weatherwiz

I feel bad for those waiting last second to ship out their holiday gifts Express later this week.

This is some nuts cold out there. Memphis goes from like 50 mid Thursday afternoon to the single digits during the evening. That's pretty ridiculous. Even some of the previous Arctic blasts for them the last few years didn't see a drop as drastic as that. Wind chills there are going to be horrific.

Even if we flip to a weak EL Nino next fall, due to the ocean-atmosphere lag it's still probably going to take quite a while for the atmosphere to respond accordingly. So the oceanic state could reflect that of a [weak] Nino, however, the atmosphere could still be more Nina-like. Now that doesn't mean anything bad, it's just for awareness purposes. The atmosphere doesn't respond to oceanic changes right away.

Yeah there are certainly some lose definitions of what is meant by produce. Like even though we're getting screwed beyond belief here, the pattern still technically (is) going to produce a significant and high-impact storm (its just in the form of rain, flash flooding, high wind, and coastal flooding) as opposed to getting buried in snow tickling blizzard criteria.

As a huge fan of research and interest in long-range forecasting, there needs to be more studying and analyzing patterns as a whole. When it comes to research, whether it be with severe weather or winter storms, etc. there is a focus to just look at the events which produced. Not to say this is a bad thing. It's what needs to be done to understand these systems and help with forecast awareness, but when you're ONLY looking at what produced in the outcome you're missing a whole lot else. How many times do these "good patterns" really produce? Is it 70% of the time? 50% of the time? 5% of the time? I mean in reality, if the percent probability is very low, can it really be characterized as "good"? But this is also why a pattern only means so much, at the end of the day it's how the pieces are moving, evolve, and interact within the pattern that are going to determine the outcome. And you can have the same pattern 50 times, how these move, evolve, and interact, are going to happen 50 different way.

I think we had some discussions about this too in the ENSO thread (or one of these threads). Even though some other atmospheric teleconnections and structures are different, the roots are still there. We just can't shake the theme of trough axis in the southern Plains region. what I want to do when I have some more time is use the daily composite plots and create gifs of 30-45 day periods centered around these Arctic intrusion periods each of the past 3 years and try to identify the leading cause. My guess is probably riding in the Atlantic...when we get the deep troughs digging in the ridge in the Atlantic just builds north and the pattern just buckles and we get porked like a pig on the roaster.

My fear is the atmosphere has been in a predominately La Nina state for so long that it probably will take like a year-plus to get rid of it's effect

This while week has been absolutely deflating...well really the last 10-days. We need an atmospheric throw up because its been the same garbage the past 3-years. We see these "favorable East Coast" patterns pop-up in the long-range only for cyclogenesis to end up happening several hundred miles farther West. it's absolutely insane. Each of the past 3 winters now have seen the same thing happen with these powerful Arctic front intrusions...the trough axis ends up being way too far west. The shift with this from mid-to-late week and the end of the weekend was ridiculous. At least there is actually the potential for some strong-to-severe thunderstorms Friday now

oh...no this isn't a game used jersey. It's just authentic (what you could buy in the team store. It's just I got it for well over $100 less then what it would cost in the store).

the team store? probably lots. or where I got it? I bought it from someone selling it on ebay.

I guess part me of is happy we didn't get slammed with snow here. A friend of mine directed me to someone who was selling a store authentic Charlie Mcavoy jersey. I could have either participated in bidding or buy it outright for $120. Considering they go for $250+ in the store I bought outright. Hoping to get it today and the snow would have negated that.

wow that's nuts!

Cold air really held strong in the Valley's. Really sucks how the storm evolution played out. We were not far off from a pounding.

Flakes!!! distinct flakes now!!! Still a mix but getting towards the big fatties stage. Woohoooo

It's becoming more snow...I think, unless my eyes are playing tricks. Come on change...please change. Still mostly rain though b/c I can see the pavement being pelted with rain.

Heavier rates now and definitely getting snow mixing in...but its fake flakes b/c they're legit almost fully melted. I bet if I climbed the giant pine tree in the back it would be snow at the top of it.

Up in Litchfield County...I think they have elevation too there.

I think it's now trying to flip to snow here!!!!! Thank you CEF obs!!!

CEF is 34 reporting a rain/snow mix. Nothing but anger provoking rain drops here. The kind that disguise themselves as fine little snow grains but you go outside and its fooking liquid rain.

can I count big raindrops as fatties

I really want to close my curtains. It's depressing looking outside seeing RAIN falling. Actually the stupid weather thing at the bottom of my computer says HEAVY SLEET...torture. It's a stupid, downpour of cold rain. I'd rather just lay down in a parking lot next to a parking garage and have drunk people piss on me.

Friend of mine got about 1/8th of an inch of ice in Northfield

In Litchfield COunty from the 18z NAM.

Can also switch over to mesoanalysis. Two things to watch for a big thump tonight 1) Strong llvl WAA 2) Strong frontogenesis right on the leading edge:

No problem, just my quick assessment. I'm leaning towards a flip back over to snow during the very late afternoon or early evening there. It will be super interesting there, especially since the depth of the warmer layer is quite shallow.