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January Long Range Disco Thread


yoda
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6 minutes ago, jaydreb said:

Yeah.  We had tons of precip for the mid-December storm, xmas eve gullywasher and New Year’s Day rainer.  Temps were lacking for all three.  

It snowed her for the mid December storm, it was freezing rain for New Years , and if either of the past two events (Friday and today) had gotten precip this far north it would have been snow. I guess it’s all about perspective but when Tennessee Mississippi Louisiana, Alabama get snow, temp concerns aren’t at the top of my list

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2 hours ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Don’t take this wrong because I really like your posting but sometimes we don’t really see the whole picture. We haven’t had an organized precip event this year and we are 11 days into January. Unless I missed something.  We need precip before temps are a factor. When it’s partly cloudy what difference do temps make?

First I am totally fine with constructive criticism!  This is an open forum and anyone is free to challenge and disagree with anything I say and hopefully everyone knows that.  
 

But second there is a WHY that matters behind the what (no precip).  What I’ve suspected and been saying and HM just confirmed is that one of the big problems we’ve had getting any of the southern waves to amplify in this split flow is the lack of cold. I know they seems counterintuitive but cold doesn’t suppress the flow does. Now there is a correlation because a colder airmass will press the baroclinic zone (tighter temperature gradient between warm/cold) south and the suppressive flow of the NS will likely be further south. But without enough cold there wasn’t enough temperature gradient to fuel the storms. I don’t want to start an atmospheric physics class so I’ll grossly simplify this but it’s that temperature gradient (baroclinicity) that fuels our mid latitude storms.  Without cold there is less gradient and less potential energy for storms. Result= weak POS systems along the weak thermal boundary in the south that don’t amplify and come north.  The systems that did come north were weak and during periods of ridging when the weak temp boundary came north. But even then they were too weak to initiate what we needed. That perfect track storm back around New Years could have worked if it amplified more. But it was pathetic so we got light rain (talking about the second wave) .  Had there been more cold in this pattern the results likely would have been less dry. 
 

Looking ahead with a more canonical Nina look in the pac we don’t want too much cold and suppression. But that -NAO -pna -epo look is intriguing. The level of blocking being shown now would suppress the SE ridge but the -pna would create a SW to NE flow towards us. That’s potentially a fun pattern. 

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5 minutes ago, Ji said:

in case you are wondering, the 12z GFS PARA was an absolute disaster....remember the para from 2 years ago gave us like 200 inches of snow. here is the most guilty offender panel.

 

gfsp_mslp_pcpn_frzn_us_21.png

Wrong thread.

But yeah that is now an impressive mid Jan cold front by today's standards.

45 before and 40 after with some showers.

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1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

Looking ahead with a more canonical Nina look in the pac we don’t want too much cold and suppression. But that -NAO -pna -epo look is intriguing. The level of blocking being shown now would suppress the SE ridge but the -pna would create a SW to NE flow towards us. That’s potentially a fun pattern. 

Please do elaborate on this :lol: 

And I'm also wondering about February. Is it already a foregone conclusion that month is a dud? Seems some already wrote it off...but I'm just wondering if there's anything that could help even a little bit.

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51 minutes ago, Ji said:

in case you are wondering, the 12z GFS PARA was an absolute disaster....remember the para from 2 years ago gave us like 200 inches of snow. here is the most guilty offender panel.

 

gfsp_mslp_pcpn_frzn_us_21.png

I love how in Tennessee, kentucky, Indiana and Ohio it shows rain with sub 522 dm thicknesses.  That's...special.

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1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

First I am totally fine with constructive criticism!  This is an open forum and anyone is free to challenge and disagree with anything I say and hopefully everyone knows that.  
 

But second there is a WHY that matters behind the what (no precip).  What I’ve suspected and been saying and HM just confirmed is that one of the big problems we’ve had getting any of the southern waves to amplify in this split flow is the lack of cold. I know they seems counterintuitive but cold doesn’t suppress the flow does. Now there is a correlation because a colder airmass will press the baroclinic zone (tighter temperature gradient between warm/cold) south and the suppressive flow of the NS will likely be further south. But without enough cold there wasn’t enough temperature gradient to fuel the storms. I don’t want to start an atmospheric physics class so I’ll grossly simplify this but it’s that temperature gradient (baroclinicity) that fuels our mid latitude storms.  Without cold there is less gradient and less potential energy for storms. Result= weak POS systems along the weak thermal boundary in the south that don’t amplify and come north.  The systems that did come north were weak and during periods of ridging when the weak temp boundary came north. But even then they were too weak to initiate what we needed. That perfect track storm back around New Years could have worked if it amplified more. But it was pathetic so we got light rain (talking about the second wave) .  Had there been more cold in this pattern the results likely would have been less dry. 
 

Looking ahead with a more canonical Nina look in the pac we don’t want too much cold and suppression. But that -NAO -pna -epo look is intriguing. The level of blocking being shown now would suppress the SE ridge but the -pna would create a SW to NE flow towards us. That’s potentially a fun pattern. 

If we end up just N of that gradient it could be quite the fun! So maybe we nix the clipper pattern altogether and head straight into SWFE?

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13 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Please do elaborate on this :lol: 

And I'm also wondering about February. Is it already a foregone conclusion that month is a dud? Seems some already wrote it off...but I'm just wondering if there's anything that could help even a little bit.

Im not PSU but....Trof digs in the west, flat SER thanks to -NAO raging keeping it at bay. Waves eject out of SW and head NE and overrun the cold air locked in via confluence under the 50/50. Think thump.

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4 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

Who wouldn’t like the end of the GFS hr 360 with a west to east snow event.  That would be just perfect.  

It would be perfect, man.  Just what we need...something that is not too complicated and gets us all to a warning level event.  Cold smoke verbatim...

Actually, a pretty good real world type of system for the pattern being depicted on the ens.

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5 minutes ago, poolz1 said:

It would be perfect, man.  Just what we need...something that is not too complicated and gets us all to a warning level event.  Cold smoke verbatim...

Actually, a pretty good real world type of system for the pattern being depicted on the ens.

No rain snow line...no mountain eating up precip...wind off the bay.  It’s the money event that won’t be there in 6 hours.  

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13 minutes ago, poolz1 said:

It would be perfect, man.  Just what we need...something that is not too complicated and gets us all to a warning level event.  Cold smoke verbatim...

Actually, a pretty good real world type of system for the pattern being depicted on the ens.

A southern slider to New Englanders...and we all score. That would do the trick. Too bad it will never happen like that.

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4 minutes ago, CAPE said:

A southern slider to New Englanders...and we all score. That would do the trick. Too bad it will never happen like that.

Probably not.  Another way you can tell we are snow-starved is every post contains a reverse psychology P.S. sentence! 

How about that block on the 18z GEFS....lawdy!

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9 minutes ago, poolz1 said:

Probably not.  Another way you can tell we are snow-starved is every post contains a reverse psychology P.S. sentence! 

How about that block on the 18z GEFS....lawdy!

The GEFS really did lead the way wrt the pattern progression....it started going hog with the blocking the last few days...really ramped it up at 6z and everything else fell in line with it today.  

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6 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

That panel above...that’s good right?  I just don’t know anymore.  It’s the best block example of a block I have ever seen in my life. It’s a cement block with a steel core.  

Yes, that’s a full on west-based/Baffin block.  And its trapping a piece of the PV under the block.

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1 minute ago, nj2va said:

Yes, that’s a full on west-based/Baffin block.  And its trapping a piece of the PV under the block.

We should be celebrating.  It’s the holy grail of blocks. Hardly ever seen by human eyes.  Yet somehow it’s like reaching a million in your 401K...you think it’s cool but you are more scared than excited. 

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4 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

The trajectory isn't straight out of the N Pole rather it comes across the Northern tier from the PAC NW....odd. I just hope we don't get shafted. 

 

The axis of cold air intrusion looks rather similar to the 1959-60/2005-06 composite GIF that HM posted on his twitter a few days ago Both post-SSW, both similar Ninas (at least 05-06 and this year, that is).. You can see the similarities to the airmasses below.

I see what you did there though :ph34r:

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