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cbmclean

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    The March Long Range Discussion Thread, Winter's Last Stand

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

    I’m slightly over median and a few inches short of my avg but it’s close. I’m annoyed that it was a nickel and dime year. Even the storm last night fell a little short of expectations here. That was kind of the theme all winter. If I expected 6 I got 4. If I expected 5 I got 3. That kind of leaves me feeling unfulfilled. Also no one big storm. I’ve been spoiled by having a 10”+ storm almost every year since moving up here.  This year was a crap ton of 2-5” snows. And they were spread out. I could totally be happy with a climo year that was nickel and dime if it’s condensed into like 6 weeks and builds up snowpack. 93 was like that here. A lot of 3-5” snows but all packed together so they added to to like 15” on the ground and snowcover for 6 weeks. I could get into that. But a bunch of 3-5” snows spread out with warmth in between so we never had a period with deep snow is less satisfying. All this probably sounds silly to everyone in the dc Baltimore area but I have different climo here. I moved up here for that reason. So my expectations are based on my climo here. 

    I didn't realize you had surpassed the median.  That's good I guess.  A challenging year to classify.  Sneakily not bad numbers wise at least for many of you guys, but mostly unsatisfying.   

    The March Long Range Discussion Thread, Winter's Last Stand

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    6 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

    A shortwave is just a smaller scale wave in the jet..a kink so to speak, usually caused by a cold pool in the mid or upper levels.  A lot of times when we are talking about a shortwave its associated with a weaker system like a clipper.

    Phasing is actually anytime two systems combine but 99 percent of the time when we talk about phasing it is in reference to the northern stream and southern stream combining.  Often we talk about that when a southern stream system is approaching and we need the northern stream to interact.  Often without the northern stream phasing the stj will get suppressed to our south by the flow of the northern stream.  Phasing is when the northern stream becomes synced up with the southern stream system and you end up with one storm being fed by energy in both streams. 

    When we say "vort" we are actually talking about differential positive vorticity advection.  Vorticity is a measure of the rotation of air in a location.  Counterclockwise rotation is positive vorticity.  It's not perfect but the h5 level is often the best to get a quick snapshot of where PVA is greatest.  Vorticity advection into an area at 500 mp is usually associated with and conducive for pressure falls at the surface and an amplifying system. 

     

    Thank you.

    The March Long Range Discussion Thread, Winter's Last Stand

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    5 minutes ago, jaydreb said:

    I’ll take a shot.  Hopefully one of the experts can point out where I have it wrong.  

    Here is the look at 216.  You can see the NS diving into Montana.  You can see the SS one over northern Texas.

    Here they are at 234.  The NS is now centered over N Dakota and Iowa.  The SS one is centered over GA and SC with energy trailing back through Alabama and Arkansas.  Notice how they are close to each other but haven’t yet phased. 

    Here they are at 240.  They are beginning to phase.  Toggle back to the surface panel to see the effect.  The storm will start to bomb out and hook towards the coast. 

    Here they are at 246.  Phasig is well underway and you’ll see the storm really bombing out.  It just happens to late for us.   We need that phase to happen around 222. 

     

    I appreciate your time.

    So when people talk about NS or SS shortwaves, they are referring to areas of elevated vorticity?

    And phasing is when areas of elevated vorticity from north and south approach each other and merge?

    The March Long Range Discussion Thread, Winter's Last Stand

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    12 minutes ago, poolz1 said:

    FV3 is a gnat's hair from a euro result. As is it's a powder keg with a damp fuse and just doesnt line up perfectly.  A little speed adjustment...faster n/s or slower s/s and boom.

    yMcXMXa.png

    I hate to go all newbie here but does any on want to accept the challenge of trying to take 30 seconds to educate me a bit about how to interpret this image?  I understand the concepts of geopotential height and vorticity.  But how do you recognize the shortwave?  How do you pick out the northern and southern streams.  What is phasing? 

    • Like 1

    Mid to Long Term Discussion 2019

    in Southeastern States

    Posted

    1 hour ago, calculus1 said:

    While it may seem that cold rain forms in eastern NC, it actually doesn't. It just happens to pass through there quite often. Perhaps something to do with a certain poster with the same name... emoji16.png

    Sent from my moto e5 supra using Tapatalk
     

    Him and his dang snow shields.

    The March Long Range Discussion Thread, Winter's Last Stand

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, Steve25 said:

    Been doing some research. Saw that BWI has had 19 months of March with double digit snow since 1884. Of those 19 times, 14 of them came in winters that were below climo heading into March. Is there a meteorology explanation for why the majority of our big March snowstorms have come in otherwise lackluster winters, or is it just coincidence?

    Well, 19 samples is too small to make definitive judgements, but anecdotally, it sometimes seems like what you might call weather "regimes" or "patterns of patterns" seem to have a wavelength of 1 to 3 months.  So for you guys, late January and February seem to be your snow moneymakers, so if you are having a March which is in any way conducive to snow, then perhaps that means that there is a better than average chance that late Jan and Feb were warm.

    Conversely, when you have a good Jan and Feb, it may be more likely that March will be warm

    Or it could just be random chance.

    • Like 1

    The Mystical Month of February--Long Range Discussion

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    9 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

    @C.A.P.E. @frd

    JB said this today when opining regarding whether it’s the qbo and strat to bland for the eastern ridge.

    “SOMETHING ELSE HAS TO BE GOING ON to have turned the TNH positive like this”

    That seems to confirm my suspicions the TNH is an effect not a cause. Of course it still gets us no closer to a cause.  He thinks it’s a combination of lots of things probably.

    He goes on to say...

    “A lot of you on my side of the AGW issue do not want to hear this, but perhaps its overall warmed state of the oceans and the planet that result in different reactions than years of the analogs, many of them were years when the planet had a lower base state, That may be a bias on my part.”

    I’ll give him some credit for admitting he has been wrong finally and that second statement which runs antithetical to his agenda.  He seems to be having the same discussion inside his own head that we are on here. Lol

    So does he doesn't deny global warming per se, just the anthropogenic part?

    The Mystical Month of February--Long Range Discussion

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    20 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

    March 1993 is in the pattern analogs. I kind of see the possibility in the ensemble looks day 10-13.  It’s a LONG shot but the PV is sitting there displaces snd gets stretched and all with that monster epo ridge pressing on it from over the top all it would take is a strong enough piece to rotate around and dig in and there could be a monster phase in the east somewhere. 

    Obviously getting that is low probability but I see how that progression is possible.  

    How did the MA fare during that seminal event?  Nothing but rain in Eastern NC but the mountains got walloped.  My wife lived near Asheville at the time and she was out of school for like two weeks.

    The Mystical Month of February--Long Range Discussion

    in Mid Atlantic

    Posted

    46 minutes ago, Waiting on snow said:

    It's just a theory and I'm not a pro by any means, but what if the se ridge is a pattern driver more so than a reaction? We look for ridging to develop in AK, Greenland, etc to drive the pattern, but never hear mention of a mid latitude ridge like the se ridge driving things. Possibly its caused by sst's and then it does it's part to screw up the pattern? Regardless, I'm tired of that ****ing ridge ruining winter year after year!

    It has certainly been a dominant force this decade.  I am hoping that it is related to the whatever is causing the almost comical inability of the -NAO to go negative in met winter.  That is known to be streaky, so perhaps if that flips, the SER will take a decade-long vacation.  Of course, I am just grasping at straws now.

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