frd Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 10 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said: -NAOs appear in the LR then fade to nothing inside of a week. Not noise. My mood this year about snow and cold is like an EKG, up and down in cycles, but soon I might be in arrest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ji Posted January 31, 2019 Author Share Posted January 31, 2019 16 hours ago, Bob Chill said: It's already building. I've said this like 100 times. We're not talking about flipping from a +NAO into a fantasy -NAO in 15 days. Heights are building over the next 5 days (that's a lock) and are forecast to continue by all global ensembles. That is night and day different from sitting on our hands with a big blue ball over greenland and praying 3-4 week guidance can really see past its nose. using lock and -NAO..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph Wiggum Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 16 hours ago, Bob Chill said: It's already building. I've said this like 100 times. We're not talking about flipping from a +NAO into a fantasy -NAO in 15 days. Heights are building over the next 5 days (that's a lock) and are forecast to continue by all global ensembles. That is night and day different from sitting on our hands with a big blue ball over greenland and praying 3-4 week guidance can really see past its nose. Isnt the SE ridge there trying to link up with the HL ridging creating a potential full lat ridge in the East? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ji Posted January 31, 2019 Author Share Posted January 31, 2019 Just now, Ralph Wiggum said: Isnt the SE ridge there trying to link up with the HL ridging creating a potential full lat ridge in the East? lets hope so...so we can get sleep in February 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph Wiggum Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 Just now, Ji said: lets hope so...so we can get sleep in February Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MD Snow Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 4 minutes ago, Ji said: using lock and -NAO..... IF you compare the last 3 gefs runs through 200 hrs, they are very similar. The question at this point is where things go after the front rolls through on the feb 7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ji Posted January 31, 2019 Author Share Posted January 31, 2019 7 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said: whats your point dude...this is when the pattern is suppose to suck 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ji Posted January 31, 2019 Author Share Posted January 31, 2019 Just now, MD Snow said: IF you compare the last 3 gefs runs through 200 hrs, they are very similar. The question at this point is where things go after the front rolls through on the feb 7. yea...sounds like Feb 7 is the cross roads day...what we see long range Feb 7 will determine the fate of our winter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 4 minutes ago, Ji said: lets hope so...so we can get sleep in February My point was we are FAR away from the blue ball +nao that has been prominent for years. There has been a propensity for ridging around greenland and every model shows it. If the pac is going to continuously drop deep full latitude troughs to san diego the we need a -nao on steroids to offset that. Our recurring problem isn't the nao anyways. The ao has been favorable for a while as well but we are fighting strong troughs dropping along the west coast. It's hard to consistently overcome that. Do you know how long that's going to continue? Does anybody? Lol 10th-12th is our next shot at storm in the east. We have a good week to 10 days to freak out over everything else. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jandurin Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 3 minutes ago, Ji said: whats your point dude...this is when the pattern is suppose to suck his whole long rage winter outlook or whatever was based on that feature wasn't it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MD Snow Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 18 minutes ago, Ji said: yea...sounds like Feb 7 is the cross roads day...what we see long range Feb 7 will determine the fate of our winter Yes. Even if we don’t get the KU look in feb I could see enough carving of the trough to set up a couple boundary events. We still have no clue what things will look like the second half of feb. 6z gefs looked like it was still headed towards a good look even if it was at the end of its run. I know everyone is worn out from the constant good look on guidance in the long range that never verifies but I’m gonna go with it because at some point I think it’s gonna flip. May be to late for me on the coastal plain but I think areas n/w still have a good shot at some epicness. Bottom line is this: I don’t believe all LR guidance will be wrong all winter. At some point I still believe we are going to get the good look that has been advertised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 On 1/28/2019 at 3:37 PM, Bob Chill said: I do my best to read between the lines. After everything I've seen the last 1-2 days, here's my synopsis: Light event tomorrow of some sort is a lock followed by bitter cold for any time of winter in these parts Increasing odds of another light event Friday and even though 1-3" appears to be best case, temps are way cold and ground is frozen like a rock Some sort of warmth starting early next week with duration unknown but I'll go with 3-4 days for now A sneaky front blasts through late next week and we get another window for some sort of snowfall but waaaay too far away to remotely think about details Now it gets tricky... Do we warm back up or is the front next week the beginning of a wholesale shift towards better conditions in general or is there no meaningful front at all? Not sure but starting to look better every day that goes by so I'll side with a front clearing and breaking up any long duration AN temps Wildcards and muddy thoughts: Duration of warmth and crap pattern is very difficult to predict. Could be several weeks or as short as 3 days If the front next week sets up legit confluence we could pull off a decent to even warning level event. Both the GEFS and EPS show potential but no consensus It's entirely possible that a deep -PNA parks for 2-3 weeks and basically steals most if not all of our final good climo weeks Starting to see signs that the -PNA rolls forward and puts the east in a trough with a legit -EPO ridge and we're right back to cold before mid month A real -NAO can sneak up anytime without much warning and stay for a while. Guidance may or may not show this until it's happening. It's easy to go with no -nao because of persistence but that kind of forecasting is only good until you bust horribly at some point because a legit -nao is coming back eventually. We just don't know when. Maybe in 5 days and maybe in 5 years I'm bringing this post over from the old thread. Only a few days have passed and the only part that has more clarity is the period following the 7th. After the front clears we are going to probably get at least a transient window with a 50/50 holding a cold high to the north while something potentially makes a run at us. Overnight ens (eps in particular) improved chances in this widow. Beyond that is still very difficult to feel good or bad about. If there is a relentless pattern of troughs that keep diving in the west then the best we can do is hit in little windows unless greenland blocking goes on steroids. If the -pna rolls forward then even a modest -nao or even neutral is totally fine. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ji Posted January 31, 2019 Author Share Posted January 31, 2019 looks like the euro gets stuck in Phase 7...and then eventually finds it way to phase 8...but amplitude isnt really high 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 6 minutes ago, Ji said: looks like the euro gets stuck in Phase 7...and then eventually finds it way to phase 8...but amplitude isnt really high Anything but a high amplitude warm phase is a net positive. Mjo is also the winter buzzword. It's not a 1:1 correlation. Amplified warm phase will do some damage. Low amp phase 7? Imho- it much less of a factor or even non factor. If the mjo goes into p8 and we roast then there will be a brand new buzzword emerging. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fozz Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 14 minutes ago, Ji said: looks like the euro gets stuck in Phase 7...and then eventually finds it way to phase 8...but amplitude isnt really high Not a bad look. Better than circling back to phase 6. More often than not, the MJO seems to be a burden on us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 This would explain why the gefs looks like garbage 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnowGoose69 Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said: This would explain why the gefs looks like garbage And as we know that never occurs. I believe either HM or Isotherm posted that yesterday that an inverse won’t ever occur. You have to reach the COD first then it might re-emerge. It sort of does that but they said it will always go almost to the center and die for a good week or two not just immediately graze the circle and come back out that strong. Basically we know the Euro is correct. We just need to wait 3-4 more days to see if the wave truly just dies near 8 or starts trying to re-emerge in 5 or 6. As of yesterday the Euro showed zero signs of any bend to the right once going into the circle 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maestrobjwa Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 Hey...The snowfall this winter looks remarkably similar to what preceded the 1899 and 1979 February blizzards: Early snow in November, little to no snow in December (0.6 inches in Dec. 1898, absolutely zero in 1978!) a little over 5 inches in January (all measurements are BWI records). ....Sound familiar? Lol (Which means this only the third winter in 136 years to follow this exact pattern...First two had a February to remember! ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pasnownut Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 1 hour ago, Bob Chill said: Anything but a high amplitude warm phase is a net positive. Mjo is also the winter buzzword. It's not a 1:1 correlation. Amplified warm phase will do some damage. Low amp phase 7? Imho- it much less of a factor or even non factor. If the mjo goes into p8 and we roast then there will be a brand new buzzword emerging. Been thinking the same thing. Climo on our side and low amp MJO isnt the kiss of death. Just need the pac to be on the neut/+ side and -AO and we can bowl our way to climo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 59 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said: And as we know that never occurs. I believe either HM or Isotherm posted that yesterday that an inverse won’t ever occur. You have to reach the COD first then it might re-emerge. It sort of does that but they said it will always go almost to the center and die for a good week or two not just immediately graze the circle and come back out that strong. Basically we know the Euro is correct. We just need to wait 3-4 more days to see if the wave truly just dies near 8 or starts trying to re-emerge in 5 or 6. As of yesterday the Euro showed zero signs of any bend to the right once going into the circle I think what is going on is conflicting wave signals messing with those plots that have to fix a location to something that in reality is more fluid. There is some convection out in the pacific but also a wave near Australia and those give off two different phase signals 8/6 and so depending on which area of convection is stronger at a given moment will skew or pull the fixed location on that chart around. But if the wave in the pac dies and the one near Australia doesn't that will be bad regardless of what any chart says. But some of the mjo experts seem to thing the wave progressing into 8 is more likely than a recycle through 6 so that is good enough for me right now. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph Wiggum Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 There were a few folks using 1958 as an analogue for this winter. I think @psuhoffman may have? I'm curious if you see any similarities with this season irt a possible culmination of events where we could finally achieve some favorable HL very late in the season such as March of that year? I know nobody can make specific comments based on speculation of where the pattern goes. Just curious if this season and the looks we might be seeing could indicate or signal something large towards the end? Are chances increased this year or not really known at this point? I guess I'm asking because I can feel a buildup towards maybe finally getting a HL block at the right time during seasonal transition late Feb-mid March or so. But who knows. I know one thing....I'm not relying on LR ens to predict HL blocking still. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maestrobjwa Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 4 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said: There were a few folks using 1958 as an analogue for this winter. I think @psuhoffman may have? I'm curious if you see any similarities with this season irt a possible culmination of events where we could finally achieve some favorable HL very late in the season such as March of that year? I know nobody can make specific comments based on speculation of where the pattern goes. Just curious if this season and the looks we might be seeing could indicate or signal something large towards the end? Are chances increased this year or not really known at this point? I guess I'm asking because I can feel a buildup towards maybe finally getting a HL block at the right time during seasonal transition late Feb-mid March or so. But who knows. I know one thing....I'm not relying on LR ens to predict HL blocking still. I know I'd love seeing an analog for the 1978/79 winter (I seriously do--curious to see if there are any other similarities. Snowfall to this point is almost identical per BWI!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 2 hours ago, Bob Chill said: If there is a relentless pattern of troughs that keep diving in the west then the best we can do is hit in little windows unless greenland blocking goes on steroids. If the -pna rolls forward then even a modest -nao or even neutral is totally fine. First of all people are over-reacting to one not so good run last night. I tried to be careful in how I presented it but I guess it doesn't matter...yea it was a bad run overnight, but NOT awful, there were still a LOT of good members in both the GEFS and EPS. But yea we lost a few members to the warm side and that is troubling but we need a few more runs of that before its panic time. But regarding what you said above, unfortunately I kind of think that is what we need. I have seen almost nothing since early December that had a good pattern without a stout -nao. Even weak NAO looks end up having too much WAR and or SE ridge. That has been like 90% across all guidance, op runs, ensembles, weeklies...whatever. Runs that establish major serious nao blocking get the trough axis into the east. Runs that do not...or periods within a run that does not...the trough axis is too far west. The universal across all guidance is a pac ridge that is too far west to help us without blocking. That could change. Anything is possible, no one has the crystal ball, but that seems really unlikely IMHO. We have seen no sign of it changing. Its been a pretty universal rule that no block no eastern trough across everything. Yea the guidance has failed in their NAO look time and again but they have not been wrong about the pacific, its been pretty close to what guidance has said it would be all winter long. So I have less faith in the pac suddenly shifting into a +PNA pattern, the base state seems pretty locked in. That doesn't mean we couldn't get a transient PNA ridge and a really short window and get lucky. If the NAO fails that is what we will have to hope for, but that isnt something we will see at range and its not the primary thing I want to root for, that will become the fall back last hope for a fluke snow if the best way to get er done fails. I think if we want a seriously good 10+ days pattern we are going to need a real honest to goodness west based NAO block to develop. I have been skeptical of that since the last attempt at that failed. But one run last night doesn't mean jump ship and abandon all hope. Oddly, looking at the individual members of both the GEFS and EPS...it seems there is very little room for in between. I can see the h5 on the GEFS members...I can only guess at the EPS members but using the temperature and pressure patterns I can make a pretty good educated guess what the h5 looks like, and there is a 50/50 mix of great looking patterns and god awful HUGE eastern ridge ones across all guidance at range right now. And the key seems to be the 50/50 space. On the GEFS members its the NAO that determines that. Members that have a big time block cut something under it and into the 50/50 space and day 10-16 is a parade of storms across south of us. Members that do not establish a big time block fail to do that and have storms cutting north of Chicago. There isn't much in between. Same on the EPS but I can only guess about the H5 but it looks the same, members that have a low around the 50/50 have a parade of southern track storms while members that do not have storms way west of us. Just looking at the snow maps tells a general idea too...half the members get no big time snow anywhere near us...where the members with blocking either hit us with a big storm or miss us to the south even or we get some snow and the big big totals just miss to the north but either way there is a lot of snow around our area on those members. The members without a block the snow is 500 miles away. So I am not so sure there is much of an in between option here. We either get blocking to establish and suppress the west to east storm track under our latitude or there will be a huge eastern ridge and storms cutting west of us. I am 50/50 on where this goes. A lot of really smart people are still saying its coming...but they were also saying that mid January and it didn't and there seems to be a pattern here that makes me hesitant to trust the guidance and blocking right now. Either way one model run with a conflicted signal in the long range is a bad reason to get too upset. We need more runs to get a better idea before deciding its going the wrong way again. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 @psuhoffman Don't disagree with a thing you said but I will add one thing that I think is important. We've figured out a way to pull off snowfall with very few chances. Each brief little window has figured out a way to work out. If we are riding seasonal persistence then I believe it's fair that we should continue to get jacked up weird ways for snowfall to continue in Feb during whatever windows present themselves. Maybe not every single one but give us a few more chances and I wouldn't be surprised for a second if we continue getting a few breaks. It would be perfect irony if we settle into an epic sick pattern and get skunked. We've done that before too. lol 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulythegun Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 20 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said: There were a few folks using 1958 as an analogue for this winter. I think @psuhoffman may have? I'm curious if you see any similarities with this season irt a possible culmination of events where we could finally achieve some favorable HL very late in the season such as March of that year? I know nobody can make specific comments based on speculation of where the pattern goes. Just curious if this season and the looks we might be seeing could indicate or signal something large towards the end? Are chances increased this year or not really known at this point? I guess I'm asking because I can feel a buildup towards maybe finally getting a HL block at the right time during seasonal transition late Feb-mid March or so. But who knows. I know one thing....I'm not relying on LR ens to predict HL blocking still. Here's February 1958: Here's CFS February 2019 for reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 16 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said: There were a few folks using 1958 as an analogue for this winter. I think @psuhoffman may have? I'm curious if you see any similarities with this season irt a possible culmination of events where we could finally achieve some favorable HL very late in the season such as March of that year? I know nobody can make specific comments based on speculation of where the pattern goes. Just curious if this season and the looks we might be seeing could indicate or signal something large towards the end? Are chances increased this year or not really known at this point? I guess I'm asking because I can feel a buildup towards maybe finally getting a HL block at the right time during seasonal transition late Feb-mid March or so. But who knows. I know one thing....I'm not relying on LR ens to predict HL blocking still. 1958 had a LOT more nao blocking in January than we have this year. At times the Pac was hostile so that much is similar. I used 1958 as an example of a Feb/March period with a predominantly -PNA that was still cold and snowy in the east because of an NAO block. That winter did not follow a similar script to this one in terms of the H5 up until that point though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 9 minutes ago, Bob Chill said: @psuhoffman Don't disagree with a thing you said but I will add one thing that I think is important. We've figured out a way to pull off snowfall with very few chances. Each brief little window has figured out a way to work out. If we are riding seasonal persistence then I believe it's fair that we should continue to get jacked up weird ways for snowfall to continue in Feb during whatever windows present themselves. Maybe not every single one but give us a few more chances and I wouldn't be surprised for a second if we continue getting a few breaks. It would be perfect irony if we settle into an epic sick pattern and get skunked. We've done that before too. lol You are right... but that has been more of a DC area localized thing. It certainly hasn't "found a way" in Philly or NYC or Boston. And while I have had some snow...and got 3" the other day, I am mostly into that Philly north snow hole, especially wrt climo, so maybe my view on "finding a way" with a continuation of the same pattern is not as rosy and optimistic as you. If my current pace of snowfall continues I will end up at only about 60% of climo for the year. But that difference of opinion is totally understandable given our different back yard results. And things like exact cutoffs on snowstorms is so flukey that the next "find a way" storm could dump on me and even the score, I am aware of that. Still emotions bleed into things sometimes and sitting on a god awful result so far its hard to be "ok" with muddling along in the same pattern that got me to this awful result so far. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 12 minutes ago, paulythegun said: Here's February 1958: Here's CFS February 2019 for reference In fairness when people were making that comparison a few days ago the CFS looked like that 1950 map...I guess the last few runs have backed off on blocking and so the pattern degraded again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 @C.A.P.E. we lost the CFS again lol 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 Actually the cfs still gets the pattern to a good place, and with a fairly realistic progression, but it’s only a 2 week window before going to crap again. We better not waste any chances. Assuming it happens at all. ETA: this is kind of what I expect the weeklies to show tonight. It’s how the pattern would evolve if “epic” blocking develops right after the 15 day window we see on guidance so I’m sure the weeklies will do that. Problem is will the blocking ever really happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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