Mid to long range discussion- 2025

[NorthHillsWx]

10 minutes ago, Benjamn3 said:

I personally don’t see it. Especially a day 16 run. I think more seasonal temps but not a full blown torch. Who knows it may end up being cold. I wasn’t supposed to putting in hay in my thickest coat and muck boots today. 

I put as much stock in the day 16 GFS as I put in a preseason college football ranking… That being said there is a signal for a warmup that week but with MJO stuck in phase 8 I would be shocked if it was anything but a brief warmup before a front. We will see

[Upstate Tiger]

1 minute ago, NorthHillsWx said:

I put as much stock in the day 16 GFS as I put in a preseason college football ranking… That being said there is a signal for a warmup that week but with MJO stuck in phase 8 I would be shocked if it was anything but a brief warmup before a front. We will see

Yeah.  It is a different look in the long range from the overnight runs.  GFS ops looks to dump the cold more in the west versus locked up in Canada.  But teleconnections show the NAO heading negative during that time while the PNA looks like its headed positive.  Who knows?

[WinstonSalemArlington]

Northwest Flow event Wednesday night/Thursday

[WinstonSalemArlington]

Red is for Christmas 

[WinstonSalemArlington]

[eyewall]

13 hours ago, WinstonSalemArlington said:

Red is for Christmas 

Yeah looking very grinchy this year. 

[BooneWX]

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[NorthHillsWx]

I think it’s a matter of how long, not if it warms up Christmas week. PNA was progged to go positive, but that has since reversed and looks to stay negative. Cold dumping into west will set any pattern change back, thinking we have to step back down into a cooler weather pattern after Christmas and into the new year. 

[NorthHillsWx]

1 minute ago, BooneWX said:

.

Yea I agree, this is the first real can kick of the winter season unfortunately 

[WNC_Fort]

I got ridiculed for saying I thought we’d waste early Dec cold that hardly ever works out and we’d end up with a Torchmas. Guess what?!? 

[BooneWX]

I do think this pattern comes back around before long. If I had to take a shot in the dark, I’d say 2ish weeks of seasonal to above average. It just stinks that those 2 weeks begin right before Christmas but on the bright side, an above average Christmas lets the kids get outside with new toys. 
 

We sort of needed this reset as well. This pattern was never going to produce. It’s northern stream dominated, Alaska was cold, no southern jet action, and either the trough was not deep enough or too far east or the ridge out west was too flat or all of the above. Let me get a cold Jan driven by a more cooperative Pacific. 

[BooneWX]

File this away as well: MJO always has and always will be a vastly overrated teleconnection. We’ll firmly be in 8 for these 70° days. 

[wncsnow]

On 12/1/2025 at 1:03 PM, wncsnow said:

My perspective on the next few weeks-

Thursday night/Friday overrunning is the one to watch. Gotta get that northern stream to calm down to allow the southern energy to amplify enough to bring in moisture. The earlier it comes in the better. 

After that threat, the northern stream looks to be dominant for the next week or so with mostly clipper type systems and at or below average temps for most of the Carolinas. We would need one of those to dig far enough south to bring areas outside of the mountains any snow. 

After about next weekend, I think the pattern relaxes some and we warm back up to 50s/60s for most and the pattern resets again around the holidays.  

I posted this 10 days ago. 

 

Only thing I would change is the pattern reset time. That may not happen until after Christmas and maybe next year. 

[NorthHillsWx]

58 minutes ago, BooneWX said:

File this away as well: MJO always has and always will be a vastly overrated teleconnection. We’ll firmly be in 8 for these 70° days. 

Having cold air on our side of the globe only works if there’s a mechanism to get it down to us. PNA and western ridge orientation, and -NAO much more important. As you said, this flat NS dominated regime with a progressive flow wasn’t going to work for anyone wanting a big storm. We were simply avoiding torches and wasting cold

 

[BooneWX]

2 minutes ago, wncsnow said:

I posted this 10 days ago. 

 

Only thing I would change is the pattern reset time. That may not happen until after Christmas and maybe next year. 

You nailed it for sure. You also smelt the bs of this current pattern long before anyone else. 

[NorthHillsWx]

2 minutes ago, wncsnow said:

I posted this 10 days ago. 

 

Only thing I would change is the pattern reset time. That may not happen until after Christmas and maybe next year. 

And you got called out for being a naysayer at the time… 

[BooneWX]

3 minutes ago, wncsnow said:

I posted this 10 days ago. 

 

Only thing I would change is the pattern reset time. That may not happen until after Christmas and maybe next year. 

Idk if I’d change the timing, I’m getting a new St. Croix Seviin reel on Christmas Day 

[NorthHillsWx]

Just now, BooneWX said:

Idk if I’d change the timing, I’m getting a new St. Croix Seviin reel on Christmas Day 

Someone saw Santa’s list early… 

[wncsnow]

As @NorthHillsWx said, the pattern has been too progressive and we really need a tall ridge (+PNA) in the west to get this northern stream energy to dig further south. We are exiting a La Nina but I worry about atmospheric lag. As we all know February and March are usually toast in La Nina years. Most of us haven't seen a big snow in these months since 2014 regardless of the indices. 

 

[wncsnow]

And we can't get a trough to center in the right place to save our lives the last 6 or 7 years. There is a tendency for them to center over the lakes or the NE when we need them further west. We could possibly score with that scenario and a strong CAD but the NAO hasnt helped either and the cold scoots away. 

 

[BooneWX]

I think if we all put our minds to it, we could easily crowd fund a small cabin in the Tug Hills of NY

[SnowNiner]

49 minutes ago, BooneWX said:

File this away as well: MJO always has and always will be a vastly overrated teleconnection. We’ll firmly be in 8 for these 70° days. 

I'd have to disagree with you there. The MJO, the forcing mechanisms in the pacific are where we get the PNA and EPO, which are crucial for cold air delivery to the SE. It's not the end all be all (it's more complicated of course), but where the pacific forcing is to me is step one to understand the base state. The forcing has stayed in the Maritime continent the majority of our winters, and I think that is the main reason our winters have been so bad for so long. It rarely stays in the cold sections in winter. It all comes back to the forcing mechanisms in the pacific imo. 

[GaWx]

2 hours ago, BooneWX said:

File this away as well: MJO always has and always will be a vastly overrated teleconnection. We’ll firmly be in 8 for these 70° days. 

1. No teleconnection even comes close to guaranteeing anything. Anyone who says it does is overrating it. But most have notable tendencies that make them helpful for forecasting. They’re useful tools, including the MJO, but they’re not crystal balls as the atmosphere is much too complicated for any one index to be reliable. I’d argue the MJO is about as good a tool as any of them, but like any tool it needs to be used correctly.

2. I recently did an analysis of 3+ day long Dec phase 8 at RDU and found a whopping 78% of them to have been colder than normal:

# of periods: MB 5 (22%), B 13 (57%), NN 0 (0%), A 2 (9%), MA 3 (13%)

 So, there have been nearly 4 times as many B/MB periods as A/MA periods at RDU for Dec phase 8 periods lasting at least 3 days.

3. Regardless, of what may come and in what phase, what about prior to that period? The period 12/3-16, most of which is forecasted to be in phase 8, is forecasted to end up with all colder than normal days at RDU and in much of the SE and to be at least in the top 5 cold for that period of the last 50 years! That would be 90 percentile cold.

4. I plan to average out the temperature anomalies for whatever days end up in phase 8 later this month.

[GaWx]

 The 12Z model consensus is coming in for Mon lows at ~20F for ATL and ~17-20F for RDU.

[BooneWX]

3 hours ago, GaWx said:

1. No teleconnection even comes close to guaranteeing anything. Anyone who says it does is overrating it. But most have notable tendencies that make them helpful for forecasting. They’re useful tools, including the MJO, but they’re not crystal balls as the atmosphere is much too complicated for any one index to be reliable. I’d argue the MJO is about as good a tool as any of them, but like any tool it needs to be used correctly.

2. I recently did an analysis of 3+ day long Dec phase 8 at RDU and found a whopping 78% of them to have been colder than normal:

# of periods: MB 5 (22%), B 13 (57%), NN 0 (0%), A 2 (9%), MA 3 (13%)

 So, there have been nearly 4 times as many B/MB periods as A/MA periods at RDU for Dec phase 8 periods lasting at least 3 days.

3. Regardless, of what may come and in what phase, what about prior to that period? The period 12/3-16, most of which is forecasted to be in phase 8, is forecasted to end up with all colder than normal days at RDU and in much of the SE and to be at least in the top 5 cold for that period of the last 50 years! That would be 90 percentile cold.

4. I plan to average out the temperature anomalies for whatever days end up in phase 8 later this month.

I think point 1 is what I was trying to illustrate though. Maybe not on here, but I saw dozens of talking heads ignoring other parameters surrounding winter weather potential in the south as if the MJO is the only driver. I just don’t believe that it is. It has to be taken with a grain of salt and many big storms have occurred in less than ideal phases. So we actually agree on more than you think, I should’ve just added more context. It matters but it’s one drop in the very large bucket of things we need to get right to deliver an impactful winter weather event.

[BooneWX]

And for what it’s worth, I think this upcoming “torch” is more of a gently above average type of deal for the upper south than 70s and golf weather. It looks like we’re going to be flooded with Pacific air, which isn’t exactly a torch signal - usually just a signal for a lot of 50s and low 60s sprinkled in. Torch to me is “tune up the lawnmower” weather cause it might start growing again. 

[Akeem the African Dream]

20 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 The 12Z model consensus is coming in for Mon lows at ~20F for ATL and ~17-20F for RDU.

that would be historic

 

 

[GaWx]

20 minutes ago, Akeem the African Dream said:

that would be historic

 

 

 Hey troll, I didn’t say these were anywhere near historic. The record lows for 12/15 at RDU/ATL are way down at 8/11. But these are ~18 BN.

[Daniel Boone]

7 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Hey troll, I didn’t say these were anywhere near historic. The record lows for 12/15 at RDU/ATL are way at 8/11. But they are ~18 BN.

He may of thought those were minus marks before the numbers Larry.

[BornAgain13]

Euro showing some snow showers up this way on Friday. This type of system will favor the higher elevations though. So im not expecting much but im thankful for the 3-3 1/2" total we've gotten so far.