weatherwiz

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The upcoming period is going to come down to timing. If we can get timing to work out with shortwaves amplifying it will be fun, otherwise its going to be boring and dry. We're essentially in Kyle Schwarber mode now...either going to be hitting HR's or striking out immensely. He should be doing that for the Red Sox for the next 5-6 years

We are about 10 weeks from 60's, 12 weeks from 70's, 15 weeks from 80's, and about 18 weeks from getting some severe weather threats

doesn't work :/ edit: working now!

One wild card is going to be how quickly temperatures can drop though Friday night...it's going to be quite mild Friday. Wet bulb temperatures may not get much below freezing so even within the interior it may end up with alot of 33-34's. Might just be very localized areas but its something to watch

Yeah there is an increasing signal for icing across the interior this weekend. Going to be difficult to lift the sfc warm front north with flow becoming parallel to the front and you can see sfc winds even becoming more ENE across the interior

That's awesome! I so wish I had a mind for that stuff haha

It's so time consuming, particularly the way I do it lol. This is where being able to write code and know Python would be massive...as long as you are able to obtain the source data you would be able to create whatever you wanted and how you wanted and save a ton of time because once you have a script written you can just re-run to get updated data. Maybe MATLAB would be better for something like this though versus Python but Python has become so powerful now

Yeah I have noticed you do that, which is great. Obviously it is a major PITA to really do which sucks. Like I've always said, I wish I was skilled enough to take the daily values provided by the CPC for NAO, AO, PNA and create a rolling bi-weekly index. I'm sure this could easily be done in like Excel but it's not as easy as just taking the daily values, adding, and doing an average. There's way more to it...like if you take the daily values for a particular month and divide by the number of days...the value won't match what the monthly index value is.

This. I think when it comes to creating composites, focusing on weekly or biweekly intervals versus just a monthly averaged plot would end up yielding a more accurate assessment and I think it would really help to add clarity when you're dealing with transient patterns and the transition periods.