psuhoffman

Excuse me, I need to take that somewhere private.

I am interested to see what analogs start to pop up as the better look gets into range. But going back over the last several days the flip of the NAO is not fixed in time around the 26th on the GEFS and making progress closer after it was initially stalling and delaying for a while. The EPS has been consistently advertising that time for the flip. I am honestly not sure what a full latitude trough like that along with blocking would yield. It's such a rare extreme pattern there aren't a lot of good analogs and I am curious what shows up. After that as the PV weakens and heights rise across Canada we enter a more classic looking regime similar to 2010. Should be fun.

Still waiting for him to explain how a low is going to move northeast out of WV through NC without a transfer.

just hug the ukmet...come on you know the handbook!

It dumps 6-10" of snow first...so the sleet and freezing rain would just be to harden and protect our snowpack for the coming month!

Your 10" snowstorm the other day was rain at 300 hours lol The big 2016 blizzard was a rainstorm on the euro at day 10. The February storm in 2015 was a rainstorm at day 7. Several of our snow events in 2014 were rain on the guidance from range. Rainstorms appear to be "locks" because overall the thermal boundary does seem to trend north not south from range on guidance. Also there is a MUCH larger areal coverage of any storm that is rain. And we typically don't closely follow the slight adjustments in a rainstorm that might mean .5 vs .75 qpf but they happen. I have followed plenty of rainstorms for some reason or another...sometimes just to test out something with the models, and there are the same errors. This is just perception bias.

fantasy land gfs shows how a WAR can help us as it brings a wave up that would be suppressed otherwise. Great blocking after the 1/24 cutter.

I have a subaru so should be ok on the driving. I won't get stuck on the highway with him though...plan to get up there before the storm and stay somewhere close to where we will ski. They usually keep the roads around the resorts clean for obvious reasons. I am very used to driving in snow so a short distance won't be a problem.

Why there was a WAR there that week... we saw a -pna and a lot of cold around and I think some ignored the pattern wasn't really perfect until the very end of January. Its not a BAD pattern, but rain is always a threat if its not perfect. At the time the western ridge was a little better...that has trended west just a small amount, a very minor error for day 15-20 but just enough to take what was a "good but not great" pattern and make it more problematic. We might still score some frozen during this period. Later this week some. Maybe a bit front or back end on one of these next couple waves. But with the western ridge retreating as far as it has the chances of a big snow are greatly reduced but the pattern is still pretty close to what the long range guidance advertised. The excellent looks started AFTER the week of the 18-25th and that still looks right.

@Fozz @PivotPoint I am keeping an eye on the cold. He is really excited so I don't want to cancel, and I am not sure I will be able to find another weekend. My debate schedule and bridge project scoring takes up a lot of my remaining weekends during prime skiing season and finding another 3 day weekend will be difficult. So I REALLY don't want to cancel. And south of where the cold is looks like rain/ice so that won't work. Maybe Snowshoe is an option if they look to get good upslope snow on the backside, but that doesn't look that much warmer at 4800 feet out there Sunday/Monday and they might be a sheet of ice if they don't get enough snow to cover after the rain. I am open to suggestions but right now not totally sure what I will do.

That storm is going to flip the NAO though so it serves a purpose.

You are right about the best spots for snow. I am looking into which resorts up there are most friendly for a 4 year old just learning. Smuggs might be a good option, they usually get good family ratings. I would like him to get a group lesson day one, then I will stay with him day 2. He might take it more seriously with a "real teacher" and in a group his age. That and while I have taught many adults to ski I have never tried with someone his age. Not sure my technique would work.

1050 high in New England and it still cuts LOL

The key to that system IMO is getting a trough split or de-amplified solution. If the whole thing phases it's going to cut to Ohio. With the WAR and positive NAO that is pretty much a given. But there will be cold in place and a string of highs to the north so IF we can get the northern stream to stay split and the southern piece to cut under we could get a wave up the coast.

The cold is worth consideration. Right now its borderline...if it looks too frigid though I will have to call it off.

Winds don't look any stronger than for any typical storm in the winter up there. As of now shouldn't be too bad.

I am taking my son skiing this weekend...first ski trip together. He is really excited. But I am not stressing this storm because we can go anywhere from PA all the way up to Vermont depending on where this storm dumps the best powder...obviously I would prefer it be here but I won't mind being in Vermont skiing with my son in a foot of powder if it comes to that.

Our best chance to steal frozen from the next couple waves after this weeks light event would be an energy split and a wave on the tail of the trough. The waves are spaced too far apart to have much chance of front end frozen it seems.

Awesome...snow on snow.

The storm next weekend is pretty much toast...unless the energy comes out in pieces and we get a trailing wave the lead wave is extremely likely to go to our west.

If we fail that is the most likely way IMO...the MJO collapsed quickly once it got to cold phases...and it is now racing back towards warm phases and correcting stronger and stronger into them. HOWEVER, as of right now the SOI is cooperating and the impacts of the warm phases seem to be muted somewhat...and by Feb the MJO looks to progress either towards null or colder phases. Either way... I don't love that look. That is one thing I got wrong about the winter. Given the SST the thinking was the MJO would be muted but what little influence it had would be centered on cold phases. That has not been the cast as it obviously has a bias towards the warm phases this winter. MAG in the PA thread showed some of the MJO data from a few of our analog years and some of our snowy periods came during warm mjo phases in modoki ninos so I am not overly alarmed but it is something worth looking out for. I would be more concerned about that than the WAR.

Your snow algorithm must be more liberal. I see a coating down to DC, about an inch extreme northern Montgomery County, and 2" right along the PA line up here.

That is kind of what I do with specific events to get a feel for "what could go wrong" so that I can see if it things start to unravel. BUT...you are doing that at range regarding a whole pattern without ANY evidence to support any of the "fears". The problem with that is ANYTHING could go wrong. Maybe the PV drops too much and parks over the lakes for 2 weeks and we go cold/dry. Maybe the guidance is all wrong and the NAO never tanks. The MJO and SOI are incredibly unpredictable...maybe the SOI spikes back to +20 and the MJO goes into another 3std slow arse tour of the warm phases and the whole thing falls apart. Maybe we just get incredibly unlucky and a few storms go just south of us and a few go just north. There are so many variables that COULD go wrong from that range. But there is no evidence to support any of them at this time. Given that it feels like worrying just for the sake of worrying.

Snow means on the GEFS are useless in general but sometimes there are subtle "tells" I like to look for. Forget the LOL totals around us, but notice the fairly significant snowfall down along the lower Mississippi Valley into the TN Valley to our southwest. Almost all of that south of the TN/KY border is from day 10-16 and that is a pretty good flag that we might be in line for a typical STJ based "blocking" storm track out of the gulf. Something to keep and eye on as we head into the period post January 25. The EPS is less enthused. Not because they are not cold but because they seem to favor the STJ shutting down once we move past the 3rd system coming next week so they have a cold/dry look. However, I have seen that before plenty of times during extreme blocking regimes where at range the EPS is dry only to pick up on a threat once it gets towards day 10. We will see. I will admit it will be a little frustrating if we get a string of rainstorms and then an arctic front clears and we go dry for weeks on end. Too soon to worry about that yet.