jm1220

Well-good thing is that Mother Nature couldn’t care less what a bunch of weenies on a weather board post or try to “force”. We have no power over it. It sucks watching Richmond get hit again while we just have some clouds and dry cold, but reality couldn’t care less. We can just evaluate it and try to learn what we can while hoping that the pattern changes.

Yep-there’s a reason why we always have “bad luck” or shortwaves interfering with storm setups and amplification. The flow is too zonal/fast so we have interference all the time from competing s/w and the ridge placement/amplification out west is always off-ridge is too flat or pushed out of place. Maybe one day we can get “lucky” even in this pattern and we won’t have to deal with all this interference, but to me it just seems very hostile to getting any larger snow system around the city than a small 1-2” type clipper like we had last December. Once the ridge out west amplifies, we can get some real blocking and the SE ridge stays muted we can talk about something bigger.

If we can somehow get that trough/vortmax to track under us and better yet close off SE of LI. The ridge out west has to be steep enough to allow it to dig and some blocking to the north would be good to slow everything down and lock in a high. In this pattern that's how we get anything to happen outside of a lucky 1-2" type clipper like last year before Christmas in a fast zonal flow.

It’s also terrible for your car when it messes with the paint.

Doesn’t matter what any of us think-it’s what the pattern supports and how any storm evolves. Hopefully we can get an outcome where the S/W can dig and amplify close SE of us and there’s some blocking, so any high pressure isn’t booted east, and the storm will develop offshore and keep winds out of the north. We’ve seen that fast zonal flow either brings what we saw yesterday with suppression, or inland tracks/unfavorable lead up to the storm like early in the week. Could we see a good outcome on 12/13 or later in the month? Definitely and I hope so, but we need pretty significant mid latitude pattern changes to what we have now. Those are just facts and it doesn’t matter much whether the MJO is officially Phase 8 or whatever when other factors override it.

I’m not really paying attention to it at this point but a similar setup to last week would mean more rain coast/snow inland. If we’re blasted with southerly winds ahead of any storm it will rain in the city. Waters are still way too warm to allow snow with onshore flow in mid December-still around 50 at Jones Beach. We can maybe get away with it in Feb when waters are coldest for the year.

A borderline top tier event in Long Beach-altogether I think there was 12-14” there. The 12/5 portion was a huge surprise because the initial overrunning was supposed to be quick snow to rain but stayed all heavy snow (back in the good old days when primary lows transferred to the coast before they torched us). There was 7-8” that day and another 6” with the coastal storm part. Parts of LI under heavier banding ended with 20”. Closer to the city the banding was more spotty and I remember some lulls.

I’m going away from 12/19-23, guaranteed the Dec storm that gets Central Park over 4” happens then.

That was an amazing storm. I walked on the Long Beach boardwalk in the height of that and it was a whiteout. Some of the best blizzard conditions I’ve experienced. 1/4/2018 was up there too.

Few flurries here.

I think the main problem is the flow just won’t amplify when we need it to because of the ferocious Pacific jet which knocks the PNA ridge down or nudges it east too much. So even if we have more southern stream energy it will just get booted out to sea. We had plenty of storminess south of us last winter that couldn’t turn the corner. But when we have periods of -PNA, the SE ridge returns with a vengeance and we go back to cutter/SWFE, or risk any -NAO linking up with the ridge. Also in any Nina December we need to make opportunities count when we have cold stretches like these because odds are, later in the winter will be more hostile if anything and many have posted the stats about how we do around NYC when Central Park has over vs under 4” snow in December in a Nina. So I know it’s only 12/5 but given Nina climo, it’s frustrating we’re back to the exact same BS from last winter with wasted dry cold, suppressed garbage then warm/wet.

Yep-12/26/2010 is one of my favorites living there for sure. Too bad we couldn’t get that death band over NJ a little further east.

28-29 at 1pm, legit cold for this time of year.

DC has 1” before NYC or BOS even has measurable. Who would’ve had that on their bingo chart in a Nina winter.

If we can get a western ridge to build and hold on, we have a chance at some storm turning the corner and getting some snow outside of a lucky clipper or minor system. However they’ve been getting knocked down or nudged aside which makes the pattern too zonal.

I remember 92-93 for the Dec 92 and March 93 huge storms, 93-94 as being my first real winter and bitterly cold/icy, 94-95 lousy except the one snow to rain event on 2/4, 95-96 epic obviously, 96-97 entirely forgettable-don’t remember 4/1 at all which was probably a bunch of white rain here, 97-98 torch with the record El Niño, 98-99 cutter city with the strong Nina response, 99-00 as also pretty forgettable other than the late Jan 2000 system which was OK here but a lot better to the west, supposed to be a brush or out to sea.

Or Richmond. Seems to snow plenty there these days with these suppressed crap storms. First teens-currently 17 here.

26 here. Walking east before was fine, back west awful-agreed.

Have to move down to Richmond where there's real snow these days. And for the Sun night system, we need that to dig much further south for the NYC area to have a chance. The GFS has precip falling Sun night with 850 temps below zero, but we're screwed again with southerly winds leading up to the storm so 99% chance it would be rain near the coast like this past suckfest. So 3-5" snow for Richmond tonight overnight then 3-5" snow for I-84 to I-90 Sun into Mon. Just doesn't get any more awesome than this.

I wouldn’t say it’s a miracle. We don’t live in the Carolinas. We average in the mid 20s inches per winter even right on the coast. We were due for a significant regression after the bonanza 2000-18 period but it’s become a lot harder to get the 2-4” type clippers and front end to rain events in the last few years as well. Bluewave and others have pointed out the background changes that have taken place that have made even fairly minor snow events less common. Even back during the bonanza years we lucked out with the big snow events that pushed us over the long term average. Without the minor events, we totally strike out and end well below average for snow.

I can see sneaking over 3” for the month through minor clipper systems but I don’t see anything that would bring a significant (4”+) snow system anytime soon here. The flow is too zonal and fast to allow something to turn the corner that has more moisture into cold air, so we’ll be in a deep trough and cold/dry other than the minor lucky clipper system, or the SE ridge comes back and we get cutters/SWFE. There needs to be some mechanism to slow the pattern down-blocking preferably without -PNA which risks the SE ridge linking up with it.

This past one at the surface had a good track but the high was booted out like no one’s business and the surface winds turned SE ahead of it at the coast. Also it was on the move so fast that the mid levels could not develop a CCB and wrap cold air in after the surface to mid levels were torched. Maybe in Feb with the coldest waters of the season and preexisting deep cold air mass this could’ve worked.

I can definitely believe it. Continuation of last winter’s crap.

Last year we were able to get 1-2” small events right before Christmas, which was better than zilch but looks more likely we’re going to waste this cold for anything more substantial. Our best shot given the lightning fast pattern is likely something along those lines. An offshore redeveloper would probably form too late for us, and we can’t get the pattern to slow enough for a more meaningful s/w to turn the corner. I’m not optimistic for this cold snap to produce snowwise but we’ll see.

Perfectly fitting to go from raw nasty all rain in the upper 30s to cold/dry/suppressed garbage. Hopefully we can get something to turn the corner when it’s still cold enough here. The storms of course will come back when the cold retreats.