psuhoffman

That’s exactly what I’m hanging my hat on for now. Still cautiously optimistic for the winter on the whole.

I'll try to add some more "hopeful" interjection wrt where we are and where this might go here. Some of you have already hit on the current "goings on" in the strat and tropical forcing so I will just add some support to that with historical reference. I have already mentioned that almost all the analogs to late December patterns similar to this one went on to have persistent blocking the rest of winter. So that supports what we are seeing wrt PV disruptions and the tropical forcing heading towards better phases in January. But another factor on our side, a similar pattern to this one wouldn't be as hostile later in winter. There are a lot more examples of the atlantic winning over the pacific from Mid January on than this time of year. December 2009 only worked because we had pacific help ALSO. But look at Feb 2010 TPV in roughly the same location in NW Canada. Awful Pac setup. And it wouldn't have been a cold period, absent the snowcover we probably would have been near or above normal. Similar to this coming week. But that look can work later in winter when the whole thermal profile on NAM is colder in general and the jet is more susceptible to a blocked flow. I do think for that to work at some point in January we will need an EPO dump of cold into NAM prior to such a look to set the table. But assuming the PAC doesn't run the table in its current crap state if we can get the same general pattern as we have had recently to repeat the second half of winter we would have a much more favorable outcome imo.

A squeeze play between the Scand/East NAO ridge and the EPO ridge could displace the TPV either across the pole or south. Either is preferable IMO. Ideally south but going into January North America can manufacture "enough" cold for us to get snow even absent any TPV in our area. During the epic run in 2010 the TPV was way up in NW Canada at times and then got squeezed across the pole. Without all the snowcover we probably would have been 50 degrees most days during that run. I would take perfect storm track over perfect cold air source mid winter. Cold air around won't help us if storms are cutting to our northwest. I would rather have no TPV than an unfavorably placed one from New Years to Mid February. Outside that period you probably need a favorable TPV to get enough cold here. The issue on the euro for most of the next 2 weeks is the TPV is located at the worst latitude. When its to the west it pushes the EPO ridge too far west to help and floods NAM with pac puke. When it slides east it presses the NAO ridge too far east to help much and the EPO ridge is still being prevented from progressing far enough into NW NAM to overcome that. It needs to get out of there. Towards the VERY end of the runs the ensembles hint at movement on that...but its in the fantasy land range. One saving grace is that will become less critical later in winter. The TPV location isn't as crucial for our snowfall the second half of winter.

Naw that WAS me!

Almost every analog to the current pattern went on to have persistent blocking that winter. There are also a lot of 1960s years in the analogs which I find interesting because back in early November when I was looking at analogs to current sst and qbo the best ones were in the 60s but I tossed them because between climo change and the -NAO of that decade it’s dangerous using those years. But I do feel more and more optimistic we get high latitude help this winter. Issue is do we ever get the pac right at the same time. ETA: weeklies are useless buy say no. We get a good pac for 10 days but the Atlantic is atrocious. Then we get NAO help and the pac goes to crap. Issue on weeklies is the pv never gets displaced it just cycles back and forth wrecking either pac or atl pattern. I don’t give it any weight but that’s one way to epic fail.

Yea something’s been weird about my account even since it got switched. Ironically my storm mod features weren’t working either and a few people assumed it was me who started deleting a ton of garbage posts from the main thread last year. Truth is I never deleted a thing but I thought it was funny to let them think that.

I used to be able too. Now it doesn’t work.

Can you see who “liked” a post? I used to be able too but ever since I was made storm mod I can’t. I wasn’t sure if that was the update because it happened about the same time or just me.

Lol actually with the super big hecs because of upslope and crazy high ratios we usually do really well here then also. What happened last January with that inverted trough feature was super rare. Usually the only time dc/Balt does appreciably better is a rare progressive slider that barely got good snow to DC/Balt. Events with get big totals there and not here are rare.

Congrats and you would love the climo up here. Still 30 degrees when I left for work an hour ago.

Maybe. But that was a Nina. Made more sense. We might get a better pac pattern later.

Those are interesting looks. Not a lot of good analogs to that. Some similarities to 2014 at times. January 94 is close but there is way more east based NAO help there. Maybe that's enough to adjust the boundary 50 miles south and we get the epic run PA had that winter. But that is very close to some pretty uneventful months too like January 1972, it would all depend how exactly how the TPV sets up and how much NAO help we get. Add a favorable TPV and some -NAO and that is a very good look. Absent those features and its generally a cold look but either dry or cutters. On another note of what might be ahead...as I suspected when I checked the analogs to the current look, while most didn't produce any snow at the time...almost all of them are from years where there was more persistent blocking episodes the remainder of the winter. Some went on to have an epic period where we finally timed up the pac/atl and some were decent but not great years where we got some snow but things just didnt line up. But not really many crap dud years in the list. That is about what I suspected. I would rather take a good look up top and hope the mid latitudes get right at some point than the other way around.

It's not that I don't appreciate a small snowfall, but they can happen in MOST patterns with some luck and I am not really going to track the chance of 1-2" from long range. Unless we are in a total crap pattern there is always a decent chance for a minor event in winter. And while we all like snow...if all we get all winter are several fluke 1-2" events no one will be happy. Sprinkle in a couple warning level events though...and suddenly that winter becomes a good one.

Ok I changed my mind...I want to bomb down the Pallavicini and east wall now

I am not really concerned with "recovery time". It's December not February. And if we get cross polar flow from an EPO ridge we can get cold again right quick. It takes longer if we get NAO and PNA but no EPO help, but even then enough cold to snow at least mid winter can build domestically within a week or so. Either way time is on our side. The reason these seem to "linger" forever is often when a really awful pattern locks in it can take a while to break down. If the pattern breaks we will be ok by prime climo and that is all that matters. Most of our "good" and even a decent percentage of our epic winters the snow comes in chunks with long periods of meh that we just don't remember after the fact. What those good winter's usually avoid though are month long total crap shutout patterns. So far we have avoided that. As long as we bounce out of this Pac Puke pattern within a week or so I am ok with this. I still think the propensity for blocking up top on either the EPO or NAO side will pay off eventually. So far we have not timed either up with enough cold. I still think if we simply get a recycle of the pattern from the last 8 weeks in mid Winter we will do just fine. Take what we have seen and add more cold to the equation and we probably had 2-3 good snow events.

It looks more workable. The details (and we are still way too far for that) will determine how workable. What I am about to say (and I know you know all this just saying to be clear to everyone) pertains to warning level events. I will never turn down a 1-3" mix event or a clipper...but we can luck our way into something like that during prime climo is LOTS of patterns...but are we really tracking a 1" event from 10 days? I think most of us are tracking in hope of a bigger event. If we want a warning level snowfall...we need a certain combo to show. There is a reason a -EPO or an east based -NAO for instance, has very little correlation to snowfall if only taken by themselves. That doesn't mean we cant get snow with those looks but we need other factors to line up. But since most guidance seems to suggest we get some EPO help but without any PNA help...that combo really does need some atlantic side help or an ideally located TPV to work otherwise that is cutter city. BUT...a -EPO -NAO can work with a -PNA. EPO delivers the cold and the NAO would prevent cutters despite the PNA. That might not be an HECS look...storms would "TRY" to cut and get blocked, that usually means any epic snowfall totals are north of us...but we can get a warning event out of that setup. That look was a lot more common in the 1960's for instance...and we didn't get a lot of HUGE snowfall totals in most of those storms but we did very well despite the fact that to our north had the epic totals in most of those. But if we end up with epo help without any PNA or NAO help...that is probably just cold/dry, warm/wet. Too far out yet to know how that will break. Seeing the TPV drop is big because if all it does is cycle back and forth up there we will just cycle between a crap pacific and crap atlantic.

6z gefs way our in fantasy land is showing the tpv weakening and dropping. That’s what we really need if we want a good not just ok pattern.

@showmethesnow @C.A.P.E. My only concern, and Ji has a point, is the TPV. There is a tendency for ridging into the high latitudes but with the tpv as strong as it is and at that latitude if all it does is shift west and east we kinda can’t win. When it’s west we lose the pac. When it’s east we lose the Atlantic. It needs to either weaken or get displaced southeast.

Very light snow here

Not disagreeing with that, but last years pac wasn’t awful. We managed some snow and lots of waves went just to our NW because the Atlantic was crap. If we had that same pac base state but with the Atlantic look coming now we would be fine. Problem is the pac isn’t just mediocre. It’s as hostile as possible. The ridge isn’t just off the west coast like last year, it’s out in the central Pac with a deep trough all along and off the west coast. I would love to get last years ridge alignment with this blocking and roll. Actually if we could just get the tpv out of western Canada it can work. Look at the composites of some blocking snows. Many had a trough off the west coast but they don’t have a tpv in western Canada.

@Bob Chill Things aren’t looking so great right now. But one thing to hug for hope, a lot of years that had a slow start then turned more favorable later the Atlantic flipped first. When I was looking through analogs the last couple years (they share some of the same ones) I noticed that. If we were hitting New Years with a horrible looking AO/NAO that would be even harder to recover from imo. I doubt the pacific locks in like that all winter, especially given the sst patterns. Just have to hope when it gets right the Atlantic doesn’t go bad. We’ve had years where they take turns crapping the bed.

You’re not totally wrong but you’re looking at day 16, taking some creative liberties with the pattern, and saying it wouldn’t take long...

Lol I was just thinking...if only we could get that PV under the block instead of NW Canada we would have a chance.

Only saving grace is the favorable Atlantic looks like a stable feature. But that pac...ugh.

You were right about the confluence. Had the gfs taken the same trough progression as 6z it would have climbed the coast more. But it had a completely different idea this run.