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Retrograde Snowstorm by 12/5?

CT Rain

By CT Rain,
in New England

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CoastalWx

CoastalWx

Posted
Posted

I don't.

I'm not sure there is a substantial difference in snowfall between the two here...but it might be something to research. The east based block just puts the cold in a different spot vs the west based block...but both can be quite favorable for snow. There's way too much emphasis being put on last year WRT west based blocking climo. Feb 1978, Feb 1969, Dec 1961, Mar 2001 are all notable storms just off the top of my head that had big west based blocks that hit SNE hard.

West based blocks if they are extreme can produce some weird patterns, and occasionally like at the end of last winter, they can produce a really crap pattern...but there's more at play than just the block. Last year the PAC blocking above the EPO region over toward Asia got strong too in conjunction with the west based block and cut off the cold from the pole...so that was a contributor as well to the rotting airmass.

I think that was the X-factor. We just kept recycling the same crap over and over. Sure those further south had it too, but those areas were just cold enough and further away from the crazy blocking to stay all snow. The Feb 10th storm probably would have been ok, if we could get the 700 low closer and have dynamics come into play.

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ORH_wxman

ORH_wxman

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I think that was the X-factor. We just kept recycling the same crap over and over. Sure those further south had it too, but those areas were just cold enough and further away from the crazy blocking to stay all snow. The Feb 10th storm probably would have been ok, if we could get the 700 low closer and have dynamics come into play.

Feb 10th storm was a bust because of lack of qpf, not because of temps...though it was kind of a wet snow...especially since it wasn't coming down very hard.

The later Feb storms would have been a lot snowier had there been an actual cold airmass in place...it may have still eventually changed to rain..esp in eastern NE, but there would have been plenty of snow to start and the interior may have never changed....and don't even get me started on the Mar 14-15 event.

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CoastalWx

CoastalWx

Posted
Posted

Feb 10th storm was a bust because of lack of qpf, not because of temps...though it was kind of a wet snow...especially since it wasn't coming down very hard.

The later Feb storms would have been a lot snowier had there been an actual cold airmass in place...it may have still eventually changed to rain..esp in eastern NE, but there would have been plenty of snow to start and the interior may have never changed....and don't even get me started on the Mar 14-15 event.

It was a bust on temps I agree...but we kind of had crappy forcing. All the good stuff was further south, but I think if we had the forcing that areas west of PHI did...whole different ball game. Blame that on the block.

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Hazey

Hazey

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LOL, I recognize that....I was just asking about Feb '04. Man was that a monster. I was envious of you guys.

Sorry my bad. Feb 04 was a beast without a doubt. I think we went 24hrs of official Blizzard criteria. I believe it was a true triple phaser. I could be wrong. It was your April fools storm to us here. Probably a once in a 50 year storm. Believe it or not, we don't usually get whoppers like that here. 10-14 inch storms are common but 20+ are actually quite rare.

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weatherwiz

weatherwiz

Posted
Posted

I don't.

I'm not sure there is a substantial difference in snowfall between the two here...but it might be something to research. The east based block just puts the cold in a different spot vs the west based block...but both can be quite favorable for snow. There's way too much emphasis being put on last year WRT west based blocking climo. Feb 1978, Feb 1969, Dec 1961, Mar 2001 are all notable storms just off the top of my head that had big west based blocks that hit SNE hard.

West based blocks if they are extreme can produce some weird patterns, and occasionally like at the end of last winter, they can produce a really crap pattern...but there's more at play than just the block. Last year the PAC blocking above the EPO region over toward Asia got strong too in conjunction with the west based block and cut off the cold from the pole...so that was a contributor as well to the rotting airmass.

When comparing just West/east based -NAO Decembers...it appears as if east-based -NAO is much better than west-based.

Do you know what the 4 major stations received for December in 2002 and 2005?

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Hazey

Hazey

Posted
Posted

The wind barbs show the winds at the levels on the right 950 is 780knots, surface 50 and that's sustained, heavy rain shown by selling and temp the same, go to a soundings tutorial site.

Thanks, that's all i needed to know and I will take the sounding class. Been meaning to do that. Guess I won't be hanging laundry that day.

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