What went wrong with our Nor’easter? Will it ever properly rain again?

[JenkinsJinkies]

Throughout the preceding work week pretty much every model showed us getting a soaking from the coastal system. Some only showing a region wide inch while others were giving us 2-5 inches. The models held on to that until the 48-72 hour mark before they suddenly and epically collapsed.

 

This has happened more often than not since spring 2023, and there hasn’t been a true wet pattern since 2022. Every big event since then was either a one off or the region gets hit but it underperforms in a way that gives winners and losers, often with a significant cut off gradient.

 

This has been a resilient dry pattern. Usually Niña induced dry patterns end when the Niña dies but it survived the end of the 2023 Niña, stuck around during the transition to the 2024 Niño, precip underperformed during the Niño, when last year’s Niña ended it paradoxically intensified, and here we are now in the latest of a series of rain event busts.

 

It seems as if we need the planets to align to get a decent system. There’s quite a few mechanisms that are required to give us big snows so I can understand why we can have problems in winter, but almost everything that we need for snow not the case for rain. It’s not supposed to be this hard to get rain here.

 

Its like a switch flipped in 2023.