cbmclean

41 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Ji wasn’t too impressed 

Why am I not impressed.

ETA: I meant "Why am I not surprised"

33 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

Patriots LOL.

Dolphins LOL

What a total fucck up.

My Dolphins completely bungled the tanking strategy.

18 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

There's some splitting hairs going on. Nobody can predict months in advance and nobody claims to. However, there are reliable clues that can indicate good and bad well in advance. The AO being the biggest one. Dec is going to finish positive and not by just a little. Forecasts are for that continuing  into Jan. Possibly strongly positive.  For that reason alone we currently have and will continue to have below normal snow chances and well below normal big storm chances for the foreseeable future. That's not a guess. It's a fact. 

GEFS has strong agreement on an initial peak at ~3.5, then a big spread.  Check out the several members showing it go to +5.0.

Also I thought it was hilarious how the second half of December has mostly been negative.  Thanks a bunch, Pacific.

8 minutes ago, cbmclean said:

Come on, let's keep it constructive.  Or else we turn into the New England forum.

Actually it is not my place to tell you guys how to run your forum since I am just a guest.  I would just be sad to see the MA forum turn into NE.

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

It’s not personal...lol. I understand people don’t want to hear it doesn’t look good. 

Well no one wants to hear it doesn't look good.  But if it really doesn't look good, I'd rather hear the truth.  In many human endeavors (war, business, love) some unwarranted optimism can actually be useful.  If the founding fathers had been completely rational, they probably would have been like "meh - maybe later".  But weather is not a human endeavor.  No amount of positive thinking can materialize one single snow flake or move the 540 line south one meter.

On a brighter note, I wish I had been here back in 2009 - 10.  It must have been rocking and rolling.  Or were people griping that they only got 12 while NW they got 24"?

Come on, let's keep it constructive.  Or else we turn into the New England forum.

11 minutes ago, Mersky said:

I understand. But you just mentioned the next 10 days. Did you read his post a little while ago? He used  the phrase we are toast  if a and b don’t occur. If this was February 1st I wouldn’t take issue with it. But man, come on, it’s December 29th. There is plenty of time for changes to occur. I believe he is overreacting but from now on I will just read and keep my thoughts to myself 

I understand your basic points.  His concern is that the particular pattern which MAY develop in the Pacific is one which has historically very persistent when it does occur.  IF it does occur and IF the NA does not play nice, then we will have a very high probability of toast.

Just beware, there is a large portion of the forum which actively likes looking into the 10+ day range and trying to tease patterns to see what MAY be coming.  Sometimes (perhaps most times) little or no value is found.  Other times, however, meaningful predictions can be made.  For example, this current pattern was identified by the EPS well ouside 10 days.

6 minutes ago, showmethesnow said:

Just a week or so ago the MJO had it exiting out of COD into 4 and transversing up through the warm phases through Christmas. Looking above we see that never occurred with it exiting into 6 and moving into the cold phases. So I would probably take what it is showing with a grain of salt. We have to remember that the same models that generate our pretty little maps that we follow and complain about never being right also generate our MJO forecast. 

Certainly, I was just expressing gallows humor.  However, the point can be made that the gloomy scenarios being painted by all three major ensembles is probably related to the crappy MJO pattern being advertised.  Hopefully they are all wrong and we begin a grand tour of the good phases.

12 minutes ago, Mersky said:

Sir you have zero idea where the pattern is headed. Nothing personal but it’s just a fact. You think you do but in reality no one does. Like I said last night and it holds today. Take it ten days at time. Just yesterday you said you weren’t invested in the time period that now  show promise for some cold and snow. Why not relax and just take it one period at a time and not be so gloom and doom all the time?? 

I have been lurking here for years and I do not think it is fair to characterize PSUHoffman as Doom and Gloom.  He describes what he analyzes in the models, independent of his personal desires.  Right now, the long term (past day 10) looks very grim.  I understand that you believe that the models have no use past day 10, but we do not all agree.

Uh oh.  About to be a slap fight.  Led to a reaper sighting in the main thread.

That's right my precious, spend as little time as possible in the good phases, and at as low an amplitude as possible.  Then rocket into the COD and exit in the bad phases again.

31 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

12z EPS is showing a legit SE ridge at the end of the run now. Hope the d8-10 deal works out if we're heading to SE Ridgeville

GEFS and GEPS show identical crap ridges in the east at 384.  So that makes all three major ensembles giving us the finger at that time frame.

45 minutes ago, Mersky said:

Here are the eps at 240 hours. That is a lot of cold 850’s covering North America. The first ingredient for snow is the cold. So we get it for awhile. So let’s focus on this period before we worry about what happens next. 

I can agree with that.

8 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

The best feature on the euro op is the PNA ridge position. If that rolls forward then it's a decent east coast snow pattern. Problem is that it's a 10 day op run so the chances of the d10 panel being correct is a tiny sliver above 0%. 

The flip to a more conducive winter wx pattern is holding in time though. It might be 10 days away but it's not getting pushed out in time... yet

Right now, latest GEFS shows return to cool anomalies in the east around 228.  GEPS a little slower at 234 or so.  I can't see 2m EPS anomalies on TT, but at 850, cool anomalies in place by 216.

Just now, Mersky said:

No one, I mean no one knows what the pacific will look like in mid January on. Some think they do but they really don’t. 

That is true.  I don't think anyone who is responsible will claim to "know".  But right now it appears that the preponderance of the evidence favors a higher probability of the Pacific being hostile for the long term.

7 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I have to agree with that assessment. That’s why I’m stuck on the NAO. Every analog to what we are seeing so far this winter failed to develop into a favorable PNA pattern that winter. Those that did not get NAO help were utter disaster fail years. Those that got “some” NAO help salvaged respectable but still blah totals. A few got excellent blocking periods and had a very snowy period later in winter. Our fate rests in the Atlantic being able to offset the central pac ridge pna trough imo. 

Relying on the NAO is a scary place to be this decade.

5 hours ago, TARHEELPROGRAMMER88 said:

ECMWF appears to be showing a storm and plenty of cold on hour 240. Anyone else see that?

Looks coolish, not necessarily cold.  Which to be frank, is a still win for me.  I love snow, but if I can't have it, I will take cool and dry.  I hate winter torches.

2 minutes ago, Mersky said:

When I read your posts my first thought is glass half empty. Happens every time 

Given the climatology of the MA, any realistic assessments should be pessimistic with regards to snow chances most of the time.  The baseline median state is "poor". 

17 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Leesburgs sass aside (he doesn’t get that I LIKE doing this win or lose) I’m not too invested in the Jan 6-12 period. It could work. But we’ve seen a LOT of these epo driven gradient looks the last few years look great at day 8-15 only to become mostly rain (maybe some slop to start) waves that track to our north. That’s what climo says that type pattern favors. But it does work out every so often.  Usually if we get lucky with a transient 50/50 or tpv lobe in the right spot. It could happen. Just not the most likely outcome. 

What exactly is a "gradient look"?  Looking at the EPS for the 6 - 10, I see a broad, kind of shallow trough across the eastern 2/3rds of the country, but with no -NAO support..  Is that just what gradient means in this context?

21 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

EPS has been gradually upping the odds after the 6th or so. Been a slow crawl from the depths of despair but 12z eps is the best run in a long time. It wouldn't be totally out of bounds to say there may be a legit threat window between 1/7 - 1/10....

EPS leading the way is infinitely more encouraging than GEFS 

4 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

You are trying to learn. Don’t apologize that’s awesome!  It’s much preferred to those that know nothing, make no effort to learn anything, and fill up the threads with nonsense year after year. 

Ive been getting the same kind of questions both in the threads and in PMs lately so later today (probably this evening) I’m going to revive the old winter weather classroom thread we had with explanations of various pattern drivers and analogs to past storms from various patterns with explanations of what made them work.  I’ve been working on a project for a while looking at past mid atl snows and categorizing them by pattern type. I intent to finish today and post those results also. Something to do during the down time. 

That sounds great!  Anxiously waiting.

20 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Tastes Great!! 

Less filling?

If I understand correctly, a vaguely -EPO type look on the 0z EPS at 240.  Impressive extent for 850 negative anomalies, although centered towards the western Great lakes, with very muted anomalies in my neck of the woods.  Somewhat better for you guys, but still too far west for our tastes.  Probably dry though?  Sad +NAO as usual.

Reading up, found an interesting pre-season write-up for 2018-19.  I post it here for other lurkers because it has a lot of good info about teleconnections.  But reading it over I thought it was fascinating to revisit why there was so much positivity for some going into last year.  Made me want to go back in time and grab him by the collar and yell "BEWARE THE MJO, IT WILL GO BATSH!T THROUGH THE WARM PHASES AND DEVOUR YOUR HOPES AND DREAMS!!!"  But I can't.

http://deepfryedmind.blogspot.com/2018/10/flash-weather-2018-19-winter-weather.html 

24 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Not that it matters on a smoothed over means 6 weeks out but verbatim that is a cold / dry look and very progressive with no slowing mechanism in the Atl. The Pac and Atl dont like playing nice together anymore.

I am trying to learn a lot in a short time period so forgive the pestering.  What shows you that it will be cold/dry vs cold?

Also, why do areas of high geopotential heights cause blocks, but areas of low geopotential heights do not?  What makes a pattern progressive vs blocky?