The Mystical Month of February--Long Range Discussion

[MountainGeek]

Just now, Bob Chill said:

@clskinsfan 

Man, midlevel flow is perfect on those panels. Euro had a great surface CAD setup but the mids were pumping southerly due to less confluence and primary punching north. 18z gfs is an unconventional big storm setup. 

I do think this has been somewhat of "it wants to snow" year during our limited windows of opportunity. Since Miller A's or even B's seem to be elusive, the weather is going to figure out how to get us a MECS anyway. Remember our best snow so far has come when you/Showme and/or PSU take a break/throw in the towel. 

Granted we haven't seen the promised epic looks materialize, which has been a letdown, but let's not forget the frustration of the past two years (reference PSU's epic meltdown/rant from last year)....we've been doing really well compared to that. 

 

[Bob Chill]

3 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

Yep. It would be the perfect progression of the HP. Which is why it is probably wrong :). That 162 panel really shows the upper level cold getting shoved up against the mountains and locked in. Lets hope the GFS is right for once. 

Imagine if the gfs let the lead shorwave turn up the coast instead of being kind of disjointed. Would have been a strange version of PD2. Lol.

[Hurricanegiants]

Posting anything from NWS 100+ hours is jinkx central. And as to be expected——could rain, could snow or like a mix of rain and snow and like more N and W maybe, could, perhaps (totally get it but sometimes you wish a commitment of opinion could be established—I know I know)

Weak wave of low 
pressure then moves eastward across the region, with potential for a 
little mixed precip late in the day or at night. Guidance is highly 
uncertain with its handling of this first wave, so really not much 
confidence on it yet. Stronger wave of low pressure then develops in 
the south-Central Plains Monday and tries to push towards US with 
more precip. Lots of uncertainty on this as far as timing and type, 
but still some potential for wintry weather, at least at the start 
and especially northwest of I-95. 

 

[psuhoffman]

2 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

Exactly what I was thinking. Even as is would imply oscillating AN/BN temps with an active storm track in our general area. I do think the NE is going to go into some sort of furious catchup to snow climo mode here shortly. If I lived anywhere in SNE I would like what I see more than at any previous time this entire winter. 

Well even if we didn’t have good reasons (mjo soi) to think it will adjust our way we know that trough is likely going to not be exactly where the eps says from 360 hours. So if it adjusts south any we are great. North any and we rain. 50/50 ain’t bad odds.  I tend to think given those 2 factors it’s better than 50/50. 

[pasnownut]

since Ops are going to be our new ensemble runs for the rest of this whacked year, I took a peek beyond next Tues and good lord, Pappa G is throwning a lot of sh!t in da chute through the end of the run.  Starting next Tuesday, I counted 5 different events aimed right at us through the end of the run.

Looks quite busy.

 

 

[Bob Chill]

3 minutes ago, MountainGeek said:

I do think this has been somewhat of "it wants to snow" year during our limited windows of opportunity. Since Miller A's or even B's seem to be elusive, the weather is going to figure out how to get us a MECS anyway. Remember our best snow so far has come when you/Showme and/or PSU take a break/throw in the towel. 

Granted we haven't seen the promised epic looks materialize, which has been a letdown, but let's not forget the frustration of the past two years (reference PSU's epic meltdown/rant from last year)....we've been doing really well compared to that. 

 

We've hit 5 out of 6 chances so far. November was a great pattern but not the rest. They all had a nice combo of luck and timing. I can't think of a single previous year where we hit 5 out of our first 6 chances. I guess 09-10 was similar in that regard. We missed the late Feb storm. I can't remember any other misses that year. Either way, the MA is undeniably the snow capital of the East this year. 

[poolz1]

FV3 has stj on roids after our potential storm next week. Has another shot or two in our area and then a OHV blizzard....'78 style.  Maybe this is all falling in our lap....minus the epic look up top.

 

[Bob Chill]

3 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

since Ops are going to be our new ensemble runs for the rest of this whacked year, I took a peek beyond next Tues and good lord, Pappa G is throwning a lot of sh!t in da chute through the end of the run.  Starting next Tuesday, I counted 5 different events aimed right at us through the end of the run.

Looks quite busy.

 

 

Gefs just jumped on board. Didn't say grab your shovel yet but def said make sure you know where your shovel is

[pasnownut]

14 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Gefs just jumped on board. Didn't say grab your shovel yet but def said make sure you know where your shovel is

#bootleggin

and IF we can get to 8 in the MJO, boy it could be a solid period at that.

[MD Snow]

So, talk about a flip  in the long range all of a sudden on the 18z gefs. Holy smokes. 

[snowmagnet]

So tonight we have the Euro ops, GEFS, GFS, and JMA, correct?   Any others on board yet?  Hope they are still there in the morning. 

 

[pasnownut]

3 minutes ago, MD Snow said:

So, talk about a flip  in the long range all of a sudden on the 18z gefs. Holy smokes. 

Definitely is cocktail worthy.  I'd sign for it just as it is and roll em'.

Would be nice to see some consistency (for sanity's sake anyway).

[poolz1]

Not that it will work out exactly as depicted but the GEFS are throwing out some weenie looks a H5 in the LR.  All caveats apply, obviously...(and there are a lot)  The rotation of the MJO makes it somewhat believable tho...

[MD Snow]

1 minute ago, pasnownut said:

Definitely is cocktail worthy.  I'd sign for it just as it is and roll em'.

Would be nice to see some consistency (for sanity's sake anyway).

Well it did have the same general look the last 2-3 days. But now all of a sudden better nao, better 50/50 throughout. 

[Solution Man]

1 minute ago, pasnownut said:

Definitely is cocktail worthy.  I'd sign for it just as it is and roll em'.

Would be nice to see some consistency (for sanity's sake anyway).

Having a cigar and whiskey on deck tonight in honor of models on board

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, Bob Chill said:

That oddball W-E oriented ridge poking in off the pac is creating the confluence stacked up in eastern canada. Technically it's a block but wtf do you call it? I can't recall seeing such a jacked up set of features creating compressed flow. At least we do "weird and jacked up" pretty well around here. Lol

I’ve always just called that an epo block. It works better then a normal epo ridge. Still not as perfect as an NAO block but not a bad way to roll either. 

39 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Imagine if the gfs let the lead shorwave turn up the coast instead of being kind of disjointed. Would have been a strange version of PD2. Lol.

PD2 was a weird jacked way to get a hecs imo. 

32 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

We've hit 5 out of 6 chances so far. November was a great pattern but not the rest. They all had a nice combo of luck and timing. I can't think of a single previous year where we hit 5 out of our first 6 chances. I guess 09-10 was similar in that regard. We missed the late Feb storm. I can't remember any other misses that year. Either way, the MA is undeniably the snow capital of the East this year. 

I would argue November, the early December miss, and the January MECS were all pretty good patterns.  The last two just didn’t last long.  The January one is maybe overlooked because it evolved into a good pattern at the last minute and since the models overdid the suppression a bit until the last minute. But the analogs were warning us all week leading in with big snows littering the top 10 pattern matches and then we got that second minor snow too before the pattern broke down.   I would agree it wasn’t a great pattern from range but ended in one in real time. 

[psuhoffman]

18 minutes ago, MD Snow said:

So, talk about a flip  in the long range all of a sudden on the 18z gefs. Holy smokes. 

 

13 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

Definitely is cocktail worthy.  I'd sign for it just as it is and roll em'.

Would be nice to see some consistency (for sanity's sake anyway).

 

12 minutes ago, poolz1 said:

Not that it will work out exactly as depicted but the GEFS are throwing out some weenie looks a H5 in the LR.  All caveats apply, obviously...(and there are a lot)  The rotation of the MJO makes it somewhat believable tho...

The gefs has had that look for about 6 runs now but no one cared lol. But it’s finally picking up on the mjo/soi imo. Oddly the euro picked up on it first but seems to lose it in the long range and the gefs day 15 looks more like you would expect. If even half the NAO blocking the gefs thinks is real it would adjust the eps into a damn good pattern like Bob said earlier. 

I am cautious about the day 6-7 storm. It’s a tricky setup. Doesn’t mean it has no chance, I’m interested but not confident yet. But I’m bullish after that we see more good chances this winter. 

[psuhoffman]

Now that’s a signal you don’t see very often lol 

I’m sure the sun angle brigade will be along soon to put a wet blanket on that with “but any snow will melt the next day” 

[Bob Chill]

@psuhoffman

What makes the Jan storm so interesting is it was weakening the whole time it was tracking towards us. By the time the shortwave crossed overhead it almost wasn't a shortwave at all. Lol. The upper level support was a ghost of leftovers but the placement of the remaining lift was ideal for my area and southward into nova. Since the storm was pretty damn strong in the midwest, all the leftovers still had enough oomph to give us a pretty substantial storm. In some ways the progression was backwards of what usually creates a big storm for our area. 

Anyways, enough talk about the past... I liked the future before I took a break from posting. Future looks even better now. If we go on a heater this month then I have no problem giving this winter an A grade. Has never been conventional or predictable but for some reason it keeps wanting to snow in my yard when it counts. Hopefully your yard gets plastered soon too. 

[BristowWx]

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Now that’s a signal you don’t see very often lol 

I’m sure the sun angle brigade will be along soon to put a wet blanket on that with “but any snow will melt the next day” 

That’s a cold signal.  The blues and purple hues represent cold anomalies with the coldest centered in the upper Midwest.  The entire CONUS is cold on that frame. 

[Bob Chill]

Just posting this for fun. When CAD is driven all the way down to SC/GA, our area will get zero plain rain with the Fv3's progression. Would be a big thump then piles of sleet and topped off with a nice thick layer of ice. Have I mentioned I love glaciers in Feb?

[BristowWx]

1 minute ago, Bob Chill said:

Just posting this for fun. When CAD is driven all the way down to SC/GA, our area will get zero plain rain with the Fv3's progression. Would be a big thump then piles of sleet and topped off with a nice thick layer of ice. Have I mentioned I love glaciers in Feb?

I am enjoying this warm break so much more seeing that next week is promising.  2 weeks of this I would be looking for a rope and tall tree.  

[Ji]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

That’s not true. 1-2” is the background bogus fake mean in a shutout pattern that happens from the 10% outliers. 3-4” is average in a typical “it might snow but probably not” and when it’s 5-6” it’s usually a good pattern and we have better than climo odds. Keep in mind that still might only be 40-50% so often it fails even then. 

Snow means are bad ways to judge ensembles. And that’s just a typical quick rule. And obviously since guidance has sucked at range this year and typically by having a good pattern that wasn’t real the fail rate this year is much worse than average but since some people here don’t know when your kidding let’s not pretend the eps always has 3-4”. 

no dude---the past 4 or 5 times ive checked..its been 3-4. 3-4 is the default in Jan/Feb in my opinion unless its like a historic SE ridge. Even when the OP Euro is going nuts with threats...its still 3-4

[Danajames]

Here's Joe Bastardi's take on the long range-

 

https://twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi/status/1092769611748130821

[CAPE]

17 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Just posting this for fun. When CAD is driven all the way down to SC/GA, our area will get zero plain rain with the Fv3's progression. Would be a big thump then piles of sleet and topped off with a nice thick layer of ice. Have I mentioned I love glaciers in Feb?

Sun angle 'issues' neutralized. Dense ice bergs stick around even well into Feb, and March.

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, Ji said:

no dude---the past 4 or 5 times ive checked..its been 3-4. 3-4 is the default in Jan/Feb in my opinion unless its like a historic SE ridge. Even when the OP Euro is going nuts with threats...its still 3-4

It was just 5-6” a week ago. There were times last month it was ~6”. Last year in March we got a few 6”+ looks and late January begins it sniffed out that epo gradient pattern would shift NW we had some. Back in 2014 and 2015 I remember a couple times we had 8” means. Of course 2016 from range was crazy. And several times the last few years during dumpster fire patterns like January last year and Much of 2017 and December 2016 we had 1” means. 3-4 is the average and indicates an average chance of snow which for us isn’t very good.  The eps has been awful this year. No argument. But it doesn’t always show 3-4”. And it’s changed just the last few runs. 3 days ago DC was at 5”.  The eps doesn’t have wild swings like the gefs. A move from 3” to 5” is significant on the eps. Doesn’t mean it’s right though. 

[Yeoman]

36 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I’m sure the sun angle brigade will be along soon to put a wet blanket on that with “but any snow will melt the next day” 

I would hope by this point it goes without saying.

[CaryWx]

7 minutes ago, Danajames said:

Here's Joe Bastardi's take on the long range-

 

https://twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi/status/1092769611748130821

Did you see what the CPC was forecasting though?  Not that it's any more correct. They botched a cold look for Jan 8-15th last month

[psuhoffman]

10 minutes ago, Danajames said:

Here's Joe Bastardi's take on the long range-

 

https://twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi/status/1092769611748130821

Jb thinking it will get cold is a reason to be skeptical. I joked back in November that my biggest reservation was that my winter forecast matched JBs. I should have taken that more seriously.  But I guess once in a while he has to be right just by blind luck so maybe this will be one of those times. 

[Danajames]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

Jb thinking it will get cold is a reason to be skeptical. I joked back in November that my biggest reservation was that my winter forecast matched JBs. I should have taken that more seriously.  But I guess once in a while he has to be right just by blind luck so maybe this will be one of those times. 

We shall see.  But I was never convinced that we were embarking on an early Spring.  The cold shots will last well into March.