psuhoffman

Depends, I am not looking at precip at all...but just looking at the h5 and mslp the low is a little north of 6z, and its 1014 vs 1016, and the system did hold slightly less energy back. But its only better if you compare it to 6z which was awful, going back to the runs that were really good its worse. So depends what you are comparing it too...and what you are looking at.

yea the STJ system is more amplified, system is slightly more consolidated, but that might get offset by the flow being more hostile on top. that is one thing from last time that I would rather not repeat...as we would get improvements in one area something in another would degrade and offset it.

at 72 there are SLIGHT improvements...its hanging a little less energy back...look at the tail of the trough in Utah... and its digging the NS a slight bit more...look at the heights in Kansas... the rest is nearly identical. So MINOR differences but they are in a good way.

well when the pattern is that favorable...there have been "signals" from that range before. I saw "the look" from 15 days out before the Feb snow blitz in 2010. It was in a different type of pattern but I was posting up in the PA forum in 2014 (lived in central PA for a year) about 2 weeks before we got absolutely buried with 3 straight snows in February that it looked great long range. We had been missing most of the January snows you were getting to the south. Again the 2016 threat showed up as a threat at long range. It's rare but given how good the pattern is its possible this is showing its hand that far out. Details will determine our specific outcome and those are a LONG way from being locked in though.

you wasted one of your 5 posts on this? LOL

I would be totally happy with a repeat of Jan 2010 if we can just adjust that about 15 miles north please. Pretty please!!!

Icon came really close to getting it done with the coastal. Really close looking at H5. Slightly more consolidated at H5 and it would have been a big hit.

For those comparing this to the December threat, the NS flow to our north is much less supressive this time, but the STJ wave is much weaker. What I like about this setup is there is room for this to adjust north if we can get a slightly more organized amplified system. Last time it was running into a brick wall.

If we are sitting there at 48 hours out I feel good about our chances... a 30-50 mile bump north and we win.

Unfortunately it's not an easy fix, and probably isnt cost effective for them to fix the old ensembles if they are currently in the process of developing a new system based on the FV3 operational. Of course if the rumors that the FV3 has been disappointing and they might not switch over for a while are true that complicates things. I would be interested in knowing if the issues are just because the FV3 is new and needs some minor adjustments or if they are now doubting its viability as a replacement to the GFS.

The problem is that the upper level flow is compressing and deamplifying as it comes east. If the system is consolidated and amplified enough to hold together to the east coast where it would have a chance to amplify again based on lower level baroclinic forces then it could work but if its weak and strung out it might wash out before getting here and then redevelop too late for our purposes.

lol... nothing I say is earth shattering new information

Two friends with different ideologies coming together for the greater good...see it is possible America!!!

I LOVE that threat window, as much as I can anything 10+ days away.

If the guidance trends towards holding more back that actually does become a viable option...but more often then not when you get a split like that what ends up happening is the "in between" option which screws us. We had such a solution last January...lead wave brought a very light snow event (like 1")...but better north of us...then the energy that held back formed a trailing low down in NC and gave them 3-6" but we were stuck in between. Sometimes if enough is held back something can ride the coast in that kind of setup but its rare.

I think the fast Pacific jet is wreaking havoc with the guidance and has been responsible for the tanking verification scores at times lately. The more you speed everything up the more chaos you create. And in general its not going to help with amplification. I do think the fast pac flow crashing the west coast could be compressing the longwave pattern over NAM and leading to the deamplification of the trough as it comes east. But we have had some pretty good snow events out of this type of setup before also. I don't think the pac jet along is fully to blame. If the vort comes out stronger and in one piece we will be ok. The pna ridge out west is somewhat muting the effects of the pac jet right now just enough to allow this threat to sneak in during the pattern transition. Long term I agree as the pacific jet relaxes and we establish more stable ridging out west and cut off the influence completely our chances will increase. Our biggest threat to a snowstorm in the long range seems to be more related to the blocking pattern on the Atlantic side and exactly how the block/PV sets up and situates themselves. Not saying that is a big problem right now...but a bigger risk in the pattern showing up in the long range than the pacific.

Be careful with "trends" because mathematically its a myth. Each run is a singular run. If there is a trend it is just because the guidance keeps making the same errors in continuous runs but that trend can reverse itself the next run (like 0z last night after the trend towards more amplification the 2 runs before that).

We are kind of in the time frame I hate right now. Some have noticed I post a lot in the long range, and then a lot once a storm is inside 48 hours, but there is kind of a dead period in between. That is because at long range we are just analyzing patterns. Looking at vague generalities of what longwave pattern we want to get a threat for snow. But once we get inside 7 days and there is a specific threat, small details within the longwave pattern like the exact location and strength of a vort, the location of a High, amplitude of the STJ, exact slp track, NS flow to our north/suppression...all become important and NONE of them is modeled that accurately to be confident in anything. There are rare examples where a stable blocking pattern is in place and those features are pretty much locked in by an anomalously stable longwave pattern but that is not the case now nor is it the case 99% of the time. In these cases...we can kid ourselves each run in the medium range but the truth is we don't know and no one else does either. Every run some of the features that will determine our fate will shift around in the guidance and we can make educated guesses and lean on the "better" guidance and historical references and all...but in the end none of us knows. So I sit back and wait for some clarity to emerge. Once we get inside 48 hours and those details are mostly figured out it gets fun again for me when we can see how the system is evolving in real time and I can start to get a feel for meso scale things like banding and convection and nailing down the details in the storm. That is the real fun part for me. This in between time is frustrating more than anything else. But that is why I often don't post as much in the day 3-6 range as I do long range and short range...its not that I don't see the threat or like/dislike it... its just annoying getting too worked up over each run when it can and often does change the very next run. But pertaining specifically to this threat, it is not the kind of threat that is locked in by a stable pattern, we are in a progressive pattern that is in flux right now during an overall longwave pattern change...the setup is pretty good overall and could work out but has flaws. I don't like how the trough is deamplifying as it comes east. We need that vort to be stronger and eject in one piece to overcome that. Guidance is jumping around with that detail so how anyone can feel too confident one way or the other is beyond me. We are getting close to the leads where that should come into better clarity though. Maybe today.

One thing to be careful for those relying on the extent of the very light precip on the north side...there are a couple ways that could fail quickly. One is if the light snow associated with the northern stream impulse runs out ahead and goes primarily north of us. That is the "snow into PA first" thing Ji talked about. Then if the STJ is weak and stays south...we get split. We do that very well. The other is if the system is consolidated but comes out weak and washes out. At a certain point if the system is too weak there wouldn't be enough southerly flow to create the WAA lift needed to get that light precip and the whole northern part can just become some clouds and flurries all of a sudden...and everyone would be like "where did all that precip go". It's not like the northern edge up in central PA has to trend 100 miles south...that whole area of precip might just not exist if the system trends weaker and there isnt enough lift to create it. This is not mean as a doom and gloom post, I am not saying that will happen, but I keep reading posts saying we have a lot of breathing room because of that and I am not so sure that is true.

90% of synoptic systems in our area adjust north with the northern extent of the snowfall the last 36 hours or so. It used to be 72 and a much bigger adjustment but it seems guidance has improved itr. But still the final 36-48 hours 9/10 times it adjusts north about 50 miles or so. That's not going to help if the northern edge is richmond 48 hours out. But if we're still sitting close like now that would bode well. This isn't universal though. March 2014 the first storm trended south right until the end as guidance was too far north with a lobe of the PV pressing down and as that trended south the system trended weaker and south each run right to the end. So that can happen especially if a storm is washing out not amplifying as it comes east. This has some of those characteristics but a much less supressive flow on top than the 2014 example so the outcome is murky.

@showmethesnow yesterday there was a trend towards a much more amplified system in the Midwest that was able to overcome the overall suppressive flow in the east. Especially the 18z run had that can't miss look coming out of the Mississippi valley. Then the gfs and gem went the other way 0z and 6z. Confluence has relaxed some but the trough is deamplifying and washing out to an extent as it comes east so if the system is weak and disorganized as it ejects it won't hold together well. No idea if the overnight trend is real or just a hiccup. But disappointing given the trend yesterday.

Ensembles are pretty much useless. None shut us out but this is exactly what happened Ncep is aware the gefs aren't dispersive enough. Hopefully they fix it soon.

I care less what the icon shows than the nam lol

Analogs argue this isn't suppressed or dry

Sounds like all the analogs jb uses for all his events Nope 1993 isn't in there