cbmclean

To me he's noise at this point when he's discussing cold. It's when he starts throwing in the towel that I pay attention.

I hadn't forgotten 2022; it's what I had in mind when I mentioned the sharp but transient cold. Now maybe I'm being a little unfair to it because it wasn't a one-day wonder as most of that week was bitter. And I enjoyed it thoroughly. But there was clearly no hope of any storm activity and at the time we knew it was limited duration and we could see the suck barreling down on us like a freight train. We didn't know that it was going to last the rest of the winter though.

Sure. Living in NC my whole life I'm no stranger to Christmas torches. But the consistency of the late December torch is beginning to be very troubling to me. It seems to be getting beyond the point of bad luck and to the point, "is there something going on here"? The beginning of the month has been variable: some years are torches, some years have been quite cold (like this year), but some point between 12/1 and 12/15 we see a bad look appear at 384 and march majestically through to validation and the entire holiday period is spent squinting at model noise trying to will a flip into existence, Interestingly it hasn't been the same mechanism of failure. Some years it's an AK trough bringing Pac Puke. Some years it's SER with a western trough. This year is more of a NW trough with a CONUS-wide ridge. I guess the common thread is the Pacific but the variance makes me wonder even more. I will admit that the bad periods have also not been monolithic: several have had notable sharp frontal passage with non-trivial cold. But in every case I can think of, the cold has been either transient, or completely surface-based, with no support in the higher portions of the atmosphere. Honest question to everyone: when is the last time anyone can remember when we had a good, or even "pretty good" pattern either in place or imminent between 12/20 and 12/31? The closest I can remember would be 2017. It turned cool on Christmas and then ended up bitterly cold the last few days of the year and the first few days of 2018. That was great for cold lovers (like me) but still not a snow pattern for most. I think even 2013 had a mild holiday period. And I recall many of you bemoaning the cutter that washed away your snowpack in 2009. Are there any good holiday patterns that I am missing?

16.0 F

21.9 °F. My PWS showing a DP of -0.4 °F, that seems unlikely to me, anyone else east of Raleigh with a DP to report? Edit: Never mind, just saw RDU DP was at -4 °F, so mine is reasonable!

The fabled triple phaser.

Mobile to Maine! I remember that was a cold storm.

I guess it really petered out at Boston. Pretty close though.

2016 was not one?

Obviously the numeric indices aren't as important as the the patterns they attempt to quantify, but overall I suspect that NAO blocking is less impactful for you guys in the current base state. The return flow before a shortwave has just been a little too warm. I know, I know: it's been rare lately to get a well-positioned block that lasts. But transient boot-leg stuff used to have a greater probability of meaningful results. Will that change some if we can ever get out of the -----PDO dregs, I don't know. I sure hope so. By the way, I loved your work in Blazing Saddles. Would you consider signing up for a remake?

"If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

Had graupel as well, didn't know what it was at first. Looked like bits of styrofoam coming from the sky.

Some flakes in Wilson.

Staying power. The changes that lead to the warmth are already in process early next week. That's close enough for confidence.

Talk about hallucinations.

NAMed

37.8 °F with 0.29". Second miserably cold rain day this week...I love them on weekdays!

I'm not writing off Pac Puke just yet. The solstice warm-up seems to be the most unstoppable atmospheric force on earth for 15+ years. It hasn't mattered whether we're in Nino, Nina or Nada. It hasn't mattered whether the first half of the month was good, bad or meh. It hasn't always meant a warm Christmas day per se as we've had a couple of powerful yet ultimately transient cold shots. And several times we've had normalish surface temps but with torched mid and upper levels. 2017 - 2018 is probably the biggest exception to this rule that I can remember off the top of my head. It was warm right before Christmas but then turned chilly on Christmas day and then brutally cold around New Years and the first 10 days or so of January. Even then it was a dry cold with no big storms.

Wait are you referring to the bird-like shape, or something dirty, because I al a little confused.

One thing to remember: this week was supposed to be a torch.

Ended up with 1.21" today. 39.52" for the year. Since the start of September, I don't think I've hit the almost 7 inches I got in a 36 hour period in June.

I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

I had that same thought, but didn't want to to start that war

I'm not trying to be mean, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up...

Yeah there is a nice trough in the east, but I see what to my layman's eyes looks like the dreaded AK vortex. Isn't that our signal to close the blinds for the following 3 weeks or so?