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February Medium/Long Range Discussion Thread


North Balti Zen

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1 hour ago, Bob Chill said:

Getting close to time to root for the combined worst winter on record for the 3 airports. 

We've had plenty of good runs flip bad and vice versa so I'm not quite ready to jump yet but man I'm getting close. If this look locks in over the next couple days and the front 10 days fails to trend towards something of any significance then I'm out. I'll turn my attention to planning some snow/ski trip to get my fix and hold me over to spring. 

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14 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

18Z GFS is classic.....BN temps much of the run but with every wave of precip that approaches, it warms just enough to be 33 and rain. Someone needs to save this run to an archive for the way this winter has been. 

GEFS don't support the OPS in the least 

 

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9 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

18Z GFS is classic.....BN temps much of the run but with every wave of precip that approaches, it warms just enough to be 33 and rain. Someone needs to save this run to an archive for the way this winter has been. 

It's trending warmer though. It may not end up that cold. But the cold dry warm wet thing isn't irony or a travesty of fate it's completely understandable and expected if there is no blocking and a trough axis west of us. It's winter. Cold will push behind transient trough passes but without any mechanism to suppress the flow will retreat with the return flow ahead of the next wave. That's the typical base state at our latitude and proximity to the ocean. Once in a while we get lucky and a favorable pattern sets in and we get snow in bunches. Sometimes an entire season will buck that status quo but over the long run that is out fate more often then not. 

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Just now, psuhoffman said:

And when it flips tomorrow?

Then we will have nothing most likely lol.

I am not jumping ship yet. If the 0z EPS looks bad and the negative trends continue on the GEFS as well, then it would be foolish to deny things are taking a turn for the worse. On the other hand, the last run or 2 of the ensembles could be a bit of a blip. We will see.

Overall I don't have a good feeling about a favorable pattern with any staying power setting up going forward. Not to say we wont have transient cold and a thread the needle chance or 2, but expectations are on the low side.

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4 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

Then we will have nothing most likely lol.

I am not jumping ship yet. If the 0z EPS looks bad and the negative trends continue on the GEFS as well, then it would be foolish to deny things are taking a turn for the worse. On the other hand, the last run or 2 of the ensembles could be a bit of a blip. We will see.

Overall I don't have a good feeling about a favorable pattern with any staying power setting up going forward. Not to say we wont have transient cold and a thread the needle chance or 2, but expectations are on the low side.

Yea next few cycles are key. We have bad runs flip all the time. But once an idea locks in for several runs on the gefs and EPS we're in trouble. 

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3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Yea next few cycles are key. We have bad runs flip all the time. But once an idea locks in for several runs on the gefs and EPS were in trouble. 

I hope you have made plans to go to Canaan. Perpetual orographic snows look like a a lock there for the foreseeable future.

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3 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

Then we will have nothing most likely lol.

I am not jumping ship yet. If the 0z EPS looks bad and the negative trends continue on the GEFS as well, then it would be foolish to deny things are taking a turn for the worse. On the other hand, the last run or 2 of the ensembles could be a bit of a blip. We will see.

Overall I don't have a good feeling about a favorable pattern with any staying power setting up going forward. Not to say we wont have transient cold and a thread the needle chance or 2, but expectations are on the low side.

Exactly. you said it best with this post. We have been fighting an uphill battle all season long. Any good looks we've seen have turned and this one may be doing so also. When things have gone the way they have you can only expect the worst. I have been holding out hope for a favorable 2 week period that produces 2-3 events of at least a moderate variety but that  now looks difficult. I have resigned my optimism to simply getting in on one decent event which is still likely at some point but as far as seeing an entire good month or sustained favorable period I have basically given up on. 

It has also reached a point for me where I don't see how anyone can put any stock into the weeklies. I haven't been into the models this year because I've been so busy with work but from what I've seen and read about the weeklies they have been just awful. They offer no consistency. Why they continue to see blocking in the long term on to turn on a dime is a major flaw. Then we have the horrendous seasonal forecasts from the usual suspects and you wonder what the hell are these guys looking at with all their experience. Bottom line is this is rapidly turning into a sickening winter and could rival a top 5 worst winters for snow totals. I guess theres always hope for miracle storms or something and we can't lose site that its only January 25th but the writing is on the wall. I would love to proven dead wrong and see at least a decent February. Wouldn't it be great to just see a nice consistent winter where everyone receives there averages instead of this all or nothing deal we've seen in most years. 

 

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22 minutes ago, HighStakes said:

Exactly. you said it best with this post. We have been fighting an uphill battle all season long. Any good looks we've seen have turned and this one may be doing so also. When things have gone the way they have you can only expect the worst. I have been holding out hope for a favorable 2 week period that produces 2-3 events of at least a moderate variety but that  now looks difficult. I have resigned my optimism to simply getting in on one decent event which is still likely at some point but as far as seeing an entire good month or sustained favorable period I have basically given up on. 

It has also reached a point for me where I don't see how anyone can put any stock into the weeklies. I haven't been into the models this year because I've been so busy with work but from what I've seen and read about the weeklies they have been just awful. They offer no consistency. Why they continue to see blocking in the long term on to turn on a dime is a major flaw. Then we have the horrendous seasonal forecasts from the usual suspects and you wonder what the hell are these guys looking at with all their experience. Bottom line is this is rapidly turning into a sickening winter and could rival a top 5 worst winters for snow totals. I guess theres always hope for miracle storms or something and we can't lose site that its only January 25th but the writing is on the wall. I would love to proven dead wrong and see at least a decent February. Wouldn't it be great to just see a nice consistent winter where everyone receives there averages instead of this all or nothing deal we've seen in most years. 

 

I honestly dont put a lot of stock in the LR stuff. Its fun to look at and post about. But to have the EPS make the late run jump it did in one cycle- and it was significant- and then to follow that up with a major shift in the overall look of the weeklies, its a bit demoralizing. And the GEFS has been doing its usual gradual fade with the advertised -AO/NAO. (I am more convinced than ever its an urban myth). This has been a bad few hours lol. The models could shift/trend back the other way, and maybe they will start tonight, but would you really believe it? We are almost two thirds through Met winter now, and I think the persistence of the generally crappy pattern speaks for itself.

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53 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Yea next few cycles are key. We have bad runs flip all the time. But once an idea locks in for several runs on the gefs and EPS we're in trouble. 

Now...here's a more general question: What role is La Nina (or are we neutral?) playing in all of this? Now I'm still a novice at this (so I don't understand what you mean by the QBO or "base state") Is it true that our best bet for a good winter is a weak-moderate El Niño, with the other types not yielding any decent snow most of the time? And also...I wonder if it's safe to say if nothing happens by President's Day, we can definitely punt? Lol

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3 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

Getting close to time to root for the combined worst winter on record for the 3 airports. 

So, I went and checked on the most notoriously awful recent winters in terms of how they went down in Montgomery County, MD.  97/98 was 2-5" across the county for the seasonal total. 01/02 was also 2-5" across the county. 11/12 was 2-5" across most of the county except for a 12" Clarksburg total (4" in the October storm and 5-6" in February). 

12/13, though, was much better than those other winters. I know the terrible sting of the 3/6/13 bust leads us to throw that winter into the trash heap, but it was a much better winter than those other seasons. 10-24" for MoCo. It was actually a better result for our county compared to this season up to now with 1-7" in December and 2-3" in January.

February was 2-5" across the county with the two back-to-back ground-covering snows on the first and second days of the month. And despite the early March bust (which did still manage to cover the grass), that month was a 5-10" total for our county--- the 3/25 event was 3-5" across our county and the only time since 1984 that I saw roads completely covered with snow that late in the season. 

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10 minutes ago, gymengineer said:

So, I went and checked on the most notoriously awful recent winters in terms of how they went down in Montgomery County, MD.  97/98 was 2-5" across the county for the seasonal total. 01/02 was also 2-5" across the county. 11/12 was 2-5" across most of the county except for a 12" Clarksburg total (4" in the October storm and 5-6" in February). 

12/13, though, was much better than those other winters. I know the terrible sting of the 3/6/13 bust leads us to throw that winter into the trash heap, but it was a much better winter than those other seasons. 10-24" for MoCo. It was actually a better result for our county compared to this season up to now with 1-7" in December and 2-3" in January.

February was 2-5" across the county with the two back-to-back ground-covering snows on the first and second days of the month. And despite the early March bust (which did still manage to cover the grass), that month was a 5-10" total for our county--- the 3/25 event was 3-5" across our county and the only time since 1984 that I saw roads completely covered with snow that late in the season. 

12/13 isn't even in the conversation as worst winter, IMO.  I had identical 12.5" totals in 10/11 and 12/13.  11/12 is on an entirely different level.

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6 hours ago, yoda said:

00z GFS says what clipper Sunday night into Monday... Tuesday night into Wednesday is north of us... do we have a chance anyway with that one?

CMC and Euro have a little something. NAM now hinting at it. Worth watching because it still could be a 1-2 deal for a relatively small area. Does not look to be a widespread event at this point.

Its a week out, but next Friday looks interesting on the GFS.

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