psuhoffman

I guess we will just have to carry on without him... godspeed to us all

That’s fine...I don’t want to get into the “politics” I just took issue with the insinuation you all were playing favorites or not being equitable.

There are way more factors involved than just enso and solar.

For the record I like DT. He has no filter and gets too emotional sometimes. That combo gets him in trouble. But for the most part I dig his passion and he is always honest about what he thinks/feels.

They’ve known for a while. There is no way they didn’t see the same things some of us did a month ago! It’s just the calculus has finally reached the point it’s not worth spinning anymore. They milked as much time as they can before they risk so much damage to their reputation that it’s not worth it just to string along the 3 people who haven’t figured it out yet. If an amateur can figure it out a month ago I just don’t think it’s credible they just “saw the light” this week.

Most of the -NAO periods were displaced after the minimum. Minimums happened in 1976, 1986, 1996, 2008. With the exception of 1996 the periods of extreme blocking cane AFRER minimums. 1977-80. 1987-88. 2010-11. Perhaps 1996 wasn’t as solar related as we thought. Maybe the blocking in 1998 which we forget because it didn’t accompany any snow was in response to the 1996 minimum. Either way the stronger correlation is after minimum not before and it’s not and every year 100% correlation. If we don’t get a period of blocking in the next few years then I would say WTF

Y’all complained when those maps showed 20-30% everyday. That’s what you get!

No one needs to be defensive. Everyone is free to feel however they want. And it’s not like I’m totally thrilled about this. Im just trying to lesson the misery. Serenity now and all that jazz.

3 points to consider 1. I highly doubt we suddenly had a radical climate shift. We’ve had periods like this before. 1948-1953 was awful. There was an awful run in the mid 1970s. 1989-1992 was mostly crap and so was 1997-2002, 2007-2009, and 2011-2013. Also look at a long term NAO chart and you will note it runs in cycles with multi year positive and negative phases. Also note there are typically positive cycles preceding solar minimums and negative cycles following them. We are about to hit a solar minimum so it’s not crazy that we have had a multi year positive. It’s also not crazy that we had a rough patch for snow following what was an epic 3 year heater. If we go another 3/4 years without any winter -NAO then I might start to worry. Right now this is still within historical norms. 2. I showed a while ago that we have had patterns like this before and how bad they all sucked. It’s not like this type of winter never happened before or we used to snow a lot in this pattern. I do think DC is losing some marginal events and that what was a 6” year 50 years ago might be a 3” year now. So bad years are even worse maybe. But I don’t thInk the odds of a really good year have changed appreciably. If we start to see what should be good patterns not working because it’s too warm that would be a red flag. This pattern always sucked. 3. What if your fear is right. What if we did flip and it’s never going to snow here much anymore? Will getting upset every 6 hours when the gfs doesn’t show snow change anything or make it any better?

I was reading some old storm threads from years ago and it struck me how many voices are missing. And I don’t think it’s just because things have sucked. I went back to other years that sucked and posters like HM/Ian/Matt/Ender/Wes and many others were contributing in discussions even when things weren’t doing amazing. And lately even when we do get a legit threat most of them barely even pop in at all. I wonder what happened and I really hope it’s not a trend. It’s been such a slow bleed that I hasn’t even realized it until I went back and saw what the threads years ago looked like.

No I was pretty pessimistic late summer early fall. I meant more in November. I thought by then things looked “ok”. Never great but years with a mish mosh of mediocre that were warm neutral enso in the past tended to be ok. I got that part way wrong.

Weeklies week 3 week 4 week 5 week 6 but they flip the pattern around March 15 so we can enjoy a cold miserable spring!!!

It’s ok even if I don’t get another inch I’ll be alright.

I agree guidance degraded that look. But didn’t I warn you about that a week ago? The way the pattern was progressing it was unlikely the canadien ridge was going to be able to do much damage to the tpv as it briefly traversed the edges of the NAO domain. And the ensembles always has some doubt built into the means. So yes the look changed but it did exactly what I thought it would so I guess I’m not lamenting it.

About 11” I think. I’d have to go into my records and add to all the minor events in Dec but I’m not doing that. Too depressing. But it’s close to 11”.

Your last argument made more sense

1. That’s an op at range. The ensembles never looked as good as that even but... 2. That’s not a true NAO block. That’s more of a WAR on roids, and it’s transient because... 3. There is no 50/50 there to help pump that ridge into the west NAO domain where we want it or to create confluence in the northeast. 4. The epo and pna ridges are displaced west of ideal It’s close to a good look but not. This is where we actually want those features centered.

Curious what you thought looked really bad in the fall. Turns out some of Tom and HMs insights wrt the walker cell state and AAM were right but purely from classical analogs that matched a weak neutral enso with descending qbo and a similar north pac sst config the results were ok. Not great but not like this. This turned out like a Nina. Tom nailed that.

It’s never happened. Using the local coop here back to 1989 then Westminster before that...back to 1942 the worst Feb/March combination was 2002 with 1.5” total. So no we probably won’t get blanked. But a lot of the analogs to this years pattern were the most dreadful years. 2002 is one. 1988 only had 2.6” from Feb 1 on from a bunch of insignificant cartoppers. Same in 1950. 2008 only has a couple 1-2” snows. So we will luck our way to some snow. That’s 99%. An inch here or there somehow is almost a sure thing. But honestly if we get 2” the rest of the way from a couple insignificant events I don’t care. Honestly adding 2” to my current total won’t make me feel any better. If it’s not going to be a legit snowstorm I’d rather just stay warm and get to spring.

I dunno I have a bad feeling the mjo is about to go ape into warm phases and slam the door on February after next week. But I just saw JB actually tossed in the towel and said the same thing after seeing the mjo forecasts and so now I have to reconsider my stance.

It was never really THAT good. The canadien ridge temporarily traversed the NAO domain for a few runs. It still does but it happens while we torch. But it’s way too transient to do any good or bully the pattern. It’s not a block. Just a weak transient ridge. The real issue is again the epo centers itself too far west setting up an RNA pattern.

People are really driving themselves crazy looking at each run with expectations. I think I’m less frustrated right now because I got the disappointment out of the way a month ago. Back when I made the now infamous “winters over” post I was depressed about it. Not really, but in a this sucks a wasted winter sense. And I dealt with it. Then moved on. Now I don’t expect anything but suck. Every major global pattern driver is a train wreck. I watch just in case a fluke happens or a pattern change comes but I don’t expect anything to work out. So when it doesn’t I’m not distraught.

It’s very rare to get under 20” here. Only happens about 10% of the time. But we’re due. Hasn’t happened since 2008 when there was only 19.2” here. 2009 barely got to 20”.

Wow why can't we get the front to clear from the midweek storm. That's most depressing thing I've seen this year Come on deep down you knew that’s exactly how it was going to look when a gradient pattern at day 15 showed up. How often do they actually work out here? 10% maybe.

The day 8/11 analog packages show what were up against. Only one significant snow event in all the analogs. Feb 67 which was one of the weirdest fluky storms of all the KU storms. So yea that could always happen but in general it’s not a winning look.