psuhoffman

Fringed

Some big mangled wet flakes mixed in here

Planetary waves (Rossby waves) break when they gain enough amplitude that their potential vorticity gradient is overturned. This leads to mixing of their pv. When it happens in a favorable way it can aid in the transport of heat into the HL and weaken or displace the tpv.

Yea that’s why I said it looks ok not good. Lol. But we absolutely need to get some changes up top to have any chance. And analogs suggest the pac is a lost cause. We need some NAO help. The fact the eps went that way was more good than bad regardless of the western dump.

At least it’s doing it in a different way. Several times this year it’s attempted a change up top initiated from the Pac side. But all those analogs I looked at a while ago said if we ever get a better pattern it was more likely to be from wave breaking on the Atlantic side. A few times the guidance teased us with an epo ridge and I was always skeptical because that’s not usually how this pac pattern evolves. The eps is teasing us with changes on the Atlantic side for the first time in a long time. Doesn’t mean it will happen but it’s at least different. Anything different is good.

Eps actually looks ok day 10-15

Yea by far the greatest chance of seeing snow fall in our area is around Davis WV. They have by far the highest mean snowfall plus a LOT of it comes from small upslope events.

Its cold because there is no precip. If there was a storm the return flow ahead of any strong wave would likely mean we warm up given the lack of anything in the flow to offer resistance.

I would LOVE to live somewhere out west for the lifestyle...but I would likely miss the chase of the big coastal storms. Snow in the intermountain west is different, mostly dependent on the wind trajectory and upslope. Radar is mostly useless. You don't really get to "track" the big wound up storms the same way. For me the perfect compromise of both getting those big east coast bomb type storms plus more consistent snow and the mountain lifestyle would probably be somewhere like New Hampshire.

When the only time you can get cold air is right behind a wave and there is no blocking to resist any return flow ahead of the next wave that is the favored result yes.

Problem is he acts like every year is a dud. The last 2, for example, were pretty typical run of the mill normal mid Atlantic snowfall winters. 2018 had a screw zone in western VA and 2019 had one in northeast MD but overall for the entire region it was near median to a little better than median snowfall over the two years. Not good but definitely not a bad 2 year period by our standards. Yet he acted like the last 2 years were awful. This year has been awful. The last 2 years were just typical normal mid Atlantic snowfall winters.

This season is awful but it’s not record breaking. We’ve had other years with almost no snow before.

I am. Stuck at airports all day.

Your problem is you complain EVERY year so when we actually get a truly awful horrible year like this one, no one wants to hear it because you acted like every year was this bad.

@Bob Chill JH was amazing. It dumped snow all day Sat and tapered off right as lifts closed. They ended up with about 45” on the week. Saturday was crowded for the powder day. Didn’t bother with the tram until the end of the day when the line got under an hour. But the new Teton lift barely had a line and there is some epic terrain there. Stuff that used to be hike too. It was snowing too hard to get any good pictures or videos. Sunday the crowds were gone and it was sunny. Beautiful day. Cold enough the snow stayed soft. It was tracked out but perfect soft bumps all over the natural terrain. Groomers were perfect to bomb down. This is some of the new terrain off Teton North Hoback had perfect soft bumps the whole way down At the end of the day I drove up into Teton NP to get some shots at sunset. A surprise 7” of snow fell Sunday night through Monday. Since it wasn’t expected the mountain was empty and it was one of my best days ever. I found some powder stashed in the woods under Sublette chair. I have some good video from Monday on my GoPro. I’ll link it once I get it edited.

About to board my next flight. Hopefully when I land everyone will be talking about the epic HH run.

The pv over Greenland is so expansive it creates a trough into the 50:50 region creating just enough confluence to our north to get a wave under us. It’s an odd setup. Odd usually doesn’t work out so don’t waste too much time worrying about it.

I never paid that much attention because I was 99% sure that had no chance. For a hot minute guidance was showing perfect timing between two waves and a lobe of the tpv dropping in front of the second wave to suppress it. That was so complicated I didn’t waste any time because there was little chance we would get all those moving parts to line up like that imo.

Anything “can” happen. It just probably won’t. Like asking why some player won’t hit a full court shot at the buzzer. Could he...sure. Will he...ummm The whole mid latitudes are warm all across the northern hemisphere. Fast progressive zonal flow. It would be the ultimate needle thread in a bad pattern. It’s unlikely. But flukes can happen. You should be asking how “could” it. I noticed the runs that had snow yesterday were creating a very odd anomalous setup in which the NAO became so positive that the PV expands down into the 50/50 space enough to create some suppression and there is just enough ridging across southern Canada that a discreet wave cuts across under. Now could that hypothetically physically possibly happen? Yes. But almost everytime we see a setup long range and say...that is really weird or convoluted it ends up not happening.

I don’t know why some have said the pac ridge hasn’t been a consistent problem. Just because it didn’t stay at +5 stdv the whole time it’s still been there pretty consistently since early December. Since Dec 1 and next 30 days on euro weeklies I guess I didn’t articulate my point that well though. When we see a very anomalous ridge there along with a very strong +AO in January it’s very likely both persist to some degree. That doesn’t mean both stay at crazy anomalous levels the entire time.

We already know what the truth is

There is a correlation. Plus while that PDB, as you call it, in January can shift and wax and wane the presence of a very anomalous ridge there at some point in January along with a +++AO strongly predicts a continuance of struggles in February also. You don’t get that strong combo without something to do with the background state forcing likely being hostile.

6.6” isn’t significant?

That look could have worked better in January. But the high latitudes are becoming a bigger and bigger deal as we get later in winter. If the NAO stays +++++ its going to be difficult to get a positive result without an east based epo ridge.