Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,508
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    joxey
    Newest Member
    joxey
    Joined

January Medium/Long Range Discussion


WinterWxLuvr
 Share

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, stormtracker said:

Well yeah, of course.  But that's the key player in this whole mess.  Get rid of that and the possibilities go from shut out to a much better outcome. 

Except that if you removed it completely the weekend threat likely cuts and we’re waiting until the early next week threat anyways!  The setup is like a big pinwheel (not talking about the ocean storm I’m talking about the whole longwave pattern rotating SWs around the PV lobe in Canada. The “suppression” behind each wave in that cycle sets us up for the next.
 

Even with a great pattern there isn’t some cut off Rex block to prevent a cutter.  There is ridging in the HL but not a true block. That’s the one time we don’t have to worry about wave spacing. Otherwise even with a favorable longwave pattern too much spacing and something that amplifies a lot will likely cut.  
 

Im not saying that to say this pattern isn’t as good as a true blocking one.  Sometimes we fail then too.  Not enough stj and those can be frustratingly dry with NS miller b storms teasing and frustrating us.  And we have gone on some epic tears in this kind of pattern before.  
 

Jan 1996 was actually a similar setup that worked.  Not exactly but close.  
06E656A4-B71C-47A0-A39A-1B17D264D6FA.gif.0ba77ed8c4e9cf3adfe18dd7960411b1.gif

This was the pattern Jan 1-5 that set that in motion.  Notice the un Nina like north pac trough similar to now with the epo/pna ridge.  Note though there is no canonical Rex NAO block like 2010.  There was a beautiful block in December and we got some minor snows from it but by January we just had some ridging up top and a favorable longwave pattern driven by the pac.  We got lucky with spacing though. A weak wave came through a few days before the blizzard which prevented it from cutting then the clippers was right after it and that helped us with the storm 3 days later!  That epic week was due to lucky wave spacing rotating around in the longwave pattern.  

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

A couple days ago the op Gfs and euro took turns showed snow and everyone was whining the ensembles were meh with a low snow mean. Now the gefs and geps were the weeniest rune we’ve had in a LONG time and everyone’s whining about the op euro run.

its not fun not seeing snow on the OP run

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Define whining please :weep:

You were dismissing the day 10 threat on the op euro but that’s the wave the Gfs turned into the 40” storm Saturday and that is the threat with the best setup as it looks right now. People are just impatient. 
 

The best part of this pattern is that it isn’t one and done. It looks like a sustained long period of chances for something to amplify just right.  We need that because our success rate is pretty low on any given discreet threat even in a good pattern. Every once in a while we get lucky like 2010 or 2014 and almost every possible storm hits. But other then those once a decade periods we usually need multiple threats in a good pattern to get a good storm.  
 

Think of the “good” patterns we’ve had since 2014. We wasted several threats in 2015 before that arctic front set off our run the second half of Feb but we had to watch New England get 80” before our run started!  We wasted a few SWs in Jan 2016 before the storm. We wasted 3 in March 2018 before we got a storm.  Last year was weird in that the longwave “pattern” was good but there was no cold available due to what happened in late December. But even had there been cold we wasted like 4 discreet threats before something finally amplified enough to cause a storm.  Wasting threats is normal. It often takes 3-4 good discreet threats to get one actual snowstorm. 

  • Like 11
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

You were dismissing the day 10 threat on the op euro but that’s the wave the Gfs turned into the 40” storm Saturday and that is the threat with the best setup as it looks right now. People are just impatient. 
 

The best part of this pattern is that it isn’t one and done. It looks like a sustained long period of chances for something to amplify just right.  We need that because our success rate is pretty low on any given discreet threat even in a good pattern. Every once in a while we get lucky like 2010 or 2014 and almost every possible storm hits. But other then those once a decade periods we usually need multiple threats in a good pattern to get a good storm.  
 

Think of the “good” patterns we’ve had since 2014. We wasted several threats in 2015 before that arctic front set off our run the second half of Feb but we had to watch New England get 80” before our gun started!  We wasted a few SWs in Jan 2016 before the storm. We wasted 3 in March 2018 before we got a storm.  Last year was weird in that the longwave “pattern” was good but there was no cold available due to what happened in late December. But even had there been cold we wasted like 4 discreet threats before something finally amplified enough to cause a storm.  Wasting threats is normal. It often takes 3-4 good discreet threats to get one actual snowstorm. 

So to summarize, we are playing the numbers game like salesmen. Make enough phone calls or get enough storms in a given pattern, one will eventually hit. 

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • WxUSAF unpinned this topic

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...