FXWX

Old people do!!! Lol

I've seen in book stores; Barnes & Nobles?

Folks forget or choose not to remember the El Nino discussions during the early fall that strongly suggested December would likely run the risk of a being an above normal month with thread the needle events for any shot at meaningful snow threats. In a lot of ways this December is playing out pretty much according to classic past El Nino years... The same long-range outlooks the pointed out the risk of a warmer than normal December, also pointed toward the pattern improving once into or just beyond the Xmas holiday week. I am in that camp even if the shift to a more favorable setup waits until early January. This December pattern is nothing like last December and the global pattern is very different. I do not expect the pattern to flip into an unusually cold regime once into early January and I don't think one is needed to see significant Northeast snows. As we all know, pattern transitions are commonly a bit later the originally thought so no one should be surprised if the more favorable pattern waits a week or more later than originally projected. I don't think anyone is talking about a Jan 2015 type of flip, but I expect the large-scale NA pattern will grow more favorable for significant storm action moving into January, even if the regional temperature pattern is close to normal or a bit above normal. The pattern laid out by 40/70 is a very realistic path forward and one that fits where I think the long-range modeling seems likely to go: In short, more western ridging, an active Pacific jet under-cutting Western ridging and enough high latitude blocking to allow seasonably cold air masses to visit on a regular basis...

Rain in the process of changing to a bit of wet, non-accumulating snow here in Burlington, CT...

Yes indeed...

Love it... The telegraph weather forums were going crazy depressed settlers during some of those years... Lol

Yes... It is a great book... Full of the history of New England weather from cold to heat, snowstorms, hurricanes and tornadoes. It's actually a great coffee table book. I've had it for 40 years and still thumb through it a few times a year... Highly recommended...

Folks should go and read David Ludlum New England Weather Book... Wonderful sections on the winters of the 1700/1800 time span... You will come across quotes from journals and diaries written back then complaining about the lack of cold and snow compared to past winters...

Sorry for late reply, but short answer is yes. That does not mean tweaks don't have to be made, but overall I prefer the euro evolution in the short and medium range terms...

Model discrepancies and variability is what keeps the science alive... Just like a good forecaster needs to analyze the actual pattern, surface and aloft, they also need to assess whether or not a particular model run makes sense given the nature of the current atmospheric setup... If it does, why does it make sense and is it believable? If it doesn't make sense, you have to figure out what is causing it to go astray? One of the reasons I think there are folks that think the modeling has gotten worse is that they don't realize years ago pattern recognition and analysis played a bigger role in forecasting than it does now, in some, not all quarters. Today I see some folks (I'm talking in general, not about anyone on this forum) spending 99% of their time looking at all and every modeling product, but rarely studying any actual data maps...

Imagine how completely boring it will be if and when the modeling reach infailable levels one day down the road... There would be just one centralized forecast office manned by a person to activate the computer and a janitor to dust... Also it would spell the death of weather forums! Lol

By the end of the winter he will have thrown so much spaghetti on the wall he will claim victory... Does it every year. This call has some pattern progression merit but I see it from him every winter.

Yes Wolfie... Time does fly... She's 10 going on 20... Lol. She calls the Cape home now, which means I had to install a Davis on their roof... They have verified 2 blizzards and 2 tornados since moving their 10 years ago!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all... Here's a pic of my granddaughter T-day 2014!

Started as snow as far south as Middlebury and Cheshire, CT (along I-84 corrdior)... Light coating already in Warren, CT...

Light snow flying through the air at 1,160' in Burlington, CT...

Actually, I love seeing that wall of cold sitting just off to the north... Keep it within striking distance...

Lol... You do get a sense the modeling is playing Russian Roulette winter storm game here...

Agree with the need to watch period after T-day... Cold is solid in that period... See if we can time some sort of disturbance in that slot. Then I do think it will like a lot of recent Decembers... Waiting for some sort of flip as we head into or through Xmas holiday period? Unfortunately in the last few years the wait has been tedious. Speaking of Hallmark cards this was the scene out my dining room window early last December...

Agree... While we aren't staring down the barrel of T-Day blizzard, I am ok with the general pattern trends overall. I do think they pay dividends down the road. I love it cold on T-Day... No fun cutting down our trees in a T-shirt... Would love to get cold enough to get some skating in with the grandkids during Xmas week. Usually hard to do, but not impossible...

Unfortunately every November some posters (not all) fall into what I call the Hallmark card and/or movie syndrome. Where it snows before and during every holiday period. Endless scenes of folks trekking through snow or skating on ice covered ponds. While I would love to see it on a regular basis, that's not the history / climatology of SNE winters. The rare one comes along a couple of times in a life time, but the operative word is rare. So when we latch onto a 6 to 10 day operational GFS or Euro with little or no ensemble support, we can dream, but many more times than not it's ain't happening. Don't get me wrong, I have lived through a handful of special Thanksgivings and Xmas weather periods and loved them. But I usually have to pop on a Hallmark movie to see holiday snows!!! Fingers crossed that the run up to Christmas this year is a special one.

Actuallly 3 make sense, and one doesn't...

Agree... I use a full ski mask and googles... its colder, but it just became too much of a nuisance to see where I was going... lol

Agree... I think variability and maybe volatility is favored over the next 3 to 4 weeks, maybe biased above normal overall, but I don't dislike the evolution of the late fall / early winter pattern. I'm pretty sure we will have to fight through some hostile / ugly periods but I don't think a repeat of some recent brutal past winters is at hand.