psuhoffman

Absent a favorable blocking regime EVERY storm is unlikely to work out but I wouldn't be so quick to totally discount the chance of something more significant than a 1-3" event. There are ways it "could" happen. The simplest is timing. Get a trailing wave to amplify. Time up a STJ wave with a departing system that acts as a 50/50. A displaced TPV in a favorable location can work too. Basically there can be temporary factors that can act to suppress a somewhat amplified system. Anything that really goes to town and bombs will likely cut. A very slow moving system just won't work because it would take too long and likely lose the temporary favorable setup. But we can get moderate events from somewhat progressive but juiced up waves. Please don't take this to mean I think that is likely. Significant snow is unlikely in any base state other than a good blocking regime, but we do get moderate events from non blocking situations and this is one of the patterns that makes that possible. Likely no, but possible. The most likely scenario is just what you describe but there is always hope we get lucky.

But couldn’t that also mean we’re due to break the streak? That’s the problem with the we’re due index. But there is some truth to the fact we usually don’t go more than 2/3 years without a good snowstorm. So if you want to hug that I won’t stop you.

Maybe but we are warming for a couple days as it spikes. Heights then rise at the high latitudes. After that of the AO goes extremely positive we would likely warm again but by then we are way outside the the range guidance is reliable.

Just some numbers you can add for your reference. Snowfall in one location can be very fluke but in the last 30 years 9/30 featured a widespread 10”+ event over a significant portion of our region. That’s exactly 30%. Going back to 1950 it’s 21/70. That’s also exactly 30%! 1 time we went 8 years between storms 1 time 7 years 1 time 5 years 4 times 3 years. 5 times 2 years 4 times 1 year 5 times we had back to back years with big snowstorms

I would take the results of course. What I meant is a repeat of that years base state pattern would be unlikely to produce as good a result. We got lucky and hit in every potential in an otherwise crap year. Raging +AO all 3 months and not even a good PAC. It stands out as a fluke Nina simply because we got lucky imo.

Yea that’s why I feel how this winter goes could be a bit telling. Chance is huge. But if we get a decent pattern much of the year and just get unlucky a lot that would register differently in my mind than if we simply have very few real threats. On the other hand I wouldn’t want to repeat 2000 again. The pattern sucked other than 10 days but we got hit 3 times by all 3 storms in the only workable window all year. A repeat of that likely wouldn’t end as well.

@Bob Chill @WxUSAF Was wondering what you think about this regarding the current nino/neutral pac. In the past enso neutral winters favored above normal snowfall. But in the last 20 years most of them have been pretty awful. But is that really climate change or more down to the fact that neutral enso years lately have had some other negative pattern driver attached (like a hostile QBO, ugly PDO sst, following a Nina). We haven’t seemed to have many neutrals where the other factors we want were lined up well. This year could be a good test of how the base state in an enso neutral year has changed because with a favorable North Pac SST, coming off a weak nino, high snowcover, North Atlantic Tripoli, favorable QBO phase, this is the type of neutral that historically should skew snowy. Not saying epic year just in the past we would expect normal to above normal snow with this look. But the total fail of neutral years lately makes me wonder. Curious what others think?

Don’t worry I heard we’re in a shutout pattern.

None of the details will be the same but what’s exciting is seeing all the guidance move towards the same general look at H5. The idea of storm threats in that general period comes from that look. The specifics will change until we get this inside day 5/6 but keep that pattern look and we should have a chance.

Euro setting up a storm day 10. Would probably be snow to ice given the setup. Also looks to be reloading the pattern after with the same ape epo ridge the gfs has. Better AO though. I’ll be happy if the EPS supports the op.

Op euro going towards the broad trough idea too. And this look is intriguing. This is a case where some SE ridge is ok. Good luck getting a cutter with that blocking over a severely displaced TPV. the boundary hanging out just to our south. If we can get these looks into the medium range things could get fun in here.

I think 2013/14 the high latitudes got a bum rap. The numbers were skewed by a couple of extreme AO spikes in December and February, but actually much of that winter the AO was pretty cooperative. January came in with a -AO and December and Feb had -AO periods but came in positive due to extremely +weeks. But I would roll with this h5 look for the winter again and again and again. If you meant 2014/15 then I agree 100%. That year was a total fluke given the raging +AO/NAO and likely wouldn't work out if we tried to repeat it again. An EPO driven pattern alone is unlikely to work. That is why the EPO has very low correlation to snowfall. West based EPO ridges are useless. An EPO ridge if the PNA/NAO/AO are all wrong won't help too much usually. But certain specific types of EPO driven patterns when an EPO ridge is working in tandem with the AO or PNA or with a displaced TPV in eastern Canada can be very favorable for snow. It's not a HECS look, more a progressive waves type setup. That said if we get a 4-8" snowstorm from a boundary wave the week before xmas and someone complains they need to be given a timeout! ATT the look the GEFS is throwing out there is one that can work. Like you said, the broad trough look is a lot better. Of course that look will shift some and the details will be really important to our snowfall chances.

The QBO alone doesn’t have much correlation to snowfall. That’s because there are a number of other factors that determine that. But the QBO does have a correlation to the high lattitide patterns. There are other things that can wreck even a good high latitude look though. 1956 was a moderate Nina. 97/98 was a raging super nino. 2004/5 had to overcome the worst start imaginable that left North America void of cold early in the season which probably delayed and muted the results later. 2002/3 was likely a positive outlier due to the moderate nino. The details matter. But we can use the qbo to glean some hints at what the base state of the AO might be this year. The rest of the details of the pattern need to be examined independently of that. One interesting note, several of those years did feature snow in our area around Xmas.

I was just joking in banter (because it’s 2 weeks away) but the gfs really is setting up a big pre Xmas snowstorm at the end.

Our Xmas hecs just getting it’s act together at the end of the gfs run.

@Bob Chill how would you like to try the high lattitude look of 1997/98 without the mid latitude pac firehose flood from the super nino? Just a thought. On a more serious note its nice to be heading towards the holidays with guidance trending towards a cold/stormy look.

QBO for November came in at 5.07. Looking at the progression the closest matches to this year are 2004, 2002, 1997, 1978, and 1969. Of those the best match purely on QBO continues to be 2002 with the last 3 months all being nearly identical. Of the 15 winter months those years the AO was negative 12/15 months. The only year of those that didn't feature a -AO for 2/3 months was 2004-5 but it is notable that year started with an extremely +AO and flipped mid January. There were 2 other years that were somewhat close, 1955 and 1961. If we include those the AO was negative 17/21 months.

I actually personally lean towards less moderation. I always liked the side comments and banter mixed in. But the last few years it got completely out of control at times. And some people started attacking people who wanted to make legitimate posts about the pattern. And while there weren't many who flat out left, although I can think of a few, what happened more frequently were regular contributors suddenly took extended breaks because things had just got too negative. And I fully admit I was as much a part of the problem as anyone else. I would post stupid comments that had no value, jokes, and worse would argue about climo with the people whining in the main thread when all that stuff belonged in banter. And last year I got upset when I realized the MJO was going to collapse and cycle right back into warm phases mid January and I posted about 10 times saying the same thing out of frustration. I should have had more self control. I need to be better. And this year I have had to stop myself several times and post in banter instead. But this really is the best way IMO to give everyone as close to what they want as possible. We can all say what we want in banter and panic room but this way it keeps the tone and discussion in the main threads more productive. The last thing we need in the main thread is an echo chamber of how crappy our climo is every time it doesn't snow.

His ideas wrt the IOD and the effects of the standing wave in the Indian Ocean are interesting and may have merit. If his call busts it could be for a completely different reason because no one factor has autonomy over the pattern. But that’s why you don’t spend a week insulting everyone else and insisting they are dead wrong. Then you look like a clown when things don’t go your way. And they will eventually not go your way in this game. In fairness so I’m not a hypocrite I learned that lesson the hard way, and probably a time or two more than I should have.

0z gfs has a happy ending

Gfs still brings the cold but this run it buried the pacific system into the Baja so probably just cold/dry.

Do the people who want to fill up the main thread with their complaints realize they will chase all the quality contributors away? I can deal with it. I think it’s absurd the way some carry on but I don’t mind mixing it up and getting into debates about how absurd they are being. But that crap is chasing away good posters. I want people to discuss weather with in here. Do they really want this to become a sub dominated by constant complaining about our climo and no substantive meteorological analysis?

I love you too.

Ok new pet peeve of mine...I feel like now that a million weenies online know the traditional weather terminology (like AO, NAO, PNA, EPO...) some professionals are starting to use even more obscure terminology to describe the same thing. It’s not that I don’t know the terminology (I do from when I was in the meteo program at PSU) but every time someone uses northern annular mode instead of AO I have to sift through posts by people that think they are talking about the NAM model. And worse then that now insiders are creating overly specific sub categories for already ambiguous nebulous features without any normalization within the field and then arguing over what exactly something is. Last years “what is a modoki” debate and this year there has been a “is it a PDO or EOF2 VM debate. And sometimes they are arguing about the same thing using different terminology. There needs to be some norming of terminology within the field. This is just adding confusion for no good reason.

But I heard we’re in a shutout pattern.