Ralph Wiggum

My parents talk about Christmas 66 quite alot. My mom said 'Santa' forgot an important part of one of my older brother's gifts and she sent my dad out in the blizzard on Christmas Eve to get it at the store. He got stuck a block from the house, abandoned the car, walked to the store which wasnt exactly close, and walked all the way home in the storm. 'Santa' came thru! To this day my dad still laughs while busting her chops about sending him out in that wild weather.

Looks like you jumped at the right time. I'm giving it until Feb 10. If nothing on the horizon I'm out.

Feels like winter for a day anyway. 21F and has that gray sky wintry vibe.

And that seems realistic. Antecedent temps and +anomalous 2m/850s preceding the storm generally dont bode well for the lower elevations. The banana high looks nice but this doesnt look like a SECS for the i95 cities (maybe BOS) at this time.

Intermittent precip/lull between the WAA band and the batch trailing behind. Farther North the shorter the lull. In the SE part of the state...c-2" snow then a .25-.5" sleet a little less extreme SE counties. Just enough to make travel slick.

Fascinating. Which area is getting a foot of snow next week?

Dont need no stinking computer generated map to tell me this is some serious HP settling in. It is cold, breeze out of the N, and the sky has that classic deep blue look to it with nary a cloud in sight. Radiational cooling tonight and the stage is set for tomorrow. Doubt it will be the last frozen of the season but certainly the biggest so far. Savor it like we wont see it again until next season.

GFS op uneventful. Even tho the pattern changes the mean storm track continues taking LP West of us towards the GL and redeveloping too late. I dont think outside of this weekend I saw a flake on this run. My discussion with PSU yesterday was exactly this....the pattern may have changed but the background state/ mean strom track or whatever you like to call it remains. Storms are either developing off the SE coast and headed ENE or are tracking west of us into the GL. I wish I could say I saw an end to it, but there isnt any sugarcoating this. Storm track persistence is one tough sob to try and snap. Usually takes a large scale event/storm to reshuffle the deck. Honestly, and I posted this in the Philly sub, I would love to see a full blown raging Nino or a Nina to completely reset things.

Wiggum Rule strikes again....flakes were flying throughout SE PA tonight with a few spots picking up light accums. GFS/Euro say we could make another run at 60 next weekend.

Double doink

Calling it now.....The Great VD Storm of 2020! (VD=Valentine's Day not to be confused with Venereal Disease)

I think collectively we can do this if we will it to happen. Next year our goal will be 0" then 21-22 the sky is the limit. Seriously tho we need a strong old fashioned raging Nino to reshuffle the deck.

Euro, EpS, and DT just cancelled winter

The Phillies had a guy named Ryan Howard. He took lots of swings. Too many. He led the league in K's and set numerous strikeout records. After a while taking swings gets old and you need a homerun. He led the league in homeruns several years prior but never got the magic back. Is that where we are headed irt snow?

Guess DT is cancelling winter.

Day 9 torch? Probably, I could see that happening.

But but at least it snowed.

The silence from Bob Chill is telling/deafening.

Sounds good. What area?

But the pattern concesus no matter what nor how the tellies shift around to change the overall hemispheric look there is almost zero tendency neither this season or last to progress into something that provides meaningful widespread snows. I know parts of this sub had a fluke event 10 days ago but these small windows in between tellie shifts are the only ways we score and even then I would say of the 5 or 6 times the key features transition only 20% of those windows are producing. One of these seasons it will reverse and.the atmosphere will do no wrong. It is just proof again it is so damn hard to get a pattern that produces for more than one of our subs in a particular event.

I am really dreading the next 10 days tbh. Some are saying but this time is different but the same recurring themes keep surfacing. So whether a longwave in china is different or a blob of HP over N Canada, the truth is the apparent real weather patterns at the surface are repeating ie storm cuts to GL and secondary redevelops a hair too late, a storm is too far off the coast, a storm slides right over us, or we have a good track in between cold shots and mix or rain. I dont see this changing...unless there is a hemispheric reshuffle of the overall background state tellies or we somehow fluke into something late in the season as everything gets convoluted during seasonal transition and HL actually appears in some form besides progressive/transient.

It's the see-saw ens pattern we've seen since mid Dec. I have no clue what is causing it but we go 2 days of great looks then swing towards a degrading look then back again in 2 days. And at the end of the day the better looks and 'productive' storm chances are still 10 days+ out.

Dont use the GFS op for forecasting LR teleconnections would be the best advice anyone can offer.

Where is your winter LR forecast posted that is on cue as you said? You might be the only forecaster to have nailed it outside of Tom. Would love to give you credit where credit is due. Is the 6-12" this weekend part one of the MLK weekend back to back storms you forecasted?

This day 10 threat is closely resembling the system for this weekend at roughly the same lead time. Guidance showed ridging moving across S Central Canada with an ULL moving underneath. The ridging kept looking stronger for a bit and I remember posting how the surface low couldnt cut. Same setup day 10 now. Someone will assuredly reply how this setup is different and it is contingent on the 50/50 and the ridging I mentioned and that a minor adjustment puts us all in the game. And while I agree, there is the argument that a minor adjustment the other way can take us right out of the game too. In any event, the storm track and base pattern will be the same here as others recently. We've seen this before where the next one looks better, the one after that looks better. Not trying to deb just making my case why I think the long lead system is going to end up not working as we would like. Recent history and very similar setups say primary moves near the GL and secondary develops just a smidge too late. Timing and placement of key features are just a hair off this season for whatever reason. I hope we trend differently but I cant go against what we've seen already.....maybe this can somehow buck the trend and be "the one". Things look ok now on the ens but again, to have this hold or improve over 10 days this season is a tall order.