psuhoffman

Very nice weeklies run fwiw

One last thought...dunno if it’s too late to change but if you really wanted to see Stowe you could check the Montpelier area. It’s only about 30 mins away and it’s not in as much of a valley as the other towns so it does better with snow but far enough away from the ski resorts that sometimes it’s not as booked up.

Don’t know how long your up there but once the snow stops Stowe is about a 1:45 drive from Rutland. It’s a nice scenic drive. But at least make sure you head up to Killington. Isn’t a long drive. Its another world from Rutland. Whatever Rutland gets Killington will have at least double. You can check out the wobbly barn if youre looking for something to do.

I don’t put a lot of faith in anything past day 10. The EPS isn’t great but it’s a small adjustment from either good or bad. There will be adjustments. We will see.

How’s the fog?

It is. So that says our chances for snow are about normal, which for us isn’t very good. Lol however hidden within that are 2 facts...most of that comes day 12-15 from a specific threat. So that specific time period has some promise. And the pattern is mediocre but a slight adjustment from good. It’s not the same as a bad mean in a pattern with a ton of major flaws. That said it was a disappointing last 24 hours with the EPS. It hasn’t radically shifted any features but imperfections within the pattern have shown up to limit the probabilities.

That's not true...but it was a pretty bad run. It really goes crazy with the ridge in the northeast day 7-11 and its lights out on any chance there.... then there are a scattering of hits in the day 12-15 range but nothing to the level of the GEFS and GEPS. The pattern looks close enough to workable that it's not out of the question something changes and we sneak a threat in but the last couple EPS runs have not been friendly.

all true...but have the suburbs already lost the storms from 30-50 years ago where they got 6" of 33 degree slop and the city was all rain then?

GEPS and GEFS both like the idea of a snowstorm somewhere in the mid Atlantic day 10-15

@RevWarReenactor did you decide where to go? Looks like most of Vermont got 3-4" in the Valleys and 5-8" in the mountain locations last night and this morning. Killington got 6". For the next system still looks about the same Anywhere along the mountains in Vermont look good for another good snowfall...if you have a passport and dont mind the drive Montreal looks like a good spot for high ration fluffy snowfall, they get that 10-15" from like .5 qpf...which isnt uncommon up there. Stowe looks look and so does North Conway in NH still. Stowe area in Vermont will get some additional upslope snows on Sunday evening into Monday also...

the op euro is a total dumpster fire disaster, but its just one op run at long range so.... But it does EVERYTHING the opposite of how we want... doesn't phase the ocean storm next week and slides out out, then washes out the day 9 threat completely so it doesn't amplify...crashes energy into the west and sets up a full latitude western trough eastern ridge...and leaves us in a total dumpster fire day 10. LOL

@frd thanks for your thoughts... this could all be totally off...its just something I noticed but have no hard evidence to back it up. BTW I am most definitely NOT saying this upcoming pattern cannot work... even if there is truth to my observation it just might mean it will be "harder" to work. And this could be completely my own observational bias and nothing too it. There does seem to be a change to the snowfall patterns when I compared how it "used to snow" to how we commonly get snow now though. It's largely a wash, means are going down but not as fast as they could because some patterns that didnt produce are starting too...and some that used to have not. Cold patterns have become more snowy and that would fit with enhanced waves from the increased baroclinicity due to an overall warmer thermal profile. What used to be a cold dry pattern could have more potential now in that regime. What used to be a warm pattern that could support marginal snow events.. could be skewing less favorable. In the end that could be a wash...at least to a point.

I agree with this...in the last 15 years I have had many marginal events up here that historically I thought it should have been at least "some" snow in DC but instead it was just cold rain or non accumulating rain/snow mix in the urban corridor. It seems some of the storms that historically were 6-12" up here and 2-4" in DC are still good snows up here but nothing in the cities. But that is just observational with no real study/data to prove my hypothesis. Just seems almost every marginal 50/50 type situation breaks warm/no snow for DC lately. They need a legit very good setup to get snow. Marginal events don't work anymore. But this could be recency bias.

How much snow did you get last week?

The overall look day 10-15 is about as good as we can ask for on the GEFS There is definitely high pressure heading into the day 10 threat...we just need slightly lower heights near 50/50 to hold it in... After that...this is an excellent looking pressure profile...temps...and precip for an east coast snowstorm...

I would not totally give up on the day 10 threat until its into the medium range. There is an obvious issue...the cold is very stale by then and with the amount of ridging in Quebec...if there isn't enough of a 50/50 to keep confluence and resist the southerly flow ahead of the trough we will torch. But...there are vorts flying around and some do end up in a spot that could help...but the majority of the guidance says they either don't amplify enough or are not in the right spot at the right time. One way to really increase the chances is if the ocean storm next week phases with the NS and gets pulled up into the 50/50 location. That would change the equation and guidance would flip to a colder solution right quick. But its not a high probability ATT. After that all the guidance opens a legit window as whatever happens better or worse with day 10 they all agree that wave WILL amplify and knock down the ridging to our northeast and create a favorable window behind it with a pretty good looking trough axis and ridging across central Canada. It's the best look we have had yet for a legit snowstorm. Of course that isn't saying much...its a pretty low bar.

The overall pattern looks ok. The day 10 upper level energy actually gets forced under us despite being in the upper midwest cut off... that shows the effect of the blocking regime in Canada...problem is it scours out all the cold first...the Ocean Storm doesn't phase this time and so it slides out too far south to impact the flow and thus the southerly flow ahead of the trough torches our temps. The storm is forced under the blocking but it doesn't matter. Details in the longwave pattern matter. After that is when we have a real shot according to all guidance. IF the long range guidance is close to right there is a legit good window day 12-15 and the GFS almost is a hit but the system is disjointed and fails to come together...too much NS interference and a sloppy phase. That would be a supreme example of "bad luck" in an actual very good pattern.

@WxUSAF @Bob Chill @showmethesnow @C.A.P.E. @usedtobe @Ji @frd or anyone else that wants to interject... I wanted to contain this discussion here because we all know it can spin out of control and derail the main thread. But this is something I hinted at in a post earlier and its been kicking around my head ever since I saw the upcoming pattern shift into a Hudson Bay centered Ridge with a +AO. I remembered our area actually had quite a few decent snowstorms in that pattern...it was one of the best ways to get snow with a +AO actually... but also that almost all of them were very marginal events that mixed a lot in the cities and they were way more common in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s and less so since. I went back and looked at the snow records I had put together for my mini study...plus looked at some storms that were just under the 5" threshold but still decent snowfalls around the region (some much better just NW of DC/Balt) to see how many also fell into a similar pattern. Look at some of these 3"+ snowfalls at DCA in somewhat similar pattern I found between 1958 and 1992 and how marginal they were... look at the low temps and qpf Hi Low QPF Snowfall 36-30 1.13 4.6 37-30 .77 4.1 45-33 .86 6.9 34-31 .92 3.0 37-33 .92 3.4 39-32 .72 3.0 43-33 1.09 5.5 39-31 1.04 6.9 39-32 .67 3.4 33-30 1.63 6.4 38-33 1.03 3.3 These are all not a perfect match but they all featured a somewhat similar central Canada ridge pattern without much AO help. Obviously these were all very mixed events. A lot of them were significantly more snow NW of the cities. In general they fit a profile of 3-6" mixed events in DC and 6"+ events west of the fall line... but would these events even work today or would they be marginal mixed events NW and just rain in DC? Or maybe simply just rain everywhere since a couple degree difference in an event so marginal can simply cause the whole system to take a further north track which would potentially shift the whole baroclinic boundary significantly. On the other hand we seem to be getting snow more often recently in some patterns that were historically cold but dry looks. I am just bringing this up because in my snow study a LOT of snowfalls with this type of marginal central Canada ridging look showed up regularly in the 50s-early 90s...then they became very rare after that. While in the last 20 years we have had a lot of EPO ridge +AO snowstorms which were extremely rare before that. I admit this is all VERY VERY VERY speculative, I have not put any real study into it yet just thinking out loud here based on things I noticed when surveying our snowfall data and patterns. Thoughts?

@frd BAMWX is focusing on energy, and that is almost entirely temperature dependent...and given the recent bias and the look of ridging across canada cutting off cross polar flow...I would lean normal to slightly above overall also. But we are mostly hunting snow which is much different. We don't need an arctic dump in mid winter to get a snowstorm.

about 20% of the time we get lucky and some anomalous feature dominates the winter pattern in a way that makes it favorable for snow here. Sometimes its the NAO (1996/2010). Sometimes its the EPO (2003, 2014). It is becoming obvious this is NOT one of those years. The rest of the time the pattern is flawed and we will scrape and claw to get any snow and if we are lucky a couple times the winter is at least decent with a couple snow events...or if we fail to get lucky they can end up total dumpster fire years like 2002. Keep in mind even 2002 had a great period of NAO blocking and a few threats that just didnt work out, one got suppressed, one was slightly too warm in the boundary layer in the coastal plain, one just didnt come together and ended up the only small snow event of the year. With some luck we get a couple of those to hit and we remember 2002 like a lot of other typical mediocre winters. On the other hand 2000 had one good period over 10 days where 2-3 storms hit depending on where you were...but only one was really big in 95. What if that one storm did get suppressed like the guidance thought? We would remember that like we do 2002. If this is not going to be 1996/2003/2010/2014...and its probably NOT, then we are going to have to deal with flawed patterns and hope we get lucky a couple times to eek out a mediocre year with some snow. That is just how it is. And that is how it is most of the time.

After looking over the 3 ensembles overnight... After the day 9/10 threat (that has been covered already) the EPS and GEPS both agree on developing a fairly favorable pattern. The GEFS is further east with the eastern trough but that could be its bias to press cold too much. We actually want the trough centered further back. We have been in this cycle of 10-15 day patterns with short transitional periods in between since November. That looks to continue. The next pattern is starting to show itself as one dominated by a central North American Ridge with the southern Jet undercutting across the US. That can work if we can time up a system with a 50/50 low. It's actually a pretty common look within snow analogs. It's not a very cold look but get a storm to track right under the blocking ridge and it can work. But like @C.A.P.E. said right now there are discreet warts showing that prevent that on guidance. Too much ridging extending to our northeast being the main one. I really debated even saying this because I do not want to send this thread off on a tangent... but it's something that I have been kicking around in my head. There were a LOT of snowstorms in the data set with a look close to what we have coming up. But they were mostly pretty warm storms...a LOT of storms where we managed to overcome marginal temperatures. It is not a cold pattern look. But...looking at some of those storms from the 50's, 60's, 70's, even 80's and 90s....I have to wonder if the atmospheric base state is cold enough right now for that to work. Without starting a debate about climate change, the fact is the base state is warmer right now...I am not getting into the why or what to do about it debate, there is another thread for that so save it. And you know who I am talking too. But would a storm from the 1970s that dropped 8" of heavy wet snow from 1.3 qpf on a day with a high of 35 and a low of 31 even work right now? And that is kind of the profile of a LOT of the storms in the "Hudson Bay +AO" snow set. Just a thought... As for where we go AFTER this...there are signs again of the pattern starting to shift towards day 15. Where is unclear though. There are signs of a trough in the north PAC...where exactly that ends up might be the key. If that sets up near the Aleutians we might shift into the typical EPO ridge pattern we kind of expected to be setting up this week. If that presses too far east into North America...we probably get flooded with pac puke unless the NAO flips and there is no sign of that. Of course phase changes up top tend to happen within 10 days so we probably won't know when its 15 days away. The MJO is sending conflicting signals in the long range but most of all it seems to be going somewhat dormant after this current wave fades. But I see no sign of a return to a strong MC signal so that is a positive. We still have agreement on the long range guidance of an EPO ridge +NAO pattern...but they were advertising that the next 2 weeks and totally missed so how reliable are they at 3-4 weeks? The only consistent theme this year is variability and a lot of conflicting signals. So I guess I am saying I have no freaking clue what happens after this coming 10-14 day pattern. I wouldn't be shocked if we end up with a favorable look...or end up in another no hope dumpster fire one.

Our fate isnt as dire as some of those snow means indicate. The guidance across the board did deteriorate wrt the day 10 threat but that is dependent on a single feature...getting a stronger 50/50 to knock down ridging to our northeast... that it could easily trend back on guidance if that one thing changes. Actually across guidance there was a trend towards squashing that wave because of "too much ridging" up top. But either way that isnt a high probability right now...but its not completely dead either. After that the snow means look pretty ho hum but part of that is due to a scatter shot in the day 11-15. There are a lot of misses to our south on the GEPS/EPS/GEFS. Some misses to the north (but not by much) and a few hits. That scattershot produces a mean that is unimpressive...but is not the same as a similarly unimpressive mean from a consensus that everything will go north of us. That is a bigger problem and much less likely to change in our favor. As the pattern day 11-15 gets closer the guidance will converge on where the waves within that period will track and once they do we will see somewhere benefit. It could end up NC. It could end up here...it could end up just north of us...but somewhere within that box will likely get snow in that period.

@Ralph Wiggum If we break down all the different combinations of patterns...the problem is only like 20% of them are "good for snow" here...and even in one of those "good for snow" patterns we need luck or we can waste it. The pattern we are going into isnt a "good for snow" pattern...but its not in the "bad for snow" either. It's kinda a "meh" look... and we sometimes score in those but it will take some things breaking our way. If your point is that our odds of a big snow within the next 10 days continues to be low... you are right. But that would be an accurate statement 95% of the time. But if you are implying the pattern is not really changing and everything remains the same...that is not accurate. Different doesn't necessarily mean snow though.

You clearly are implying some kind of continuity with the seasonal pattern this year...but in reality we have had none. The only constant has been consistent change. So far this winter season we have had 3 very distinct DIFFERENT 2 week patterns. And we are heading into another 4th different pattern that looks to last...get this.. about 2 weeks, on guidance. This pattern Dec1-15 WAS NOT LIKE THIS PATTERN... Dec 16-31 WAS NOT LIKE THIS PATTERN... Jan 1-13 Pattern 1: The pattern early December was dominated by a favorable EPO ridge but with a very positive NAO. Had that pattern continued into the core of winter we likely would have done OK. It's not the best look every but very workable. But it was a bit too early, we had a few threats and some minor snowfalls during that period but it was too early to really judge its effectiveness as a "snowy" pattern since we don't typically get much snow that early anyways. Pattern 2: Was dominated by -AO but a AK vortex that lead to a pacific puke airmass overtaking the CONUS. The Atlantic side was good during this period but the pacific took a dump on us and early in the season its almost impossible to overcome that look in pacific. Pattern 3: The worst pattern possible, it's amazing we scored a fluke snowfall (although it was a minor event and those can sneak into ANY pattern with a lot of luck) due to a well timed transient ridge out west... but dominated by a huge central PAC ridge and positive AO/NAO. This is one of the worst patterns for snow here. The coming pattern that looks to dominate the next 2 weeks or so looks like this... Pacific Trough, ridge across Canada (Hudson Bay Ridge) Atlantic Ridge displaced too far south for where we need it... This isnt a horrible look...it gives us a MUCH higher chance of a significant snowfall than the last 2 patterns did... (in the cities) but it has warts that could prevent that and right now they are showing on guidance. I will get into that in my next post.

@Ralph Wiggum the longwave pattern is completely different. It’s in transition now as the central pac ridge that has been the main driver begins to shift up through the epo domain and eventually ends up centered in central Canada. Just like late December was a different pattern from now. Both were bad patterns for snow here. If all you do is look out you’re window to judge then they might seem like the same pattern. But ask anyone in the pac NW and they will tell you how different the last 2 weeks were from the last 2 weeks of December! We can fail in lots of different ways because we are not in a location where snow comes easy. It’s not the normal. It’s an anomaly that only happens when we get several variables to line up favorably and even then we need luck. One commonality between this past pattern and the coming one is a positive AO. That going to make getting snow an uphill battle here even with other variables shifting around.