January 2023 Mid-Long Range Disco

[EstorilM]

I almost fell asleep reading this thread a day or so ago... I suppose 7 days out isn't really "extreme" or anything, but I definitely don't trust it.

[psuhoffman]

@CAPE you mentioned our next modoki Nino will be a good test case indicator. This setup coming up could be also. A western Hudson Bay high used to be a classic way to create a bootleg setup to get a snow absent a good setup with the NAO/AO/EPO/PNA.  They weren’t typically huge storms. Temps were always an issue and they are mostly progressive but there were a lot of 4-8” type snows from this kind of setup in the “study” I did of all 4”+ events. A western Husdon high in an otherwise crap longwave pattern was  actually the second most likely look to snow up behind the classic +pna -NAO for a long time, 1940 through 90s. Then they kinda went extinct.
 

Over the last 5 years after I did the study I’ve noticed several of these setups and I’ve noted they did often produce a storm that took a good track, but each time it was simply too warm and DC got a 35-40* rainstorm. 

That is anecdotal though. I didn’t scour through every rainstorm of the 40s to 90s to confirm how common a perfect track rain in this setup was. But what’s not anecdotal is we used to get a snow from this kind of look fairly regularly until recently when suddenly we haven’t. I would feel a lot better if one of these Hudson high setups in an otherwise crap longwave pattern worked out to some degree. Just to prove we can in fact still get snow this way. 

[brooklynwx99]

1 minute ago, CAPE said:

It is, but the GFS/GEFS has been doing this for many runs. The timing and position of that vortex needs to be perfect

i know! it’s thread the needle, but honestly the majority of events are from NYC south. just something that deserves an eye kept on it

[CAPE]

6 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

@CAPE you mentioned our next modoki Nino will be a good test case indicator. This setup coming up could be also. A western Hudson Bay high used to be a classic way to create a bootleg setup to get a snow absent NAO or AO blocking.  They weren’t typically huge storms. Temps were always an issue and they are mostly progressive but there were a lot of 4-8” type snows from this kind of setup in the “study” I did of all 4”+ events. A western Husdon high in an otherwise crap longwave pattern was  actually the second most likely look to snow up behind the classic +pna -NAO for a long time, 1940 through 90s. Then they kinda went extinct.
 

Over the last 5 years after I did the study I’ve noticed several of these setups and I’ve noted they did often produce a storm that took a good track, but each time it was simply too warm and DC got a 35-40* rainstorm. 

That is anecdotal though. I didn’t scour through every rainstorm of the 40s to 90s to confirm how common a perfect track rain in this setup was. But what’s not anecdotal is we used to get a snow from this kind of look fairly regularly until recently when suddenly we haven’t. I would feel a lot better if one of these Hudson high setups in an otherwise crap longwave pattern worked out to some degree. Just to prove we can in fact still get snow this way. 

Yeah I mentioned the Hudson Bay "block" when this first showed up on guidance I guess almost a week ago now when Weather Will was liking that period due to the snow maps. The GFS/GEFS may be wrong, but it has been steady with the depiction of how this evolves and the features involved, although it has moved it up in time a bit- it was initially more of a Jan 8th deal. It would be an interesting case to test.

[BristowWx]

7 minutes ago, EstorilM said:

I almost fell asleep reading this thread a day or so ago... I suppose 7 days out isn't really "extreme" or anything, but I definitely don't trust it.

good call.  because I can see already on 12z that its not gonna look like 6z at h5

[CAPE]

5 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

good call.  because I can see already on 12z that its not gonna look like 6z at h5

Looks a lot more like the Euro.

[psuhoffman]

Adding to my last thought, I’d also like to see us snow from a domestic airmass with no epo help.  Below is the composite of our 6 biggest snowstorms of the last 50 years.

One problem we’ve had repeatedly recently is we only get cold enough to sustain snow with epo help. Some have started to excuse our fails with “of course it failed look at the epo, or no cross polar flow” but that ignores the fact that historically 90% of our snow did not occur in an arctic airmass with cross polar flow.

 

That’s actually not a good longwave pattern to get storms to amplify into the box we want.  Fact is a lot of our big snows happened in a look many would say is a “hostile” pacific (look above) because that’s actually the best longwave pattern to get a system to dig and amplify along the east coast. That’s why often a big snow was followed by a big warmup.  Cold isn’t sustainable in that look.  Conversely a lot of our really long truly cold periods didn’t include a big snowstorm or if they did it came at the end.  A very negative epo has 2 problems. If it’s west based anything that amplified will cut. If it’s more east it can overwhelm the CONUS and just squash everything to the south. 
 

The TLDR version: we’ve been too quick to just dismiss things with “pac puke” when a lot of our past snow came in a pac puke pattern. It’s just pac puke didn’t used to be sooooo warm that it was automatically a shut the blinds pattern.  

[Terpeast]

Haven't looked at the 12z gfs, but remember that the gfs held onto its own offshore solution until 5 days before the big cutter... and then it caved. Waiting to see agreement between gfs, euro, and cmc, then I'll start tracking.

[DarkSharkWX]

15 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Adding to my last thought, I’d also like to see us snow from a domestic airmass with no epo help.  Below is the composite of our 6 biggest snowstorms of the last 50 years.

One problem we’ve had repeatedly recently is we only get cold enough to sustain snow with epo help. Some have started to excuse our fails with “of course it failed look at the epo, or no cross polar flow” but that ignores the fact that historically 90% of our snow did not occur in an arctic airmass with cross polar flow.

 

That’s actually not a good longwave pattern to get storms to amplify into the box we want.  Fact is a lot of our big snows happened in a look many would say is a “hostile” pacific (look above) because that’s actually the best longwave pattern to get a system to dig and amplify along the east coast. That’s why often a big snow was followed by a big warmup.  Cold isn’t sustainable in that look.  Conversely a lot of our really long truly cold periods didn’t include a big snowstorm or if they did it came at the end.  A very negative epo has 2 problems. If it’s west based anything that amplified will cut. If it’s more east it can overwhelm the CONUS and just squash everything to the south. 
 

The TLDR version: we’ve been too quick to just dismiss things with “pac puke” when a lot of our past snow came in a pac puke pattern. It’s just pac puke didn’t used to be sooooo warm that it was automatically a shut the blinds pattern.  

Maybe there was an -EPO prior to the storm allowing cold air to seep in? But yeah, most of our KUs have happened w/o -EPO and it isn't necessary for us to get them. One thing that all of them clearly have is a Canadian high, 50/50 low, and a ridge over the Rockies. HL blocking/-EPO isn't fully necessary to get a good storm(as proven by 1996 and 2016).

[BristowWx]

3 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Haven't looked at the 12z gfs, but remember that the gfs held onto its own offshore solution until 5 days before the big cutter... and then it caved. Waiting to see agreement between gfs, euro, and cmc, then I'll start tracking.

CMC looks like further offshore version of the 12z GFS which looks like the Euro and also has yet another cutter because what was supposed to be a low in the 50/50 region has turned into a high with no low.  I think I got that right.

[Ralph Wiggum]

28 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Haven't looked at the 12z gfs, but remember that the gfs held onto its own offshore solution until 5 days before the big cutter... and then it caved. Waiting to see agreement between gfs, euro, and cmc, then I'll start tracking.

But if you're looking at thise models to see if they agree with the GFS storm, then you're still tracking. 

Neil Peart of RUSH once said, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice"

[Terpeast]

30 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

But if you're looking at thise models to see if they agree with the GFS storm, then you're still tracking. 

Neil Peart of RUSH once said, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice"

Ha ha, point taken. Guess I'm still tracking, but at an arm's length. Not gonna let myself get burned again like I did by that cutter 

[stormtracker]

12z GFS sucks, but the end of that run.that h5 map tho

[Ralph Wiggum]

9 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

12z GFS sucks, but the end of that run.that h5 map tho

Patiently waiting to hear Ji declare that run is an unmitigated disaster with no blue thru mid Jan. This is about the time he usually cancels and we begin tracking legit events.

[Wonderdog]

He would be right.

[psuhoffman]

27 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Patiently waiting to hear Ji declare that run is an unmitigated disaster with no blue thru mid Jan. This is about the time he usually cancels and we begin tracking legit events.

@Jimade a good point yesterday. The reason the stats are so awful regarding Nina’s that start bad like this is that there are two archetypes of Nina and the colder type typically produced some snow by now. The warmer type tends to be a torch straight through. But this year hasn’t been the warmer type so far we just didn’t get snow.  So maybe this is an anomaly that won’t fit the past comps. 
 

Also, we’ve been in a Nino type north pac pattern a lot. Quite often the best analogs have been ninos. And ninos do tend to flip mid winter and end snowier. The data is the data but perhaps there are reasons to have hope this year doesn’t fit the typical patterns. 

[Chris78]

47 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

@Jimade a good point yesterday. The reason the stats are so awful regarding Nina’s that start bad like this is that there are two archetypes of Nina and the colder type typically produced some snow by now. The warmer type tends to be a torch straight through. But this year hasn’t been the warmer type so far we just didn’t get snow.  So maybe this is an anomaly that won’t fit the past comps. 
 

Also, we’ve been in a Nino type north pac pattern a lot. Quite often the best analogs have been ninos. And ninos do tend to flip mid winter and end snowier. The data is the data but perhaps there are reasons to have hope this year doesn’t fit the typical patterns. 

With this being 3 ninas in a row and most likely heading towards a nino next year do you think that's why we are seeing more Nino like patterns in the pacific?  Gives some hope If we can continue to see Nino type behaviors for January and February. 

[DarkSharkWX]

 

[frd]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

@Jimade a good point yesterday. The reason the stats are so awful regarding Nina’s that start bad like this is that there are two archetypes of Nina and the colder type typically produced some snow by now. The warmer type tends to be a torch straight through. But this year hasn’t been the warmer type so far we just didn’t get snow.  So maybe this is an anomaly that won’t fit the past comps. 
 

Also, we’ve been in a Nino type north pac pattern a lot. Quite often the best analogs have been ninos. And ninos do tend to flip mid winter and end snowier. The data is the data but perhaps there are reasons to have hope this year doesn’t fit the typical patterns. 

 

Agreed, good point.  Hard to associcate this pattern / La Nina to past analogs, even with some give and take.  Due to the changing background states and warmer climo this winter may end on a non-traditional note by mid to late March.  We should get at least some clarity on this possibilty by the end of Jan.  

[WEATHER53]

Around the 23rd I posted that 1/7 time frame would bring back the cold.  Some coastal action portrayed also and within 7 model days, 3-5 still the best indicator, of event which matches analogs. 

[psuhoffman]

3 hours ago, Chris78 said:

With this being 3 ninas in a row and most likely heading towards a nino next year do you think that's why we are seeing more Nino like patterns in the pacific?  Gives some hope If we can continue to see Nino type behaviors for January and February. 

I have no idea. Sometimes the SSTs fail to produce the typical effect on the atmosphere. FailIng to couple is the catch phrase lately I think. Obviously it’s more common when the SST anomalies are less pronounced but other then that it’s difficult to predict. 

[psuhoffman]

Our disaster scenario would be if we had a Nino ish pattern earlier (not good because it’s hard to overcome the pac puke you get) and then the SSTs couple mid winter and the typical Nina dreg Feb pattern takes over with a central pac ridge of death pumping a SE ridge to Quebec.  

[Chris78]

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Our disaster scenario would be if we had a Nino ish pattern earlier (not good because it’s hard to overcome the pac puke you get) and then the SSTs couple mid winter and the typical Nina dreg Feb pattern takes over with a central pac ridge of death pumping a SE ridge to Quebec.  

Music to Doug K's ears. 

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, Chris78 said:

Music to Doug K's ears. 

Unfortunately what he did was kinda smart. I think many wanted to be optimistic (myself included) and sided with a forecast of a closer to median snowfall winter. But the analogs and stats said there was pretty close to a 45% chance of a god awful single digits season, 45% of a closer to median bad but not horrible season and like 10% or less of a truly snowy season. So why not do what he did and stick out there. Even if we get closer to the better outcome we’re very likely to end below avg so he won’t bust too bad. And if this goes the way of some of the awful analogs he gets to crow and look like a genius. Smart play. 

[Chris78]

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Unfortunately what he did was kinda smart. I think many wanted to be optimistic (myself included) and sided with a forecast of a closer to median snowfall winter. But the analogs and stats said there was pretty close to a 45% chance of a god awful single digits season, 45% of a closer to median bad but not horrible season and like 10% or less of a truly snowy season. So why not do what he did and stick out there. Even if we get closer to the better outcome we’re very likely to end below avg so he won’t bust too bad. And if this goes the way of some of the awful analogs he gets to crow and look like a genius. Smart play. 

We shall see. He had 4 - 10 way west Of Hagerstown.

That would be one of the worst seasonal snowfalls on record for KHGR.

If we get to the end of January and still no snow then he might have a chance to crow.

Looking like we easily get to Mid January without anything.

[WinterFire]

9 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Unfortunately what he did was kinda smart. I think many wanted to be optimistic (myself included) and sided with a forecast of a closer to median snowfall winter. But the analogs and stats said there was pretty close to a 45% chance of a god awful single digits season, 45% of a closer to median bad but not horrible season and like 10% or less of a truly snowy season. So why not do what he did and stick out there. Even if we get closer to the better outcome we’re very likely to end below avg so he won’t bust too bad. And if this goes the way of some of the awful analogs he gets to crow and look like a genius. Smart play. 

I don’t think I’d agree that his forecast will be spot on—more like he’ll have the snowfall right but for the wrong reason. He predicted a warmer than average December—it won’t be. I do think if we crap the bed in January, it’ll be because of warmer than average temps—which he specifically went against. So yeah maybe he’ll get Feb right, and maybe a full Jan and Feb torch will land us in a top-5 warmest winter ever (again, his prediction), but getting the top line right while completely missing the pattern evolution doesn’t mean he had a successful seasonal forecast. 

[BristowWx]

24 minutes ago, Chris78 said:

We shall see. He had 4 - 10 way west Of Hagerstown.

That would be one of the worst seasonal snowfalls on record for KHGR.

If we get to the end of January and still no snow then he might have a chance to crow.

Looking like we easily get to Mid January without anything.

Easily mid Jan…this op run is abysmal.  I know it’s the op run but jeez it’s brutal.  

[Ralph Wiggum]

I'm done looking up top for good looks. I mean wtf is this and we still torch? Probably not right but cmon already. 

[Ralph Wiggum]

Watch the GEFS go weenie mode this run now. 

[Solution Man]

1 minute ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Watch the GEFS go weenie mode this run now. 

We suck!