psuhoffman

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

It’s a small sample size so far but early returns are encouraging yes. We have to be realistic. The longer scale slow degradation is likely to continue. But this is a sign that perhaps a much larger % of our woes was pdo related. A realistic expectation of the next positive snowfall cycle might be if we can return to the base state of 2003-2016 with perhaps a 10% reduction in snowfall. I can live with that. Especially considering the alternative.

We remember 2015 fondly with no hecs. I think if we get 2 more significant snow events (say a secs and MECS) this will be remembered as a full win. But your main point is valid. We have to score. And yes we “could” get unlucky and not get anymore snow. But my point was about expectations. For years I’ve seen people trying to find some hope in a totally hopeless situation. Now we have a legit shot and some of those same people are like “meh”.

It’s funny that some seemed more “optimistic” the last several years when we were stuck in absolutely hopeless situations. I’d see these posts trying to polish the turd we’d been handed. I was like “what are you looking at this is crap and we have no hope” and they would say I was being a deb. Now we have a legit good pattern with a real chance to have a good season and many are now more pessimistic than me. WTF is going on?

Shocking

There is no week where DC averages 3-4” of snow. Plus, when was the last time we hit climo? I’d take a freaking climo year every season and be happy.

It’s gonna be a long few weeks if people react to every operational runs depiction of 200+ hour events. None of these waves will be well resolved until inside 72 hours. They tend to shift around a lot. If there is no NS interference they tend to shift north. If a NS wave ends up over the top in front they tend to shift south. But the boundary isn’t at stable as in a blocking regime. No chance guidance nails these at range. Some are overreacting to noise level changes run to run. look at the ensembles and the general long wave pattern. Don’t react to synoptic specifics.

The 6z gefs looks really good day 10-15. Jan 19 Still looks like a rain to snow type wave. Individual runs can’t agree on which wave after but they are shotgunning boundary waves at us with the thermal gradient oriented SW to NE just south of us day 10-15. That’s what we want in this type of pattern.

1.5” total here. Exceeded my expectations and looks nice.

That’s the time period we identified though. Day 10-15. Not saying the day 8-9 thing can’t work but its not the best look.

I made it to 1” Id like to thank my parents for always believing in me and teaching me never to give up. Praise to God, without whom nothing is possible. I can’t forget my children, who are the reason for my hope and why I push through the dark days of dry slots and fringes. Thank you to all those who believed this was possible. Especially the HRRR and RUC. If I forgot anyone I’m sorry but know I appreciate you. oh and Dallas sucks! Goodnight.

Wasn’t expecting this. Legit heavy snow right now. It’s low qpf very high ratio stuff. Huge fluffy flakes.

Nothing here yet. Stuck between bands the whole time. Just not my week lol.

My final call 2-5 cm’s

Something’s falling alright. My patience. 26/12