January 2026 Short/Medium Range Thread

[WintryMixmaster]

3 hours ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

What the Euro is spitting out is extremely anomalous. I don't think I've seen a cutoff with this wrapped up at our latitude since I've been watching weather...let's say...enthusiastically enough to participate.

Some observations though:

Only 30+ hours later the situation has chnanged a lot:

 

what is now essentially a TPV vort says: "TPV eat shortwaves!!! YUM!!!!!"

 

But look at this, hour 126:

 

That's so wild I'm not really sure what options are on the table. 

These kinds of posts are great for people like me (I only have a vague idea of how to interpret the 500 mb maps, I never know what the important features are on these). Thank you!

[Icy Hot]

1 hour ago, Kasper said:

Need that to tick west a 100 miles and we’re in business 

NOAA says dry weather for the next 7 days. They aren’t buying stock in this. Perhaps that will change.

[Holston_River_Rambler]

7 minutes ago, Icy Hot said:

NOAA says dry weather for the next 7 days. They aren’t buying stock in this. Perhaps that will change.

Probably what I'd go with too for now if I had to make and official forecast for 5-7 days out. As modeled, this is a highly anomalous system with extremely high end potential for someone in the eastern US.

Highly anomalous things are just that, very uncommon.  N. stream has been favoring cold and dry and at this range, so I'd go with the trend and only start to introduce some pops (20%) tomorrow if this holds. 

 

[Holston_River_Rambler]

Just as an example, look at this sigma anomaly (standard deviation from the norm). 

[Bigbald]

Just glancing at the 6z and 12z runs, there appears to be good agreement on a 2nd system 200-230 hrs euro ai, gfs, cmc

[Holston_River_Rambler]

16 minutes ago, Bigbald said:

Just glancing at the 6z and 12z runs, there appears to be good agreement on a 2nd system 200-230 hrs euro ai, gfs, cmc

There was a time late last week when the EPS actually liked the 4-6th window better than this weekend. 

[John1122]

SE shift by the Euro AI, I expect the Euro will follow.  Hopefully it can work back this way but not holding my breath.

[tnweathernut]

7 minutes ago, John1122 said:

SE shift by the Euro AI, I expect the Euro will follow.  Hopefully it can work back this way but not holding my breath.

This type of setup is more likely to whiff, IMO.  It's funny, the last system we went so far west the phase started in the 4 corners region of the southwest...............  This time we need it further west and the likely result will probably be a further east phase than is needed to snow on parts of the mid-south.

[Carvers Gap]

12z Euro might be interesting per 500 vort maps.

[John1122]

The Euro is a whiff that run except for the Smokies/NE mountains.

[Carvers Gap]

Negative tilt vort over South Carolina at 141.

[Carvers Gap]

Just now, John1122 said:

The Euro is a whiff that run except for the Smokies/NE mountains.

It might be a whiff on the surface...it is not a whiff on the vort maps.  Looks similar to 6z. 

[John1122]

Just now, Carvers Gap said:

It might be a whiff on the surface...it is not a whiff on the vort maps.  Looks similar to 6z. 

It's weaker and further east than 06z, so we end up dry.

[Carvers Gap]

The 12z Euro slp is further west w/ a negative tilt trough.  For whatever reason, the surface doesn't respond as strongly.  They synoptics are better w/ 12z.  I don't think that means much for the western 2/3 of the forum area.  This is probably something the eastern 1/3 of the valley maybe has a 30-40% chance of sneaking into the game - if that.  12z left.  6z right.