psuhoffman

I don't know if its "lag effect" or if the actual effect that causes the propensity for a -NAO is the increasing solar radiation while in a still relatively low background state. I know in the last few months I have done a little more digging into the statistics and the propensity for more -NAO AFTER the solar minimum is obvious. Furthermore...some of the "correlations" I've seen people post regarding certain factors while in "low solar" state when you examine the years seem to be skewed by the extreme -NAO from the members of the data set that occurred AFTER the solar minimum but still in a low solar background state. There doesn't seem to be as much effect in low solar before the minimum. You have to be careful when using data sets that only include a limited number of years that one subset within the larger set isn't skewing the results. Either way we SHOULD get some -NAO years coming up. If we go another 3 years after a solar minimum with no blocking THEN I would start to join the "why can't we get blocking anymore" group. ETA: Had I done some of the data analysis I did a few weeks ago wrt the solar cycle and QBO...I probably would not have been as bullish (wrong) about this winter. Live and learn. I will not make that mistake again.

@Bob Chill Jackson Hole was definitely the right choice. 25" so far...looks like its absolutely dumping on cam right now...4-8" more expected today...with a lull tonight that I hope to use to get into town...then one last wave with 3-6" more expected tomorrow. Most importantly the temperatures stay cold enough to preserve the powder....highs staying below freezing even at the base through Monday. Aspen did OK like you said they would...about 8" so far with maybe another 3-6 BUT they will be in the mid to upper 40's over the weekend and so the lower half is likely to get pretty crusty... Like you said the northern mountains in CO did much better but frankly I have skied the crap out of most of them and wasn't really interested in another trip there.

I don't know. We just had a 2 year la nina cycle from 2017-2018. It wasn't a strong event but it was a 2 year cold event that peaked moderate for a time in 2018. I think this is bigger than enso...look at the SST for the entire pacific...hell the entire globe for that matter....its warm almost everywhere. You are starting to punch above my pay grade though with speculating what the effects of a la nina would be on the overall profile...could it "reset" the walker cell circulation yea...or it could just give us a crappy nina winter then resume what we are in right now. What we might have to accept is this is just the new normal...honestly this isnt a new thing its just we had a nice run and now we are stuck in the middle of this crap but we forget how 1997-2002 was mostly crap except for one epic week in 2000. 2007-2009 was mostly crap. 2011-2013 was mostly crap. We have always had these cycles. However the "crap" periods are getting warmer and warmer with less fluke minor snowfalls within those periods. One thing that I think is getting overplayed is the idea that we can't get a -NAO anymore. The NAO runs in cycles. We have had periods with very little blocking before. But we actually had a GREAT period of blocking for about 6 weeks in 2016. We got the HECS and a couple minor snowfalls out of it. We had an epic blocking period from very late Feb through March in 2018. Had that started maybe 2 weeks earlier we probably get a 1958 type repeat out of that. We did get one really good snowfall in March and just barely missed a couple others. Last year we did get some blocking. It just wasn't the epic historic block to end all blocks that the long range guidance kept teasing. But we got enough of a block (bootleg or not) that it suppressed that December storm. We had enough blocking to get DC that 10" storm in January. And February had just enough blocking up top that I got a couple nice snowstorms here even with a completely awful Pacific pattern. Yea the NAO has been crazy positive this year...and overall positive most of the time the last several years...but its not like nao blocking has gone extinct for 10 years or something. People are over-reacting. Especially since there is usually a run of +NAO years leading up to the solar minimum and this minimum keeps getting pushed further out...once we reach minimum we should see a reversal to more -NAO in the years that follow. My best guess is that our new normal is to have even worse bad runs...years where we spend most of year in shutout no hope patterns...but then runs of epicness where the warmer profile means juiced up storms in cold periods...less odds of wasted cold. So the highs will be higher but the lows will be lower. That is probably our new normal.

If 90% of the oceans (especially the pac) are going to be a hot tub we absolutely need the high latitudes to cooperate. It’s been this way for a while now. The only time we get a sustained workable pattern is when we get either a massive east based EPO ridge or a -NAO. Everything else equals a warm pattern.

@mappy just saw what happened...so sorry I hope she is ok

I am going to be REALLY REALLY pissed off if my flight tomorrow at 5pm out of BWI gets delayed or cancelled because of wind. Even a delay would be catastrophic since my connector flight only has 35 mins in between.

It's really hard to get a "good angle" with the kind of +NAO we are dealing with. What we are really talking about with the "angle" is getting a front running region of WAA precip to the east of the low...instead of the more typical band that you get associated with the strong southerly flow just ahead and north of the low. With a storm taking a NW track that stuff will never do us any good. But to get that projection east of the precip you need to have resistance in the flow. Both cold air resistance to enhance lift...and resistance to ridging in the longwave flow to turn the mid level winds more east and direct them into the cold before it erodes. We don't have any of that resistance, with a raging +NAO. Getting a really nice thump from a NW track storm is a LOT more common and likely when we have some blocking. Getting that in this pattern... yea have fun tracking that again. Our better bet is getting the cold to penetrate further south like the GFS and then praying one of the waves can amplify just enough. But its a rock and a hard place...no amplification and the wave is flat and weak. Amplify and it likely cuts. We need a perfect lucky thread the needle solution.

Sometimes the strat stuff is overblown because the spv isn’t always coupled well with the tpv. And if the pv isn’t that strong then bottom up wave disruption can be good enough. But this year the spv and tpv have been as couples as I’ve ever seen and both are record strong, so it does matter.

Seems your enjoyment is mostly complaining about how everyone else analyzes weather. No one is stopping you from talking about it however you want. So instead of repeatedly whining about how everyone else does things why don’t you simply lead by example...discuss the long range however you want. No one is stopping you. But 90% of your posts in here are just complaints 2. If you only want to discuss things inside 3 days you are in the wrong thread.

It would be easier to just move 150 miles north.

I respect your perseverance

What a post

I feel incredibly lucky to have had that one really good 4 day period of "winter" up here from that fluke early January. That was incredibly lucky really...had a window of like 2 seconds as a transient ridge traversed the PNA domain on its way to blowtorching us a few days later and I scored on a perfectly timed wave. If that is all there is I am at peace with the world. I've moved on with my life...still keeping an eye on things for another such fluke...but its apparent that the PV from hell is intent on taking a huge dump all over this entire winter season.

I'll tell you what happens...in Jackson Hole... Still not too late...couple flights left to Idaho Falls.... And keep in mind these are 10-1 ratios...JH will probably be closer to 15-1 in town and 20-1 on the mountain...if not higher than that.

On a serious note, I actually ran the numbers a few years ago in a purely statistical analysis (no pattern or actual forecasts just from the numbers) and there is no predictive value for snowfall from one year to the next. The illusion that we are more likely to get snow after bad years is perception and confirmation bias. Yes...going into or looking back at any period LONG runs of anomalously good or bad snowfall is unlikely simply because getting an anomaly to happen multiple times in a row is unlikely. But once one year is over...regardless of the outcome, the odds of getting more or less snowfall the following year is not changed at all. Think of it like a coin toss. The odds of getting 5 heads in a row is about 3%. So before starting the process the odds of 5 heads is very very low. BUT...once you have flipped 4 heads in a row the odds of getting that 5th is still 50/50. The odds of that last flip is NOT affected by the first 4. Snowfall is like that. Now that is purely from a statistical analysis. There are some multi year patterns like the NAO that can stack the odds of multiple years, but even those things only move the needle a little bit as you can get a -NAO year in the midst of a long term +NAO cycle...or you can get a year like 2014 with a lot of snow without a -NAO. But right now its impossible to predict patterns next year anyways. Enso/NAO/PDO...all could go in any direction by next year. NAO is definitely in a + cycle but the fact we are near solar minimum would increase the chances of a long term phase flip sometime soon... I am pretty sure you were just making a half joking post but I wanted to post this since I actually ran the numbers a while ago and there is absolutely no truth to the "were due" index either good or bad.

DUDE>>>> don't tempt the snow gods...they are viscous unmerciful beasts

probably when the AO isnt +5

For my location, worst since 1973..but there is a good chance I will eek out a few more inches up here and pass 2002. That would still make it the worst winter by far in the 14 years I've been up here.

I mostly agree with this...its why I have stepped back (along with a busy schedule) quite a bit from tracking unless something makes it into short range. It seems obvious, as expected, that the raging +AO/NAO is going to continue through most if not all of February. I am starting to have serious doubts about any improvement in March either...in both 2017 and 2018, for example, there were a lot of hints and indications the NAO would flip a long time before it actually did. I see nothing to indicate a weakening PV right now. However, we can sometimes get SOME snow in a +AO/NAO regime. There are some truths...one being a big storm is highly highly highly unlikely... but something like what this weekend advertised is actually realistic and how we CAN get some snow in a bad regime with luck. A weak progressive shortwave timed up well within the larger longwave pattern. Anything too amplified will cut way north of us. So we are left rooting for these weak discreet systems that can time themselves up just right in the short windows of opportunity we get behind those larger waves when the boundary might clear south of us for a couple days. We scored a 2-4" snow in Feb 2017 during a similarly suck pattern from that kind of thing. We almost got a snow that way in Feb 2018 similarly but it ended up trending just north of us at the last minute. Those things are always long shots from distance because they have to be the goldilocks vort. Just strong enough to create the lift we need...not too strong to lift north of us...timed up perfectly after a wave that pressed the front south... and from range any one of those factors is likely to be just a little off and so the storm goes poof. But something else like that could pop up inside 72 hours. Or this wave comes back. Who knows...but we are left searching for this type of thing because any major longwave feature that can be seen well from range is very likely to end up a cutter in this pattern. You are right...the odds of hitting any any specific threat are very low...but I don't think people were silly to be tracking this weekend. Had it made it to Today as a legit threat I would have started to give in some cred. It wasn't a good bet because of the delicate nature but it was the exact type of thing we need to get lucky in this god awful pattern.

The tools show exactly what they say. What that run thinks is the probability of 3”. If most of that probability it based on one event and it busts...it changes. Because the run was wrong. One run looking really good is not that strong a signal. When we start seeing multiple runs over days AND it’s supported by an actual good pattern then we have a strong signal. That hadn’t happened this year because the pattern has sucked. But in the past we have seen ensembles indicate snow at long range and be right. And frozen does look to be “closer” at times the next 2 weeks so that’s why guidance has looked better at times. Still not good enough.

That’s different...its going to be a razor edge between places that get dumped and places that are mostly spring the next few weeks. Some guidance suggesting we could right on that line.

What does goose taste like?

Been really busy. This weekend is starting to look like a very good chance. Basically the best way to make this pattern work...front clears then a nice virt pass timed up before the next ridge comes. These waves have a tendency to juice up a bit at the end too. 2.4” at DCA seems like a good idea to me.

I’ll be rooting for you all like crazy here while I’m there...