psuhoffman

There is sort of a “critical mass” of snow necessary to sustain snowcover through a “normal” temperature day around here. The amount necessary to withstand some melt and compaction then freeze solid the next night. It depends on the moisture content of the snow also. I’ve noted that critical mass is about ~6” if it’s a dryer snow and ~4” if it’s a wet snow. Both those events although not that cold were very low moisture here with high ratios due to perfect snow growth. I had about 3.5” and 4.5” but neither was enough to withstand the next days melt. But it was very close...bereft melted each time with shady patches left and I bet if you added 1-2” to each event I would have kept snowcover all that week. You know on second thought that year totally underperformed and was overrated. @Ji is right!!! Wanna play hand grenades?

Good. I still feel optimistic about where this is heading and think our chances increase the further into this pattern we go. Perhaps peaking around the 20th depending on whether the blocking breaks or recycles. But unlike some I totally get @Ji. I feel what he says in my tormented unfiltered inner weenie soul. I just try to get a grip and apply a logic filter before posting. Most of the time! But it’s frustrating when we’ve had so little snow lately to have to wait. But I do think this would require a pretty monumental epic fail not to get at least one hit from this pattern.

It does not look like this SSW will help us wrt arctic cold. That seems directed to Asia. But it likely will favor continued weakness on the TPV and that should help is wrt blocking. We will just have to make due with domestic cold, same as 2010. I wonder if people realize how mild we would have been straight through that whole snowmageddon period had the storms not hit. We had one decent transient shot of cold in late Jan but after that we would have had highs near 50 had those storms not hit. Even up here all the snow from the Jan 30 and Feb 2 storms melted by the time Feb 6 happened. And even with 50” of snow otg highs were near 40 up here immediately after those 2 HECS. It was not a cold pattern at all. Would have been avg temps if not for the snowcover. Maybe even above avg.

That’s because the only time we ever pay attention to it (mostly because of its lack of easy access) is when the other guidance isn’t showing what we want and it is. And none of the guidance typically performs well when it’s on its own...even the euro. Even the euro isn’t so much superior that it should be given preference if it’s an outlier amongst all guidance. Any model that shows a vastly different prog then the consensus is “likely” wrong. Every once in a while the outlier is onto something and scores a coup. Every model has had its example of that. But it’s not a good bet.

@frd there is bickering amongst the strat peeps wrt the significance of that long term. I think this flux failure itself doesn’t have any since the SSW is underway without it. But I see some posts that make sense that if future heat fluxes fail we might not get the subsequent SPV weaknesses that portent better propagation into the Trop. That could mean less impact into Feb.

The failure there is likely related to the suddenly less hostile look this week to the point a storm Friday that was supposed to be a cutter might get suppressed south of us. Last week I was pointing out the NE ridge was originating from a heat flux in the tropical pac. When that died suddenly the ridge in the east went away.

The waves have been slowing down in general which is common in blocking regimes on guidance. Perhaps at this point a much slower progression is our best bet to get the flow to relax enough to our northeast.

There are multiple factors (like the kicker and the NS SW) but the biggest issue is over the last 36 hours guidance has consistently been weakening the upper low which allows it to get squashed further and further south

Depends...did we gain any western outliers? Goalpost tightening will happen as you get closer but if you’re outside the goalposts that won’t help.

@Ji check out the lengths it had to go to avoid showing blue here!!! 988 off the coast, 534 thickness on Jan 16 and....snow nazi say no blue for you...you come back 6 hour

I feel like I need another shower after watching that game.

The gfs has been a wreck BUT the reason it cuts there is that it was so anemic with the system on the 9th that it fails to deepen enough of a 50/50 feature and a lot of ridging pops over the northeast. If that happens something could cut. Remember it’s as much the 50/50 that prevents that as the -NAO. However, guidance was doing that for this week 5 days ago and now we might see a storm suppressed to our south! It’s probably BS but the physics on the model aren’t junk. It won’t show something that is technically a physical impossibility. It might go off on a tangent and depict a faulty pattern evolution due to biases or misrepresentation of a feature though.

HM thinks this first storm gets suppressed but still bullish after

Agree...I do thing the pretty meh airmass hurts the digital snow since we don’t get those storms with HUGE swaths of heavy snow. Without the cold you don’t get that big expansive WAA snow shield to the north so the target zone is more narrow for each storm. Basically it’s deform or bust lol. That decreases the chances of nice clown maps. As we improve the thermals we likely start seeing more pretty colors. I also have noticed over the years that at range operationals go off the reservation wrt aligning the synoptic results with the longwave pattern. I don’t know why but often once you get inside 150 hours or so suddenly they morph into what climo says that pattern should look like. Hence the storm Friday suddenly went from cutter to suppressed as it got close to that threshold. My take on Friday is it’s mostly about that Quebec nonsense. I think if that trends better this comes north but if that really is going to dive in on top it’s game over up here. Someone brought it up but that is similar to what happened in Dec 2018.

I’ll give Ji one thing...he is right it’s getting a little crazy how despite a perfect h5 look on all the ensembles op runs in general want to shotgun snow all around us but for the most part we aren’t seeing any flush hits. I bet that changes soon. But it’s odd so far.

If you are referring to the "were due index" we already paid the piper for those good years...the bad ones in the last 11 years actually already neutralized the snow means to the point where if we don't get a decent total this year we will end up below the long term averages from BEFORE 2010.

It was trending that way for a few runs...but the 12z overcame the further south H5 track with a more potent surface system...but if you look at the last 24 hours of runs there is a clear trend south with the upper low track. That NS SW is diving down WAY too far east to do us any good at all. But there are a lot of moving parts still and they will go through some changes still. We need the flow over the top to relax just a bit and get the NS to dive in further west.

If you READ the post... the point is WITH a block that ridge location is TOTALLY FINE. Maybe "Ji" should stop combing through my posts to pick out words that when taken out of context can be misconstrued as negative.

It's a beaut Clark The western ridge is really going ape. It's slightly west of ideal but with that kind of blocking I would prefer west then east. Let thigs "try" to cut with that blocking...if we can inject cold (and with that look we should) I will take my chances with that v possible suppressed OTS solutions we can see if the western ridge is too far east.

I can kind of get why those analogs show up. If you just look at the longwave pattern its almost identical to all those HECS storms. Even the euro has a H5 track pretty similar to some of those big storms. But there are details within the pattern that put a cap on the potential of this. The main limiting factor is the lack of true cold. Most of those storms had a much more favorable antecedent airmass. Without that not only does it create precip type problems...it also means we won't see such an expansive or intense WAA precip shield to the north of the system and it could inhibit the intensity of the system because of less baroclinicity. There are also more SW's flying around that could run interference here then in most of those cases. All that said though I do think this might have more upside then typically could be assumed from the current surface look on guidance. Often things "trend" towards what that guidance suggests the pattern produced historically. But those factors probably cap this at a lower level event then those.

If that SW diving through Montana is ANYWHERE else that’s a bigger event. Closer and it likely phases in. Further and it doesn’t dampen and kick it. Get that anywhere but there (wave spacing wise) and that was a bigger deal. But the longwave pattern on the euro from day 5-10 is beautiful

Pretty much every one of our HECS in that set

They didn’t really start to spit out crazy looks for that until like 100-120 hrs out. And there was a lot less complexity to that synoptic setup.

@WxUSAF you called it. That’s you’re storm!

That’s some extreme there...but the N PAC trough pulled back too much. Look where the ridge out west is! Off the west coast. That’s why the storm cuts on that run.