John1122

To find hope, go back to 2015/16. December was very warm, unendingly so it seemed. We had two severe weather threads in December. Our first winter storm threat wasn't until mid-January and it fizzled at the last minute. Then winter unleashed over the next 30 or so days.

Unfortunately that's 2020, and that February was quite bleak.

Turned into a monster winter storm for the deep south. Looks 2018ish.

GFS is cooking something up inside d10 now. This trough is heading in at D9 and west coast ridging is popping. That low is spreading winter weather across Texas.

0z EPS wasn't bad. Cold arrives as we approach hr 300, potential overrunning set up unfolding around then. Most of the country outside Florida was BN as deep cold from the west pressed towards us. Hopefully it continues to progress in time. There also seems to be some debate on where the MJO has been. The CPC has had it in 7 for a while now. The Australians have had it in 6 and it seems to have barely crossed into 7 the last couple of days. The weather is definitely more reflective of 6.

We've had two really warm overall days. I've still managed 25 or below for the low 11 days this month with one more day at 29. Had two days with 50 for the low and another with 48. Two days of +18 and one +16. Overall +5 for the month. December 1984 was +9. It's maybe the warmest December of my lifetime here that I recall.

Around here not being too cold and not snowing is seasonal. Those days are generally out of the ordinary here. Especially at lower elevations where most people live. Down here we have to hope for the exceptions to go our way. It's been cloudy and 40s/20s today and yesterday was a bit cooler than today. Those are seasonal for here.

Not had time to look, but a ridge SE of the Aleutians, closer to the Gulf of Alaska is Nina climo vs one hanging out in the Central and Western Aleutians.

December 1984 (there have been multiple happenings this late fall and early winter that have lined up with 1984/85) was as unrelenting a torch as we've seen in December. It continued into early January too. New Years Day came in around 70 degrees across the area. There were 15 days of +15 or more days between December 10th and early January with only 1 day BN in a 3+ week stretch. When the pattern flipped, it flipped hard and we know what happened after. As I said a few weeks go, if the cold is still weeks away by mid January I'll feel less good, but still note we've seen severe cold and winter weather outbreaks arrive in February.

One positive, BAMWx is almost universally incorrect in long range forecasting. I'll be stunned if it doesn't get cold and snow at some point. My worst winter ever is around 5 inches of snow. The first day of winter is waaaaaaaaaaaay too early to cancel winter.

Webber was posting yesterday that to look for any movement in the Aleutian Ridge to see winter unleashed. He said it didn't even matter which direction it moved, as long as it did it would change the longwave pattern and send cold East.

These are the MJO phase posts I've been talking about. I misremembered about phase 8, it's the coldest at low amplitude per GAWX. 7 isn't bad though. According to Larry(GAWX) over a 40 year period in January in Atlanta while he's been a weather observer. He said 7-8 low amp are his favorite for winter temps in the Southeast but that 1-2 were also good. The graphic is Webber's NC snow event chart by phase/ENSO. The drivers can be much different for the other side of the Apps, but cold often arrives here before there. Occasionally they can get CAD when we have cold rain.

Modeling run to run beyond D8 is rarely stable, I'm surprised it's not been more volatile to be honest. Small things have big consequences down the road that far so it's not shocking at all to see them moving around a lot. Yes, phase 7 low amp was -4 in Atlanta. 8-2 were something like -1 or -2. In low amp, around the COD, even 6 was BN.

If you look at the GAWX post, it's all about the amplitude. Lower in Phase 7 was the coldest in January of all MJO phases for Atlanta. They normally get cold via the same way we do except for very extreme CAD.

As I expected a week ago, the GFS was trying to bring the pattern change too quickly and the Euro, with basically no pattern change at all on the Weeklies was delaying too much. As of now, the extended ensembles on all modeling has a potent, well placed NAO, a good Pacific set up, and very cold air on tap for our side of the world. Lots of BN heights across the lower 48 with reds where we want them. As Carvers mentioned, we don't often have that many things going correctly. Some of the times we had a cooperative Atlantic, and Pacific in a La Nina was 1995-96, and 1984-1985. We are definitely having a torchy December ala 1984.

Webb noted the EPS is struggling with the -NAO still. It's very hard to have that and a SE Ridge. The best thing about right now, is that winter hasn't really started for any of us yet. We can get snow in December but it's much less common than the months to come. We are still a solid month away from the beginning of prime snow/cold climatology for the area. If we are at January 10th, have received nothing and still hoping for a SSW or some kind of blocking to actually happen we might be in trouble, but even then we've had later winters that turned severe. I believe the aforementioned 2015 had a cold shot around New Years then warmed for a long stretch before mid February brought about 2 weeks of the most brutal winter conditions many of us had experienced since the mid 1990s.

Curious to see if the weeklies have changed. Saw some tweets earlier that they are performing horribly so far this fall and early winter, having completely missed several troughs/cold shots. Carvers has noted they struggle as the seasons change. Will have to see if they stabilize at some point and start actually coming close.

GFS was awesome that run. The Rex Block Jax mentioned is there over Alaska. Banter really, but heading into Christmas eve.

The CFS is crazy cold for January. We'd be rocking some 1970s winter if it was right.

Leaves have been gone here a couple of weeks but the rain was nice to get them good and soaked again. After being massively above normal through July, we finally had some BN rainfall months lately. Nothing severe here but some of the loudest thunder in a while. Must have had a really close cloud to ground strike.

With the still falling QBO, the pattern we've experience in the past when it was below -20 in winter months, the correlation between that and BN winters during Ninas, the cold November to winter correlation and the fact that our source region looks to be very cold, I think we flip cold at some point for an extended time. However, we have also seen a lot of climo that behaves the opposite of normal lately, so I'm certainly not confident.

This is why op runs will keep bouncing around the next few days, likely from one extreme to the other. Seems like that is often a precursor to a major pattern change, which the GFS at times seems to rush and the Euro at times seems to delay.

Also wanted to add, I know we have a few posters that are very near the track area. I hope you guys and your family are okay.

Investigation by the NWS to see if the huge tornado super cell was one continuous track or if it lifted at times and respawned new ones. If it's one tornado it will remove the tri-state tornado from the record books as longest single track on record.

Looked like the 06z had a storm like Carvers mentioned, a low pops on an Arctic front and moves up through the Piermont and there's a statewide snow event to ring in the first day of winter.