weatherwiz

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Maybe some 40 OZs and Hanna Montanna skibbies in your future.

Perhaps its not a coincidence winters went downhill since I gave up both 

Just now, brooklynwx99 said:

larger storms almost invariably occur when the block finishes retrograding and rots... here is a loop of the preloading pattern for NYC's largest storms. some of these likely apply to SNE as well, so it's applicable

notice how that Pacific trough remains almost the entire time. the PNA is pretty ephemeral and it develops as the block decays

Gotcha...thanks! I had that reversed. 

And you can see the potential that lies with the upcoming look. Obviously whether or not we can get all the moving pieces to time together is another story, but this is why you focus on pattern first then divulge into details once you get within range.  

I love the consistency regarding the blocking; both in terms of evolution and placement. I'd be hard pressed to believe there will not be multiple threats over the course of a few weeks. I know there has been a debate as how long this look holds, but I can see it hanging on the longer side. I don't mind the weakening block look b/c as long as the hemispheric configuration remains undisturbed, I could see the block regaining some strength and this would offer another period of potential...maybe even greater potential (for a larger event).

Just now, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

We’ve been using it since TWC days. 

what I mean is it is getting tossed around and used too much. An OP run 12 days out showing a storm tracking well south doesn't necessarily mean or equate to suppression. 

Suppression is quickly becoming another overused term

44 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

It’s inherently tough to “blame” things on multiple causes. Our brains aren’t really wired that way…we want to have a quick and easy one-stop-shop explanation. That’s why you get so many people who bristle anytime you try and assign multiple causes for a weather event or season. As someone who has looked at so much climate data since I started studying this stuff over 2 decades ago, I was already aware of the large swings we see in the past so when we get them in the present, I don’t feel the need to pretend it’s a new phenomenon. It’s easier to break warm records now and harder to break cold records due to CC. Aside from that, I’m usually hesitant to put too much attribution on CC for other weather phenomenon since those are much messier datasets and you lose the robustness of the relationship. This is particularly true for snowfall in New England.
 

Even temps are a bit messy…they increase long term but we see large temporal and spacial variations (I always tell people to look at the 2-3 decade trend in the N plains/Rockies)…sometimes natural variation is working in the same direction as CC and sometimes it is not. 

Well said, this is an excellent post! Couldn't agree any more with this.

2 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

And yes, there was a pretty awful stretch of snowfall between 1930-1955 at ORH. It covers both sites, but even if you bumped up the totals slightly from the old site prior to 1947, you’d still have low totals in the 1930s and 40s. 

It's fun doing this stuff. When you look at the data, especially if you graph it, you can easily see we go through stretches of horrible periods and periods where we get nailed. While I think most understand that, what drives me nuts is how some blame the lull now on AGW. Now, I am a believer that human activity is escalating climate change, but I'm not going to blame every anomalous weather event and what not on AGW. 

@ORH_wxman Has snowfall for ORH been measured at the same location since records began or did the location change at some point?

I've gone through and compiled a list of seasons below the 10th percentile and above the 90th for the major climo locations and for ORH I found it super interesting that since the 1950's any anomalous season is likely to be in the top percentile vs. the lowest. The first 50 years on record any anomalous season was virtually on the lower side

And for those wondering, there is a reason why I am doing this. I've never dabbled much into the historical snowfall climatology but now that I am getting back into seasonal forecasting, it's important I better understand the climatology and I like playing around with data in different ways. 

1 minute ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Hard to say what's going on in any/all guidance actually...

There are arguments for and against any given solution, just about split evenly - making it difficult to associate a "correction vector" 

The problem with a strong change in the PNA mode is that a +PNA can support both a Lakes cut and a coastal proper scenario(s).   It comes down to particulars with the whether the PNA is west or easterly biased... We've seen +PNAs with storms too far S-E too. 

 

 

One thing on my list to do this spring/summer is a more extensive study into the PNA and the entire domain. But I also want to go back and look at some of the other teleconnection/oscillation patterns which are measured out that way and out over Europe/Asia. I used to have a massive list but can't find it. 

5 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Euro goes from extremely suppressed to cutter in 12 hrs for early next week. Back to the glue factory.

maybe we can muster up a severe threat

5 minutes ago, jbenedet said:

Not really. By feb, 35 and full sun is like 45 real feel; can even feel closer to 50 in city scapes, if wind is completely calm. 
 

Also does a lot to brighten things up—lower absolute humidity levels in winter and no vegetation maximize ISR in the biosphere, right at the surface. 

What I do love in the winter, especially now is my office room at home has east facing windows, and with the neighbor cutting down the two pine trees last year I get ample sunshine blasting in the room so it can be like 20 out and as long as it is sunny I get toasty. 

15 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

What sucks up here in SNE, is that even when the snow threats disappear by the end of March(for the most part), we still have like a good 6 weeks(sometimes more) of mostly crap weather here.  Oh sure, we’ll get a few days of 65-75 here and there, but it never lasts long(except spring of 12), then we’re back to destructive sunshine and 45-53 degrees, with showers and damp and cold, with BD’s killing us. 
 

So I get the sentiment of if it’s not going to snow…then let’s just look for nicer weather and end winter now. But even if that happened, we’re not heading into a particularly nice stretch of weather for our area of the country, when winter does end.  So wishing it over, and looking for sustainable nice mild weather is far away for us here in early February. 

This sounds weird to say but I would almost rather have 30-35 and sunny over 45-50 and clouds. 

Obviously winter is fun because of snow and potential threats. Tracking a real threat for multiple days is probably one of the most fun things in the world. But other than that, it can be really depressing here. Warm season is just so short. Sure we can get some very warm days in March and April but yup...we don't really do sustained warmth that early. Sometimes we have to wait until like the second half of June for sustained warmth and by then it's really just two months of it and by then we've already peaked in terms of sunset. 

I know it's just cyclical and we're in a horrific cycle for snowfall right now but hopefully one of these upcoming winters that tide will change. The <5:00 sunsets and close to 7 AM sunrises and chilly/dry/cloudy weather freaking sucks. Its much more enjoyable when snow comes with it.

Just now, 8611Blizz said:

When is our time?

We've made it out of the qualifying rounds. Our gold medal period is right around the corner. All we gotta do is go out there and take it. 

3 minutes ago, qg_omega said:

Insightful Wiz 

It's a very inspirational speech...has me craving hockey and snow right now. Unfortunately can get neither right now.

You can have an entire week or two or whatever period average above for temperatures...you could easily get a day or two of below-average which coincides with a storm and snow. 

Like Herb Brooks said, "One game. If we played them 10 times they might win 9. But not this game. Not tonight." 

We could have above average temperatures 9 out of 10 days and still come out of that stretch with a big snow event. It just takes that one day. 

1 minute ago, brooklynwx99 said:

he is right. this is indeed a nice pattern change 

Just for haha's I'm super tempted to dig a bit deeper and look at the 384 hour data. I'd be willing to be that after assessing everything, the result would be a look which would be more likely to favor below-average temperatures vs. above-average. 

When I saw you posted in here I knew it was going to be something reflecting warmer temperature anomalies. And 384-hr 850 temperature anomalies...and using a static hour to signify a pattern change   

I get how some are concerned with suppression but I just don't see suppression being a large concern. Too me it seems like pattern during the favorable period would favor potential for cyclogenesis anywhere from just off the Delmarva to mid-Atlantic coasts. Doesn't necessarily mean we get crushed as storm track could still be slightly out-to-sea but not sure I would qualify that as suppression. 

I think we made it 2 pages without a snow map. Must be a record 

Maybe we should just stop posting snow maps altogether. Nothing but a waste of bandwidth and space. 

Just now, powderfreak said:

31F.  Normal is 3F.  Very low diurnal spreads lately.

+28 is absurd. 

Yeah the diurnal spreads have been quite low. MOS/NBM also sucked for a few days this week with low temperature forecasts...there were a few days mins ended up like 5-7F above guidance. 

2 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Last night we were +28 on the minimum and the day was only +10.  Mean temp once again near freezing with no snowmelt despite a +19 daily departure.

What a wild pattern.  Like the highest possible departures you can get while still being able to keep water frozen for the most part.

what was your low?

3 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

Weeklies show a beautiful pattern continuing into mid March. 

Praying it's right 

Of your 69K posts on here I'd have to wager about 65K of them revolve around the bolded sentence

3 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

thought you might find this interesting. NAM shows full coupling of the strat and tropo mid-month associated with a final significant warming, which would provide a more stable blocking pattern 

This is what we need. Mid-January I was so busy I didn't get a chance to divulge into this, but was there coupling last month when we had some blocking? I was expecting we would see coupling at some point this winter, though I thought it might be sooner.