psuhoffman

I’m ok with the better models showing the better outcomes lol. The GFS seems to have fallen even more behind than it was after the ggem and euro made major core upgrades and then issued multiple updates to fine tune the new systems. We criticized the euro for its inconsistency after the initial core upgrade but subsequent fixes have made it significantly better and the gfs meanwhile doesn’t seem to have kept up in the last 5 years. The end result is the gfs is almost getting to the point of being relegated to “just for amusement” territory in my mind. Similar to the icon and jma.

I think I might be tossing the thing you’re counting as the first one as simply the frontal passage. Yes there could be some snow either front or back end with that if it goes right but I don’t think it has much upside. I probably shouldn’t be discounting it. But I wasn’t even including that which lead to our discrepancy. Sorry. My bad.

Did you miss one of those minor snows we got? I have 11.4” I know we had a disparity in that November marginal event but there seems do be an extra 1” disparity unaccounted for between us. We had a few minor .5-.8 snows wondering if one of them got missed?

5.1 get it right

Did you know someone in the Shenandoah Valley only has 5” of snow?

It reminds me of when I was chasing Nemo in CT and this guy in New Haven was trying to drive his 1980s Oldsmobile in 2 feet of snow! I helped dig him out of a snow bank only to watch him immediately drive right into the next one! Sometimes people just make bad decisions.

They forecasted almost exactly what happened. There were a few localized spots in MD that jacked and got a few inches over the range but overall they nailed it. And there was a statement out specifying 2” per hour rates during rush hour! People made really bad decisions and then looked for someone else to blame “why didn’t you stop me” which isn’t uncommon unfortunately

@CAPE this chart kinda illustrates what I was seeing. Note how the bigger hits are around the 21-22. But it’s actually the same wave as the 19-20 that’s a smaller hit on other members. The more amplified solutions are slower. Which makes sense.

There continues to be ambiguity regarding where the MJO goes after its current traverse of the cold phases. The GEFS and GGEM favor more MC amplitude and less countermanding forcing in the IO or Pacific. The euro and CFS have a much weaker wave into the MC and more conflicting forcing signals. To the point I would even argue the forcing looks more favorable than not on the whole.

One good sign is the 50% snowfall continues to increase also. It spiked up from 1.5” to 2.5” at DCA on the 0z EPS.

It’s hard to differentiate the waves in the means because if timing differences but looking at the individuals it looks like the initial wave with the front on the 18-19 goes west then the follow up wave immediately after actually has shifted south some and on 0z eps the bullseye is right on us. Some members miss NW but an equal number miss SE also now. After that there is absolutely no consensus with a scattering of waves all over but it looks kinda dry actually for a few days. It looks like out at day 15 there are signs of another wave amplification coming.

Yes. It was a great storm. I made a lucky call on that one from like 7 days out. But it was a below avg snowfall winter despite a great pattern for long stretches. 2000 was an above avg snow year despite a shit the blinds pattern 90% of the time because we hit huge multiple times the one week we had any hope.

Think harder…

Couple random thoughts 1) we want the cold. The trough is centered to our NW and there is no blocking. Any amplification that takes place will easily shift the baroclinic boundary north. There have been lots of examples of similar patters to this. Some were very snowy. Some not. And the difference in most cases was how much cold was in the pattern. Early Feb 2018 was an example of a mostly fail (we did get one 2-4” snow event but the rest were rain) and it’s because we were coming off a 10 day torch and there just wasn’t that much cold injected into the pattern and so each wave easily tracked north regardless of how far south the boundary might have been a day before. Think of 2015 in comparison when we had arctic air injected into the pattern and we managed a warning snowfall from a wave that tracked way to our west! Unless we want to be rooting for extremely weak waves we want a very cold airmass in place which will allow amplification to still have a chance to work out. 2) looking even further out I am becoming more convinced we also end this season with a bang in March regardless of what happens between now and then. when I made my seasonal forecast March was a wildcard. But as I start to adjust the analogs for how this season is actually going the years with a warm March have all fallen away and the ones where we had a cold snowy ending are left. We likely get some kind of relax period between now and then. How lucky we get during this upcoming -epo TNH pattern and then in March plus how long the relax in between is probably determines how good this winter goes down in terms of snowfall. But it’s been and probably will continue to be way more fun than I expected. Unfortunately snowfall is really fluky and doesn’t always align with pattern expectations. There are plenty of years you can look at the longer pattern and say “how did we only get that much snow 2011” or even “how did we get above normal snow in that 2000” If you didn’t know the dates and were asked which of those years above was the snowier winter you would never guess it right lol

This

It looked like it was about to smoke us day 15. I have no faith in any one wave. There is absolutely no way guidance will pin down the details of any of those discreet boundary waves past day 5 at best. I have more optimism when you take the whole day 9-16 period that we have a good chance one of the likely waves within that period has a decent chance here. If you are pinning your hopes totally on the first follow up wave around the 20th that’s more likely to fail. My optimism is that one of the waves in the whole pattern coming up will get us.

Gefs lit up light a Xmas tree day 10-15

You’re right but there is nothing to suppress the boundary. If any kind of meaningful wave comes among the boundary will push north ahead of it. We need it down there with no block if we want any kind of amplification to work out imo.

We’ve only been in a good pattern for a little over a week. I was never excited by anything before that. And a good pattern doesn’t guarantee we get a ton of snow. It just means we have a chance. I was just wondering why some seemed to be defiantly more optimistic when we were in totally hopeless no chance forget about it situations over the last few years then they are now in a pattern with a 5x better chance of producing meaningful snow.

@mitchnick the flow doesn’t look suppressive. The issue is the gfs has absolutely nothing in terms of energy in the southern branch come along after the cold front clears. Ya if we got 5-7 days with the boundary south of us and the trough elongated SW to NE centered to our NW but absolutely no waves come along to take advantage we will fail. But that’s not suppression necessarily and more importantly I don’t trust guidance to see that at range. It wouldn’t take much. Remember how many of those waves in 2014 and 2015 weren’t a thought until inside 100 hours.

He knows how to handle a big bird?

Yes but I stopped when it got ridiculous. At this point our 30 year snow mean will reduce again at the end of the decade unless we average some crazy stupid amount the rest of the way. We would need like two 2010s and a 2014 to save us. Not gonna happen. Yes I did great in 2021 but that was the opposite of what you’re talking about in 2022 or 2019. It was a localized thing, in 2021 it was my area and the extreme NW parts of our sub. But I would never call that a good winter or above climo for “us” I just got lucky locally. I differentiate winters where there is a large above avg snowfall zone v ones where most of the east at and near our latitude is below avg with just a lucky pocket or two of near or slightly above avg snow from a lucky hit on one or two storms. 2019 and 2022 weren’t snowy winters in the east. Some limited parts of our region got lucky but on the whole they were not close to years like 2010, 2014, 2015… they weren’t as bad as years like 2017, 2020, 2023 but if your high water mark winters are just blah where a very small area might get close to climo at best if they get lucky…that’s not good. I think we are just looking at it different. We both know this. I was just making a different point is all. It’s been a long time since we had a widespread at or above climo winter.

It was even worse for my area and Baltimore. We didn’t even get close. The last year most of our area actually hit snow climo was 2016! We’ve had some years since where’s a localized area within our sub got lucky with one storm and got close.

Close but fell slightly short. 2019 was the last year DCA made climo. 2016 was the last time all 3 airports made climo. And that’s only happened 4 times in the last 20 years!

Gas up the bus