psuhoffman

I will say this...if we do get a miller a storm with a perfect track (barring bad luck with a NS vort like the HH gfs run) I don’t buy the rain idea. I said the same thing when the Jan 2016 storm first showed up around day 12 and was warm on guidance. Euro was showing a perfect track gulf low rain storm when it first came into day 10 range. And I said BS. If it goes down like that in January stale cold will be good enough. Feb 5 2010 also was warm at really long range. Same reason. Same result. History/climo says stale cold stuck under a Canadian ridge is good enough with a good storm track in January and February. Climo for an advertised pattern beats nwp output range most times. We need the nwp to help with pattern recognition but I’ll take what history says should happen with the details.

Good luck analyzing a clipper at 150 hours. The day 10 stj thing is what I’m talking about. You’re right about discreet things not showing until inside 4/5 days...but the problem is it’s hard to spend a lot of time analyzing something that hasn’t shown itself yet. Could an unseen vort pop up in the cold window next week? Sure. It’s a pretty suppressive flow though. But maybe that relaxes some. Problem is that’s all pure speculation with no meat to analyze.

I thought that too (and there is some of that) but even some of the members with 990 lows off the coast that bomb us with precip are just rain. You see anything under 240 worth focusing on?

I am legitimately perplexed by the lack of hits day 10-15 on the eps and gefs given the h5 look. Even when you examine the mslp and precip...it’s a coastal track. Not cutters. And it’s not warm. Not really cold but below normal the whole period. It looks great. Then you look at the individual member output and it’s a bunch of 36 degree rainstorms from a perfect track miller A storm! Now I see the “wart”. The ridging in Canada gets centered too Far East which cuts off the cross polar flow so we end up with stale cold across the conus after the initial dump next week. But that setup (ridge bear or just west of Hudson Bay) has been a staple of mid winter snows here. In my study it was the second most frequent feature to an NAO block to signal snow. Like an NAO pattern it’s not an arctic cold look but it’s January. Prime climo. Stale cold air should be good enough. It was in Feb 2010. That was the same general airmass, leftover cold from the dump late January that was cut off under blocking across Canada. It was a garbage airmass by Feb 5. Would have been 45-50 degrees if it was sunny with no snowcover. But it worked with storms tracking under us. I know I’m ranting but my god that pattern should work. Maybe it will and guidance is off by a few degrees at range. I hate to bring you know what up with you know who around but seeing a pattern that has been bread and butter for us in the past look “just a couple degrees too warm” in prime climo (literally this is the coldest/snowiest part of the year) really is frustrating.

The longwave pattern still looks as advertised. Problems are with details that cannot be seen in long range.

@frd still no idea what he meant wrt the IO standing wave in 2/3. That’s a cold look in February.

@Bob Chill looking at h5, slp anomalies, precip, temps, I expected to see a lot of hits on 18z gefs...but no. A couple but when I saw the lackluster snow mean I checked out the members. A lot of coastal scrapers or OTS. A couple hits. But the majority that come up are perfect track rain storms according to the members. Odd. I guess a 36 degree rainstorm would still show up as a “below normal day” becauss we suck that much. Just not the profile of a rainstorm. Seriously this is a rain look now...I have a hard time buying that

Strengthen the western ridge or shift it east some...weaken or shift the eastern one west, and you end up with the upper low where we want it. Not a big change at day 12.

Dude if you go out to the midwest in a hot air balloon at about 6,000 feet and blow facing east really hard you might be able to reel this one in.

I was having fun with that but one thing worth mentioning. It’s low odds. It’s not the most likely outcome. But there are enough absolute snow bombs with that threat day 11-12 on the GEFS/GEPS/EPS that while the odds do not favor snow right now, there is the chance that could be a big storm if it breaks right. Being cold enough seems the largest obstacle att.

12z GEPS was a good run.

Exactly...we should only listen to forecasters who are perfect and never get anything wrong!

At the end of the day we manage to fail on this specific run with a 10 day period of below normal temps and near normal precip... but its because hidding within that is a 7 day period of bone dry followed by a 24 hour warm up when all the precip comes...lol On the other hand...back off the ridging a little bit...and suddenly there are 2 legit threats with a relatively minor adjustment.

I can't keep track of who is saying "cold" and who is saying "warm". I swore a little while ago someone was posting BAMWX stuff saying it was going to get cold and snowy. And just 24 hours ago twitter was lit up with "here it comes, cold/snow" posts and suddenly its the opposite. Don't get me wrong todays 12z runs were less than inspiring, but they were just one run, and werent a dumpster fire...just a step in the wrong direction. If we hadn't had such good looks recently we would think todays runs were great. Don't get me wrong its important to change with new information. I have changed my mind a couple times this winter...but each time it took a week of trending across different sources of information, not a single run. That is crazy.

That is kind of an exaggeration. It flipped from extremely cold to kinda meh. Next week is still very cold...but bone dry. If the EPS is right there is no chance of any precip from Sunday to the following weekend. That is where the problems start...its shifting the ridging up top too far southeast...instead of an EPO ridge its centered across central and eastern Canada cutting off the cold air source and creating too much ridging in the northeast for storms to possibly cut. It's not an awful look and we have snowed with some luck in such a pattern...but its not the really good look for that period of a few runs ago. After that it starts to get back to the idea of an eastern trough...but even then its more muted and the ridging up top is weaker. It was a disappointing run IMO. I wont deny it. But its not a total disaster either.

Not a fan of todays EPS. Slightly degraded everything. It's frustratingly close to good but each discreet event took a wrong turn. The weekend has been handled in detail. It moved towards squashing any hope of a system next week. And now trended towards the op GFS idea of sliding too much ridging into the east and cutting the day 11/12 storm. Snow mean took a major cut reflecting these changes. The overall longwave pattern hasn't changed much...but you can't see the smaller details that will determine the fate of each specific threat from range and as they have come into closer range the warts start to show. As of right now, this this run, there were too many warts on each threat window. Still leaves us at a good look day 15. The good news is each threat is "close" enough that small adjustments (and adjustments will happen) could put us back into a good spot for each one.

Euro is setting up a day 11/12 storm...no surprise that is when the GEPS/GEFS/EPS have said our next big chance at snow is. Before that we would need the ridge axis to back off some out west for the threat next week...otherwise its a southeast coast threat. I am realistic about snow...or at least I try to be. I got 7" last week and it stayed on the ground for 3 days. I got to enjoy it several times with my kids. If I can say 2 more similar events this winter... or one more good storm and a week of cold behind it to keep snow OTG...I will call this year a win no matter what the "number" says. Bottom line would be I got a couple opportunities to play in the snow with my children and a week+ with snow OTG to enjoy the scenery. Chasing a number we know statistically we are unlikely to reach 70% of the time is just a setup for...well being you.

relax...I know the rug pull over the weekend storm hurts a bit, but honestly had the models never teased us with some kind of crazy thump snow from a storm cutting to Chicago we would be in a much better mood. Nothing has actually failed yet except a setup that was never good from a longwave pattern POV to begin with. (assuming we don't make a miraculous comeback on the weekend WAA wave).

So if we can’t snow with these temps and this precip for week 2..... let the debate whether we are the Browns or Bengals begin...

Seemed good enough to me. Moved the right way with the day 11/12 threat. It's closer to a good result than previous runs. This run it dives a northern stream feature in and keys on that... there are 2 minor adjustments though that would make this setup work. Either get rid of that NS feature and focus on the STJ one. Or have it dig more. After that its setting up a good look at the end Confluence locked in to our north, that wave is going to get forced under us.

After a solid week of the MJO signal improving (moving towards a strong 7/8) today was the first day it took a step back, more towards a quick death in 7 then a recycle towards 6. That is something to keep an eye on. But even if it did recycle towards 6 so long as it progressed from there it might only be a brief relax in an overall cold period.

Couple things... I thought Snowy was calling for a cold/snowy second half of winter...did he change his mind on that? But more importantly, not sure I get what their point is wrt the IO base state. It is true that a wave near the dateline is "better" but a phase 2/3 in February is a cold look also. So not sure what that was about...

Can't ask for a better signal at long range day 8-15 EPS surface temps EPS 850 EPS mean Precip

The op gfs has a completely different pattern evolution next week than the GEFS/GEPS/EPS. Old runs, the 12z is "coming around" and if it werent for really bad timing with the lakes low probably would be a snowstorm... but the difference is how they have been handling the ridging across Canada. ALL guidance agrees that early next week we get a strong ridge near Hudson bay in conjunction with a western ridge slightly too far east...a ridge near Hudson would be perfect if we had a -PNA (but of course as soon as we need a western trough it abandons us LOL) but with a western ridge centered east of the perfect and a strong ridge near Hudson that is a very suppressive look and a great look for a possible SE snowstorm. I would love the look next week if I was on the outer banks. After that the op GFS was alone in sliding the whole of the ridge near Hudson Bay into New England. The rest of guidance breaks a piece off but the main ridge hangs back and remains anchored near Hudson Bay. The op GFS ends up redeveloping a new Ridge in western Canada but that creates a weakness between the ridge in the northeast and the one in the west for a trough to amplify to our west op GFS from 6z. I highlighted the features I mentioned. All other guidance agrees with the GEFS look for this same time Hence the EPS/GEFS/GEPS all agree on a risk of a snowstorm in the day 10-15 period while the op GFS had a warm solution.

It’s pretty obvious that storms like Feb 83, Jan 96, Feb 03, Dec 09, Feb 10, Jan 16 are roughly our max potential. (And a potential of 24-36” region wide is nothing to scoff at). There are lots of colder places that would be envious of our top end potential. The exact placement of the snow max will depend on meso banding but those storms were all examples of max potential around here. 2003 was the oddball in that it lacked blocking but it had a monster 50/50 to compensate. The rest had blocking.