January 2026 regional war/obs/disco thread

[40/70 Benchmark]

44 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

IMO, there is way too much instability and hostility to have a solid idea moving past mid-month. I agree that there are times and situations where someone who is incredibly skilled at long-range forecasting can accurately nail pattern evolution and regime looking several weeks down the road...I mean there are some meteorologists who make a killing doing such forecasts for energy companies. Anyways, there is just so much at play right now and so many factors. While we have an idea of how things may unfold over the next few weeks, there are still uncertainties and low confidence in this and because of that there is no way to gauge how the pattern evolves past that because it will be highly dependent on how the next few weeks evolve. 

But in these situations this is where analogs can provide tremendous value but when you're dealing with the wildcards such as the stratosphere...even analogs may not work too well.  

This is why you incorporate the QBO and solar cycle into analogs. I think my progression has been good so far....only blemish is the severe -WPO making December colder than I thought....but moving forward, I was confident in latter January +TNH last fall, and still am now.

[weatherwiz]

4 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

This is why you incorporate the QBO and solar cycle into analogs. I think my progression has been good so far....only blemish is the severe -WPO making December colder than I thought....but moving forward, I was confident in latter January +TNH last fall, and still am now.

Yeah you've been pretty spot on so far. It can be really difficult to forecast the extent of the more anomalous regimes teleconnections can become. 

[jbenedet]

It’s not good— period —that the first pattern shake up of met winter is to land on hostile warmth for our region. If we didn’t land here at all it would portend better snow odds. Now we arrived here and need to hope for another shakeup. It’s just a game of odds…The long wave features are landing unfavorably. It also looks increasingly likely that it will stick beyond mid month. That said, the hostile period beginning around the 6th also is very unlikely to stick indefinitely. What’s most likely to me is we will settle in a gradient pattern. This has performed well in recent years from a line from just north of PWM, through DAW to N ORH. And extremely well in the far interior of NNE. Points south/east of there have been approx 50% of normal. That’s basically my expectation starting after the 15th. If this doesn’t work well for your lat/long or expectations, hope for another reshuffling in February. Still plenty of time for more shakeups….

 

[jbenedet]

These significant and persistent -NAO’s are very efficient at moving the Canadian airmasses south. There’s a catch here though. And that is, the deep cold doesn’t keep building in our cold source regions. It gets distributed and therefore dissipated… 

We’re evolving into this situation now. You look at a chunk of our cold source regions in Canada and it’s right to +AN…

This will stymie the cold/snow performance of a +NAO pattern —in our region—when it first develops…

[40/70 Benchmark]

8 minutes ago, jbenedet said:

It’s not good— period —that the first pattern shake up of met winter is to land on hostile warmth for our region. If we didn’t land here at all it would portend better snow odds. Now we arrived here and need to hope for another shakeup. It’s just a game of odds…The long wave features are landing unfavorably. It also looks increasingly likely that it will stick beyond mid month. That said, the hostile period beginning around the 6th also is very unlikely to stick indefinitely. What’s most likely to me is we will settle in a gradient pattern. This has performed well in recent years from a line from just north of PWM, through DAW to N ORH. And extremely well in the far interior of NNE. Points south/east of there have been approx 50% of normal. That’s basically my expectation starting after the 15th. If this doesn’t work well for your lat/long or expectations, hope for another reshuffling in February. Still plenty of time for more shakeups….

 

Great post....only cautionary note that I would add is that January 2022 +TNH interval worked out south of that line. 

[Krs4Lfe]

7 minutes ago, jbenedet said:

It’s not good— period —that the first pattern shake up of met winter is to land on hostile warmth for our region. If we didn’t land here at all it would portend better snow odds. Now we arrived here and need to hope for another shakeup. It’s just a game of odds…The long wave features are landing unfavorably. It also looks increasingly likely that it will stick beyond mid month. That said, the hostile period beginning around the 6th also is very unlikely to stick indefinitely. What’s most likely to me is we will settle in a gradient pattern. This has performed well in recent years from a line from just north of PWM, through DAW to N ORH. And extremely well in the far interior of NNE. Points south/east of there have been approx 50% of normal. That’s basically my expectation starting after the 15th. If this doesn’t work well for your lat/long or expectations, hope for another reshuffling in February. Still plenty of time for more shakeups….

 

Couldn't have said it any better myself. Gradient patterns rarely work out well for NYC, aside from 2013/2014, 1993/1994, and even 2014/2015 to some extent. We always see some sort of snow in those events but usually, nothing to ever push us towards our seasonal average. The only thing going for us is that we had an above average snowfall for Dec, and well below normal temperatures. This thaw will be big and real, from the 7th until the 12th or so. Hopefully, since we're still in peak climo, we can get some storms after that point. It's not necessarily the cold that's the issue (or lack thereof). I think more of the issue is a very fast northern stream and a tampered southern jet. That won't allow for any big storms to traverse CONUS, leading to persistent mild and dry conditions for Central, South, and West US. Naturally, that reduces our chances for snowfall. Even in seasons where the northeast doesn't do well in the snow department: 2023, 2024, 2020, there's still plenty of activity to our west. This year, there's been almost none. Make what you will of it, but I think we'd be a lot better off with more stormy activity to our west. Without that... meh at most  

[40/70 Benchmark]

I could totally see it taking somewhat longer than mid-month...perfectly reasonable possibility, especially if Canada gets really flushed.

[bristolri_wx]

Jan/Feb pattern forecast:

[MJO812]

5 minutes ago, jbenedet said:

These significant and persistent -NAO’s are very efficient at moving the Canadian airmasses south. There’s a catch here though. And that is, the deep cold doesn’t keep building in our cold source regions. It gets distributed and therefore dissipated… 

We’re evolving into this situation now. You look at a chunk of our cold source regions in Canada and it’s right to +AN…

This will stymie the cold/snow performance of a +NAO pattern —in our region—when it first develops…

Negative NAO patterns are useless

Give me a negative epo or positive  PNA pattern anyday

[40/70 Benchmark]

Late January will be crucial...if the gradient sets up just north of me, as it has so often and as @jbenedet indicated, then SNE is most definitely cooked in terms of seasonal totals. Wolfie, please put the fangs away...that doesn't preclude a great stretch, but all I'm saying is that climo snowfall is by the boards for SNE if latter January screw us. Maybe not for select areas in CT that got 8.5" last week-

[Krs4Lfe]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Late January will be crucial...if the gradient sets up just north of me, as ir has so often and as @jbenedet indicated, then SNE is moist definitely cooked in terms of seasonal totals. Wolfie, please put the fangs away...that doesn't preclude a great stretch, but all I'm saying is that climo snowfall is by the boards for SNE if latter January screw us

And if the gradient sets up north of you, then it's certainly far north of SNE and NYC area. All the weather stories are talking about the record warmth across CONUS next week. Warmest anomalies will be to our west of course, and Central US has barely seen a flake all season. That's a bit telling imo

[Typhoon Tip]

yup.  we've been saying that for days... 

we have to get thru this week ... large sweeping changes in the Pacific have yet even begin.  It starts doing so in earnest this week.

until that's further along there is likely to be greater guidance variability than normal, even at larger scales of pattern orientation. 

just gotta wait it out, man

[40/70 Benchmark]

IDK...I think the +TNH regime is clear as day. I agree the details need to be worked out, but I don't think there is much ambiguity concerning the larger scale pattern.

[WinterWolf]

25 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Late January will be crucial...if the gradient sets up just north of me, as it has so often and as @jbenedet indicated, then SNE is most definitely cooked in terms of seasonal totals. Wolfie, please put the fangs away...that doesn't preclude a great stretch, but all I'm saying is that climo snowfall is by the boards for SNE if latter January screw us. Maybe not for select areas in CT that got 8.5" last week-

Hey, No Fangs or push back here …couldn’t agree more.  
 

I’ll call a turf and turd when I think it.  At 12.5” on the season to date, average is about 50” here(give or take a couple in either direction), as of now normal snowfall is easily attainable with the large amount of time/vast majority of the season still left(and peak snow climo still in front of us).  

But if we go into the end of January, and I’m not above where I am now by a good 12-15” inches, normal season snowfall is toast. Agreed.  

[WinterWolf]

2 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

IDK...I think the +TNH regime is clear as day. I agree the details need to be worked out, but I don't think there is much ambiguity concerning the larger scale pattern.

Is +TNH the same thing as +PNA?  

[dendrite]

3 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

Is +TNH the same thing as +PNA?  

Nyet.

[metagraphica]

One month of winter in the books.  Above 1/3 of my normal snowfall for the season is pretty impressive.  13.6" so far. Normal is around 35" or so.  Looking forward to the 'warm up'; such as it may be, in the latter part of January.

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

Is +TNH the same thing as +PNA?  

+TNH is often +PNA, but not always.....has the PV near Hudson Bay.

[WinterWolf]

2 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Nyet.

So the +TNH looks to have a slight SE Ridge there in that graphic. And lower heights in central and SE Canada, instead of the lower heights over the east in the +PNA.  Am I understanding it correctly? 

[WinterWolf]

5 minutes ago, metagraphica said:

One month of winter in the books.  Above 1/3 of my normal snowfall for the season is pretty impressive.  13.6" so far. Normal is around 35" or so.  Looking forward to the 'warm up'; such as it may be, in the latter part of January.

Down your way has been quite good…absolutely no complaints for your area. 

[Typhoon Tip]

15 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

IDK...I think the +TNH regime is clear as day. I agree the details need to be worked out, but I don't think there is much ambiguity concerning the larger scale pattern.

yeah yeah    we're likely ending up in some variant of -EPO to +PNA, either end or somewhere in between.

it's all related. but the run to run wild swings ( like the incomprehensible 00z Euro operaitonal) ...  and frankly the GFS has zip continuity across the last several cycles... etc, these are going to continue until that variant above is settled.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

Shades are closing…

[SnowGoose69]

19 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

we're likely ending up in some variant of -EPO to +PNA, either end or somewhere in between.

it's all related. but the run to run wild swings ( like the incomprehensible 00z Euro operaitonal) ...  and frankly the GFS has zip continuity across the last several cycles... etc, these are going to continue until that variant above is settled.

It is quite amazing how the last 5-6 cycles the wild shift the GEFS/GEPS have made while the EPS seemingly has not moved for 5 days.  The GEPS now moved to the GEFS idea from 1-2 days ago while the GEFS in the 8-12 day range sort of moved to what the ECAIFS/EPS was showing in that period but then immediately goes back to trying to do post D12 what it was doing yesterday beyond D8 lol

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

Strange how EPS looks solid while other ens look like the last several winters redux…digging troughs into Cabo. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

30 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

So the +TNH looks to have a slight SE Ridge there in that graphic. And lower heights in central and SE Canada, instead of the lower heights over the east in the +PNA.  Am I understanding it correctly? 

Yes, this is why often the big arctic blasts in these shoot down the center of the country and we get more pedestrian cold.