psuhoffman

I have a suggestion where he can go

There’s a little wave on the GFS around the 22nd very reminiscent of how we got snow in 2014 2015. Obviously it won’t happen that way but something like that fits the pattern and those discreet waves riding the thermal boundary tend to over perform in the short range.

Still waiting on the 12” it gave me a few days ago.

If we bump up another inch into blue I’d do cartwheels. It’s about potential. Getting 2” from this is different from getting 2” from a threat with 10” potential.

Your name is fitting

I remember the times we had non stop threats to track in this thread.

18z euro is a win imo it holds back the NS SW a little more which allows a little bit more moisture to ride the trough and it also seems to direct a bit more mid level vorticity across the area to help wring it out. It’s the difference between some flurries and 1-2” across the area.

Gfs gave me 1.3”. If buy that lol

2016 was better for NW VA. Crazy deform band that set up there. 1996 was better for my area. On the whole they had similar snowfall distributions but 1996 was colder the week after and included 2 more snowfalls right after so that probably feeds into the nostalgia of that period.

That’s my route everyday. That exposed area just south of Hampstead is bad sometimes.

Local coop near here reported 36” but I’ve been told my locals it was even more than that.

I would be thrilled to eek out an inch from .07 qpf here...thats my goal.

If something amplifies around the 18th there is a risk of a cutter there...but its very possible nothing does and we just get a frontal passage.

There is a reason 90% of our HECS storms come in a true el nino year. There is a component missing here to get those kinds of widespread 20" totals no matter how "nino ish" the pattern might be. We've had one fluke cold enso HECS in the last 50 years. There could always be a fluke again, it happens, but realistically our high end potential in any non nino year is typically MECS.

I liked what the GGEM was doing at day 10

get it together

I was skiing a day at Steamboat when it was about -20 once. It was cold lol. I spent a little more time drinking than skiing that day.

@Bob Chill Regarding 2014-2015, using the euro here but the idea looks really close on all 3 ensembles right now. Day 15 This continues to look even more like those years everyday. 2014:2015 Composite Right now if we want to get overly specific I like the longwave configuration a little more than 2015 and maybe SLIGHTLY A SMIDGE less than 2014, not a bad spot to fall lol. The key to this being different from the -PDO hell we've been in recently is that trough in the central pacific which has been consistent across guidance and in reality. Yes the north pacific has a ridge into the WPO which isn't what we want if we are looking at every pattern driver in a vacuum, but it doesn't work that way. There are a ton of drivers and they are not all going to be perfect at the same time. That trough there in central pacific underneath the ridge prevents a downstream trough from digging into the SW US. It allows the cold to be directed into the east instead of digging into the west. It's a radically different reaction to a ridge in the WPO. This was the issue with recent years... There was a full latitude ridge at that longitude which caused a full longitude trough into the western US which in turn pumped the SER. Even once the current pattern retrogrades into a classic TNH look this is radically different from when we had a central pacific ridge in recent years. Not all TNH patterns are the same and that piece in the central pacific is a big key to our chances.

Suppression is about the flow in the longwave pattern not the temperatures. Yes there is correlation between the two since the type of longwave pattern that is suppressive is also conducive to cold in general, but there its not a 1:1 relationship and you can get an extremely suppressive flow without arctic air.

I'm gonna have to start a gofundme page for my heating bill

We're on the same page...hopefully its a good page.

Keep it up, we're gonna end up with one big super cluster F thread eventually.

To clarify, being in a generally good pattern but close to the boundary such that rain v snow is a debate is NOT the same as being in a crap pattern where its 99% likely to be rain in any precip event. Storms ride the thermal boundary so we are always flirting with rain v snow in any legit threat from day 10.

We have to flirt with "maybe too warm" to have a good chance at a storm at all. These things don't have 1000 mile wide snow swaths...if the pattern is so suppressive that there is absolutely no chance of rain here it means we probably have no chance at snow either lol. Once we get closer you can hone in on those details, but from day 10-15 to have a good chance of precip we probably have to be close enough to the boundary that rain is always a risk. Just have to roll the dice.

Blame the apps. That moisture streaming SW to NE isn't going to survive the 4500 ft mountains to our southwest without any dynamic mechanism. The TN valley and then into WV can do fine with a simple gulf moisture stream because they don't have that issue. We would need some mid level forcing from a NS SW or a better closer developed STJ wave to reintroduce moisture transport after the mountains shred whats coming from the southwest and in this case we have neither, unfortunately. Our best hope to get a little surprise might be some energy from the NS activating some minor banding along the trough axis as it crosses but right now guidance takes that feature to our NW and we are left in between that and the STJ wave.