ChescoWx

Latest from JB "GFS has continued expected westward shift toward ECMWF on Snow...think overall idea of leader through Midwest with follower up east coast FROM LAST WEEK is good this week"

In addition to the WB team beating the drum all week regarding the Thanksgiving snow threat JB is seeing the relatively brief warm up coming before the locking in to what is their current winter forecast....we shall see "I do think a relaxation is coming for the first 10 days or so of December. Its something almost all the coldest el nino winters have. Some have outright warm Decembers ( 1957,1965) There is alot of bouncing around going on out there, but when the smoke clears, I feel very good about what we said before the season. Of the 5 months where the nation is most concerned about energy and snow, the first one is certainly out of the box with gusto. And guess what may happen? Suppose you get this and the cold that is touted.. You get to December 1st and while its getting warmer, all of sudden you see what may be the turn to colder mid and late December Certainly beating the drumstick for a cold turkey day with snow around would be a feather in our cap if this tail turned out this way."

JB on the upcoming warm up - but more cold to follow "alot of people thought it was going to be a heck of a lot warmer than they do now. Weatherbell has told their clients there was a warm up coming, yes against the severe cold, but against averages quite another thing. And our continued pounding away and letting people know that analogs mean something and to be very careful when the merchants of mild take the field because there are ambushes lurking. If you want to call us the Kings of Cold, since mid winter 12-13, I dont think anyone on our team would have a problem with that"

From Larry Cosgrove at WeatherAmerica and his weekly newsletter "As I reviewed weather forecast charts over the past few days, my memory was jogged back to a time when incessant cold intrusions, massive winter storms, and extensive blocking signatures were the rule and not the exception. I am talking about the late 1970s, a magical time in my life when forecasting the weather was far more difficult than what is the case today. However, the predictions were more exciting not just because of difficulty (computer modeling was in its infancy, with only the Barotropic, LFM, and AVN series to choose from), but also because if you liked the challenges and the eventual extreme outcome, you got to view history in the making. All of this nostalgia has a point, you see. It has been a long while since I saw nearly all of the numerical models set up a triple or quadruple blocking signature with an active southern branch jet stream. Even more bizarre is the notion is that this configuration could last for two weeks or more! You see, if you review even the extreme cold seasons of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, the radical cAk plunges were quite progressive. Colder monthly averages were achieved by multiple delivery of colder values, not by a routine day-after-day cold spells. This "long lived chill" is the scenario we may be facing for much of the rest of November, IF the equations verify! There seems to be some agreement also on the idea of yet another storm taking shape in southern Texas around November 20. The most probable track for this system is probably a "Miller A" type along the Gulf Coast and then running up along the Eastern Seaboard. If we do maintain a mild West vs. cold Central and East alignment, the snowpack will drop as far south as the Ozark Plateau, Tennessee Valley, and possibly just to the right of the Appalachian Mountains (NC to ME). Remember that the more snow we get farther south only favors a longer stay of cold air and more of a "duration winter". I am still sticking with the idea that after a volatile late November and December (leaning cold but still capable of some warmer "burps" east of the High Plains), that we settle into a rather painful stormy and bitterly cold period from January through much of March. So far the analog comparisons have been correct with respect to the coldest values this month being mainly between the Rocky Mountains and Appalachia. Speaking of analogs, I am toying with the idea of adding 1976-77 and 1957-1958 to the roster of comparative winters. The ferocious 1976 set-up had help from a typhoon injection (just like Nuri), while the fall of 1957 saw a very warm SST anomaly along the entire eastern shoreline of the Pacific Ocean. The former period had a lasting and strong national warm-up starting in mid-February, while the latter was notorous for its balmy December followed by a brutal JFM time frame. The 500MB and temperature deviation charts for the DJFM realm are included above, using the additional analogs. "Mild West, Cold, Stormy Central And East" may be ringing in your brain this winter. Along with high energy and grocery bills, too."

He did a great job with nailing this storm way in advance and I do like his admitting his bias (which we all know of holding on too long). Like him or not he is good with overall patterns....IMHO October 31 06:51 PM It is likely you will not live through a period like this again. No, not the individual storms, but the amount of variables being thrown at you at once, exposing the helplessness of longer range models. Man, being a smart creature will adjust and next time we see a major climatic shift, the model should be ready. That being said, once they caught on to this system now, they have done good. Some of the old biases did not occur, and my bias of hanging on too long did, so its machine over man when it comes to the end game here. Since no one was looking a week ago, the fact that this was picked out then likely does not matter to most. Going forward, I think since Feb 2013 there has been a major model bias to warm overall in the longer range. Many lah de dah, its going to be warm long range forecasts have been blown out of the water. Its that simple. Occasionally Sept 2013, and Oct 2014 have shown up, but by and large. 10-15 days the major models that the markets have been glued too have been too warm in the month ahead and the season ahead. But if this winter turns out to be even nastier than we have, it wasnt that there were not hints Look at this snowcover.. close to the all time record for the last day of October

@BigJoeBastardi: Very warm water off east coast supplies the energy for what could be a severe noreaster tracking from near Va Capes to Cape Cod on weekend Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

JB has the upper low going from Toledo to Elkins to Richmond VA with snow from the mountain of NC up to Maine with snow possibly getting as far south and near the coast as North Jersey

From Larry Cosgrove at Weatheramerica - another potential nor'easter for Halloween with maybe some high ground snows... "Despite the tendency to have mild weather over much of the U.S. in the short range forecast, the presence of a modest blocking signal over Alaska will have downstream impacts by next weekend. Shortwave energy in central Canada will dig into Appalachia, possibly forming a closed (and cold) 500MB low by November 1. While the operational GFS and GGEM schemes have tended to view this feature as a progressive cold intrusion (bordering on cA character), the ECMWF panels have advertised the formation of a significant surface storm near Cape Hatteras. Note the Rex signature over Quebec and Labrador after Saturday. If this minor block is for real (and I think that is indeed the case), we may see another Nor'easter with two or three days of wind and rain from Virginia northward to Nova Scotia in the November 1 - 4 time frame. And yes, higher elevations on the western edge of the precipitation shield (do you hear me Interstate 79 and 81 corridors....) could see the first accumulating snow of the season."

JB already advertising non-winters to come over the next few years (must be fighting his cold bias)......but....far from that is what he and the team at Weather Bell are seeing for this year. Top Analogs at this point are: 1) 2009-10 2/ 1976-77 3) 2002-3

great forecast map! Thanks!