January 2026 Medium/Long Range Discussion

[NorthArlington101]

5 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Overnight runs were a turd in the punch bowl after good 12 and 18z yesterday 

All jokes aside about losing a HECS overnight they were genuinely not nearly as awesome a look as earlier in the day. Not a dead look but not awesome. Hopefully just a blip

[WxUSAF]

3 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

All jokes aside about losing a HECS overnight they were genuinely not nearly as awesome a look as earlier in the day. Not a dead look but not awesome. Hopefully just a blip

EPS still evolves a good pattern after D10, but has a western trough pump a brief eastern ridge around the 9th. Better look for a coastal is around the 7-8th and then again around the 12-13th. And that 7-8th setup doesn’t look as robust as the 9th did yesterday. We’ll see if we flip back today.  

[mitchnick]

5 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

All jokes aside about losing a HECS overnight they were genuinely not nearly as awesome a look as earlier in the day. Not a dead look but not awesome. Hopefully just a blip

Ensembles are supposed to trump operationals, but they can, and do, change just as fast as the operationals making them marginally more accurate than the operationals imho.

 

[mitchnick]

2 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

EPS still evolves a good pattern after D10, but has a western trough pump a brief eastern ridge around the 9th. Better look for a coastal is around the 7-8th and then again around the 12-13th. And that 7-8th setup doesn’t look as robust as the 9th did yesterday. We’ll see if we flip back today.  

Gefs continue to give us a SE ridge after multiple runs. It is a Niña still, so so I  don't think we'll can write it off completely or assume the Eps will prevail. 

[mitchnick]

1 minute ago, mitchnick said:

Gefs continue to give us a SE ridge after multiple runs. It is a Niña still, so so I  don't think we'll can write it off completely or assume the Eps will prevail. 

I should have added that with the SE ridge on the 6z Gfs, it offered a great overrunning threat at the end of the run. Too bad it won't be right.

[TSSN+]

Looking at overnight models like..

[WxUSAF]

22 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

I should have added that with the SE ridge on the 6z Gfs, it offered a great overrunning threat at the end of the run. Too bad it won't be right.

Yeah if we get a major EPO ridge as advertised, we want a flat SE ridge to keep the storm track nearby. 

[JenkinsJinkies]

You’d think the weenies would be having a whine fest here after that run. I guess they got it out of their system yesterday.

[CAPE]

6 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Ensembles are supposed to trump operationals, but they can, and do, change just as fast as the operationals making them marginally more accurate than the operationals imho.

 

That's because the initial conditions are different each model cycle so the perturbation of those initial conditions among the ens members often results in somewhat different outcomes from one run to the next. The ensemble forecast is a 'check' on the higher res deterministic for that particular run- each ens run gives an indication of uncertainty(error in initial conditions) for that particular deterministic outcome, and so (especially at longer range) they will also reflect some differences from run to run. 8-10 days out I simply monitor the mean over a series of consecutive runs, and the outcome generally stays pretty consistent, depending on the model, number of members, etc. Anecdotally the Euro/EPS seems more consistent from one cycle to the next. That's my take and I am sure its not completely correct lol.

[mitchnick]

2 minutes ago, CAPE said:

That's because the initial conditions are different each model cycle so the perturbation of those initial conditions among the ens members often results in somewhat different outcomes from one run to the next. The ensemble forecast is a 'check' on the higher res deterministic for that particular run- each ens run gives an indication of uncertainty(error in initial conditions) for that particular deterministic outcome, and so (especially at longer range) they will also reflect some differences from run to run. 8-10 days out I simply monitor the mean over a series of consecutive runs, and the outcome generally stays pretty consistent, depending on the model, number of members, etc. Anecdotally the Euro/EPS seems more consistent from one cycle to the next. That's my take and I am sure its not completely correct lol.

Speaking of changing ensembles, Gefs' 6z run just took a pretty big jump toward the Eps. End of 0z on top and 6z on bottom. Lol

[JenkinsJinkies]

2 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Speaking of changing ensembles, Gefs' 6z run just took a pretty big jump toward the Eps. End of 0z on top and 6z on bottom. Lol

And once again the weenies cliff jumped too early. That’s 2 years in a row that the SER gets either can kicked or suppressed.

[CAPE]

11 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Speaking of changing ensembles, Gefs' 6z run just took a pretty big jump toward the Eps. End of 0z on top and 6z on bottom. Lol

Same general look, but the position/amplitude of the trough in the Pacific is slightly different with the EPO ridge further east. Impacts the location and character of the downstream trough. The bottom panel is a nice gradient look. Get a wave or 2 with the boundary to our south and we snow.

[Chris78]

11 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

And once again the weenies cliff jumped too early. That’s 2 years in a row that the SER gets either can kicked or suppressed.

There's some on here that cliff jumps every 6 hours for sure

For some its part of their shtick. 

Until we see some sustained southern stream moisture I'm pretty pessimistic for getting a decent  region wide snowfall.

Can we time up some southern stream with cold air? We haven't been able to in years.

I'm not looking for a HECS.

Just a region wide 4-8" that starts as snow and stays snow.

[JenkinsJinkies]

2 minutes ago, Chris78 said:

There's some on here that cliff jumps every 6 hours for sure

For some its part of their shtick. 

Until we see some sustained southern stream moisture I'm pretty pessimistic for getting a decent  region wide snowfall.

Can we time up some southern stream with cold air? We haven't been able to in years.

I'm not looking for a HECS.

Just a region wide 4-8" that starts as snow and stays snow.

If next year’s Niño materializes and the improvement in the PDO continues I wonder if 2027 will be remembered in the same vain as 2016 and 2003?

[LP08]

2 minutes ago, Chris78 said:

There's some on here that cliff jumps every 6 hours for sure

For some its part of their shtick. 

Until we see some sustained southern stream moisture I'm pretty pessimistic for getting a decent  region wide snowfall.

Can we time up some southern stream with cold air? We haven't been able to in years.

I'm not looking for a HECS.

Just a region wide 4-8" that starts as snow and stays snow.

This X100.  My area has been relatively lucky this year and past years and even I am getting sick of thin stripes of "win" where it covers like 50 miles N to S.  

[Solution Man]

3 minutes ago, Chris78 said:

There's some on here that cliff jumps every 6 hours for sure

For some its part of their shtick. 

Until we see some sustained southern stream moisture I'm pretty pessimistic for getting a decent  region wide snowfall.

Can we time up some southern stream with cold air? We haven't been able to in years.

I'm not looking for a HECS.

Just a region wide 4-8" that starts as snow and stays snow.

And should be our ceiling, not our floor

[Heisy]

Here is, in my opinion, one of the big pattern keys to keep an eye on. Going to use the GFS as an example.

Look at yesterday’s 18z gfs. It cut off the pac energy and retrograded it west under the building epo ridge out west



Now, the newer run still building an -EPO ridge, but they’re also bringing that pac energy east which temporarily boosts the SE ridge. If this ends up happening we may have to wait another 7-10 days to let the -EPO work its magic





.

[aldie 22]

7 minutes ago, Heisy said:

Here is, in my opinion, one of the big pattern keys to keep an eye on. Going to use the GFS as an example.

Look at yesterday’s 18z gfs. It cut off the pac energy and retrograded it west under the building epo ridge out west



Now, the newer run still building an -EPO ridge, but they’re also bringing that pac energy east which temporarily boosts the SE ridge. If this ends up happening we may have to wait another 7-10 days to let the -EPO work its magic





.

You know who is going to see this at some random midnight hour and focus on the "wait" comment and speak to that part as gospel for the pattern being delayed....just watch