psuhoffman

Thanks for the info. I’d be curious to see what this rare combo of that extreme a -AO block encroaching into the north nao domain over top a south +nao would do. I guess we’re about to find out.

lol. Sorry. It is what it is. But I’ve been riding the end of Feb or early March as a period to watch for a while and I see no reason to back down now.

MECS window

Nothing about this winter has been typical. And the last two ninos weren’t typical Nino. Enso hasn’t meant as much lately.

When you looked at +NAO did you also make sure to only use examples where the AO is negative with a block over top the nao? This is delicate because I don’t totally disagree with you. I’m also skeptical. But that -AO gives this more of a chance than if it was a more typical +nao in conjunction with a +AO.

@Stormchaserchuck1 sorry of that came off harsh, didn’t mean it to be.

We know how the nao is numerically calculated but most don’t functionally do it that way. Also the AO is even more correlated to snow than the nao so ok it’s a -AO. With regards to snow chances whats your point?

It counts freezing rain as snow. Ignore TT snow maps

that’s kinda what I thought. I lived in southwest NJ for 13 years. I’m familiar with the climo there. It SUCKS!!!

@frd I think the trough ends up centered more in the east for the end of February. The issue is where you live no pattern makes it super likely to get a big snow. You know your climo. Even the best patterns fail more often than not. That’s true even here but especially on the coastal plain. I’d also bet more of your huge snows had more epo/pna help. Here that’s a cold dry look a -epo/ao/nao/+pna. But for you that’s probably more common for a big snow. But honestly not sure, what are the biggest snows for your area? Do you get in on the coastal scrapers or the 95 storms more? Or are you stuck in between where you get some from both?

Thank you

You mean when Baltimore got snowstorms after PD in 1993, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2005, 2009, 2014 and 2015? Where does this feeling it’s harder to get snow after Presidents’ Day come from?

Looks happy

How many big snows have we had before PD in February lately?

I hear ya. Know who to listen to. Several people were quick to point out this is not a 2016 type setup and the similarities on the snow maps were superficial

Where you getting them from. My source isn’t updating…thanks.

I think the uniformity can be taken as a sign a somewhat similar setup will happen. If a random model shows a storm at 160 hours there have even a guarantee any storm at all happens anywhere. The wave could be an error. But even if it happens 100 mile shifts either way are normal errors at that range. And the strong consensus I do think increased confidence. But from like 10% to 30% or something like that. Normally I wouldn’t even give some crazy snowstorm on a day 7-10 run without a ton of guidance support any chance at all. I’d just toss it. This gave it some hope. But some were acting like it meant a big snow was the most likely outcome.

@frd if you don’t mind me asking, what part of Delaware do you live?

Since when did we start trying to lock in details on progressive waves 150 hours out? This is nuts. Some are acting like these storms are 24 hours out having an emotional reaction to every run. Just because we had a few days with guidance spitting our crazy snow totals doesn’t chance how far out it is or make the guidance more accurate at those ranges.

My reference to PD2 was specific to what that run yesterday showed. I feel like I’ve tried to encourage caution regarding this pattern. But I know that’s impossible when models are spitting out crazy clown maps. I’m also trying to balance caution with not being a deb. I don’t feel like we’re doomed. We could get a big snow. But when I searched for analogs to next week many of them the bigger snow was to our NW. but it was hard to find a great pattern match honestly. I’m just have been more skeptical I think or maybe reserved. Why? If we get a snowstorm Feb 25 you’re gonna complain it wasn’t Feb 10? Plus I’m not throwing in the towel on next week. Why is everyone going to extremes. I’m not confident we do get a big snow soliton. The more common outcome would be a parade of waves with some snow and ice with each. But anomalies happen. It wouldn’t shock me if we get a 6-10” snowstorm somehow next week from one of those waves. It kinda would shock me if those 20” storms from yesterday’s Euro and GFS hit. Dunno what they were smoking. But it also wouldn’t shock me if we get 1-3” then ice which is historically favored in that pattern. But it’s too early to be confident on either outcome.

I think we get at least some snow before and a week ago that would have been a win. But I still like later in Feb or early March even more.

I wasn’t going to post it. But unfortunately if the reality ends up that, that’s what this type of pattern actually historically tends to produce. Our big snow patterns usually have a negative at h5 centered further south.

Before we get another emotional reaction from the same people, this is just a general observation not specific to our snow threats just pointing something out... Now with the disclaimer out of the way... it is a little odd that with that extreme a -AO with a TPV displaced over Quebec that the heights are as high as they are over the the CONUS. Basically...you would think it would be colder given that longwave pattern. Again...I am not saying we won't get snow... there is way more that goes into that then the mean h5 heights.

Honest question, I am not as familiar with how the NHS does things at these type ranges...what does their projections look like on a tropical system 150 hours out? How does it compare to what the NWS tries to do regarding a forecast of a synoptic mid latitude system at that range? Are these two comparable enough to usefully utilize what NHS does to this type of situation?

Yesterday we got a couple Op runs that showed a consolidated storm idea, but that was never the most likely outcome in this type patter, and was probably just a fluke that both major operations spit out the same permutation at the same time. There are more likely to be multiple waves along the boundary. The good news is it would take a lot of bad luck to miss all of them. It would also take a lot of good luck to get the multiple hits it would take to rack up some of the crazy numbers a few runs have shown. This GFS run was the worse case scenario where we got 2 waves go just south of us and 1 wave go just north of us. But what are the odds each wave does exactly that from this range...about 0!