weatherwiz

1 minute ago, WinterWolf said:

Great examples of far from perfect looks.  Don’t always need text book looks to produce very good results. 

Yup…textbook events are very hard to come by. Many weather events, including big events (whether severe or winter) generally aren’t textbook. 

5 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Just give me a damned storm like this....doesn't need to be a fooking Kocin cookbook pattern with perfect ridge placements....this damned ridge was like hundreds of miles offshore the PAC.....we can't buy these kind of systems lately and it has nothing to do with phasing or fast flow....this type of system was fast flow embedded shbortwave. 

 

 

shame there was never any updates to NARR after 2014

I was hoping to pull off 100” but probably going to have to scale that back to 80” given slow January start. 

2 minutes ago, metagraphica said:

Yeah looks like a great weekend....  

meant in reference to forecast models not sensible weather haha

1 minute ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

It will start this season, the second half, and go wild to close out the decade. 

I was kind of hoping we could have gotten a solid 2-3 year stretch of ENSO neutral conditions but this developing La Nina and now signals for an emerging EL Nino are going to run that. But this constant seesaw of ENSO with multiple strong EL Nino events over the last decade is really causing some major atmospheric chaos 

Just now, Ginx snewx said:

Standard response after the last 3 years can't blame you. Next time I read its because of CC I am going to puke. 

As much as I am a believer in CC and its influences on weather and while there may be some influences, I agree that CC is not the ultimate driver behind our crummy luck. Eventually we will get into periods (and a several year stretch) where things work out and we get slammed. This will happen sooner versus later.

I'm ready for climo to deliver. I finally got all shoveled out from all the good looks and each of the climo periods from the last several winters 

5 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Great, pond hockey on my driveway after the next cutter.

Maybe Marco Sturm can transition practices outside and teach the Bruins how to play defense and punish them by making them stand outside in Arctic air at a clip of 30 minutes for each penalty they commit during a game

@40/70 Benchmark getting back to the end of last weeks discussion regarding that fast flow stuff...I retract what I had stated and I will also add that anything blaming fast flow is also voodoo...to a degree

1 minute ago, CoastalWx said:

Buck shot probably related to short wave timing issues, but that doesn’t make me want to vomit for sure.

I just kind of want the weekend to get here. This period is very low probability, but just enough of a probability to keep us a bit into it. We'll either put this to rest this weekend or see a theme where we are inching towards something. 

How Low can you go

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

It's the same roll over we saw last year, and previous years. It blows. And I bet @Typhoon Tiphas theory on why we are seeing it....

Was just going to mention that...how the pattern is structured is about as important than anything and I think stuff like this goes overlooked. People see ridge in the west and trough in the east and assume that is good but that is not necessarily the case. 

3 minutes ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

How can anything in mid January, with most people below normal for snow, be considered pure gravy? IMO, we are wasting peak climo snow season for many currently. 
 

if we have any shot at anything resembling a normal season, we need changes soon, and not just back to cold temps and 1/2” clippers 

gravy in the sense that the signal for anything significant from that is diminishing so if it happens to work out its a bonus. 

1 minute ago, Typhoon Tip said:

the 0Z operation Euro and both 0 and 6Z GFS operational runs abandoned the more distant -EPO we weee discussing - which was always contingent upon the entire technological ens ambit actually not being full of shit. I dunno. Christ 

Figure for their being wrong with all that weight but with doling out of uncertainties seemingly at an all time embarrassment of riches maybe is all a red herring - starting to dream of Feb 8th’s annual solar hole escape date …

Just issue fatigue talking …

Anyway, just thought I’d point out that oddity about the op versions. 

Yup its been wild how drastically we've seen guidance alter within the medium-to-long range...clearly there is still a struggle with fully grasping the PAC. I also wonder if there is some residual feedback from the monster -PDO we had late summer...obviously not going to impact the models but moreso how the PAC is evolving in real time

1 minute ago, ORH_wxman said:

Most guidance seems to have two shortwaves coming down near mid-month that we can sort of follow now....but that can obviously change at this lead time. The second one looks better to me....which would prob be in the 1/15-1/17 time range (timing varies by model guidance and cycle)....the first one looks like it's struggling with wave spacing and also antecedent airmass is poorer. So if we happen to grab anything out of the 1/13-1/14 period, it's pure gravy IMHO. 

I was hopeful for that first wave but I've become a bit less enthused, however, I am hoping that it may somewhat help set the stage for better potential with the second shortwave...there's a quite a bit of energy that will be in play there

7 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Need to get past 1/15 for cold to return....we can sneak in marginal snow before that, but my best guess is the 1/15-1/20 period is one that needs to work out in order to turn the month into a potential AN snowfall month. Don't want to count on the final 10 days to drop double digits. 

The best potential for a larger storm is probably that mid-month period. Beyond mid-month, however, the pattern may become much more active...maybe with SWFE's given we may be battling the SE ridge...which may not be a bad thing given we'll be into peak climo. Not totally sold on the SE ridge becoming as stout as advertised though which would work into our favor. We may not get into deep cold, but we'll have deep cold available nearby so if we can tug a storm track a bit south/east we can easily pull into it

2 minutes ago, ariof said:

Fairbanks usually has cold snaps that last for about a month and then a warmer regime enters (warmer = above zero for highs). They've been below 0 all but one day since Dec 5, and below -10 most of that time (with several days with highs below -40 and lows to -50, but that's in the cold sink there). -19 anomaly for Dec. When it has warmed up it's snowed; 24" in Dec (avg 10"), just deep, deep winter there, at least another week to come.

Anchorage was only 6° BN in Dec and dry, only 5" vs 18" normal. But they just pulled down 19" this week and are running-17 this month, with more to come snow- and cold-wise.

And then Juneau: -12° anomaly in December with 82" of snow vs 18" normal. Normal amount of liquid (6.5") just it usually falls as liquid mostly. Second-snowiest month on record. And they're about to get a lot of rain on top of it. Eaglecrest might be above the snow line, should have great skiing. $57 per day if you buy a 10-ride pass.

I'll say...I have zero clue how anyone forecasts in Anchorage or Alaska in general  

Anchorage is an insane market and often times can get screwed in the snowfall department because they get downsloped but they can also get wind winds because the winds can funnel. The airport can get like 3" of snow and a few miles away they're pulling off 20". But there are times anchorage can get absolutely dumped on too.  

Just now, wx2fish said:

Chilly run. Potential there down in N ORH Co too

Yeah and its definitely gaining more weight. Still a bit off from anything to really worry about in terms of say power outages but untreated surfaces will become icy for sure

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I honestly thought we would have done better for snowfall in December...man it was colder and LESS snowy than I thought.

Figures-

I still think your December call was pretty damn good. I know your upset about the snowfall aspect, but if you look at the region as a whole, it wasn't *terrible*. This December is a big reason why I am not a fan of doing snowfall total predictions because there are too many wildcards that aren't necessarily related to the pattern but more dependent on small scale processes during system evolution. 

When you look at the systems which gave us the snows in Decembers...those aren't systems which are conducive to widespread, uniform accumulations, it was more contingent on how each system evolved. While different scales, it's like dealing with convection during the summer. We can have an active pattern for showers and thunderstorms but at the end of the day some areas may come out of it with hardly anything while some areas got slammed. 

2z NAM looks like it may be icier for up north Saturday...also seems like the timing has slowed down a bit too.

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I would need to look at the phases with respect to seasonal intervals, but that may also have to do with why we couldn't buy a storm...usually stormy patterns for AK aren't so great here. The fact that it was early in the season may have allowed for colder conditions out here relative if it had occurred mid/late winter, too....wave lengths and MJO correlations change at different junctures of the season. Again, just a thought...won't look in depth at this until May for the postseason write up.

It's a thought I've had too. I have to do some stuff for Anchorage so I'm always paying attention and after like the first week of December they've been largely below average and temperatures and its been active at times into western Alaska. I've said to myself several times man...this look for Alaska doesn't totally bode well for us. Just wish I've been able to really divulge deeper into everything, particularly the state of the PAC.

Just now, 40/70 Benchmark said:

All of the good skiing is in AK.

Certainly no lack of winter there. Anchorage has been in the ice bowl this week...some pretty decent cold for them given their proximity to the water. 

At least we aren't the west...mountain areas going to be getting nada after today/tomorrow for the next few weeks. 

2 minutes ago, SouthCoastMA said:

Hey, I would take a Kyle Schwarber pattern in a second after this Pokey Reese stretch we've been in. I'd rather roll the dice with some higher end storms vs cold/dry - C-2", cutter, rinse wash repeat. 

yup...sometimes you just need to swing to the fences 

1 minute ago, SouthCoastMA said:

The GFS OP likes the followup wave on the 16th, though super progressive. Hopefully models start to look more interesting..otherwise January gonna be a long and cold slog. 

Given how I think the upcoming pattern is all about phasing potential, we're likely going to see some wild swings within OP solutions. What we want to continue seeing is either northern stream energy continuing to amplify or timing of northern/southern stream to be enough to yield potential for a phase as we get closer. Usually in these patterns or setups I don't focus too much on SLP output because whether a storm is shown is dependent on the phase. It's definitely an intriguing look but as Scott said it isn't perfect so its best to go through with caution.