January Medium/Long Range Discussion Part 2

[Bob Chill]

3 minutes ago, Ji said:

yep..because 15 day storms keep showing up every run till it verifies over Bob Chills yard

As long as I get more snow than your yard I'll root for you too. 

[Bob Chill]

1 minute ago, Ji said:

my favorite is when the D14 threat keeps showing up....at D14.... for about 4 straight days.

This time will be different.  It will keep closing in time until day 5 when the GLL shows up and we get some nice cold rain!

[psuhoffman]

5 minutes ago, Ji said:

i am actually hopeful for February. I think we can squeeze 1 or 2 events. of course the CWG winter forecast has us very warm in February lol so maybe thats a good sign. We are due PD3 anyway....even though we say it every year....its been 14 years now!

weeklies had their best look around PD

[Ji]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

weeklies had their best look around PD

although dosent PD only happen in El Nino years:)

[psuhoffman]

Just now, Ji said:

although dosent PD only happen in El Nino years:)

1979 was a neutral winter, were now officially enso neutral so....  someone post the "its happening" gif

[yoda]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

1979 was a neutral winter, were now officially enso neutral so....  someone post the "its happening" gif

[CAPE]

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

weeklies had their best look around PD

I mentioned that last night. Pattern looks good for that period and we have history on our side. Lets see if it holds for the next 3 weeks.

[PaEasternWX]

Wasn't alive for the 1979 one. How good was it.

[stormtracker]

56 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

No you are far too busy educating everyone else with your "FACTS" 

Now remember, all gov't workers are bad and lazy. Hey, DT used to be one!

[yoda]

27 minutes ago, PaEasternWX said:

Wasn't alive for the 1979 one. How good was it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/02/16/how-the-surprise-presidents-day-snowstorm-of-1979-advanced-the-science-of-forecasting/?utm_term=.cd532d3b6179

http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/2-PresidentsDayStormColloquium_Uccellini.pdf

http://www.ianlivingston.com/d-c-s-double-digit-snowstorms-a-guide-to-their-development-and-the-patterns-that-produced-them/#pd1

[mitchnick]

1 hour ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

It keeps Mitch occupied. 

And the last time I posted a CFS forecast was......

You're living in the past old man!

[psuhoffman]

20 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

Now remember, all gov't workers are bad and lazy. Hey, DT used to be one!

LOL

Welcome back Randy, hope you had a great trip.  

[stormtracker]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

LOL

Welcome back Randy, hope you had a great trip.  

Thanks man..was a great trip!  I thought when I got back, we'd be tracking a decent snowstorm.   Now we're relying on a clipper that has just dried up on the GFS

[Bob Chill]

2 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

Thanks man..was a great trip!  I thought when I got back, we'd be tracking a decent snowstorm.   Now we're relying on a clipper that has just dried up on the GFS

DT says toss the gfs because the euro has it. 

[eurojosh]

3 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

DT says toss the gfs because the euro has it. 

[PaEasternWX]

12z gfs looks sharper with the trough for the clipper. Keeps trending but not sure there is enough time it is clear the trough won't go negative in time by hr 120 or so.

[PaEasternWX]

to summarize, gfs op run= cold and dry. thru day 10.

[mitchnick]

1 hour ago, Bob Chill said:

This time will be different.  It will keep closing in time until day 5 when the GLL shows up and we get some nice cold rain!

Good call, except it only took 1 run instead of 9 days!

[eurojosh]

GFS is back to cold/dry warm/wet.

[Scraff]

4 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Good call, except it only took 1 run instead of 9 days!

Because 9 day out GFS runs are accurate with end results. Always. I'd put money on it in Vegas. Lol.

Wait. What's the rule again? It's right showing rain, wrong showing snow? smh. Cry emoji. 

[Interstate]

13 minutes ago, Scraff said:

Because 9 day out GFS runs are accurate with end results. Always. I'd put money on it in Vegas. Lol.

Wait. What's the rule again? It's right showing rain, wrong showing snow? smh. Cry emoji. 

Any time this season that a GLL or cutter has shown... well the solution usually does not change.

[Ji]

this pattern change lasted 6 hours

[psuhoffman]

GFS is getting some STj involved with the clipper, that ups the potential but also the risk the whole system stays suppressed IMO.  After that the GFS run was bad because it fails to flip the AO/NAO negative and the results are predictable.  It reverts to the eastern ridge look once the MJO induced PNA ridge fades.  The GEFS still develops the ridging up top but its slightly more muted this run the last, but on the positive side its moving closer in time even more each run.  It starts to develop around day 6/7 already now.  Looking into the GEFS a bit more there is a divergent camp that like the 6z and 12z op runs do not flip the NAO negative.  Those camps also end up warm and rainy in the long range.  That small cluster is keeping the means muted, they also lend the possibility that they are right and the AO and NAO fail to flip and we revert to the status quo, but the optimist would say they are the minority and the flip will happen and all they are doing is making the signal look less impressive in the means.  Interpret it however you want based on your mood.  

I will say the members that develop better blocking are VERY snowy in the long range.  Overall the mean jumped up pretty good this run.  About 3.5" in DC and around 6" up here and that is with a handful of the divergent cluster showing basically nothing.  

[Scraff]

25 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

GFS is getting some STj involved with the clipper, that ups the potential but also the risk the whole system stays suppressed IMO.  After that the GFS run was bad because it fails to flip the AO/NAO negative and the results are predictable.  It reverts to the eastern ridge look once the MJO induced PNA ridge fades.  The GEFS still develops the ridging up top but its slightly more muted this run the last, but on the positive side its moving closer in time even more each run.  It starts to develop around day 6/7 already now.  Looking into the GEFS a bit more there is a divergent camp that like the 6z and 12z op runs do not flip the NAO negative.  Those camps also end up warm and rainy in the long range.  That small cluster is keeping the means muted, they also lend the possibility that they are right and the AO and NAO fail to flip and we revert to the status quo, but the optimist would say they are the minority and the flip will happen and all they are doing is making the signal look less impressive in the means.  Interpret it however you want based on your mood.  

I will say the members that develop better blocking are VERY snowy in the long range.  Overall the mean jumped up pretty good this run.  About 3.5" in DC and around 6" up here and that is with a handful of the divergent cluster showing basically nothing.  

I will choose to ride your last paragraph only. ;-) Seriously, in such a craptastic winter, you have done an amazing job trying to find our way out of the dark. I really hope we can pull a PSUHoffman Storm in the next few weeks. You deserve it man. You deserve it. 

[Amped]

Good 500mb look on the Euro at 168. May have a day 10 storm this run.

[WinterWxLuvr]

39 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

GFS is getting some STj involved with the clipper, that ups the potential but also the risk the whole system stays suppressed IMO.  After that the GFS run was bad because it fails to flip the AO/NAO negative and the results are predictable.  It reverts to the eastern ridge look once the MJO induced PNA ridge fades.  The GEFS still develops the ridging up top but its slightly more muted this run the last, but on the positive side its moving closer in time even more each run.  It starts to develop around day 6/7 already now.  Looking into the GEFS a bit more there is a divergent camp that like the 6z and 12z op runs do not flip the NAO negative.  Those camps also end up warm and rainy in the long range.  That small cluster is keeping the means muted, they also lend the possibility that they are right and the AO and NAO fail to flip and we revert to the status quo, but the optimist would say they are the minority and the flip will happen and all they are doing is making the signal look less impressive in the means.  Interpret it however you want based on your mood.  

I will say the members that develop better blocking are VERY snowy in the long range.  Overall the mean jumped up pretty good this run.  About 3.5" in DC and around 6" up here and that is with a handful of the divergent cluster showing basically nothing.  

I have quit looking beyond day 10 for anything.  Just for fun, I did look at the snow mean for day 10 on the latest gefs and compared it to yesterdays day 11.  It isn't a good trend.

I think our first real snow, if it happens, will be something that pops up no farther out than 6 days during or near the end of a good pattern.  I don't think we are going to get a long lead storm to chase.  The models for whatever reason are showing us what we want to see at long range and have done that repeatedly, during decent patterns, this year only to lose whatever we were interested in very quickly after showing it to us.

[WinterWxLuvr]

No clipper on Euro.

[psuhoffman]

Since the QBO has been a topic of a lot of discussion this year, pulling data the best analogs purely on QBO to this year, years where Dec-January averaged above 8 were 1976, 1981, 1983, 1986, 1991, 1993, 2011, and 2014.  There is definitely a tendency for a positive AO in those winters.  If we include weaker westerly QBO years the correlation gets muddier as we see years like 1958, 1960, 1962, and 1964 show up which all had periods with extreme blocking and huge snowfall totals.  If you include those in the analogs it makes things look nice but I am not sure if they are valid since the QBO is off the charts this year and they were pretty weak westerly years.  

Snowfall is more divergent.  Some of those were big years, 72 had a big feb KU storm, 86 a big feb overall, 93 nuf said, 2014!!! and some total duds 1981 and 1991.  1983 is probably useless due to the super nino.  

If we filter those years by enso the best matches become 1972, 1981, 1986, 2014.  Again not much similarity to go on there, one great year, two ok, and one dud.  

Finally the absolute best match in terms of QBO (highest year other this this one) and Enso (very close match) is 2013/14.  That in itself means the QBO alone is NOT going to prevent a good pattern, but obviously we need other things to line up.  But this it cant snow because of the QBO stuff is silly given some of the years that had very positive QBO's and still had plenty of snow.  

Obvious this year the base state of all those factors just isnt doing it, the one thing we have not had so far is a shake up in the AO/NAO space so perhaps that is the wildcard that can shift things in our favor.  But saying it cant snow because the QBO doesn't stand up to data analysis.  

[psuhoffman]

4 minutes ago, Amped said:

Good 500mb look on the Euro at 168. May have a day 10 storm this run.

looks pretty squashed to me but we will see.  Way more interested in seeing what the EPS has to say about the blocking later.  

[psuhoffman]

4 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

I have quit looking beyond day 10 for anything.  Just for fun, I did look at the snow mean for day 10 on the latest gefs and compared it to yesterdays day 11.  It isn't a good trend.

I think our first real snow, if it happens, will be something that pops up no farther out than 6 days during or near the end of a good pattern.  I don't think we are going to get a long lead storm to chase.  The models for whatever reason are showing us what we want to see at long range and have done that repeatedly, during decent patterns, this year only to lose whatever we were interested in very quickly after showing it to us.

it lost the signal for the snow in the day 5-10 period, but upped the signal in the day 10-15.