psuhoffman

Unfortunately this is worse... 2015 was VERY similar WRT SST but by now the atmosphere was better coupled with a weak nino. This year was late developing AND has yet to have any atmospheric response. That should change but if it doesn't we could be in trouble. Furthermore, we remember January 2015 as "awful" but it wasn't actually that bad. We had a pretty good clipper the first week. Then the second was really warm and awful...but the last 10 days were cold and we had some snow...we just complained constantly because we were getting 1-2" snows while New England was getting 1-2 feet. Honestly there aren't many good analogs to a year with THIS awful a pattern early. There are similar years and some did flip but without good SST matches...but perhaps finding years with a similar MJO progression and neutral SST would be a better analog? But I haven't done that research. But with this MJO being a record event it would make sense that the pattern was even worse. But even the "bad" start nino years there was SOME cold and snow. A clipper here, a front end 1" there...a couple days with cold. It's hard to find any where it was just a total barren wasteland for a month like this...

Where are you from? The Center Valley that is just south of Allentown PA? How did persistence work for you last March and April when your area got like 35" of snow after March 1? You have every right to give your opinion...but you are a broken record, every post is almost the same without much scientific reasoning to support it. And you openly ignore evidence that conflicts with your narrative. I might be an optimist I don't ignore the guidance that sucks. And...why are you posting constantly all of a sudden in this forum pretty far from your area?

Agree with all those points... the first post from Jason kind of contradicts...he says MJO in 7/8 interferes with a -AO when it is strong amp but then in the next sentence says when the MJO amplitude is weak it is "less cold". Not sure if it was a typo or I am missing something. But the point seems to be clear that the MJO might yet STILL be interfering with an improved pacific look. And HM concurs as he has laid out reasons that right now given the current AAM and the SSWE it argues for a lag with the MJO such that the wave will be slow to propagate AND we might not feel positive impacts right away even after it does get into 7/8. That BTW was true last year as the SSWE happened around Feb 10, and the MJO progressed into cold phases that month...but the impacts were delayed until March. People don't want to hear this but it is still just a LITTLE too soon to declare all the positive signs in various influences to be irrelevant and a failure. I would give it another week...if we get to January 10th and there is still no positive sign across long range guidance then it is time to panic. We were in this same spot last year. Things had sucked for a LONG time in January into Feb and then the SSWE and MJO both made positive changes...and the soi dropped and we got frustrated when the pattern looked like poo still...then a week later the changes started to show up but by then everyone had checked out because it would be March...and you know the drill. This time if there is a similar 2 week delay we would see the changes start to impact the pattern the very end of January and have a pretty good pattern in February. Maybe it isn't the blockbuster winter many were hopeful for a month ago...but if we could get a similar progress to what happened from about March 1 to April 15 last year...but get that from Feb 1 to March 15...that could end pretty darn good. That pattern was pretty epic but it was just too late for us to really cash in. The fact we got a pretty good event that late in March last year and were still tracking legit threats a week into April was evidence of a good pattern. Give me that look in prime climo and I'll take my chances.

Yea and it could be right...but there are signs the progression is slowing even more. I targeted the 15-20th for a pattern change. If I am off a few days...ok. But if the pattern doesn't flip until February I am not going to pull a Cohen or a JB and claim victory. Every pattern changes eventually...at some point I was just wrong. I did not envision this MJO wave or SOI spike. The logic behind much of my forecast was that the soi and mjo would be largely favorable this year as the SST analogs argued. Those analog years were substantially more coupled to the nino SST than this year. So in hind sight perhaps those analogs will turn out to be wrong and some enso neutral years coming on a 2 year nina will turn out to be a more accurate analog, and some of those are awful!. The SOI is a better measure of the atmospheric response to a nino sst so if the SOI fails to respond then the water being in a nino doesn't really matter. It is time to admit some of the preconceived notions for this winter were wrong. Now that I have pushed some to the ledge...let me walk them back. If we re-evaluate where we are right now...at this moment, there are still reasons to be hopeful this is not an entire winter shut out type year...or even to hope that this could still end up a back loaded year. 1. SOME of the analogs to a strat warm this time of year had very warm starts and then drastic reversals...1966 being one of the best outcomes from a similar event to this year...also one of the analogs for SST 2. The PV is a mess, weak, being punched around from both the strat and the trop and has no sign of recovering. So far the benefits have been and will be to the other side of the hemisphere but that could easily shift around. The weak PV would favor blocking as we head later in winter. 3. The MJO has been just flat out awful, possibly the absolute worst EVER for early winter. But just looking at where the wave is right now, and guidance, objectively it SHOULD improve "soon". There will likely be a lag with a weakening wave coming off such a LONG time in warm phases...and HM gave some even more technical reasons for that so its reasonable to think the benefits of the MJO move are still outside guidance range. 4. There has NEVER been an soi spike during a ONI +5 or greater during early winter that wasn't followed by a drop. We might be seeing it now. That would favor a pattern change from a nina to a nino base state. 5. Simple "persistence/pattern" forecasting would argue that this pattern we are in now is likely running its course soon. It developed by mid December...even if it is the dominant pattern of winter the odds of it running the table to March are very very low. 6. While the SST may not be having the positive impact we wanted it also is not in a configuration that would hurt us IF we can get the negative factors listed in the first paragraph out of the way. So.... While I concede things have NOT gone the way I predicted earlier...and the flip back may end up delayed long enough that I will not claim any victory from it...there are still signs for hope that our fate is not decided yet. I am still optimistic we will see a better pattern starting to show up soon. Later then I wanted...but perhaps in time to salvage this dumpster fire.

yup

It's becoming apparent he is a troll. He might not be wrong...but the way he is a broken record with the same exact deb narrative and cherry picks only what fits the narrative...seems obvious. I might be an optimist but I don't ignore evidence that doesn't support my optimism.

Well you would know

He is off to a less than spectacular start. Maybe he wants to give Carbondale a run for his money.

My response wasn't directed at you...sorry that it came off that way. I was mostly talking about the twitter talking heads who seem to be dialed into the sswe like it's all that matters. In fairness to some of them, if they are experts on that, it is kind of an exciting global weather "event" and perhaps that is simply their interest...but then snow weenies like us get a hold of it and hug it and misuse it wrt importance to a specific location and snow.

Of course there is evidence that the sswe might be partly to blame for the mess we're in. Sswe in winter are correlated with strong mjo warm phases. And strong warm phases are correlated with a positive soi. Those 2 are really the same since having convection nw and N of australia puts the mjo into warm phases and having lower pressure there will favor a +Soi. I am not an expert at the strat stuff but others who are have suggested a causality between the sswe and amplifying the mjo. So your relying on the thing that has totally wrecked our winter so far to save us. Im only being partially serious here and I agree there is a chance the sswe could lead to an extreme pattern flip later, but I still can't help wonder about those that obsess about the strat and talk like we "need an sswe" when the event itself is hard to predict and the impacts are wildly unpredictable and sometimes they do more harm than good in a specific location. Some of our best winters had no sswe at all. And some of our worst had major sswe. I feel like this has become the new fad in the weather world. I'm not saying it's not important. It is. Just like enso is. Or the mjo. Or the nao/amo/aam/pna/epo/wpo/qbo..... but focusing solely on one thing to that degree is missing the forest from the trees.

It's not worth posting day 15 charts right now until guidance gets some stability and it's believable. But it's a good look at h5 and almost nothing in snow through day 10 than it spikes up to 2-4" across the area day 10-15. That's a good bump in a 5 day period at that range. But again until it becomes consistent across guidance (damn you EPS) and moves within range where there has been at least some small bit of accuracy (day 8 or so) it's not worth much.

Yes and No. It was a good run. Am I really that excited, no.

6z gefs was a great run. Good look up top. Lots of snow days 11-16. I'm back all on. Woooooo

I'm not going to over think this. We just had a record soi spike during a nino oni month. A December mjo amp record and a record time spent in phase 5. And a record Dec sswe on both poles which are correlated to warmth at initiation. Every one of those things are bad. They are also all related to some degree but the record levels recorded in each just points to the significance. The pattern went to crap as soon as those things ramped up mid December and it's been in a recurring loop ever since. As of yet the effect hasn't waned and there can be a lag, plus HM thinks the lag this year may be enhanced. I've had faith that at some point those influences will wane and the pattern will flip. Maybe the tropical convection in bad spots is just the base state this year. But whichever it's not realistic to think we would have a good pattern with all those things going wrong at record levels

EPS is progressing slower than the weeklies...again. Ugh 0z eps weeklies same time

Gefs is starting to slow the progression. Likely the start of a move towards a compromise timing with the slower EPS.

One thing that is troubling is even when the trough axis is right over us the heights are still above normal.

When did you get a new tag DT?

A week ago the EPS had a great look. It busted. It can bust. I don't know if it will here but it's been awful at range. The heights are still rising in the NW day 15 but it sucks waiting a week longer then the gfs to get things started.

Geps looks very similar to gefs day 10-15

There could be a minority with monster ridges skewing the mean if the majority simply show normalish heights.

Yea fits climo. Like you have repeatedly reminded they often score before us.

I'll be honest I'm not sure. There is a weak trough coming into the SW in the stj but with a split flow and -epo and nao the ridge response to that should be flat and muted. Not some monster SE ridge. Maybe someone else has a better take because I'm a bit perplexed why the gefs keeps putting a ridge there with that longwage pattern everywhere else.

No it still flips the Pacific around day 10. Beautiful epo ridge. But it pops a huge SE ridge as a system comes into the SW. That's unusual for a split flow with blocking. If we get that pattern and a ridge sticks in the east anyways I'm throwing my hands up and saying we're cursed and it's the Debs who are picky about snows fault. They angered the snow gods and now they smite us.

Amazing continuity run to run and from op to ensembles on gfs. The ridge in the east day 15 is "annoying" given the near perfect look with the epo, ao, nao but I have to suspect it's overdone or short lived given that look. Everything screams there should be a trough in the east there.