December Medium/Long Range Discussion

[CAPE]

1 minute ago, showmethesnow said:

Massive suppression on the 06Z GFS. At hour 162 the low is in the pan handle of Florida.

It is, and despite some hints of suppression in the means, I would be pretty surprised if the way we fail is a suppressed track. We may see more op runs like this for awhile, but I am ok with it at this range.  Rather be in this position than seeing a bunch of cutter solutions.

[CAPE]

7 minutes ago, showmethesnow said:

500s bear little resemblance to the previous run.

It is the 6z GFS. 

[showmethesnow]

4 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

Indeed.  Blip or start of something sinister who knows

Wouldn't really sweat it too much. For whatever reason the GFS always seems to lose a storm around now by suppressing it into submission. I like the general overall setup leading into this and would be very surprised if we didn't see a storm somewhere from the NC/VA border up to the MD/PA line.

[showmethesnow]

Just now, C.A.P.E. said:

It is the 6z GFS. 

Don't even hint at that or the God's of these boards will smite you. 

[showmethesnow]

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

It is, and despite some hints of suppression in the means, I would be pretty surprised if the way we fail is a suppressed track. We may see more op runs like this for awhile, but I am ok with it at this range.  Rather be in this position than seeing a bunch of cutter solutions.

I very much doubt we see this type of suppression. Maybe suppressed enough to screw over DC/north but this? No.

[luckyamaha]

Time to look at the FV3 and see how its not going into suppression on this 6z run. Lets get this together plenty of time for correction 

[CAPE]

2 minutes ago, showmethesnow said:

Don't even hint at that or the God's of these boards will smite you. 

I know. I am not gonna dig that hole lol. The model physics geniuses will track me down. 

[aldie 22]

Lol it was like reading two different books from the overnight crew to the morning wake up crew.....until tonight!!

[showmethesnow]

FV3 is suppressed as well. Southern VA down to NE Georgia get smoked with foot+ totals. Atlanta even sees 6+ inches..

[Disc]

14 minutes ago, showmethesnow said:

FV3 is suppressed as well. Southern VA down to NE Georgia get smoked with foot+ totals. Atlanta even sees 6+ inches..

Atlanta is all ice. Anywhere outside of western NC and SW and C VA is not all snow.

[showmethesnow]

2 minutes ago, Disc said:

Atlanta is all ice. Anywhere outside of western NC and SW and C VA is not all snow.

I believe you. Was just being lazy and going by the 10-1 maps.

[jewell2188]

Disappointed folks this morning after last nights runs. BUT I think we saw many storms last year trend this way for southern areas as well. Leaving DC/nova crew high and dry

[psuhoffman]

@showmethesnowit doesn't surprise me the EPS was a step back. Last night I was thinking despite the great euro op run I didn't like how it got there. It was suppressed early on then needed a late capture and jog up the coast to save us. But without that, if it didn't come together just right, it would be suppressed. 

I definitely think suppressed is the bigger threat. Even on runs that try to cut they hit a wall and get squashed east. Look at the h5 flow. There isn't really much room to go north. The flow over the top is pressing down and it's running into a wall. Just looking at it I don't think the stj feature alone can get it done. If there is no interaction with the trough digging in behind it this will likely be a southern slider. We need at least some phasing and a partial capture.  My goalposts are the same. I don't think this can truly cut and I doubt it disappears but I could see it impacting NC and southern VA if there is no phasing and the trend for a more suppressive northern jet continues. 

[WxUSAF]

Just now, jewell2188 said:

Disappointed folks this morning after last nights runs. 

The runs where the two best operational models gave us HECS?

[Disc]

2 minutes ago, showmethesnow said:

I believe you. Was just being lazy and going by the 10-1 maps.

No worries. In all honesty, this is where you want the storm right now. I'd be more worried if it was mauling Northern VA at this range.

[psuhoffman]

Gefs followed the op south. I don't mind the solutions targeting southern VA but there are now quite a few (~40%) that squash the storm down into practically nothing.  That's not something I want to see. We can easily see it recover if we're looking at a southern VA snowstorm day 6 but it's less often we do if we start to see guidance converge on a solution more suppressive than that. 

[psuhoffman]

9 minutes ago, Disc said:

No worries. In all honesty, this is where you want the storm right now. I'd be more worried if it was mauling Northern VA at this range.

A little south of us I agree. But the typical northward adjustment in these recently isn't as great as 20 years ago.  My worry isn't these runs it's if this is the start of a trend towards even more suppression. I said if that would happen it would probably show day 6-7 and here we are.  

Its just one run. I'm not throwing in any towel or over reacting. A long long way to go. But I won't sugar coat it and pretend I'm totally ok seeing a move towards suppression either. 

[showmethesnow]

10 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

@showmethesnowit doesn't surprise me the EPS was a step back. Last night I was thinking despite the great euro op run I didn't like how it got there. It was suppressed early on then needed a late capture and jog up the coast to save us. But without that, if it didn't come together just right, it would be suppressed. 

I definitely think suppressed is the bigger threat. Even on runs that try to cut they hit a wall and get squashed east. Look at the h5 flow. There isn't really much room to go north. The flow over the top is pressing down and it's running into a wall. Just looking at it I don't think the stj feature alone can get it done. If there is no interaction with the trough digging in behind it this will likely be a southern slider. We need at least some phasing and a partial capture.  My goalposts are the same. I don't think this can truly cut and I doubt it disappears but I could see it impacting NC and southern VA if there is no phasing and the trend for a more suppressive northern jet continues. 

Yeah, I saw that you were flagged.  Looking over the progression leading into the storm on the EPS I have to agree with you. I thought we were looking at suppression there as well. As you said, late save.

Until further notice I still feel good about the setup despite the signs of suppression showing up. Catch me in a couple of days though if we continue to see this.

[jewell2188]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

A little south of us I agree. But the typical northward adjustment in these recently isn't as great as 20 years ago.  My worry isn't these runs it's if this is the start of a trend towards even more suppression. I said if that would happen it would probably show day 6-7 and here we are.  

Its just one run. I'm not throwing in any towel or over reacting. A long long way to go. But I won't sugar coat it and pretend I'm totally ok seeing a move towards suppression either. 

I mean isn’t it true if there is a way for us to fail, we always manage to find it haha.

[Maestrobjwa]

3 minutes ago, jewell2188 said:

I mean isn’t it true if there is a way for us to fail, we always manage to find it haha.

Not always the case...all depends on the year!

[psuhoffman]

10 minutes ago, showmethesnow said:

Yeah, I saw that you were flagged.  Looking over the progression leading into the storm on the EPS I have to agree with you. I thought we were looking at suppression there as well. As you said, late save.

Until further notice I still feel good about the setup despite the signs of suppression showing up. Catch me in a couple of days though if we continue to see this.

It's still a good setup but the guidance is trending towards a pretty suppressive look. As you said we need some of that. One thing I noticed after looking at the ensembles and op runs lately...the speed of the stj wave is becoming less the issue. It's the timing of the northern stream. Both the northern stream wave in front and behind. If the northern stream system coming across ahead of this is stronger and slower it's squashing it. If the energy digging behind is too far back it acts as a kicker instead of to pull it up. (6z gfs did that) Basically regardless of speed the stj wave needs help. There are faster and slower fails in the mix. What seems constant is the stj need help or it's suppressed. That complicates things and I don't like complicated. 

[snowmagnet]

We always need a perfect storm around here to get a HECS or even a SECS.  We can get a few inches out of a normal storm, but it’s always threading the needle for our biggest ones. And while we would like to see it perfectly modeled a week away, that almost never happens. 

 

[North Balti Zen]

I confess that it would be a bit of a bitter pill to lose a potential snow to too much suppression this early in the season.

[Chris78]

The FV3 is further north than the OP GFS and closer to a good solution for us. I'm near the PA border and do worry a little about suppression but I was more concerned yesterday when the GFS had rain to upstate New York. If you look at the last 4 runs of the GFS it's all over the place. 

[Chris78]

One thing I don't like seeing is a weaker trend in the SS wave. I posted the last 3 runs of the GFS. As @psuhoffman was saying we need more northern stream interaction to pull it north and I think the weaker wave is contributing to that. I would like to see a comeback to a stronger wave in future runs so we can rely less on interaction with the NS. 

It seems confluence is ussually over modeled out in time so hopefully that helps bring it further north.

I'm near the PA border and my bigger concern is still to far north lol. 

It seems once things trend to far north we just can't get it back under us.

I like where we are at right now.

[LP08]

6 minutes ago, Chris78 said:

One thing I don't like seeing is a weaker trend in the SS wave. I posted the last 3 runs of the GFS. As @psuhoffman was saying we need more northern stream interaction to pull it north and I think the weaker wave is contributing to that. I would like to see a comeback to a stronger wave in future runs so we can rely less on interaction with the NS. 

It seems confluence is ussually over modeled out in time so hopefully that helps bring it further north.

I'm near the PA border and my bigger concern is still to far north lol. 

It seems once things trend to far north we just can't get it back under us.

I like where we are at right now.

 

 

 

I was going to mention yesterday that at “range” last year, we had plenty of teases and great Ensemble runs with a robust southern stream SW.  The biggest issue was the initial Vort would progressively get weaker and weaker each run, especially the southern stream ones.  

 

Im hoping with this being a Nino that won’t be the case, however it is sticking in the back of my mind.

[MD Snow]

At a 7 day lead...the only reason to get really nervous is if over the next 3-4 runs the storm gets squashed to almost nothing. If that happens the likelihood of it coming back is pretty bleak. However, as long as model's still show a storm even in the Carolina's/southern Virginia i'm not going to worry about suppression/details until 4 days/96 hrs out. The main concern at this point should be a trend toward a total squash. I use to think a suppressed storm would always trend north until last year. 

[jewell2188]

2 minutes ago, MD Snow said:

At a 7 day lead...the only reason to get really nervous is if over the next 3-4 runs the storm gets squashed to almost nothing. If that happens the likelihood of it coming back is pretty bleak. However, as long as model's still show a storm even in the Carolina's/southern Virginia i'm not going to worry about suppression/details until 4 days/96 hrs out. The main concern at this point should be a trend toward a total squash. 

And we are not at a trend stage yet. DT made good points yesterday. The signal is clearly there for a storm, anything other then that right now is noise. 

[winterymix]

27 minutes ago, Chris78 said:

One thing I don't like seeing is a weaker trend in the SS wave. I posted the last 3 runs of the GFS. As @psuhoffman was saying we need more northern stream interaction to pull it north and I think the weaker wave is contributing to that. I would like to see a comeback to a stronger wave in future runs so we can rely less on interaction with the NS. 

It seems confluence is ussually over modeled out in time so hopefully that helps bring it further north.

I'm near the PA border and my bigger concern is still to far north lol. 

It seems once things trend to far north we just can't get it back under us.

I like where we are at right now.

 

 

Quality post.   Northern wave strength...I like the Canadian model for this and will await the new run this afternoon.  What are the chances that the Canadian shows the perfect 500 mb depiction while the Ravens will 3 in a row with #8?

 

[frd]

4 minutes ago, MD Snow said:

At a 7 day lead...the only reason to get really nervous is if over the next 3-4 runs the storm gets squashed to almost nothing. If that happens the likelihood of it coming back is pretty bleak. However, as long as model's still show a storm even in the Carolina's/southern Virginia i'm not going to worry about suppression/details until 4 days/96 hrs out. The main concern at this point should be a trend toward a total squash. I use to think a suppressed storm would always trend north until last year. 

Actually for various reasons the past several years we have seen snow events miss to our South that never moved back North, and we have seen storms crush the coastal plain like Ocen City, MD, Cape May, NJ., and Dewey Beach, and skim far Eastern Long Island. Each event had its own reasons.  

Not sure how this will play out, but a solution that favors NC and VA. were mentioned yesterday by some mets.

Just because it is December does not mean it has to move back North.   

With a gun to my head I prefer at this range for the system be focused South of us, as in many cases over a 5 day lead it will move North, but @psuhoffman stated that is happening less the last 20 years or so. I guess because modeling has improved.