psuhoffman

That is the most Fd up thing I’ve ever seen. Just wow. If that happens ok. That would be a new way to fail but im not wasting any time analyzing that hot mess.

Lol

For a time. I’m not sure the war will be a long term problem.

He is too beholden to his snowstorm checklist. Not every snow fits into his neat ideal scenario. Extreme blocking and the kind of cold we’re looking at changes the equation some. We will see.

Yea but didn’t the euro blast a warn layer all the way into southern Vermont? Btw I’m up in Killington this weekend so I have a rooting interest.

I don’t fear a repeat...that year just bugs me like nails on a chalkboard. Lol

That’s not my point. Why do some seek to be excited by the comparisons to 1985? That winter was a total fail.

I know it’s not exactly the same but my god i cringe every time someone mentions 1985. And they seem to throw it around like it’s a good thing. That year SUCKED. It was the least snowy winter here of the whole decade and like the 4th lease snowy winter ever from 124 years of records. That event everyone keeps talking about was a week of extreme cold and then it warmed up. No snow. Total fail. Unless my memory fails me I don’t think there was a big storm of note anywhere along the east coast so it’s not like we just got unlucky. Seriously a part of me screams every time someone says that year. Why does anyone get excited at a comparison to one of the least snowy winters ever??? Because it has a week of cold? Wtf

The war might turn out to be our best friend. Yea it opens the door to some systems flipping but it’s also allowing every wave to amplify and turn up the coast. Given the cold we’re facing that’s not such a bad idea.

18z fv3 is wave after wave coming at us

There are several members including the control that have a south to north storm that runs the whole coast.

That’s too much of a good thing

Jesus Christ we have the best pattern since 2010 heading into our prime climo and now we’re going to talk about sun angle and snowpack in Oregon? Oooooook.

No thanks. Why don’t you and report back to us in about 8 weeks!

I’m worried about the pattern in between this pattern.

If you have a monster ridge in the west along with blocking and a 50/50 low its going to create an extreme NW to SE flow into the east and just overwhelm the pattern with cold and likely push the baroclinic zone way off to our southeast. A broad trough like that will allow systems to come at us from the west...without a block that would be bad but with a block they will generally be forced under us. They might not be BIG HECS level storms but we could be talking waves every few days coming at us and lately just about anything seems to have a ton of QPF with it so... Sometimes something that would be bad in one pattern is good in another.

Depends how marginal...it can start to matter in late February if we are talking a very light event with near freezing temperatures during the middle of the day. Generally though if we are talking decent rates and surface temps around freezing or below...we are good through the first week of March. But even after that... we have seen SO MANY examples of how it can work if we get the right pattern and a cold enough profile even after March 10th. The issue is it becomes increasingly hard to get that as we move later in the year. The much bigger problem is the dumb angle which seems to have a major impact 365 days a year!

I tried...I'm done. Let him and the other debs find things to fabricate to complain about since everything looks about as good as can be right now.

We had two accumulating snow events into DC last March. One was a borderline warning level event on March 20th! I am almost 100% certain that would have been a HECS level event had it been February and not March 20th. Not sure what "didnt work" about the pattern last year except it came too late to reach full potential.

Just on a very basic observational level...adding that kind of blocking to what has been the wettest pattern on record recently...has some pretty big potential.

dude a full CONUS trough with that kind of blocking is a great look. A HUGE full lat PNA/EPO ridge is great if you want to hit -20 but not necessarily what we want to get a lot of snow if we have blocking. Now in a progressive pattern without any NAO blocking...a PNA ridge is a must. This is all a game of moving parts and different ways to get the longwave pattern right for us. There are multiple ways to do it but the one that gives us by far the most wiggle room and leeway is a west based NAO block. There are a LOT of ways to work with that.

yea ninja'd me on that end look...just wow. Sign me up. You were 100% right, as the blocking got medium range suddenly the guidance is jumping on it and some crazy stuff is showing up. This should get fun. It definitely won't be boring in here for the foreseeable future. The best part is we have some snow banked already heading into this!

this could work now this is just sick... west based block with an elongated PV and systems cutting under at us with indications of a 50/50. Its a multiple hits one after another type look. Yes please...

holy crap the GEFS took another step towards extreme blocking after 6z went that way and upped the timeline again by a day or so. It really starts to tank the NAO by like day 5 and never looks back.

One thing that might stack the deck in our favor regarding blocking episodes going forward... in the past one way we failed during good blocking was a dry pattern... we might get some snow but nothing significant. Recently that has not been the case as much...when we get blocking (rare) it seems to produce more often. That might have to do with the fact that systems in general seem to be more juiced lately. I mean look at this weekend, its a fairly progressive wave on a thermal boundary and its going to dump close to 20" of snow on a big area to our north. Lately it seems like some cow farts and we get an inch of qpf. One issue the last 2 years was the only blocking we had was in March and so the bulk of the snow ended up inland/higher elevation/to our north. But the storms were pretty big. The last blocking during prime climo was 2016, and even though it was only about a 2 week period look what happened. If we keep getting the kind of precipitation patterns we have lately it might stack the deck against blocking fails. Add precip to a blocking pattern and its hard to lose. Would be sweet if we could get a prolonged period of blocking like the 1960s or the late 1800s. If that is a cyclical thing we are getting close to due for another 10-20 year run of -NAO. We can only dream right.