psuhoffman

5-10”? Been a long time. The January 2011 storm kind of did that. But the front end was very dry and the airmass wasn’t as bad as this. But I wasn’t really thinking heavy rain to 5-10”. First our best bet is if the phase/close of the upper low happens at just the right time. We don’t want this slowly crawling up the coast. If we get a late capture so that the mid levels don’t get wrecked too bad then 2-4” maybe 3-6 NW of 95 isn’t crazy. Not likely but not unheard of. There was a storm in early January 1994 in Nova that started really warm with rain then flipped to 2-3” of snow on the back side with the deform band. There was a storm in Dec 95 like that too. That’s a more realistic goal imo. Even that’s a long shot but not as improbable as getting the unicorn scenario we need to get a 6”+ storm from this.

Any prolonged WAA precip in front is doomed. But this run CCBd us to death. It was just 2-3 degrees too warm. We simply need that to be an error.

The gefs really likes that period. The losetoa6 storm after the storm window. Again using a snow mean is lazy but you can see from the 5 day mean day 10-15 that it’s agreeing with what you have in mind. one last thing..the danger the pattern retrogresses after and the trough pulls west is real if the pac ridge flexes. However it’s a quick flip back to having a shot when the pac ridge relaxes if the HL actually flip like guidance suggests. Even the “oh no” trough back west look day 16 on the gefs is way closer to a workable progression after than where we’ve been all winter. I’ll mark today’s 12z runs in the win column for now. I liked more than I didn’t like.

Yea but at least the treadmill didn’t flip over and crush us to death...yet.

You just described exactly what I had in mind.

One thing that could save us and it actually would be playing unti typical model bias...is if the upper low closes off and phases further north. None of the vorts even the NS ones have any real cold to work with. But you can see there how right after the initial phase of the STJ and “kinda” NS vort it did create some cold during the amplification phase down in the south. Get that phase and closing off of the upper low to haven over Western NC into VA and we win. That one run of the euro yesterday did that. I’m ok seeing the h5 low too far south at day 7. That actually could work out for us. Still need everything else to go right though. I’m trying to find reasons for optimism.

When and what phases is the hardest thing models can figure out so today is still a win I agree. Today increased the odds some. Mire trended good than bad. If the southern energy doesn’t split and ejects whole that would be the best scenario (I think that’s what @Bob Chill is saying too). Get a healthier stj wave in faster before the mediocre to begin with airmass rots not needing the NS complications.

Across guidance (gefs,geps, op euro) I think there was more good than bad 12z. The bad was too much stj getting left behind in Baja. That makes things too NS phase dependent. But other changes were positive. There’s a trend towards lower heights around the 50/50 space. The NS look trended better imo. Chances slightly improved imo. Still not likely but slightly better. After that I discussed a possible window day 10. It’s there. After that I’ll say this hopefully. The NAM looks to flip across guidance. Yes the hints are it dumps the trough out west. But if we get a NAM reversal it at least gives us a shot. Day 15 could be wrong with the exact trough location. The pac ridge could relax enough to shift the trough east at times. But at least cold can get into the mid latitudes in that look.

It’s depressing because way more went right then wrong that run and it still was mostly a fail. Even a 987 perfect track slp didn’t work because the initial 2 vorts phases and the upper low closed off too soon and then the NS didn’t phase in time. We need everything to go so perfect to win.

Even so 987 east of the Delmarva and everyone east of the blue ridge mixes anyways. Phase happened too early.

Plus there are 3 vorts. 2 phase and one runs ahead lowering heights some which is the only reason it’s even close with that early phase/close off solution.

Both of his previous predicted wave attacks on the pv were spot on but neither was able to make a dent. The PV consolidated into an impenetrable fortress of death for our snow chances. The mid latitude pattern was also not conducive to maximize the attempts at pv disruption through wave 1-2 attacks. The mid latitudes should be more favorable to poleward heat transport next go around. The PV should at the least not be in a period of intensification like last time. The continued falling QBO also argues that future attempts at PV disruption could have more success. All that said I’m skeptical also but I’ll cede there are legitimate arguments that next time could be different. I’ll hug that thought at least for now.

Fringed

I really look forward to your mostly hopeful updates on the current thoughts in the meteorology community. Keep it up! I haven’t lost faith things could improve later Feb into March and now that January is toast and early Feb on life support that prospect isn’t sounding so bad. But a month ago no one wanted to hear “we have to wait until the very end of winter to have a real chance”. Right about now most would sign on the dotted line for a Feb 15 pattern flip.

I’ve been “trying” to analyze each mostly lottery ticket level “threat” independently and not be too annoying with constant negativity but once the base state pattern showed itself around New Years I put any expectations for snow to bed. There were a few exceptions where things suddenly flipped late, and most of those years lucked into at least 1-2 snows somewhere...but the fact was what we were facing was the worst base state we could possibly get. In every way. I even told my wife around New Years we might not get much if any snow even up here and that in that case I would take the family on a weekend trip somewhere to let the kids play in the snow. Then we did luck our way into that one nice event up here..but even that took so much luck and was barely cold enough during the coldest week of the year even up here. But while I continue to track in the hope of a fluke or a pattern change I haven’t expected anything. And I’ve kind of expected the long range looks to degrade because the fact is something is consistently feeding that ridge in the pac and that sets off a chain reaction of suck downstream in the high and mid latitudes. Until that forcing chances and I am skeptical it does, were in trouble. Our best chance remains late Feb into March when changing wavelengths, weakening PV and volatility change the reactions to that forcing and open the possibility of a better result.

Thank you. I think about it a lot. One of my regrets is that when I decided to go the direction of sociology and education that I didn’t just finish the meteorology degree. It would have taken another year and a lot of hard core math/physics and at 20 that felt like forever but in hindsight 20 years later...I should have done it. It’s not that I regret my education career. I love teaching. But it’s way easier to get into education later (the whole field is kind of tailored to that) than meteorology. Right now with a mortgage and 2 young kids going back to school just isn’t possible. Maybe in 10 or 15 years when my wife has restarted her career and we have some savings that might be an option. But by then I’ll be in the same position Bob is. I still might do it just not to have that regret in life. And meteorology is something I could see doing later in life. I can’t see myself still doing what I do now at 65+. Takes too much physical toll. One thing I’ve considered doing now is starting a video stream on FB or YouTube. Something like what JB does only real analysis not smoke up your arse BS. If it developed enough viewers that could bring in some small pocket cash from ad revenues. Any revenues at all from something I do everyday anyways would be a win imo but I doubt I could attract enough followers.

This year has been the absolute worst imo. Last year was frustrating because there was sky high expectations and potential but it wasn’t actually a bad year and had plenty to track. 2018 we did ok for a Nina. Had one decent Dec snow, a cold period with some minor snows in Jan, one fluke hit in Feb and the March significant event. For a Nina there was a lot to track. It exceeding my expectations. 2017 sucked but it was a Nina with a bad north pac sst. We knew it was probably going to suck. Before that we had 3 great years for one reason or another. But this year...ugh. Expectations weren’t high but while we all said there were conflicting signals there were enough good things to think this year could be ok. Maybe even good with luck. Then this happened you cannot draw up a worse look. I actually consider myself lucky I’ve seen the snow I have even though I’m only pace for about 50% of normal. That look is just putrid. I know it was depressing to say it but when I saw the combo of that pac look with a strongly +++AO setting in heeding into prime climo I had an “Oh bleep” feeling. We keep trying to create ghosts to chase because the truth is most of the time we know there isn’t anything legit in that look. So far it’s been the worst combo of a year with decent expectations producing the absolute worst outcome. It’s not like a Nina year when I expect this crap!! I try to take solace in 2 facts. Those same atrocious analogs I posted that unfortunately are coming true did contain some late fluke snowstorms. Nothing epic but some of them pulled out one decent snow later in winter. And we are near solar minimum and typically we get an increased period of -NAO following that. We certainly did in the late 70s and early 80s. Again between 96-2001 and again from late 2009 to 2014. Not wall to wall -NAO and not every NAO period worked. Some years were wrecked by a godawful pac. But given the current propensity for increased anomalous precip events...give me a 6 year window where the NAO is negative 50% of the time in winter...I’ll play the odds we get at least 1-2 epic years in there. And that’s how we roll.

Snark and skepticism aside that day 10 time period might be our best chance from all these flawed lottery ticket threats. As the pattern goes through it’s predictable every 2 week flip there is an actual window of opportunity. Even if we assume the progression is what we fear and we end up back in a pac ridge western trough nightmare, as the Hudson ridge progresses east there is a period where a shit of actual cold gets ejected from AK down behind the departing Canada ridge. That ridge then traverses the NAO domain (as Ralph pointed out) which will help press that cold into the east of only temporarily. Assuming we continue the wave train that would create a 3-5 day window of opportunity before the pac ridge dumps the next trough into the west and we ridge away. In theory that would be our best look of this god awful season.

The storm after the storm is like the backup QB. Looks great on the sideline but once they need to get in there and play...not so much.

I don’t know what storm it was, would have been sometime in the early 90s, but there was a situation where a forecast for some light rain turned into a 3-6” snowstorm just west of philly because a storm amplified just enough to CCB thump and create its own cold. It was in one of those dreadful warm winters between 1988-1993. A small area just west of 95 (I mean just west, I got maybe 1” in south NJ but we were visiting family friends that lived just southwest of Philly and they got 5”) but everywhere around even north was 40 degrees. That’s kind of what we need to happen here if there is no phase. If we get a NS phase that would inject true cold into the backside so the CCB wouldn’t have that problem but would also blast even more warmth up the east side so there would be no WAA snows ahead of it. So we would need the perfect upper low phase and track. There are fatal flaws without supreme luck in both scenarios.

It’s possible. But the problem is either suppressed or a cutter are more likely outcomes than the perfect combo we need. If the stj wave doesn’t phase its going to increase the chances it stays south because that ridge in Canada is pretty far south. If it phases because there is no cold we need the phase to happen in exactly the right place and time or we get too much southerly flow and rain. Typically in a setup like this we might have 50% of the viable likely permutations be snow outcomes. But with the current modeled airmass it’s more like 20%. But sometimes the 20% hits.

The JMA and CRAS has their day...

I am chasing whatever we can get. And it’s likely not much. One storm is fine. But to get that one storm we likely need a more sustained favorable pattern than some 1-2 day mediocre window. Even in a legit good pattern our hit rate is low. Feb 2006 we had a great block got weeks and only got one storm. Feb 2007 had a great pattern and we barely go anything out of it. We had an Uber block for a month in 2010/11 and got one storm. 2016 was a great pattern for 4 weeks and we only got one hit. Same March 2018. Even when it’s a good pattern we sometimes need 4-5 threats to get one to work. We already got lucky once this winter with a snow in a crap pattern...I’m not expecting more of that luck. So yea I’m chasing one storm...but I’m not expecting to luck into it with some flawed or brief transient window. If we can’t get a one week + period with a legit favorable pattern it’s unlikely we get a significant snowfall.

@C.A.P.E. the latest cfs thinks the AO/NAO tanks and March 1960 is coming only by mid Feb. Its a legit tear worthy look. But the problem is it gets there by going a different route week 2. It never pumps the pac ridge so when the NAM state flips the cold dumps into the east. It does that because the cfs continues to mess up the mjo. While everything else goes into 5/6 it cycles barely through 6 back into 7 then null but close to cold phases. So the problem with that...do we trust the cfs over the eps/gefs/geps week 2? Obviously not. Well at least not most of us.... I’m still not canceling winter. Never did. I showed it was going to be an uphill battle to get much snow though and it has. But even if everything we are discussing goes wrong that only takes us to Feb 10. We have no idea what happens after. If the pac Ridge fades after a few days that trough could shift east and with a less hostile NAM state we could have opportunities.