bluewave

Hard to believe it’s been 10 years already. https://iso.500px.com/the-story-behind-the-most-viral-photo-from-blizzard2016/

My guess is that NYC will be closer to 10° this weekend with the 0° readings in the outlying colder areas similar to the NDFD.

The raw Euro 2m Ts have been running too cold around NYC. It forecast around 11° this morning in NYC. The current temperature is 17°. The raw GFS has been doing better than the Euro. So my guess is that the forecast Euro lows especially around the urban areas from EWR to NYC will be too cold coming up. So closer to 10° this weekend in NYC vs near 0° on the Euro. For some reason the model thinks that NYC should have strong radiational cooling when there is snowcover. We saw this in the past from the OP Euro 2m Ts showing -5° to -10° several years back in. NYC with snow on the ground. But outlying areas with the best radiational cooling will probably be closer to the mark than the urban areas forecast.

Parts of Fairfield county have been doing better than New Haven county this year so far. This weekend I picked up .5 early Saturday. Then another 1” Sunday morning. The evening round gave me 1.5”. Marginal temperatures for accumulation and variable rates can result in differences from one county to another. So some of the snow was lost to melting. My main events before this weekend were 3.5” and 5.5” and 1.0” for 10.0”. This weekend brought me up to 13.0” on the season.

The EC-AIFS single skill data available online is the leader through 120 hrs. I have seen the EPS-AIFS data through day 10 and it slightly edges out the regular EPS. But it’s still close. I have noticed the single EC-AIFS show volatility beyond 120 hrs here like the other guidance in regard to storm tracks. This is one situation that we actually want a stronger Southeast ridge so the best overrunning occurs closer to our area. But the storm is still modeled beyond the best 120hr range so we are just going to have to take a wait and see approach. The Euro following the upgrade around 2014 had been too suppressed with East Coast storm systems. With the GFS becoming very volatile since its upgrade in 2019. EC-AIFS better Southeast ridge Regular Euro weaker Southeast ridge.

I picked up 3” just east of KHVN this weekend for a seasonal total so far of 13.0”.

The EC-AIFS looks like it had the best forecast for today from earlier this week between the overamplified GFS and too suppressed Euro.

Yeah, phase 8 would help to activate the STJ. Notice the forcing shifting east of the Dateline later in January. The only question is whether we will be able to realize the potential. Need all the pieces to come together just right.

The story going back to November has been the long range models trying to weaken the ridge out West only to correct stronger the closer in time we got to forecast time. The ridge was able to shift out into the Plains for the first half of January. Now the models want to bring it back West again later in January. There have been plenty of comments that we don’t usually see this with a -PDO. Maybe this ridge is somehow related to the big +NPM spike back in the fall with the marine heatwave off the West Coast. Plus this -PDO since 2018-2019 has been more defined by the WPAC warm pool to the East of Japan and south of Aleutians than the cold pool off the West Coast like we used to get with -PDOs prior to the last decade.

At least according to Ryan’s stats the EC-AIFS is the new forecast leader through 120 hrs.

I think the key next week will be how deep a trough we can get out West. All winter long the models have been too aggressive in digging those troughs beyond 168 hrs. We actually need the Southeast ridge to put up some resistance so the overrunning doesn’t get suppressed. The EPS doesn’t dig as much energy into the west so it’s less amped up with the overrunning in the East. It’s been a while since once of these overrunning set ups produced more than 4” from EWR to ISP. But we saw how back in December we finally got two clippers to work out for 4”+. Maybe it’s possible we can finally get a decent overrunning event here. But it’s still way too early to know for sure exactly where the nest overrunning zone sets up. We really want to get to within the 120hr mark for the details to come into clearer focus. At least the potential is there. Whether the potential gets realized is another story. EPS diggs less energy west so overrunning is further south than GEFS

The Euro and EPS have done a better job with the Northern Stream this winter than the other guidance. All the Northern Stream kickers have prevented the Southern Stream disturbances from developing into KU heavy benchmark coastal snowstorm tracks. December was a unique case where we were able to get a few moderately snowy clippers tracking to our south. But this month so far we lost the record -WPO which combined with the -NAO for those two favorable tracks.

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?