wncsnow

Lol

24 this morning

just gonna enjoy the old school weather local forecast Christmas music and reminisce back to when it did snow

The last major winter storm in February or later during a weak to moderate La Nina was March 1 2008 with exactly what Eric Webb said- A bowling ball cut off upper low. There have been 7 weak to moderate La Ninas since then, none of them had major winter storms after January,

We really might have had our coldest temps and closest call for snow this winter already. That -PNA looks here to stay

We need that every year but this year we might need a miracle with that +EPO

This is why having a raging Pacific and strongly negative PNA kills winter- It floods the conus with Pacific Air and leads to the SE Death Ridge.

We haven't had a big, slow moving cut off upper low in a long time so maybe were due? Otherwise, La Nina is flexing too much for my liking.

I think the best question right now is, what can get the Pacific to calm down? As shown in the chart above, the PNA will be more strongly negative than the NAO and should win that contest as the main pattern driver. There looks to be a transient cooldown in late December but as of now, it wont last more than a few days.

Thats awful. RIP

Dang what happened?

Exactly. The only thing that gives me a little hope is the cold air in Canada. If that leaves or moves, we are in big trouble.

Hope I'm wrong but I am just not seeing more than another transient shot of cold from the -NAO (with no subtropical jet which means its probably going to be dry) followed by more meh as the NAO goes back to neutral or positive. I probably sound like a broken record but without the Pacific calming down for more than a couple days, its going to be extremely hard to get winter storm threats.

But look how fast its going back to neutral. EPS shows this as well and had a quick cool (not even cold) shot then back to average or above by the end of the period.

Look another hater! My track record has been pretty good lately. I called the clipper pattern we saw the last week or so and this upcoming mild period over 2 weeks ago. I hope I'm wrong but unless we see major changes soon it will be at least 15-20 days before this pattern starts breaking down and that gets us to 2026. Some of you have short memories because the main reason the past 5 winters have mostly sucked is because the raging Pacific jet. We were looking for pattern changes almost every winter since 2019. Its as strong now as any of the past 5 years. Look at the record breaking, catastrophic flooding in Washington state. This should be a lesson that with even a super frigid Canada, a favorable MJO and a decent NAO, the PNA and Pacific jet extension is hard to overcome.

From Jason Boyer- AVL’s 30-year average snowfall has dropped from 14” to 10.2”. That’s 27% less snow annually.

We're in this pattern for a while I'm afraid. I think after New Years. Maybe middle of January.

Some more quick data- The last widespread winter storm in between Christmas and New Years was the Christmas storm in 2010. Before that, only Eastern NC got any appreciable snow in the 2000s during that time frame (Dec 2004) In the 90s there was also only 1 widespread winter storm the entire decade for this time period as well (1997). In the 80s there was a mountain Christmas day snow (1981) for higher elevations for no other storms that decade. In the 70s, there were a couple smaller storms during that time but no major storms. Overall, each decade has only seen 1 usually small storm during that time frame which is typically less than other weeks in December, January, February and early March. For example, the time frame between December 4-10 has seen 2 major winter storms in the past decade alone.

Glad you asked. The period between December 26-January 1 is historically one of the least snowy periods for our area from December to March. I will back up with maps later (busy day at work)

It will be quite the spectacle to see what wins out. The raging Pacific or growing -AO/-NAO

I just hope we start seeing legit signs of something better in January before January turns into February

I don't even have an account on there.

There are multiple areas they list as having .1 that is not accurate though. Most of us foothills folks can tell you that. Regardless, places other than TN border areas and higher elevations have not seen a winter storm in NC this season.

I would say its generous to say 50% of NC has seen "measurable snow". 80% of those measurable snow areas have seen 1 inch or less. I guess snow falling from the sky without accumulating is considered measurable nowadays.

That map is not even close to reality for almost everyone South of I40. Some areas east of Charlotte got a dusting but that's it.