Cold Rain

I love this model. Unfortunately, it has an accuracy rating of -10. Why can’t it ever be right? Just once time!

Yep. That said, it is a piece of junk. Hopefully, they take it back to the workshop before they put it on the open road. I think we will have at least one more legit shot before all is said and done this year.

Greg Fishel out at WRAL. What a miserable way to end a miserable winter.

I don't know for sure, as I haven't researched it. When I look at a SST map, though, in general, there are plenty of places with warm anomalies that do not have ridging being continually forced. My guess is that the SER is a response. I'm sure there are some feedbacks at work, but generally, it is a response to the placement of negative anomalies elsewhere. What has been somewhat curious to me has been the frequency of the -EPO pattern in winters of late. I don't remember hearing all that much about that index before 4-5 years ago. But we sure have had a lot of -EPOs and an astonishing lack of -NAOs over the last while. This repeating configuration has certainly favored more central areas of the US than the SE. I don't have a sense as to how the PNA has acted over the last 5 years or so...I am remembering it being mixed, but it certainly could have been more positive or negative in general than I remember. What I do remember is not a lot of deep south and southeast snowstorms. Instead, we get this gradient pattern and front end mix events. I think that is a product of the EPO and lack of NAO. We don't get those southern sliders with cold highs to the north anymore. Everything reforms or cuts, courtesy of no blocking. But back to the SER, it really hasn't been a stable feature over the last several years. The thing that stings this year is that nobody saw it coming -- nobody really saw a -PNA/+SER back half of winter. I guess "backloaded" just don't mean what it used to. And by the time we're able to break the pattern, it will be beyond the reasonable window for winter weather, most likely. The GEFS and EPS look horrific as far as the eye can see. SOI diving, MJO allegedly circling favorably, but nothing but SERs down the line. We only get two, maybe three months of the year where we can be in winter weather mode, and to waste more than half of it in -PNA purgatory is really disappointing. Unless something drastically changes, this will go down as the worst winter ever for me. I'm sure that I've had 1" of snow or less in the past, but the expectations going into this winter are weighted heavily in my mind. We have had no really wintry days. By that, I mean one where we had a snow, sleet, or freezing rain event where it was just solidly below freezing all day and you didn't have to worry about the temps. I mean, we haven't even had a clipper come through forcing random snow showers. It's just been an awful winter. Solid F.

There are pretty much no indications in any of the modeling over the next 10-15 days that suggests a turn toward colder weather. By the end of that period, the pattern may begin to change. But that is still far from certain. Whatever is driving this train wreck is locked and loaded for a long time. By the time we turn, it will likely be later in March. We may still sneak through a well-timed event, but you might as well flip a coin. All these intermittent colder solutions 6+ days out end up being warmer as you move in. Without a true pattern change, I a fear the chances of a big winter storm around here are slim to none. The SE ridge looks to really flex in about 10 days.

The MJO is forecast to get into the cold phases, but the models seem to keep a SE ridge. Either they are wrong, or the MJO has become irrelevant.

Solar stuff: sunspot activity, solar winds, geomagnetic storms, coronal holes, etc. We’re going into a deep and extended solar minimum. Some theorize that it will lead to a cooler climate and harsher winters. Less sunspots and a cooler surface of the sun lead to more coronal holes which produce more cosmic rays. Still sort of a pick-‘em as to which side of the debate to believe, though personally, I lean toward the fact that it does/will play a significant role in our weather, particularly given the degree of this minimum.

Ryan layeth the smacketh down!

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some OFA. We would have done well to heed their temp forecast around these parts.

Hahaha an area of mild and snowy surrounded in all sides by warm and wet or warm and dry. Lol

They definitely did better with respect to temps in the SE, but that map is stupid. It is an abomination to forecast maps!!

Yep, it was rolling our way there for a little while, and then it started hauling a$$ over to Siberia. Definitely going to go down as the worst winter ever in my book, unless we get one of those Marches of yore to show up. Most certainly, the expectations for this winter make it all the worse.

Yeah. They were wrong. I hope they’re wrong with the duration of this one because if not, we’re done.

Until the trough out west goes away, you can forget it around here. It just keeps reloading and reloading and reloading. Wonder why it never does that in the east?

I honestly don’t know if we should really expect a model to nail a winter storm from 6+ days out, given the technology we have today. I think a general pattern, maybe. But winter storms are so fickle around here, that it seems a little outlandish to expect we’re anywhere close to being able to get that kind of detail nailed down that far out. With the FV3, I’m interested to see if it gets the general H5 look 5-10 days out better than the current GFS and to see what kind of biases it has, if any. So far, my understanding is that its scores are not all that great and that it has a cold bias and a bias of overdoing the strength of highs at longer leads.

Thinking the FV3 is overdoing the high strength and the duration of it. If it ends up weaker, like I suspect it will, then it needs to end up being quite a bit farther south, which I don't think is possible given the pattern.

I agree with this mostly, with the caveat that I’d argue that you actually have better than coin flip odds if you go with persistence and go warm. For whatever reason, warm wins now. Something is going on that essentially renders analogs of yesteryear useless.

He’s right. Our early spring started in January. Winter is about to cycle back around again in mid Feb!

Great question. I was just going to ask the same thing. Also wanted to ask @NC_hailstorm, if it is supposed that the grand solar min will lead to more cold and snow farther south? My guess is that it would, but we're also seeing some strange issues with the pattern remaining unfavorable in the face of a period that should, in actuality, be more favorable.

Yeah, the December storm was pretty stready from 7-8 days out. Quite the exception.

That seems chilly.

Here's one more index update for the week!

Would love to see that Atlantic ridge get displaced for a time. That would really help.

Once blocking returns, we'll be good. We've generally had an extremely poor run in that department. Not surprising that snow and winter storms are down. Now, why is blocking in winter so uncommon? Not sure.

1/29 Index Update: