weatherwiz

Structure and placement of the core anomalies are more important then the anomaly itself. Agreed.

IMO, what makes this potential even more exciting, at least in terms of it being totally legit and not just some long-range fantasy is there is tremendous stratospheric support for such a blocking scenario to arise. There are signals we could see a decent SSW too later in the month. Now SSW's don't always have a correlation to cold/storminess here...there is another side of the hemisphere of course but how everything seems to align really puts us in a great spot...but of course being in a great spot doesn't guarantee winning. The Seahawks were in a great spot against the Pats in the Super Bowl...the Falcons were sitting pretty and we know what happened there

This is a beautiful evolution to watch really. Its like watching the Bruins but at H5

Posing hodos and STP to hype a setup is just as stupid too.

I wish those web developers would cap ridiculous model snow maps at 72-hours. Would be even more perfect to make them disappear all-together but.

Good point...in such patterns the models tend to underestimate the degree of cold dropping south from Canada in the medium-range. Hopefully we can continue to lower heights here but that's going to be one helluva battle between the SE ridge and one monster gradient. Could be a huge focal point for major cyclogenesis too.

Will it be pulling data from weenies basements?

I'm not so sure I totally buy that. I think there are too many factors to consider to say it's better in one period vs. another.

That's going to be another huge key too in order to have an extended period of fun and chances. If we get the initial block and it just sits there and slowly rots...we may still get some fun but we'll be playing with fire and maybe only get a chance or two. If we can get pattern re-loading we could get several-plus chances and this is how we can really cash in and pile up.

The memories of the early 2000's are starting to drift into the sunset as we advance forward in time. But now I remember...it was freshman year of high school and the snow pack was pretty solid. During lunch I'd go outside and just walk around in the snow. Used to go in the areas where it was pilled up due to the snowblowers. I would be all wet the remainder of the day.

Wasn't January 2002 was epic with snows here? Isn't that a top 5 winter for BDL? Or maybe that was 2002-2003

I was somewhat joking but you make a great point and that goes into what I mentioned in a post to Will (or maybe Ray) earlier about just taking a static ensemble image at face-value. In reality you probably also want to assess each individual member as well (but I mean who has time for this). The static ensemble mean is just giving you an averaged-look...which again can look fantastic and all but when you think of our biggest events they don't happen in a stagnant pattern...the pattern is typically evolving and morphing. Now during periods which are highly active, the pattern can be a bit more stagnant (and we have a wave train going on). I guess my point is ultimately its about the pieces and evolution of things during a short-term time scale.

maybe it's because the averaged look yields a great result but the deviations from the average are just crap

I don't care about a super block and would actually prefer not to have one. As long as the blocking is materializing as we're getting shortwaves and cyclogenesis that's better then anything else. Having blocking already in place (especially is too stout) can do bad things.

I'm not well-versed with their tornado climatology, however, my thinking on this is... Typically, in order to get strong/violent tornadoes you need sufficient low-level instability and robust wind shear, both changing of wind speed with height and changing of direction with height). You also need the most intense ingredients to overlap. Of course having a discrete storm mode helps significantly too. when you look at how these weather systems evolve which produce these outbreaks in the south, more times than not the system is beginning to evolve in the southern Plains so Louisiana tends to be on the "earlier side" of system generation and strengthening. given this, it is very difficult to maximize and juxtapose all the ingredients at their peak. This could be totally wrong but that would be my guess.

This is INSANE

I don't disagree with this. But hopefully we get the blocking to be in our favor This is certainly a great checklist. Why I am a bit more skeptical moving into this winter is even last year when we saw some strong ensemble agreement (whether it be some run-to-run consistency or model agreement) we saw some diversions as we got closer. but like Ray said...there is alot in favor for blocking. I'm just worried whether we get the blocking on the wrong side of Greenland and if there is a pronounced SE ridge, despite the blocking we favor more riding here with trough axis too far west.

Moreso we've just been in a similar atmospheric state the past few winters (speaking ENSO here). Certainly other teleconnections may not be similar but we've been stuck in some sort of rotten regime the past few years (well several). We need to get rid of La Nina and give it a good year for the atmosphere to flush it's puke out of the system.

Certainly no argument with that. But I think these past few years there has been way too much emphasis placed on face-value output of the ensembles without taking a step back to fully assess. I mean how many times over the past few years has the medium-range pattern looked great only for the complete opposite to happen at verification time? IMO, when you have these Nina conditions where the global pattern really is quite chaotic with so many moving pieces and so many ridge/trough patterns globally, sure the ensembles will probably pick-up what the pattern will average out too, however, it's going to fail at picking out the short-term variations within those patterns. I think this is why we've seen medium range guidance look great for snow events, but once that time comes its a crappy event b/c the way the pattern is evolving around the storm development its complete crap.

ensembles have not been particularly good either these past few years.

I do but your skin may feel otherwise.

Actually wouldn't be surprised if we saw some LES bands migrate well into portions of SNE tomorrow night.

That is true. Sometimes it’s more about getting pieces to align as opposed to the pattern itself. I think this winter is going to be even more complex than the last few. The global pattern is quite chaotic. I think it’s going to be difficult to put much stock into D7-10+ progs…even if there is model agreement.

Hopefully things pan out. We’ll see…need more than just a “good look”. I’m still waiting for the solid snows from the good look patterns from 2 winters ago.

IMO things are really going to come down to how much flexing of the SE Ridge we see (in terms of strength and positioning). One of the bigger discriminators between warmer La Nina winters and colder La Nina winters is how prevalent the SE ridge is. This obviously as well could have a significant impact on storm track (though not necessarily how active we are in terms of storms). The Pacific does look pretty decent but I kind of wish it was configured a bit differently.