psuhoffman

You know I agree. But as ridiculous as it is that’s become political and I respect that they’ve banned politics from this forum for the sake of discourse. But now some have become emboldened to attack any mention of warming. That’s not politic MFer that’s just objective reality. It’s Fng wamer. That’s not a debatable thing. And I’m done with attempts to act like the FACT it’s warming is either political or not reality. There has to be a line in the sand against the crazy somewhere. This is mine.

Wait until you’re still saying that in 20 years lol

I suppose I’m keeping one eye on it still. But with the collapse of a phased wave in front of it I see nothing in the long wave pattern that indicates that’s likely to phase far enough south for us. It’s all wrong. Could it change. Sure. But we’re getting kinda close for major hemispheric long wave changes. Could a crazy phase that defies normal logic occur. You bet ya. Once in a while it happens. Globally weird shit happens often. But 99% if it doesn’t affect the tiny little geographic box we give 2 shits about. So there is always a chance. But yes now decreased to the level I don’t anticipate every model run and track expecting anything.

@snowfan without the snark I think it’s fair to question whether under our current thermal regime certain things are still likely. Im also honestly annoyed with the penchant for some here to get hostile anytime the FACT that it’s warmer now gets referenced. Thermometers aren’t subjective. It is warming. That is not a disputable fact. I will accept that what could be disputed is the cause of the warming and the permanence. I have my opinions and many can likely guess them but I’ve NEVER brought those 2 arguments into this forum. They’re irrelevant to my point anyways so why bother. The fact is it’s warmer now than 20 or 50 years ago. Whether that is temporary and starts to reverse at some ambiguous time in the future 10, 20, or 500 years from now is totally irrelevant to my point. I’m discussing the effects of the warming that’s happened already on our prospects for snow right now. This is important because a lot of our forecasting is analog based. And we have to know what works and if something no longer does. Back to what started this. The DC area used to get “cold smoke” snowstorms a lot more frequently. To illustrate my point I used days where IAD got 4” and a high 5 degrees below freezing. We could use other metrics but it’s unlikely to change the picture. For 40 years it happened with decent regularity. 19 times. In the last 20 years it’s happened in only one year, the unicorn 2009-10. And not a single time in the last 14 years. IMO that is long enough and enough data to make the question whether that is still something realistically viable or likely a legitimate one. If you disagree how long does it take to make even asking that question valid. 20 years? 50? Do we wait 100 years without a cold smoke snow to even ask if they are indeed still viable? I didn’t answer the question. I didn’t say I know. I simply asked and you reacted as if I was being ridiculous. That’s why I reacted with a snide flippant response. Maybe that was unfair. But I thought your reaction to that question was equally unfair.

Respectfully sometimes you assume if someone disagrees with you they are doing so in bad faith. I can ensure you I am not. I would like to have a cordial discourse about this. I promise I’m operating in good faith with my honest opinions and I will respect your opposing view. I am not blind to the limitations and deficiencies of our current technology regarding NWP. But I don’t think it’s some kind of conspiracy. It’s just very difficult to model a stochastic medium like the entire planetary atmosphere accurately with our current technology and understanding. I would propose though that objectively we have made much progress. Day 5 verification scores now beat day 3 scores from 20 years ago. I think that’s amazing. But that’s my opinion. Yes we still have a long way to go! However the incorporation of nwp has improved not degraded forecasting accuracy. Yes there are lots of bad hype machine Internet personalities and rip day 10 plots and post them as a forecast. That’s garbage. And in these threads we sometimes like to have fun and post a long range snow plot that we know is unlikely to actually verify. It’s for fun. This thread isn’t an actual forecast. It’s supposed to be fun. And it can be a learning exorcise too! But I would operate way way differently if I was working for NWS putting out a forecast to the public. I Don’t even think we should isssue official forecasts past day 7 at most and 5 is more realistic. But there is some limited value in long range tools. Take this latest storm. We knew of the general threat from like 10 days out. Of course we knew the details would change. Maybe it would miss us. We got snow! The max zone shifted just north of us. But we knew a wave would be close with likely cold enough temps for a possible snow from over a week out. No that’s not perfect. Yes the details are unknowable still with our current tech. But we couldn’t do better with non NWP means either. I’m not taking a shot at them. But just like NWP they have limitations also. They aren’t very useful at anything past about day 3. What the harm of having fun on here analyzing the permutations of a possible storm at long ranges? No official outlets are making detailed day 10 storm forecasts. Or they shouldn’t be! But the tools have become decent at vague long range pattern analysis. Being able to put out a general pattern expectation for week 2. That has some value and is better than having no idea at all imo. Those were my honest thoughts on this. I respect that you don’t agree. I’m ok with that. I’m open to hearing more of your take. This can be amicable.

Agree. I’ve lowered my bar. First decade I lived here if say 35” was my bar for an acceptable winter. Because most years I hit that. I’ve had to adjust that as we’ve started having way more what used to be dreg years. Now I’d say get be into the 25” range (which is we’ll belong median here) with a couple legit sledding and snow fort building storms and I’m good. Yes I’m disappointed we wasted a -QBO Nino. Those are rare opportunities to go super big on snow. So that stings some. But in a vacuum I’m fine with this winter.

Btw that was a way more impressive call than anything I’ve ever attempted. It’s one thing to predict a stj wave in a split flow at range. It’s another to pick out a progressive NS wave with a pressing cold boundary in a chaotic flow during a pattern change no less. I don’t know if people realize how crazy amazingly awesome that was. It was like hitting for the cycle with a grand slam while pitching a perfect game. Kudos!

Well in terms of our snowfall you’re totally correct. But we did have 3 juiced up perfect track STJ dominant waves and 1 hybrid where the h5 crossed just south of DC in our “money box”. But they were all too warm and just rain. In a non Nina we don’t typically get that many stj chances. I think this year ended up a hybrid. Had the juiced up STJ but superimposed onto the Nina pac base state with associated warmer thermals. That neutralized the advantage of a Nino for our snow purposes and left it Nina like wrt snowfall.

@CAPE this simplifies the climo difference northwest to south east across our area in a Nina. Odds of hitting avg snow since 2000 (13 ninas) Me: 8% Baltimore: 15%. ACY: 54%

True and 22 was still way below climo here. There is variability with any storm but overall the further NW you go in our region the less likely to hit climo in a Nina. That’s all I was saying. I totally get why people on the coastal plain have a more favorable or at lease ambivalent view of Nina’s.

lol I’m fine. Ya I love snow. But I’ll survive it’s not that big a deal. And I did get 5 legit snow events that my kids got to enjoy. Although maybe 4 would have been better for my knee lol! I also saw 2 big snows while traveling. This wasn’t a disaster like last year.

Yea 96 didn’t really have a strong STJ, NS waves just dug so far south due to a perfect pac and blocking that we kept getting striped. I’m not so sure how likely that is to work anymore. Frankly that was an extreme outlier unlikely solution even in the 90s but it’s been a long time since NS waves dug south enough to amplify that much and still stay under us. It’s almost unheard of anymore. Hence those depressing stats I showed how we don’t get days with significant snow and high temps below 28 at all anymore when they once were fairly common. Before people jump down my throat no I can’t prove that it wouldn’t work. But it’s fair to speculate given the fact it doesn’t happen often or at all anymore for quite a while now. At some point it’s fair to at least question whether under the current reality if it’s still a viable realistic option.

Your larger point is 100 but Nina’s have a vastly different climo for 95 west and places SE of 95. I’d argue those coastal plain storms fit Nina climo. There are two types of Nina patterns. Flat pac ridge and poleward ridge. When the pac ridge is poleward it can get cold but the NS is still dominant and waves tend do phase late and be progressive. This favors coastal locations. Always has. 89, 99, 02, 06, 09, 2011, 2017, 2018, 2022 all featured at least one major coastal scraper. Some managed to clip 95. Some barely got the coast. But that’s a normal staple of a Nina. If you look at all Nina’s for example a place like Salisbury or ACY is way more likely to hit climo than say me or Baltimore. It’s why I hate them with the passion of a 1000 suns. If I lived where you do I’d be way more ambivalent about them. If I lived in OC or ACY I’d root for them!

PDO didn’t couple with the Nina. North pacific was more Nino than Nina like. Same way the last 2 ninos never coupled with the long wave pattern. It can happen. Why? Who knows. Variables we can’t correctly understand yet. But you want to bet on a Nina not coupling with a strong Nina base state? lol

I grade subjectively. I like big storms more than a lot of nickel and dime events. Also I have a higher bar for Ninos. So this year is kind of missing all my marks. But if I had to make an objective scale that put an avg of 2 years per decade into each grade it would be like this numerically. I ran the numbers a couple years ago and this would put an equal number of years into each grade A=49”+ B=39-48” C=30-38” D=18-29” F=under 18”

24”. My avg is down to 39.5 after the last few seasons and median is about 35.

In the current paradigm with warmer PAC and Atlantic and a -pdo exacerbating the issue I don’t think we’re snowing in either is the answer. I think if we did get a canonical Nino split flow -epo -pna that could work still. But in the current correct pdo with the pacific base state as it is I doubt that’s likely. The persistent MC forcing along with the Hadley cell expansion is interfering with that.

Sorry I thought I was in the banter thread, not that there is much topical to discuss here lol. The first shoe on this “threat” dropped when the nao block evaporated. The last nail was when the ocean storm in front of it trended away from a phased and towards a cut off system. We needed that as a phased system to impact the flow to compensate for the lack of blocking. Unless significant major features change this is pretty much dead. Sorry.

I’ll find out next week. Best case maybe a scope and quicker PT recovery. Worst case full surgery and a more lengthy PT. But I’ll recover. I’ve rehabbed worse over the years between skiing and soccer injuries. I’m not ready to stop being active.

I blew out my knee sledding with the kids lol

It is what it is. No sense getting all upset. On top of living where I do ( anyone willing to make the commute can do what I do) as a skier I see a lot of snow each year regardless of what happens here. It helps some.

Im not sure how much base WISP has to last but my favorite time to ski in the east is spring when you get soft slush and I can wear a light jacket and bomb down the mountain with no near of hitting ice! Sugarbush VT and Sugatloaf ME are awesome through April and into May some years! Unfortunately I might be done for the season due to a meniscus injury. Waiting in mri results to see if I need surgery and what the timeline is. Maybe if I’m lucky and don’t need surgery I can get back out in April and save some of the season.

For me 2018 went from a D- to a solid B when I got a 16” snowstorm on March 20-21. Keep in mind I totally missed that coastal bomb in January that year.

For me any year that has a hecs is automatically at least a B. They are just too rare and the best events we get to be too picky. If anything else decent happens that year it’s an A.

It felt cold because it had been so damn warm from 2005 to 2013. The truth is the sudden decrease in these “cold snowstorms” happened following 2004. They happened rather regularly at IAD from 1964 when records began until 2004. Then from 2005 until now it’s happened only twice, both in 2009/10. Thats 19 times in 40 years. Since then twice in 20 years and none in the last 14. It’s just been too warm. Pretty much all our snowstorms in the last 20 years the high for that day was near or above freezing. 2014 did have a couple events that were closer than in most years with highs below freezing at least.