RCNYILWX

Can say with reasonable confidence that January will be active. The big question is how persistently amplified the southeast ridging is and the placement of Aleutian/AK ridging. Getting the ridging farther east into the EPO domain could make for a more than serviceable month for central, western and northern portions of the sub. Farther south and east could certainly be dicey if this weekend and next week's possible window is not cashed in on. The January-February 2019 500 mb composite anomaly below and sensible weather results shows that the general idea being forecast by the longer ranges of the ensembles and Euro weeklies can work out really well for portions of the sub. On the other hand, a too amplified southeast ridge and Aleutian ridging too far west could make for a warm/rainy active month for much of the sub and congrats MSP and north/northwest. I don't think we can yet for sure that the MJO being forecast to go with amplitude into the warm phases makes it a lock that it'll be a trash pattern even central and west, just that the warm risk is certainly there. If I'm recalling correctly, a good chunk of last January and February was spent in the warmer MJO phases. This shows it can work out for some of us, but did also make for the bad winter farther east and southeast in the sub and points east. Also, I'd much rather have an active month biased warm that at least gives a chance for things to break right for a good event than endless cold and dry. Experience shows us that for a big dog we need at least some southeast ridging. The oscillating going on in later ranges of the EPS shows that we'll be on the edge so we'll have to wait and see which way things are leaning. Finally, with the likelihood of stout low level cold air masses northwest of here and warm press from SE ridge, we'll also have to watch for sig icing events in the battleground zone, similar to last February.

Any event like modeled on the 00z Euro has to be considered low probability this far out. But the good news is that it wasn't a one off. The 12z run yesterday had a system in a similar general area, just less phased and weaker. And there was modest 00z EPS member support for the time range. Can add next week to late Friday-Friday night possible rain to snow scenario for parts of the sub to *things to watch*. Of course the 12z operational GFS has no phasing at all with the northern and southern stream waves in that period.

On the other hand, would've been tough to get a sling shot north track of the secondary surface low without the presence of the parent ULL causing strongly meridional steering flow. Interesting/complex setup. Can't say I recall an evolution like this since I've been out here. Sure would've been nice to have a more winter-like air mass in place, that would've done wonders. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Looks decent for 1-2" north of I-80 tomorrow night. Winds may be up near advisory criteria too. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Agreed. Still far enough out to change but like you said would have to be a big fail to not get more than 0.3". Possible that we get some snow showers/squalls on Monday that put down a couple tenths prior to the main snow Monday night. Only thing that gives me pause is that it's an atypical setup. However, hard to argue at this point against the overall solid model agreement. Euro ensemble strongly supports the 0.1"+ liquid amounts from the operational. I don't think we'll get 3-4" like on the Euro op Kuchera map but 1-2" max amounts seems reasonable.

I think we're gonna have to do most of the work tonight with the rain amounts. Focus for heaviest tomorrow night should be east of ORD. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Was gonna say, in a perfect world that's how we'd draw it up to keep the southeast ridge more muted, and plenty of cold air available in the source region. Even if we're on the edge at times, at least it's a more active look. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Cat. 4 Nor'easter Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Merry Christmas to everyone and this year, Merry Torchmas. If we can't have a white Christmas, I'll take this over brutal cold and dry. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Big change on past couple runs of EPS in the long range. Recent prior runs had parked the PV near Alaska for longer, which is obviously not a good look for us. 12z run yesterday and 00z run last night breaks that down much quicker, with ridging returning sooner to near AK and an active/colder h5 look. With how much waffling has been going on in the long range on the ensembles, not ready to say the flip on latest EPS is for real. We'll have to see how tropical forcing (MJO etc) progresses, and plays a role in NH pattern evolution. Prior to those possible changes for the better taking place later during the first week of January, we'll have the brief cold shot behind this weekend's system followed by another warm-up due to the ++EPO from PV being over AK. Hoping@OHweather stops by with some pattern thoughts like on 33andRain. And Merry Christmas everyone. Here's to a much better January hopefully.

We didn't get lucky. The system looked promising for a band of heavy wet snow on most of the guidance and then things fell apart last minute. I issued a Winter Storm Watch for the Chicago metro and we got a FAB (flurries at best). Thankfully we made up for that debacle with GHD II. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

I figure to be doing the same thing. So many east coast storms to relive. February 12 2006 was a great event, I actually was up in the Adirondacks skiing, and all we had up there was cirrus. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Weather.us has a sweet reanalysis page that they must have recently added. https://weather.us/reanalysis Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

The 12z Euro ensemble trended much colder into the first few days of 2020. Not sure if WxBell images are fair game, but here's the day 10-15 500 mb height anomaly prog.

The ensembles don't look half bad for the end of the month with both the EPS and GEFS in agreement on a -EPO/-PNA alignment. Obviously far enough out/subject to change and no guarantee of a spread the wealth snowy stretch, but reasons to be cautiously optimistic if we can get that look inside 10 days.

Thinking latest RAP/HRRR might be onto something with getting some accums farther north based off radar and observational trends over IA and western into west central IL. Amounts on north fringe might be a bit overdone but could see 1" up to a bit north of I-80 corridor. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

I think because of technological advancement we expect more so we probably remember unusually well modeled systems in the past that were exceptions to the rule and say that it used to be better when in reality NWP is better than ever today. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

There used to be Pacific recon missions for significant systems that may have helped. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

The other problem we face is the ubiquity of the model data everywhere and the 'model-casts' the news stations run. So we put something out with a certain message and then for instance the 00z NAM comes out with a more aggressive solution than our forecast/forecast graphic and we get questions. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

I'm hoping this works out up here. The fact that even the Euro has been very unstable shows it's a tricky forecast. NWP experts would say that RAOB sampling isn't that big a deal for the models but anecdotally in the past several years it seems that better sampling really does help. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Looks mostly dry so if Monday works out we'd probably only gradually melt it and temper the warm-up. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Give the GFS credit for being stubborn on this. I'd be happy to be wrong with my post yesterday trashing the GFS. Definitely a north jump on the 12z EPS for sfc low track vs 06z run, but interestingly the north trend didn't really correspond to beefing up the cold sector QPF. Only about a handful of members approach the more significant QPF/snow amounts this far north like on the GFS. About 20% get the snow swath up into the Chicago metro. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

I haven't noticed it to be a significant issue, maybe with a few events, would have to collect some verification data to know for sure. The Euro was even too wet locally with some of the early season snow systems this year. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

The GFS has been atrocious all cool season. No reason yet to put much stock in it until more modeling supports it with next week's potential system. Today's 12z EPS has less members getting snow up this far north. Just have to hope the blind squirrel finds a nut this time. Another note on GFS/GEFS: the GEFS has always been known to be inferior to the EPS because it has less members and it's too non-dispersive (runs too close to the operational). The "upgraded" GFS and the current iteration of the GEFS aren't even based off the same physics package, since the GEFS hasn't been upgraded to the new GFS physics yet. So that probably makes it more of an apples to pears comparison between the op and the ensemble now. The ECMWF and EPS will certainly have misses (such as what it showed for Saturday just a couple nights ago) because it's still a computer modelling system, but it's by far superior and perhaps the gap has grown despite the large sums of money poured into the GFS.

I'm more interested in the Saturday threat for now. Pretty complex setup but 00z Euro with a nice outcome for parts of northern IL into IA and WI. 06z EPS seems to favor farther north but hopefully some of us could score something, with possibility the next week threat ends up farther east. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk