psuhoffman

Seriously that could be describing like 10 years in the last 20 and most were cold neutral or Nina years. But I know 2009 there was a sharp gradient near 40 where snow went from way below to near and slightly above normal. It wasn’t amazing to our north. Philly had 23” which is slightly above avg. NYC had 27” also a little above avg. There were no major storms but several minor to moderate events went just to our north during several cold periods in Dec-Feb. We got all our snow from one storm early March.

That’s almost every “cold” Nina.

I’d argue last year was better. A good week of winter. 2009 almost all the snow fell in one March storm and melted the next day.

It’s gonna be a long year

Even the kuchera maps on the NAMs are becoming more interesting. I’d like to see some of the more reliable guidance come in colder 18z but if the NAM can ever get one thing right it can sometimes do better with temps.

Probably overdone. It’s the NAM. But euro was indicating 1-2” in favored areas also. That’s probably more realistic.

I see the reason for the hype, there are some similarities to 2013/14 and the pattern looks fairly good coming up. The problem is that the same can be said of most of the other analogs that didn’t lead to much snow. Look at the patter late November in 2008. Perfect march also. This type of pattern has only ever really worked in a cold enso or neutral season once. Since we don’t have reliable records far ending back I can’t say if it was a 1 in 10 or 1 in 100 type fluke but I can say it was an outlier result and not one I’d want to bet on repeating in any one given similar season. The more likely outcome is the less exciting one unfortunately. But y’all know I’m rooting for it. I didn’t see 2014 coming either.

Kickera isn’t bad for our area as long as expectations are reasonable.

I think if people don’t get dreams of 2014 results in their heads there is some good news here and that is I do see signs that some of the absolute worst analog years like 2002 and 2023 might not be how this winter is evolving. I see more similarities so years like 2008/9 and 2012/13 and while they weren’t good there was more snow around the area those years. They were just bad not god awful. Until recently not god awful might have been considers a win. But recently I’ve seen some hype based on one season where this type of pattern worked. But it takes things going to a crazy extreme to get an epo driven pattern to be snowy here in a cold enso season. It does snow some. And it’s cold for stretches. But most often it’s also frustrating as we’re stuck in the dead zone between storm tracks most of the winter.

Precip shadow due to downsloping off the catoctins. The precip hole is on every run. The 3kNAM sometimes over does this feature some, but its a real thing with this wind trajectory. NW Carroll gets less snow than surrounding areas due to the shadow effect with ridges to either side of them.

I will put my full bias on the table...2009 is my top analog and it was by far my least favorite winter EVER. Because it was generally cold for long stretches, at least a cold enough pattern to snow...and it did snow a decent amount just to our north, so I was tracking and invested and watching every freaking wave, and almost nothing came of any of them. Yea I got slightly more snow that winter than a few others (but other than a bunch of 1" evens it was all from one March storm), but those years the pattern was no hope awful and I just checked out, 2009 was the biggest waste of my time for little return of any winter.

How this next couple weeks plays out I think is very important for hints at the winter. I know some will be tempted to say "it's early so its ok that these storms are not working out" but that is not necessarily true... It's one thing if the boundary is a little too warm maybe in the UHI but the storm took a good track and 2-3 degrees colder at the surface would have been a big snow...that is the type of thing that an early miss is not a bad thing and can be indicative of a good pattern. But when I saw the 6z GFS run the thought I had is...and that is exactly how all those horrible snowfall analogs I had in my set managed to have decent looking H5 patterns and produce no snow. A NS wave goes just to our north, it gets uber cold but a southern slider gets shunted south then phases too late and hits new england... another NS wave goes just north...gets cold but no STJ at the end then a NS wave goes north again. You look at the mean pattern for the whole period and it looked great and we got no snow to show for it! A little ice maybe. But I do think this first period of "winter pattern" will tip the hat for the winter some. If one of these waves can actually flush hit our area I will start to think maybe the 2014 analog idea has merit but if we go through a period where its generally chilly but NS waves manage to go just north and STJ waves get suppressed well...thats exactly what all the analogs say will happen all winter long.

Sorry I was I wrong thread. @brooklynwx99Wrt 2014, we will know very soon. 2014 tipped its cap very early. As soon as the first cold period hit those waves started to target south of 40 which is very unusual. If in the next few weeks one of these waves actually flush hits somewhere south of 40 my radar will be up. But if they all end up sliding by frustratingly close but to our north…well that’s how those other colder -enso years went.

I’ve been up there for a few events similar to this one. It won’t disappoint.

Last couple years gfs started to improve on synoptic placements around 150 hours. It was by no means perfect inside 150 but it started to have more runs that were at least closer to the final outcome. So we’re getting close to when it might start to narrow the goalposts. Have to see how the new euro behaves.

If you look at a cold enso snowfall anomaly map, there is a clear and obvious minimum right over us. It’s drastic with a sharp gradient around 40n and through south central VA up the immediate coast. You would be tempted to think it’s just a fluke but it’s not. It’s both logical and consistent. NS dominant systems race by just to our north. Durinh cold periods southern sliders can’t phase or lift north because of the NS racing vorts across to the north so they miss south. Sometimes they phase late and hit the coast east of the bay. But east of the mountains from Richmond to Baltimore to the bay is screwed. 2014 was an exception because the pattern went to extremes. There was a ridge over the top of the pole at times that displaced the TPV enough to really suppress the NS. Enough that waves that almost always go north dug south of us. There was also more STJ interaction than is common. It was just an example of what can happen of things go to super extremes. But it was probably a once a century outcome for a cold enso, -pdo, +QBO winter. Just like 1996 was a once a century outcome for a Nina but for different reasons. Extremely +PDO pattern which is uncommon. The Nina never coupled. But even for a -QBO +PDO Nina it was extreme. That rare subset is better than most Nina’s but other examples like 2006 didn’t go to that extreme. They were better than most Nina’s but not 1996. Sometimes we get an extreme outcome that isn’t common and not likely to repeat even from similar parameters. I put 1996 and 2014 in that category.

2010 is not an analog, 2008-09 is a good analog. When I use a single year to describe a winter I mean the Jan/Feb year. Sorry for the confusion.

Might be a little lower after last year! Not sure how much those type indicators work anymore given the changes... but once we get to the second half of november in general yes snow in the area is a good thing v an endless blowtorch.

Thanks for that. I would really want to see that getting down closer to -1 though. -2 is still pretty bad and it was trending down again mid month! In 2013 we were getting closer to neutral by now.

@mattie g @brooklynwx99 some evidence to what I'm talking about...these are some of the other very similar fall seasons to where we are now...that I have seen being throw around in the analog set as "colder, snowier" options...along with 2014. And the pattern those years produced looks like that twitter profile Webb posted also. That looks pretty good doesn't it...but all 5 of those years were below average snowfall in the mid atlantic, and I don't mean just below...most were single digit snowfall except 1955 but you have to adjust that year for warming since the 50's. But the point is all the other years similar to 2014 that lead to a somewhat similar pattern...didn't result in snowy winters around here. They were mostly really frustrating winters with a ton of snow just to our north and us constantly just south of the boundary on NS dominant systems. So was 2014 really a good setup, or did we just get lucky that year? What made 2014 good when every other example of a similar setup failed? I'm not smart enough to say, but I'm also not willing to bet on a repeat of the one example of this type of setup in the fall leading to high snowfall. I am not 100% sure of this, that's why I'm discussing it. I'm intrigued by this dichotomy...I really do wish I could figure out why 2014 went one way and all the other analogs another. But I am seeing too many people lumping them all together and for just north of us they were similar...but for us they were all bad except 2014.

yes, I said EVERY OTHER analog year except 2014 was a horrible snowfall winter... read my last post to brooklyn...I think 2014 might have just been a fluke of luck or due to a combination of variables we dont yet know how to factor, because none of the other similar years going all the way back to 1950 produced anything close to that result for us. Even the other analogs that were cold and snowy just to our north like 2001, 2009, 2013 and 2021 were low snowfall here.

Sometimes, but 2008 had almost the same pattern from Nov 15-Dec 10 and 2008-09 was a god awful snowfall year. I think 2012-13 which was my top analog was similar...and another year with single digit snowfall across our area and less than 5" in DC. Was 2014 really indicative of the drivers being good that winter or just a fluke? I can't find any other examples going back to 1950 of a weak cold enso or cold neutral +QBO winter coming off a -PDO that ended up snowy around here. Not a single one. All the other comps, 1951, 1955, 1972, 1975, 2002, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2021, 2022, 2023 were below average snowfall here. That is a big enough sample size to wonder if 2014 was just a fluke where even if the same major factors repeated again and again its unlikely to result in the same output and it was due to some combination of discreet variables we can't accurately factor in currently that lead to that...or just a lot of luck with several synoptic systems. That can happen...maybe we just hit the lottery in terms of lucking out synoptically. Because even the examples of similar cold winters with those parameters or even smaller scale periods within winters....didn't prodice nearly as much snowfall here. They did to our north...and they were generally cold patterns...but usually the baroclinic zone for storms ended up just to our north....or the patters were dry with systems redeveloping just north of us and hitting Philly northeast. It makes it hard for me to use 2014, it was not the typical way we get a snowy winter down here.

@brooklynwx99I hear and respect all these arguments... and I really hope they are right. I did say the one weakness of my new methodology was years where the PDO phase flipped unexpectedly going into a winter...those years showed significantly less predictability with my method using backwards verification tests. So if this year is indeed an example of a PDO phase flip then I could very well be very wrong.

I totally agree, but both of those winters were awful in DC/Baltimore and featured much below normal snowfall, in line with my thinking. They were both in my analog set. That is the thing...I think people just a little north of us don't realize that you can play around with all the details, and they matter for places just to our north...there is a HUGE gradient in nina snowfall just north of us...and somethings south enough to barely save me like 2021 where I got 50" and DC got single digits! But for DC/Baltimore...other than 2014 all these analog years were awful. Even the colder ones, the snow was north of us.

If I get any accumulation at all I will be excited.