psuhoffman

Understatement of the year. This winter has kicked my a$$ 7 ways to Sunday. Almost every expectation was wrong.

My boss loves snow but lives east of Baltimore by middle river right near the water. He is always complaining. Even when my school on the west side of Baltimore city gets 2-4” he often has virtually nothing. Any marginal even he gets screwed. I keep telling him he lives in the snow anus of central MD.

I approve of this look!

I’m not either but the euro jumped on that too. Gives me 3” on the back end lol. I think that’s a long shot but as long as guidance keeps digging the h5 low under us I guess there is a chance. Not worry tracking though as that’s the type of thing that will change a lot every run.

I agree with all that but that has been the tendency with the mjo in phase 5-7 and a positive soi. That’s actually what you would expect and why I lost interest in late January into early February. With the mjo in 8 and the soi negative we should see the dominant energy try to dump into the east. Some energy might split and dump west but I think the bigger piece ends up east. Im also encouraged to see the epo ridge weaken and sink south at range. As wavelengths shorten all that epo ridge is doing is encouraging energy to dump into the west. Get that south and this time of year you will direct some unto the trough east of Hawaii and the majority will get funneled east. We can work with a trough off the west coast this time of year. Actually some of our big snows had that look. And we can live with some troughing in the west as long as the dominant northern stream is directed into the east to mute the se ridge response. All that wasn’t going to happen in mjo 5-7. They all favor the trough digging into the west. That’s why I was in deb mode. You had the right “idea” how to get this general pattern to work but the pac forcing wasn’t going to let that happen. It “should” pretty soon.

Where exactly are you? I know in general.

It does...but before that I LOVE seeing those 3-4 southeast HECS members! Of course we don’t want to see the majority go that way or else it’s the maestro 1980 or 1973 nightmare, but given the type pattern seeing a few 20” NC snowstorms just makes me feel there is both the stj fetch we need and a good chance the boundary stays south of us this time.

Ok now that’s funny.

Yes but some are worse than others. Gefs for instance seems to count anything that falls with any level even remotely close to freezing as snow.

That snow map does make sense. The problem isn’t the ukmet it’s the flawed algorithm on that map we’ve been looking at all winter! Smh

Forgetting the mjo plots just looking at the pressure and chi charts the forcing looks to enter favorable locations east of the dateline in just a few days. With a 5-7 day lag by day 10 we should be feeling it. Guidance has been trending more trough unto the east through day 8-9 and then reloads the se ridge. 2 thoughts. That could just be an error and they are doing what they did all year and not seeing the mjo right. Also there is a lot of snow within the ensembles (and now the ops too) despite the ridge. I have a thought on that. Tell me if you think this makes sense. The se ridge may not be totally pac driven. There might be some other cause. I say that because even runs that pull the western trough back and split pressing a trough into the east still have some se ridge. It’s muted with a trough over the top, and those are the really snowy runs actually as that scenario sets up the kind of boundary war we can win with a muted se ridge resisting and throwing waa back over pressing cold over the top. That’s a PD2 type setup. Of course that was an extreme example but that idea works in general. When the se ridge is connected to the pacific and is being pumped by the trough out west is when we really are in trouble. A trough split with some diving down west and some diving in on top the se ridge is better. So either it is pac driven and then it’s wrong. The pac forcing should encourage the cold to try to dive into the eastern conus. Or it’s not pac driven in which that’s ok too as cold pressing on top a muted ridge is the kind of exception to the rule that works here. That’s actually how 2003, 2014, and 2015 worked. You think I’m off my rocker here or might there be something to that idea? Been kicking it around in my head since yesterday when the weird snowy SE ridge solutions started showing up.

Nice gfs run. Gets 3 waves under us in the long range. I’ll take my chances.

Where is Yoda with the decent ukmet snowmap

This would say it’s worth keeping one eye on. But the crap antecedent airmass and ridging in front means we neen an absolutely perfect progression to get something on the back with a bombing secondary. It’s rare. What we really needed was this weeks airmass in front of next weeks trough progression. So many ways to screw up our snow!

@showmethesnow Remember back in mid January when I was deb supreme even though models were still spitting out some snowy runs...because I saw the expected soi crash reversing and the mjo amplifying into warm phases and hints the h5 was degrading. I guess I’m doing the opposite now. I see the guidance heading the right way through day 7/8. Then I see how they become ambiguous and kind of weird looking in the long range. But I see the soi and mjo saying “cold” and so I’m kind of thinking the guidance will adjust. I’d rather have the forcing on my side than the models day 10+.

Lol your usually way more optimistic than me. Unusual turn here. Makes me wonder if I’m relying on the pacific forcing and model error too much.

Bitter

Agree but sometimes when the upper trough and energy is digging in behind like that something does develop behind the initial cutter. But it’s a convoluted setup that models won’t have any chance of nailing at range. The weekend setup is opposite this one in that regard with a lifting trough to our west so the frozen threat is on the front. Next weekend it’s on the back. But that’s a low probability. Like you said the best threat showing right now is the week after next weekend with several waves and some runs suggesting a PD2 type of look, and enough suppressed solutions to think maybe this time isn’t a head fake. Imo the 50/50 NAO look will be critical. there is a see saw on guidance with that. Runs with blocking suppress the boundary more. That’s our best chance.

Everything’s good. I have a sense of humor.

Thanks for the well wishes all. He is doing well now and should be fine. Just don’t want to have to drive him to the hospital on a sheet of ice and really don’t want to have to try to reschedule. Already took the day off work and all plus he needs the medical attention. Phin is alright. His last post was actually funny I thought.

I hate to be selfish on this one but my Son just had surgery a few days ago. He is doing fine, but I have to get him to Hopkins Tuesday morning for his post op and to change his surgical bandages. I can deal with snow no problem. Freezing rain is a problem. So I’m not rooting for a ton of freezing rain here. Snow or rain please.

Cfs goes nuclear into 8. Not sure I buy that but the differences are moot since they all get into forcing locations good for cold. Just differ on amplitude and exact location 8/1.

Not excited by either NAM up here. They look very spotty with precip through most of the window for snow. Warmer at 850 and even imply it goes to rain up here tomorrow before “maybe” back to snow for a short time at the very start of the main storm. But I say maybe because that keeps shifting north and anymore and it ends up north of the Pa line. Either way it looks like ~2” of slop to rain even up here on both Nams.

@C.A.P.E. the gefs snow means are so useless. The last 4 runs the “better” runs has a lower snowfall. That’s because they were dryer with less big rainstorms that the busted algorithm was counting as snow. The better runs had more “real” snow but a lower mean because it had some southern misses and less fake 37 degree snow from lows cutting northwest of Chicago.

Why is PA trolling us this year??? And I love the pa sub...was a regular contributor there years ago and still pop in time to time but a few a$$clowns are making them look bad.