meso scale features like elevation well. You are way closer to the 60 than the 50 so you are likely about 58 or 59% and maybe more since you have some oragraphic help. DC is probably about 52% guessing from that map.

Well there is absolutely nothing the first 7 days...so it’s really a 50% week 2. And that’s above climo. Avg chance of 3” of snow during that week is about 25%. Is it the best probability map I’ve ever seen no. But it’s better than those weeks of 10-20%

This is the one they want

That looks too much like 2014-15. I want hecs Deal with it

I get fringed so you know it’s real.

Let it go. Incoming on 18z gfs. 1041 high on top of a stj wave train.