bluewave

The record breaking Northern Stream of the Pacific Jet continues to be a big story.

Yeah, numerous spots out West and in the Plains are over +10 so far. This was a pretty big miss from the model forecasts issued around Christmas. Models have really been underestimating the ridge from the West into the Plains this winter beyond 7 days out. EPS forecasts from 12-25-25 Dec 29 to January 5th Jan 5 to 12

It will be interesting to see if we can finally drop a trough into the West around 10 days out. The record ridge through the first half of the winter is one of the reasons that a large portion of the nation has been so dry. Generally with La Ninas the Western trough is most prominent during February. But who knows this year for sure with how dominant this dry ridge has been. New run Old run Some possible improvement in dry pattern late January?

My guess is that we will need at least one KU benchmark snowstorm of 12”+ in a wide enough area before the season is done for most of the major sites of EWR,NYC, LGA,JFK, and ISP to reach 25”+ on the season. But we are still getting no indication of a benchmark coastal snowstorm track in the near term. We haven’t had any seasons reach 25”+ since 1995-1996 without at least one 12”+ snowstorm. Since our snowy patterns since the mid 90s haven’t lasted long enough for a series of small to moderate events to get us to the 25”+ mark. So we needed to maximize our active snowy periods before we shifted out of the snowy intervals. But even if we do eventually get one 12”+ event, it’s not a guarantee that the 5 major sites will all reach 25”. This is what happened back in 2022 with the KU events favoring eastern sections like ISP and not EWR. During this record strong Northern Stream of the Pacific Jet era since 2018-2019, there have only been 4 snowstorms near the 40/70 benchmark with a least one spot in the OKX Zones reaching 12”+. This is why we are at 7 year record low for snowfall across the area. Our last benchmark KU was at the end of January 2022. From 2010 to 2018 there were 27 snowstorms closer to the benchmark with relatively good coverage of 12”+ across multiple sites often with numerous counties involved. The tracks which were west of the benchmark favored interior zones. Tracks near or to the east of the benchmark favored the coastal zones. Widespread 12”+ snowstorms since 2009-2010 with the maximum snowfall total in the OKX Zones. 2022 Jan 28-29….Islip….24.7 2021 Jan 31-Feb 2....Blomingdale, NJ.....26.1 2020 Dec 16-17 East Tremont, NY....12.4 2019 Mar 3-4...Monroe, CT....12.0 2018 Nov 15....Mount Hope, NY.......18.3 Mar 21-22...Patchogue, NY......20.1 Mar 13...Southampton,NY.....18.3 Mar 8....New Farfield, CT..........26.8 Mar 2...Monroe, NY.................14.0 Jan 4...Islip, NY.......................15.8 2017 Mar 14...Montgomery, NY.......23.5 Feb 9...Selden, NY...................16.0 Jan 7...Orient, NY....................12.5 2016 Feb 5...Setauket, NY................12.0 Jan 23..JFK,NY.........................30.5 2015 Feb 2..New Faifield, CT............12.0 Jan 26-27....Orient,NY.............28.5 2014 Feb 13-14...Roselle, NJ............16.7 Jan 21-22....Centerreach,NY....14.0 Jan 2-3......Lindenhurst, NY.....12.5 2013 Mar 8....Harriman,NY..............15.0 Feb 8....Upton, NY..................30.9 2012 Nov 7-8.....Monroe, CT..........13.5 Jan 21......North Haven, CT....12.0 2011 Oct 29.....Harriman, NY.........16.0 Jan 26-27...NYC................... 19.0 Jan 11-12.......Meriden, CT....29.0 2010 Feb 25-26...Mount Hope, NY...27.5 Dec 26........Elizabeth, NJ........31.8 Feb. 10.....Sound Beach, NY....16.2 2009 Dec 19-20....Upton, NY..........26.3

Looks like a continuation of the milder and dry pattern through the next week. EPS January 12 to 19 forecast

One evening back in the 1990s I stopped into the old Tower Records in Carle Place up near Roosevelt Field. There was a guy behind a few tables signing some books that he had written. Wasn’t really much of a crowd and it didn’t look like they promoted the event very well. I walked over to the tables and I couldn’t believe that it was Mickey Hart. Only around a dozen people were there and others were shopping in the record section and not taking notice. He was very down to earth and just a casually talking with people who he was signing books for. It’s funny since every time those guys placed the Nassau Coliseum there was a whole community of campers in the parking lot with festivities following them around the country. A friend of mine from my college days spent nearly a year following them around the country. If the book event was promoted better, there probably would have been a line around the block to get in.

I got a look at all the EPS members and under 20 show some type of Norlun. But the locations are pretty variable. So the mean is an average of many more members which don’t really show a focused Norlun signal.

The OP Euro is trying to show a Norlun trough which seldom works out for our area. The EPS means don’t show it. But it’s always possible a narrowly focused Norlun develops somewhere between ACY and Boston with the UL. It would probably be a nowcasters special for the short term higher res models since they are never well forecast much in advance.

The GFS upgrade back in 2019 caused it to incorrectly forecast KU snowstorms at times when there was no other model support. This problem still hasn’t been addressed since it may just be an inherent model bias. We are coming up on the 1st anniversary of its 964mb benchmark blizzard that never occurred last January 12th which the Euro forecast correctly showed was a GFS model error. https://www.wired.com/story/the-governments-new-weather-model-faces-a-storm-of-protest/ For the past few weeks, the National Weather Service has been forecasting snowfall that ends up disappearing, according to Doug Kammerer, chief meteorologist at WRC-TV in Washington, DC. “It’s just not performing well,” Kammerer says. “It has continued to show us getting big-time snowstorms in this area, where the European model will not show it.”

The best snow cover extent relative to the means so far this winter was back in late November and early December prior to the big warm up for much of the CONUS outside the Northeast and Great Lakes.

That was the most accurate 168 hr Euro control run of all time. https://www.weather.gov/okx/Blizzard_Jan42018

This is why you have to use the ensemble means which never really showed a big snowstorm threat here. What happens in the age of social media is that someone takes a random outlier model run and uses it to justify that there is going to be a big disruptive snowstorm. I like a big snowstorm as much as anyone. So it’s very disappointing to turn on YouTube and see multiple videos with over the top big snowstorm titles when the ensemble means have much less dramatic solutions. Part of this is conditioning from the 2010 to 2018 era when it seems like every time we had a ridge out West and a trough in the East there was a major East Coast KU snowstorm. But that era was defined by a weaker Northern Stream of the Pacific Jet that allowed the Southern Stream to take the lead. So jet stream dynamics have changed since 2018-2019 making it harder to get big snowstorms over 12” for at least some portion of the area.

Very difficult to pull off a phase like that with such a dominant Northern Stream pattern and lack of cold high pressure in place.

That is probably due to the old weather instruments being in a warmer area with less cold air drainage than where the current FOK ASOS is located.

Our area generally doesn’t get big East Coast snowstorms when there is a strong kicker coming through the Great Lakes and a weak cold high pressure in between.