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February Medium/Long Range Disco Thread 2


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If the idea of the stj missing the connection with the trough is correct and it looks like it, the idea of something diving in a day later and popping something is our best chance. That's a harder sell but the trough is sure loaded for something like that. Beautiful h5 setup up top. Hopefully not wasted. 

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3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

If the idea of the stj missing the connection with the trough is correct and it looks like it, the idea of something diving in a day later and popping something is our best chance. That's a harder sell but the trough is sure loaded for something like that. Beautiful h5 setup up top. Hopefully not wasted. 

That's gone too. 

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2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

If the idea of the stj missing the connection with the trough is correct and it looks like it, the idea of something diving in a day later and popping something is our best chance. That's a harder sell but the trough is sure loaded for something like that. Beautiful h5 setup up top. Hopefully not wasted. 

Seems to me that even at 210 hrs. (and it gets worse after that), the trough axis is too far east. And then there's the monster ridge in the midwest that's getting to move east. Same repeat pattern of what we have today then to warmth over the weekend.

gfs_z500aNorm_us_36.png

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25 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

If anybody is looking for wx porn in the wake of the recent disaster...loop the 6z para starting @ hr192. Nice dance move. Like a pole dance but in a weather kinda of way...lol. With a happy ending. 

Yeah, that'd do it for many.

Least theres stuff to track.  That IS why we were here right?  

We must name a storm after you this year...you deserve it.

and no its not called the Snakebit storm...its called the Chill Pill Storm....cause it'd make us all happy.

Nut

 

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7 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Sometimes it's not the pattern, it's just the winter. That's where we seem to be with this one.

The drivers right now are pretty different from the first half of winter. And the pattern is drastically different. Not snowing can happen for lots of reasons because we're not in that great a location overall. But the reason it didn't snow today was simply thewave on that boundary was 6 hours too fast. If that vort was 6 hours slower the front pushes 50 miles south and your shoveling 4-5" of snow right now. That's just bad luck. That wave wasn't exactly where it was because the pattern is out to screw us over. Parts of central pa are doing awful compared to avg and if the storm had been slower and gone south they would be saying the same thing you are today. It's been a really crappy winter and by my count we have only had 3 legit chances and none worked out. But that's not unusual. We don't hit a high percentage. The problem is we wasted so much of the year with an awful pattern that now we have a somewhat decent one but we have limited our chances. Each one should be measured by its own merits though because our snow records prove past results within a season do not always predict future outcomes. 

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11 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Sometimes it's not the pattern, it's just the winter. That's where we seem to be with this one.

You got it. If we were in the middle of a great winter I would have 7 inches on the ground and you would have 4-5 this morning. We're fighting an uphill battle this year. Still hoping for 1 decent event.

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12 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Seems to me that even at 210 hrs. (and it gets worse after that), the trough axis is too far east. And then there's the monster ridge in the midwest that's getting to move east. Same repeat pattern of what we have today then to warmth over the weekend.

gfs_z500aNorm_us_36.png

On this run of the gfs yes. But that's why it has no storm so that's kind of circular thinking.  But there have been several runs of the gfs para and ggem over the last several runs that dive something in further west. 

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20 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

GFS settling in on a screwjob for next week.  I had such high hopes for this one.

It did look good...but there's still time for a shift, correct? And what is the GFS-Para, exactly? (In relation to the regular GFS) I saw the 6z and it still had the storm coming up but just missing a phase by a hair). And also...what needs to happen to change the current GFS solution?

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2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The drivers right now are pretty different from the first half of winter. And the pattern is drastically different. Not snowing can happen for lots of reasons because we're not in that great a location overall. But the reason it didn't snow today was simply thewave on that boundary was 6 hours too fast. If that vort was 6 hours slower the front pushes 50 miles south and your shoveling 4-5" of snow right now. That's just bad luck. That wave wasn't exactly where it was because the pattern is out to screw us over. Parts of central pa are doing awful compared to avg and if the storm had been slower and gone south they would be saying the same thing you are today. It's been a really crappy winter and by my count we have only had 3 legit chances and none worked out. But that's not unusual. We don't hit a high percentage. The problem is we wasted so much of the year with an awful pattern that now we have a somewhat decent one but we have limited our chances. Each one should be measured by its own merits though because our snow records prove past results within a season do not always predict future outcomes. 

My point is simply more of an observation after following winters here since 72/73. For whatever variety of reasons, there are winters where it won't snow no matter the pattern, no matter the pattern change, and no matter what computers spit out. In may be for different reasons and at different times, but it just doesn't snow. So far, this has been one of those years. From what I am seeing on the ensembles and operationals, I don't have much confidence that it is going to change. In short, we need a fluke.

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39 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

I'd post it if I could clear my dumb attachments folder but click through the 6z GEFS low location panels on wxbell. That late threat looks really good at range. It's a very 2014 or 15 type of storm progression. Departing 50/50 / good trough alignment / +NAO / nice shortwave rounding the base. 

That is a pretty intriguing look for sure. With that high amplitude longwave pattern and if the ridge/trough position is close to advertised, it would seem unlikely a storm would cut west, despite no block and a bit of ridging near the Canadian Maritimes. Long way off but yeah I would take that set up.

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40 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

My point is simply more of an observation after following winters here since 72/73. For whatever variety of reasons, there are winters where it won't snow no matter the pattern, no matter the pattern change, and no matter what computers spit out. In may be for different reasons and at different times, but it just doesn't snow. So far, this has been one of those years. From what I am seeing on the ensembles and operationals, I don't have much confidence that it is going to change. In short, we need a fluke.

The way I see it is this. Overall years are skewed by favorable or unfavorable patterns. So don't misunderstand and think I'm saying seasons have no built in default settings. But even in our worse years we get legit chances.  Every so often we have a year where the stars align and we will get crushed. 1996, 2003, 2010, 2014.  Those years we have so many chances it's gonna snow a lot regardless of luck.  Then there are all the others that are ok. Enough chances that we probably get some good snow and if we're lucky like 2000 a couple hits and we go over climo. The rest, and we're talking 50 percent of our winters here are pretty hostile much of the year and it's a struggle.  Some a better then others but it's marginal. Most other years we have to fight for every flake. We're talking 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2016.  

They all featured long stretches of crap pattern and very limited windows of opportunity. The difference between the ones that were total duds and just regular bad was luck. That one storm last year gets suppressed and it's on the 2002 list. 2006 we had two small windows all year early December and mid feb. we were lucky and scored both or else that  year is on the crap list.  1999 and 2009 the one march hits don't hit and they were total duds.  2008 there was that perfect upper low that somehow didn't spark a surface storm. But the upper low popped weird convective snows and philly got 8". That hits us and it's not as bad a year.  Things were skewed bad but luck differentiated the really awful years from the plain bad ones. 

I think of it like each threat is a dice roll. Some threats are better so for them maybe 3/6 numbers result in snow. A lower level threat we need to roll a 6. But each dice throw is chance. We can roll 3 wins in a row or 5 misses.   So far we have only had 3 rolls this year and each came up wrong. 

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

That is a pretty intriguing look for sure. With that high amplitude longwave pattern and if the ridge/trough position is close to advertised, it would seem unlikely a storm would cut west, despite no block and a bit of ridging near the Canadian Maritimes. Long way off but yeah I would take that set up.

We got a 4-12" snow region wide in feb 2015 from a system that tried to cut west in that look. There would be a lot of cold in the way. 

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So many ex...planations in this thread.  The reality is the long range forecasts almost universally predicted this winter would be front loaded.  And it was.  The problem was the front loaded period sucked, but it was still closest to average.  January and February were far worse.  Now we are merely waiting for the cold finish.  Fast forward 60 days and the resultant wx is probably very similar in absolute terms this week, except more cold rain and less snow.

Let's hope summer ends on time.  No doubt it will be hot enough in the meantime.

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44 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

My point is simply more of an observation after following winters here since 72/73. For whatever variety of reasons, there are winters where it won't snow no matter the pattern, no matter the pattern change, and no matter what computers spit out. In may be for different reasons and at different times, but it just doesn't snow. So far, this has been one of those years. From what I am seeing on the ensembles and operationals, I don't have much confidence that it is going to change. In short, we need a fluke.

I agree 100% with your observation Mitch!  I am not one who posts often due to limited knowledge of the dynamics and physics of this science, but I have about the same amount of experiential knowledge as you do in that I have lived in this area for my whole life of nearly 50 years now.  Some winters it wants to snow at the drop of a hat even when all indices say that it should not be favorable for snow.  And other winters just stink, despite all of the upper atmosphere components lining up just right.  This is one of those years.  I was hoping that this morning's snow was going to be the well needed "fluke".  Perhaps March will serve up a nice pretty tree topper with plops that fall on our heads as we walk under the trees.

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2 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

Encouraging.   Bob brought me back from the ledge.   Bob saved my life yall.  

We can just as easily score something before this too. Getting on the board with just a 2"+ storm region wide would save winter from the deep fire abyss. It would still be a dumpster fire but only smoldering coals instead of molten rusty steel. 

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13 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

Encouraging.   Bob brought me back from the ledge.   Bob saved my life yall.  

Very strong signal. Big improvement.  I think we should keep in mind what this storm that just missed looked like 7 days out.  If the overall pattern setup looks good it's worth a little patience to see how the details emerge. Not saying it's gonna hit but the swings run to run on ops this far out is not productive. 

Even more then being disappointed in my own backyards I'm really upset this storm missed because now i have to read the "it just won't snow this year" posts another week in the pattern discussion thread. Don't get me wrong it's been a bad year but there is no snow shield over is and god isn't punishing us. Just south and north of us it's snowed and the pattern hasn't been inherently better for them and it's been overall pretty warm and crappy there also. They just got luckier then us. 

Im not even sure Mitch is saying anything that different from me. Yea we need a fluke. Most typical bad years we need a fluke. Many of our snows are flukes. I guess I just think chance is a bigger player then fate. 

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