cbmclean

Baby steps. From the RAH forecast discussion. Some notable trends have unfolded in the guidance over the past day or so, namely a trend toward a more unsettled weather pattern for especially the first half of the long term, which would in effect limit the excessive heat potential that we are expecting for the mid- week period.

Also, neglected to post this earlier. Here is a hailstone from the beginning of the storm on last Friday. I think this one is a due to several stones melting and refreezing together.

Had some torrential windy rain in Wilson.

I was just about to post the same thing. Keep hope alive.

All right, looks like it's about time to lower the blinds, turn out the lights and wrap this one up.

Ah, southern Wake screwjob. Cold Rain will be happy.

Him and his dang snow shields.

Subfreezing 850's down to Mexico, but of course cold rain form eastern NC.

MA folks worried about suppression as shown on GEFS. Often a good sign for us.

PSU on MA forum mentions that top analog for coming pattern is March 1960. Nothing exciting happened around here then did it?

Just plain sigh...

Well, the wording of his statement "I take full responsibility for my actions ..." kind of suggests to me that he did something bad to someone else. I could mention the first thing that comes to mind, but it would be baseless speculation. Man, I am bummed I grew up with him.

I am seriously bummed out by this. I wonder what the heck happened.

First I heard of this. What the heck happened?

It amuses me that even with biblical snow in Alabama, it still shows a harsh Wake County gradient. Cold Rain would approve.

The NAO is known to be streaky on a decadal scale, so I am hoping that some the warmth of this past decade might be natural variation. That being said I expect regular snowfall (ie a nice one every three years or so) in the non-mountainous areas of NC/SC to cease in the next decade or two.

Well, if you have to have only one model on your side, I would prefer it to be the euro.

I threw mine in last weekend. There are actually some encouraging signs for the MJO progression for the second half of February, but I suspect that it is too late for us. MA and NE could get score though.

The difference, though, is that Patriots actually had an impact on the outcome of that game. There is nothing that I can do to affect the weather one way or another.

If it was really acting like a Nina, we wouldn't have had a juicy STJ dousing us with rain for several months (although it has moderated of late). It's not acting like a weak Nino though, which is what had a lot of folks with high hopes. There are multiple theories floating around as to why. As I mentioned on the MA thread, I am waving the flag for this winter. I don't see any reason to believe that there will be any significantly good period for the Carolinas. I am completely rejecting discounting the weeklies/CFS and their continued "trust me, this time it can't go wrong" NAO blocking, and the Pacific base state just seems to not be right. I hope I am proven wrong.

Somebody please tell Cold Rain to lower the dang snow shields.

I think they banned that guy. I am not sure if that was a good idea or not, as it seemed to draw the whole forum together in a show of unity in how much they hated him.

It was truly hilarious recently when things looked really dark, Ji was breaking out the optimism. PSUHoffman christened him the "Merchant of Hope".

Others, like Bob Chill, have also noted that the Pac Puke tends to really be hard to root out. I know one thing: I am going to watch the MJO like a hawk from now on. Seems to be a more powerful driver than I realized.

In my defense, the guidance consensus was very impressive. My conclusion is you can't trust guidance when it comes to -NAO. Ever. I am not sure if I fully agree that we can't lock-in good patterns. If you mean for a week or two, last year we (RDU) had an almost 10 day period below 32 F which included some snow, plus another storm two weeks later. Not sure what you guys experienced in the Upstate. On the other hand, if you mean for a month or more, then yes I agree that the pattern stability does seem asymmetric between cold and warm. We can and do get full three-month long crap-fests, like 2005-6 and 2011-12. I am not aware of any equivalent three-month long cold period. Closest I remember is probably the first half of 2009-10. Which as I am sure you will mention, I think featured extensive -NAO blocking.