December Medium/Long Range Discussion

[CAPE]

10 minutes ago, dailylurker said:

I'm not canceling winter but I'm coming to terms that it's definitely over for the next couple of weeks, at least. Losing weeks of prime climo is definitely a bummer. 

Prime climo is a few weeks away.

[nj2va]

25 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

South has stuck the fork in, we’ll see how long until the other sub forums do the same.

If anyone here is cancelling winter on December 21, they should go find a new hobby.

[bncho]

6 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Prime climo is a few weeks away.

Jan 15 to Feb 15 honestly looks like a decent period IMO

[TSSN+]

3 minutes ago, nj2va said:

If anyone here is cancelling winter on December 21, they should go find a new hobby.

JI cancels on October 21st 

[JenkinsJinkies]

8 minutes ago, nj2va said:

If anyone here is cancelling winter on December 21, they should go find a new hobby.

Usually if the pattern is bad in the south it's bad for us too. Same goes for Philadelphia.

[dailylurker]

17 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Prime climo is a few weeks away.

The gfs looks better today. There's some decent cold shots. The euro on the other hand lol. Are those +50 degree departures in the Midwest for the next 10 days at least? What an impressive heatwave. Someone at our latitude is definitely going to see 70's if not 80's lol. F-it. I'm moving on and planning some extended hikes in the local mountains. 

[Maestrobjwa]

3 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

Usually if the pattern is bad in the south it's bad for us too. Same goes for Philadelphia.

And that translates into giving up on the rest of the winter...why?

[BristowWx]

22 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

And that translates into giving up on the rest of the winter...why?

Agree We’re not cancelling anything.  Been around too long to think anything is over before it’s over

[stormy]

1 hour ago, nj2va said:

If anyone here is cancelling winter on December 21, they should go find a new hobby.

I have been scrolling to find a solid post to pin my hat to. This is better than most and also applies to Eric Webb.

[CAPE]

The period around NYE could end up cold and dry, but at least it looks cold, and there has been pretty persistent indications on guidance that there could be a storm during this timeframe. H5 looks favorable. Lets just wait and see.

 

[Scraff]

4 minutes ago, CAPE said:

The period around NYE could end up cold and dry, but at least it looks cold, and there has been pretty persistent indications on guidance that there could be a storm during this timeframe. H5 looks favorable. Lets just wait and see.

 

Don’t worry. A few in here will call your post fake news.  

[Solution Man]

On 12/20/2025 at 3:50 PM, Maestrobjwa said:

Recency bias...the models just got it "wrong" a couple weeks ago, lol Remember all rhe warm-ups that were can-kicked from mid-November through last week?

Yes

[mitchnick]

37 minutes ago, Scraff said:

Don’t worry. A few in here will call your post fake news.  

Or fake blues 

[Weather Will]

EPS daily extended ticked colder this run with normal temps into second week of January and with below normal end of January into early February.  Control is much colder.  Definitely not a "winter is over" run.

[Ji]

EPS daily extended ticked colder this run with normal temps into second week of January and with below normal end of January into early February.  Control is much colder.  Definitely not a "winter is over" run.

Hey, Will post the 30 day precipitation anomaly map for January 1 through February 1

[cbmclean]

7 hours ago, Terpeast said:

Isn’t Webb living in New Mexico or somewhere like that? I can see why he would be frustrated wrt his backyard snowfall prospects (lack of STJ), but to paint that as “winter’s over” for the entire country/EC is a bit much. Some stretches are gonna suck, others may be decent. I still don’t think this is a one track winter. 

I don't think it has much to do with his location.  He has a semi-permanent feud with east coast snow weenies and he likes to savor their tears as they torch.  The problem is I have followed him off an on since 2023 and he seems to be extremely knowledgeable.  He dives "under the hood" into the mechanics of the synoptic scale of the atmosphere and doesn't just rip and read from the models.  In 2023-24 he was down on the canonical nino pattern appearing in late Jan/Feb, and he was correct.  Last year he was up on the possibilities for SE snow and he was right about that as well.

Like Bob says if he knew it all he'd be rich as an energy trader, but if he is making bold claims, I would look into his basis before dismissing him off hand.

[Weather Will]

21 minutes ago, Ji said:

WB extended EPS 30 day anomalies for Jan.

[bncho]

EPS trend for 12/29 @ 12z. Look at that trend towards colder weather. And some are already cancelling winter.

[Terpeast]

49 minutes ago, cbmclean said:

I don't think it has much to do with his location.  He has a semi-permanent feud with east coast snow weenies and he likes to savor their tears as they torch.  The problem is I have followed him off an on since 2023 and he seems to be extremely knowledgeable.  He dives "under the hood" into the mechanics of the synoptic scale of the atmosphere and doesn't just rip and read from the models.  In 2023-24 he was down on the canonical nino pattern appearing in late Jan/Feb, and he was correct.  Last year he was up on the possibilities for SE snow and he was right about that as well.

Like Bob says if he knew it all he'd be rich as an energy trader, but if he is making bold claims, I would look into his basis before dismissing him off hand.

He was calling for a TNH+ pattern with -EPO for the winter not too long ago, maybe a couple of weeks. I do follow him and he gives good background information under the hood, but the latest tweet of his lacked the usual substance and reasoning for a big change is his position/outlook. 

[Kay]

30 minutes ago, cbmclean said:

I don't think it has much to do with his location.  He has a semi-permanent feud with east coast snow weenies and he likes to savor their tears as they torch.  The problem is I have followed him off an on since 2023 and he seems to be extremely knowledgeable.  He dives "under the hood" into the mechanics of the synoptic scale of the atmosphere and doesn't just rip and read from the models.  In 2023-24 he was down on the canonical nino pattern appearing in late Jan/Feb, and he was correct.  Last year he was up on the possibilities for SE snow and he was right about that as well.

Like Bob says if he knew it all he'd be rich as an energy trader, but if he is making bold claims, I would look into his basis before dismissing him off hand.

He was among my wxtwitter follows for quite a while when I was on there and I agree with this assessment. I didn't know it was a thing, but he did sort of seem to relish crushing EC snow weenie dreams  Note, I am not commenting on his or anyone's specific thoughts on this winter.

[CAPE]

Twitter/X dweebs.. Many agendas. Opinions are like assholes. 

[JenkinsJinkies]

52 minutes ago, bncho said:

EPS trend for 12/29 @ 12z. Look at that trend towards colder weather. And some are already cancelling winter.

Well we’ve had cold shots in crap patterns that are followed by much above average temps 5 days later.

[pazzo83]

6 hours ago, CAPE said:

Prime climo is a few weeks away.

yeah i'd say it's the last two weeks of Jan / first two weeks of Feb.  There's always a delay at our latitude in both winter and summer in terms of peak "climo" and when the solstice happens.  Our hottest weeks of the summer are generally mid July to early August.

[pazzo83]

6 hours ago, TSSN+ said:

JI cancels on October 21st 

that's late for him tbh

[pazzo83]

1 hour ago, Terpeast said:

He was calling for a TNH+ pattern with -EPO for the winter not too long ago, maybe a couple of weeks. I do follow him and he gives good background information under the hood, but the latest tweet of his lacked the usual substance and reasoning for a big change is his position/outlook. 

sometimes he lets the desire to troll cloud his reasoning.

[cbmclean]

1 hour ago, Terpeast said:

He was calling for a TNH+ pattern with -EPO for the winter not too long ago, maybe a couple of weeks. I do follow him and he gives good background information under the hood, but the latest tweet of his lacked the usual substance and reasoning for a big change is his position/outlook. 

I must have missed him discussing the TNH+.  He seemed oddly quiet in early December.  I believe he was having some health issues so I ascribed it to that.  Maybe it just wasn't popping up on my feed for some reason.  

[cbmclean]

17 minutes ago, pazzo83 said:

yeah i'd say it's the last two weeks of Jan / first two weeks of Feb.  There's always a delay at our latitude in both winter and summer in terms of peak "climo" and when the solstice happens.  Our hottest weeks of the summer are generally mid July to early August.

One thing that throws a monkey wrench into assessing vs climo is the potential ENSO impact though.   I believe that La Nina's have a tendency to be more front loaded and can often be quite toasty in February (keeping in mind that "frontloaded" is relative; just because December is the least bad doesn't mean it's good.)  On the other hand a good El Nino might be just hitting it's stride at the start of February.

I currently have no idea how impactful or not the fading Nina is going to be going forward.  If it couples strongly, then there is reason to be concerned about late Jan and Feb.

[bncho]

New BAM WX video says we're back into winter by mid-January. Here were my main takeaways from this video:

1. Dec 29-31 will trend colder, like it has been for the past few days.
2. He thinks there'll be a big storm favoring NE for the first week of January; his top analogs like 1996 and 2000
3. Somewhere between the end of Dec and the start of Jan, he thinks that WWBs will happen, causing:
- the death of La Nina 
- -EPO by early Jan, but no +PNA
- MJO to move very quickly and finally get unstuck thru phases 2, 3, 4, etc., finally getting back into 7 by around Jan 15 (just in time for prime climo)
4. He likes the fact that the PV is on our side of the hemisphere, and he thinks it'll stay there
5. The models are not seeing the cold in the long-range

TL;DR: BAM WX believes that there will be a prolonged period of cold and stormy weather from Jan 15 to Feb 1. The first two weeks of January will likely offer shots of cold, but with relaxations in between.