psuhoffman

But it wouldn’t be a bust. Those are two of the top analogs so wouldn’t that be expected?

Does he ever? But he was the champion of the 2014 talk online that’s for sure. He was maybe the most bullish in how he talked about winter whether he made a detailed specific call or not.

In fairness he is in NC where they’ve had no measurable snow for 3 years and it increasingly takes an incredibly anomalous pattern to get any chance of meaningful snow . He might also be simply hinting that his forecast for a very cold and very snowy winter is in trouble not necessarily implying it’s gonna be a total did. He wasn’t specific at all so we can’t say exactly what he means. But it was a very very depressing thread that’s for sure. He definitely changed his tune.

They were all in my list I looked at. 2 of them made my top 5.

And John’s in the thread throwing gas on the winters cancelled fire wow. In 24 hours he went from “don’t worry it’s just a temporary minor warm up” and throwing around 2014 analogs to “winters in big trouble” lol.

So no 2014?

When did that happen, it was just 2 days ago he was saying the warm up looked minor and temporary at worst.

I predicted a ton of snow just last winter. You want me to be JB?

Are those control runs going to be accurate no. Not a chance. But this is about probabilities. Math. There is an inherent amount of random chance and luck too. Even on a dry pattern all it takes is to get lucky a few times to end up with above normal snow here. Or maybe the whole pattern is just wrong. That’s possible too. But we are trying to glean what hints we can. And when the guidance is saying something that also is supported by analogs it’s a hint. That’s all. Nothing more. Doesn’t mean it will definitely happen. But the fact many of the years that were similar to this one features some cold periods yet low snowfall and now long range guidance is often hinting at the same thing is worth noting I think.

Of course it’s not. But that’s not the point. The point is that there have been a lot of runs of the long range controls for the gfs and eps with a snow minimum near or over us. And that fits the analogs for this season many of which featured snow minimums over us. That’s it. Read into that whatever you want.

2001-2016 was a very favorable cycle if you look at the predominant long wave pattern. Almost opposite what we’ve had since. What I was saying is the closest comp we have to that favorable a period was 1958-1970 but the snowfall didn’t nearly live up for us. The anomalies shifted north. It’s hard to compare periods prior to 1950 because the upper level data doesn’t go back that far and so we’re kinda flying blind. But we can look at raw snow data and see that cycles of high snowfall have been decreasing for a while.

So would I but it is also telling that so many runs have the snow minimum somewhere near our latitude. Especially when it fits the analogs. Now that doesn’t mean the minimum ends up nothing like that one run that was kinda comical but it does temper my expectations

Yes but like most of the analogs it’s a dry cold. The snow mean is really low and look at the control which has similar temps lol basically has us sitting at the midpoint of winter below avg temps and under 1” of snow to show for it.

Agree with this... the -AO/NAO do still help, so long as we don't have some -3PNA countermanding it. The fact is we have had a horribly god awful pacific several times that did offset and waste a great NAO. Add in that two of our most recent snowy winters were EPO/PNA driven without much AO/NAO help and some have started to imply the NAO/AO are no longer that important. But I don't believe there is much evidence of that, it's just the NAO/AO can no longer overcome a horribly hostile pacific anymore.

I got 3.8" last December from exactly that type of setup. It's actually accounted for much of my snow the last 5 years...but most of them have not worked out for lower elevations. I commented on this last December also...the track of that secondary frontal wave was actually perfect for 95, the heavier precip missed me to the east, and the mid levels were cold enough, but as has been the case several times lately the lower levels simply weren't cold enough to support snow. This has happened a few times over the last several years. There was another very obvious example in Feb 2021, perfect secondary frontal wave where the lower levels simply were too warm despite a perfect track. I got 6" up here but that too the best precip missed me to the east but it was just rain because the boundary was just too warm...even up here it was 32-33 during the snow. We still get these setups often, it just hasn't been cold enough in the lower levels for them to be snow outside our higher elevations in this forum even when the situation works out from a synoptic setup in other ways.

These cycles are the main drivers of our snowfall...but unfortunately within these cycles there is a clear diminishing trend. The current bad cycle is worse than the previous one by about 20% and that good period in the 2000's was not as good as the previous time the Pacific and Atlantic both cooperated simultaneously in the 1960s. The most troubling aspect of that period from 2000-2016 was that the center of the positive snowfall anomalies shifted north several hundred miles from where it was in previous similar periods...we were barely above average snowfall for that period while places like Philly to Boston were running at 150% or more of avg. And not too far south of us actually were below avg for the period... In short while there are still these up and down cycles we are getting dangerously close to the "you're just too far south for it to matter" line

I agree with several of these points. WRT taking advantage of the Eagles injuries yesterday, Mitchell was only out for 2 plays and the Eagles blitzed and created pressure on both. I do not think this is a coincidence given that overall their blitz % is near the bottom of the league. They were covering for that issue and it worked. Who knows what the plan was had Lamar not been forced into a bad decision by pressure. As for the safety situation, the Eagles are pretty deep there, they have a young Safety who was starting last year who is now 4 deep in the depth chart due to signings and improvements at that position. I am not sure the drop off there is really all that great. I agree with all the other points though.

I'll be honest...my primary tracking interest when I first look at guidance any given run is for where I am going to be at a particular point in winter (Vermont next weekend, Revelstoke BC around New Years) not here.

I am shocked and confused (but interested and willing to listen with an open mind) by the perspective of Ravens fans here. As a neutral outsider (I neither particularly love but definitely do not hate the Ravens) I view them as a team with a good but not great roster that typically overperforms their talent level over the past 10 years. This year, they are about where the talent level says they should be. The talk about firing the coach is crazy to me. I did think maybe I was simply missing something and off on my evaluation so I looked at all the pre-season roster rankings I could find from the major publications like PFF, ESPN, Fox sports. I looked at 8 roster rankings in all and the Ravens were between 3 and 9 with an average of 6.5. I guess you could argue they are slightly under performing their talent this season since at the moment they have the 9th best record and by talent they should be 6 or 7 but that seems pretty minor, and I think they've had a harder schedule are are playing better in reality than a few of those teams with better records. I will admit I don't watch them closely enough and maybe this is due to boneheaded decisions that I just don't notice...but I didn't see anything in the game yesterday that he did that I found egregious or harmful to the team. They lost because the kicker missed a few important kicks but mostly because the Eagles defense did to them exactly what they've done to everyone all year and the Eagles offense ground them down late which is also what they've done to everyone all year. And the game ended about exactly how you would expect given the talent on both squads, the Eagles have the slightly better roster and they won a close game. What am I missing?

It’s 10 days away.

Bad solutions don’t lock in either. But the problem is we have a box about 100 miles wide (sometimes smaller depending on the setup) we need the storm to track. Anything outside that box is a fail. We don’t care or notice if it ends up 200 v 300 miles outside the box in either direction because the result is the same for us. No snow. The permutations that result in no snow exponentially outnumber those that do in any threat from range.

A 10% chance of snow is a better chance than we have most of the time lately

Ya well it’s hard to get “blue” even in a trough when the averages are calculated on a 30 year period that ended 5 years ago and it’s continuously getting warmer. The actual average base state right now in a neutral pattern is warmer than the averages those plots are calculated with. That’s one of the reasons why many times when you look at a long range plot there is no blue anywhere.

My one hope is that as we enter a warmer climate maybe the dry isn’t as dry and the cold is still cold enough. It’s a narrow target we’re aiming for though. But 2014 does prove it’s possible. But not the most likely outcome imo. I don’t find perfect track rainstorms funny but everyone has their own sense of humor. Ya 2017 and 1951 sucked but so did 2001 and 2009. None of them were good so not sure why you highlighted those 2 specifically.

There’s a trough in the east on that plot.