Mid/Late February will be rocking. (This year we mean it!) February long range discussion.

[snowfan]

That window around the 24th is looking great for tanning, mulching, lawn mowing and early spring fishing.

 

[psuhoffman]

20 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Yeah, the models are totally lost on handling this pattern change and what comes soon after. 

The wave spacing has changed some. And the block not being as ridiculous, it’s still a very legit -nao just not some super historic monster, has maybe moved up the timing of the wave after PD a bit. That wave after the PD weekend now looks like around the 20th and has my interest. 

[Ji]

WB CAN at Day 9, pattern is chaotic, just too soon to tell....

So stop talking in absolutes then

[JenkinsJinkies]

So is it safe to say that this year being AN for the metros is off the table?

[snowfan]

Just now, JenkinsJinkies said:

So is it safe to say that this year being AN for the metros is off the table?

It is still too soon to tell. The 3 major reporting stations are roughly 1 sizeable event away from climo. We have roughly 5 weeks left to achieve AN near the airports. No one on this board knows how it’ll play out.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

10 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The point is if what’s been happening the last 5 years keeps happening we are totally F’d!  We are going to be in -PDO possibly for a long time. They can last decades. During these cycles, especially in winter, the -pna dominates!  It used to snow during these winters.  Other pattern drivers used to overcome a -pna. You keep saying -pna like it’s some revelation. We’re in a deep -pdo cycle. The pna is going to negative like 80% of the time. We have to be able to snow in a -pna or we’re F’d. 

This isn't that favorable of a 500mb

+WPO/+EPO.. NAO isn't that strong one way or another, CPC actually has the NAO positive for the Winter so far. 

I agree that the base-state is -PNA/-PDO right now. It may be connected to the +AMO cycle and general Hadley Cell expansion. I think these decadal cycles wane eventually.. I was half expecting us to have a Winter like 57-58 this year.. the PDO went from ridiculous negative to nonmatter that Winter. 

[nj2va]

2 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

So is it safe to say that this year being AN for the metros is off the table?

I would definitely not say that at all.  I’m halfway to average and I could easily hit above normal with one storm.  

[blizzardmeiser]

8 minutes ago, snowfan said:

That window around the 24th is looking great for tanning, mulching, lawn mowing and early spring fishing.

 

Toasty. Signs of early spring?

[Terpeast]

1 minute ago, nj2va said:

I would definitely not say that at all.  I’m halfway to average and I could easily hit above normal with one storm.  

Same, it’s not over yet. (Even though it feels like the fat lady is clearing her throat about now)

[JenkinsJinkies]

3 minutes ago, nj2va said:

I would definitely not say that at all.  I’m halfway to average and I could easily hit above normal with one storm.  

Yeah but PD is starting to look like a rug pull and if the temp map posted earlier verifies there's freakish warmth to close out the month. Which kills the chance for the 24th.

 

Yes the region got a good bit of accumulation on the 2nd day of Spring in 2018 but how often does that happen?

[psuhoffman]

Btw for when I do my post analysis I’m logging that this is now going to be the 3rd wave that takes a perfect track through central/southern VA and DC/Balt get no snow from it.  I don’t mean the surface low  SLP is highly affected by the thermal boundary and will be displaced if it’s warmer than it should be.  But the wave (look at the SW track) was perfect.  
 

Yes the loading pattern to all 3 was not ideal.  But guess what we used to snow often in a less than ideal pattern by getting lucky with a good wave pass.  If we can’t do that anymore, because bad patterns torch the thermals so bad that even a perfect wave has no chance, then it’s going to impact our overall snow results in a season quite a bit because much of our snow came from fluky little things like that.  We’re 0/3 now this year with perfect track waves in a bad pattern.  

 

[nj2va]

2 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

Yeah but PD is starting to look like a rug pull and if the temp map posted earlier verifies there's freakish warmth to close out the month. Which kills the chance for the 24th.

 

Yes the region got a good bit of accumulation on the 2nd day of Spring in 2018 but how often does that happen?

That’s a 2 week OP temp map…it’s not worth even looking at.  I don’t think anyone can confidently say what will happen the next few weeks.  We’ve had plenty of snow in March in the last 10 years.

[psuhoffman]

6 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

This isn't that favorable of a 500mb

+WPO/+EPO.. NAO isn't that strong one way or another, CPC actually has the NAO positive for the Winter so far. 

I agree that the base-state is -PNA/-PDO right now. It may be connected to the +AMO cycle and general Hadley Cell expansion. I think these decadal cycles wane eventually.. I was half expecting us to have a Winter like 57-58 this year.. the PDO went from ridiculous negative to nonmatter that Winter. 

We’re talking about the pattern coming up. Not the pattern we just had. Most of Dec and late Jan were bad. In between was a good pattern for about 4 weeks. Unfortunately we wasted a lot of it because the Dec pattern torched the whole continent and took weeks to get cold enough. We wasted a few very good opportunities and one perfect track rainstorm in that period. But the two bad patterns will mute the mean of the one good. 

[psuhoffman]

14 minutes ago, snowfan said:

That window around the 24th is looking great for tanning, mulching, lawn mowing and early spring fishing.

 

Why are you posting the day 12 of the worst operational model?  

[Weather Will]

I hope there is something to track by next weekend.  One 6 plus inch storm would definitely lighten the mood in here....

[Terpeast]

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Btw for when I do my post analysis I’m logging that this is now going to be the 3rd wave that takes a perfect track through central/southern VA and DC/Balt get no snow from it.  I don’t mean the surface low  SLP is highly affected by the thermal boundary and will be displaced if it’s warmer than it should be.  But the wave (look at the SW track) was perfect.  
 

Yes the loading pattern to all 3 was not ideal.  But guess what we used to snow often in a less than ideal pattern by getting lucky with a good wave pass.  If we can’t do that anymore, because bad patterns torch the thermals so bad that even a perfect wave has no chance, then it’s going to impact our overall snow results in a season quite a bit because much of our snow came from fluky little things like that.  We’re 0/3 now this year with perfect track waves in a bad pattern.  

 

Jan 7 is the obvious one. What were the other two?

[snowfan]

Just now, psuhoffman said:

Why are you posting the day 12 of the worst operational model?  

The same reason you repeat the same analysis on a nearly daily basis. I want to and it’s something to talk about. Feel free to ignore if you disagree. Have a great day and enjoy the Super Bowl. 

[DarkSharkWX]

barely have made it to phase 8 

[psuhoffman]

@Stormchaserchuck1 look at this 4 weeks!  

And if we get another 4 weeks to end winter like this it will skew the mean back towards this for the Dec-March period. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

@Stormchaserchuck1 look at this 4 weeks!  

Yeah we got 7-9"! Too bad it was the very middle of Winter in an ultra-favorable blocking pattern lol. We aren't doing it any other way these days. 

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Yeah we got 7-9"! Too bad it was the very middle of Winter in an ultra-favorable blocking pattern lol. We aren't doing it any other way these days. 

you just said the quiet part out loud. 

[DarkSharkWX]

like the trend for more western ridging

[Chris78]

30 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

So is it safe to say that this year being AN for the metros is off the table?

They have a chance.  For northern areas that shipped has probably sailed.

[Ralph Wiggum]

6 minutes ago, DarkSharkWX said:

like the trend for more western ridging

Yep, epo as well:

[psuhoffman]

9 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Jan 7 is the obvious one. What were the other two?

The Dec “anafront” wave that I got 4”. It wasn’t actually an anafront. It was on long range guidance. It morphed into a nice caboose wave where the mid level and surface track was perfect for DC and Balt. I was actually NW of the best precip with that wave.  Only reason I was the snow max was the places further east that should have been were too warm!
 

 And the 850s were displaced well southeast of the actual rain snow line, east of 95, the whole event. Historically with these trailing waves behind a front the 850 and snow line are not that disconnected!  
 

Imo if I showed you just the h5, h7, h85, mslp, and qpf plots and said “where is the snow max” you’d probably say a nice 3-6 stripe right through DC/Balt. But they got white rain instead.  
 

I know it wasn’t as significant as the Jan 7 wave. That one could have been 6-10” if it was just colder. I know the slp took a slightly inside track but that’s because of the crap thermals. The mid and upper track of that wave was perfect and with better thermals the slp doesn’t jog inside and end up under mid level low like that imo. But those little 3-4” snows being subtracted add up.
 

 I’m not saying all 3 definitely should have been snow. I’m not saying every perfect track system in a bad thermal regime was snow in the past. But a significant % was. So I take note when they all seem to fail. If we go back through the last 7 years which we all know have been the worst snow period in DC/Balt recorded history, if we simply flip about 1/3 of all these perfect wave pass winter rainstorms to snow, it still wouldn’t be some epic good period. But we wouldn’t be talking about it the same way. We would simply be in the midst of one of our more typical down snow cycles that happen regularly through history. What’s made it awful instead of just bad is this phenomenon imo. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

6 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Yep, epo as well:

Man that 50/50 low really went away. What a bad modeled feature! 

[psuhoffman]

@Stormchaserchuck1 you know what this isn’t fair to you so imma just come out and say it. I’ve been beating around the bush with you because some freak out when anything related to warning gets brought up. But it seems what’s going on is I’m saying “this should work, look at all the times we snowed with that” and you seem to be  implying “that doesn’t work anymore”. 

[CAPE]

28 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

I hope there is something to track by next weekend.  One 6 plus inch storm would definitely lighten the mood in here....

By next weekend? We are literally tracking now for next weekend. And beyond.

[CAPE]

This place is starting to annoy the fuck out of me lol.

Anyway, its pre SB HH. KBS time.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

18 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

@Stormchaserchuck1 you know what this isn’t fair to you so imma just come out and say it. I’ve been beating around the bush with you because some freak out when anything related to warning gets brought up. But it seems what’s going on is I’m saying “this should work, look at all the times we snowed with that” and you seem to be  implying “that doesn’t work anymore”. 

I like the EPO negative, and +PNA we haven't really seen this Winter.  I was just pointing out that LR models have been really bad, they keep showing an El Nino pattern, but since the El Nino developed in April, we never had a +pna. In Oct-Nov, I was saying the mean pattern in the SW N. Pacific was a ridge for a Strong Nino! It's no surprise the Euro weeklies busted and we only have some weak +pna in the medium range here. I'm worried that next Winter the pendulum may swing completely toward what you are calling -PDO. 

I get what you are saying about patterns that used to work.. and I agree, the PNA has a precipitation correlation here that is actually greater than the temperature correlation in the Wintertime! That means, the net air temps+precip makes -PNA more favorable for snow than +PNA. The deceiving thing is coastal lows form much stronger in +PNA, there is a +0.3 correlation vs -0.3 for -PNA.. so if you look at SLP you would say +PNA Is the obvious better pattern for snow. 

I think it's somewhat +AMO related. We've been getting this ridge where the Hadley Cell meets the mid-latitude Cell.. it started on the West coast, and especially the SW where it stopped raining after 1995. The Pacific Jet used to go into SF a lot, now it doesn't even rain there anymore.. the jet goes all the way up into Alaska.. Over the last few years, that pattern in the mid-latitudes has made it to the east coast.  The AMO changed in 1995, so I would say maybe wait for that to wane..  also, according to the CPC we aren't getting -NAO's nearly as much these days, and the WPO has been positive a lot.