January 2026 Medium/Long Range Discussion

[baltosquid]

6 minutes ago, CAPE said:

This is a pretty flat ass ridge- Look at the trough in the SW.. follow the height lines and ignore the colors.. Verbatim we get snow (as far south as S VA) during this period.

I was not confident enough to state it but I was thinking something similar. The blocking is there, and we’ve been complaining about a pacific look that left us fighting for NS scraps for the last month. That look gives us a chance at some actual southern energy I would guess. Temps would be the main issue but on an ensemble run that’s too far out to worry about temps. The right shortwave progression with a look like this could deliver the cold no problem.

[frd]

 

Venture to this thread at your own risk.  

I am still positive towards mid month and the second half of Jan. 

[JenkinsJinkies]

Just now, frd said:

 

Venture to this thread at your own risk.  

I am still positive towards mid month and the second half of Jan. 

FWIW even BAM isn’t 100 percent on board with the red flags he found.

[mitchnick]

24 minutes ago, Ji said:

where do you see a SE ridge?

 

[Maestrobjwa]

33 minutes ago, IronTy said:

Social media is so dumb. In the good ole days of forums we didn't have emojis or high school clique level rating systems.  Thanks MySpace.  

And oh my gosh it still exists!! Someone once called it an abandoned amusement park, lol

[Ji]

1 minute ago, mitchnick said:

 

this is a SE ridge.  I think what your showing is more of a split flow

[mitchnick]

23 minutes ago, CAPE said:

This is a pretty flat ass ridge- Look at the trough in the SW.. follow the height lines and ignore the colors.. Verbatim we get snow (as far south as S VA) during this period.

Going to have to disagree with you on this one. First, I'm discussing the run verbatim.  You used the 11-16 day average, so will I. Surface and 850 are decently AN verbatim. I don't believe the chances of snow are high at all.

 

[paulythegun]

What I think would be fascinating is if someone developed a "Pattern Incoming Surety System" (PISS) Index to describe the certainty level associated with the 2 week pattern forecast. A variety of factors would go in the creation of PISS. How many ensembles are in support? What's the spread? Did it just pop up for a couple of model cycles, or hace the runs been dripping in and steadily increasing the flow of confidence as we approach? Less important, but still crucial: how do the higher res mesos compare to the short term ensemble depiction (kind of an initial conditions test).

A 5 alarm PISS Index reading would be something like we saw in I believe January of 2016. Amazing pattern trending to locked in storm 10 days out.

Sent from my SM-S938U using Tapatalk

[IronTy]

Whatever, I'm reasonably confident we can get cold air by the latter half of the month. My top analogue is.....1985.  I was only 4yo that winter living in Michigan so I have.no idea what it brought here.  

 

What I'm not reasonably confident is precip.  The drought presses on for the next few weeks and I see no reason it lets up this month. 

[baltosquid]

Someone with panels wanna find the big dog in the GEFS for Jan 16-17? Quite an influence on the average I imagine

 

edit: can see it in the mean mslp with members lol. Looks like it even tucks a bit. 1004 at OBX, 996 just off Ocean City, then 989 off central NJ 

[JenkinsJinkies]

2 minutes ago, Met1985 said:

12z euro. It's in the mid to long range and we've seen what the points look like but this is kind of what we want.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk
 

From the SE forum, Euro heading in the right direction.

[CAPE]

16 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Going to have to disagree with you on this one. First, I'm discussing the run verbatim.  You used the 11-16 day average, so will I. Surface and 850 are decently AN verbatim. I don't believe the chances of snow are high at all.

 

Snow chances probably aren't very high(although this is literally the only period the model gives us snow). Nor have the chances of snow been high with the better look up top, legit cold in place and zero SE ridge. Its a crapshoot man. I bet we get some snow in the next 15 days, because that's how random this all is, models aren't very reliable at range, and ofc, the WDI!

[WxUSAF]

7 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

From the SE forum, Euro heading in the right direction.

One thing I’ve noted the last couple days is that the end of the op runs haven’t been looking like the ensemble means. This is @mitchnick’s anecdotal rule. Today there’s better similarity with non-GFS runs having a more or less favorable winter pattern for us D10-15. 

[NorthArlington101]

15 minutes ago, baltosquid said:

Someone with panels wanna find the big dog in the GEFS for Jan 16-17? Quite an influence on the average I imagine

 

edit: can see it in the mean mslp with members lol. Looks like it even tucks a bit. 1004 at OBX, 996 just off Ocean City, then 989 off central NJ 

Just for you 

[Eskimo Joe]

15 minutes ago, paulythegun said:

What I think would be fascinating is if someone developed a "Pattern Incoming Surety System" (PISS) Index to describe the certainty level associated with the 2 week pattern forecast. A variety of factors would go in the creation of PISS. How many ensembles are in support? What's the spread? Did it just pop up for a couple of model cycles, or hace the runs been dripping in and steadily increasing the flow of confidence as we approach? Less important, but still crucial: how do the higher res mesos compare to the short term ensemble depiction (kind of an initial conditions test).

A 5 alarm PISS Index reading would be something like we saw in I believe January of 2016. Amazing pattern trending to locked in storm 10 days out.

Sent from my SM-S938U using Tapatalk

 

What did the P.I.S.S. Index look like in the 10-15 days leading up to the Jan 2016 event?

[adelphi_sky]

Just now, NorthArlington101 said:

Just for you 

p18. Please. Pretty please.

[Cobalt]

22 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Going to have to disagree with you on this one. First, I'm discussing the run verbatim.  You used the 11-16 day average, so will I. Surface and 850 are decently AN verbatim. I don't believe the chances of snow are high at all.

 

What do the median numbers look like? I recall you posting those numbers from pivotal a while back (I believe it's a Pivotal+ exclusive). I'm guessing there's a handful of members who go extreme with the SE ridge and pump big AN anomalies, while the colder scenarios provide pedestrian, yet serviceable cold that does little to revert the mean. Just a guess. 

[CAPE]

I made a post further up in the thread with h5 images showing how imperfect the pattern was leading up to the early Jan 2022 snowstorm, including a SE ridge which became more of a WAR that linked up with a transient -NAO. It snowed a day later. That was the famous 'shit the blinds' pattern with no end in sight, yet I identified a way out and a specific threat window 10 days or so in advance. I got lucky and it actually worked out.

[baltosquid]

1 minute ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Just for you 

Put it all on black? No, put it all on p18.

[mappy]

Everyone good 

[IronTy]

4 minutes ago, baltosquid said:

Put it all on black? No, put it all on p18.

That's the storm I need to win the snowfall contest.  No chance.  

[winter_warlock]

31 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Just for you 

Lmaooo none of that's even gonna be the same in 2 weeks lol 

[mitchnick]

25 minutes ago, Cobalt said:

What do the median numbers look like? I recall you posting those numbers from pivotal a while back (I believe it's a Pivotal+ exclusive). I'm guessing there's a handful of members who go extreme with the SE ridge and pump big AN anomalies, while the colder scenarios provide pedestrian, yet serviceable cold that does little to revert the mean. Just a guess. 

Pivotal doesn't offer multiple days, so we can't get an apples to apples comparison. 

[mitchnick]

34 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

One thing I’ve noted the last couple days is that the end of the op runs haven’t been looking like the ensemble means. This is @mitchnick’s anecdotal rule. Today there’s better similarity with non-GFS runs having a more or less favorable winter pattern for us D10-15. 

Eps have the SE Ridge at the end of the run too. This is at least the 3rd run in a row on the 360hr runs. It's maddening. 

[ravensrule]

1 hour ago, Ji said:

yea--im about to pull the plug. 

We should be so lucky. 

[Ralph Wiggum]

The SER is part of the base state we are dealing with this winter. It is a function of the La Nina and fits Nina climo. The key is cashing in when there are windows when it gets squashed or acting as a flat ridge / gradient. It was a certainty the SER would pump at times this season.

Eta: so with that said, step back from the ledge. Winter is not canceled, winter is not over. We've been frozen, give or take a couple days, since late November. Consider the relax in the pattern our annual January thaw. Seems like a pretty average winter thus far, no complaints. 

[mitchnick]

7 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Eps have the SE Ridge at the end of the run too. This is at least the 3rd run in a row on the 360hr runs. It's maddening. 

I forgot to mention. Doge didn't effect the Eps. Lol

[WxUSAF]

2 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

I forgot to mention. Doge didn't effect the Eps. Lol

Reduction in soundings should impact all forecasts, but perhaps not equally given different data assimilation methods. Not sure how you’d “normalize” it so to speak, but I think comparing forecast accuracy between winter 24-25 and 25-26 would be a very interesting study.

[Maestrobjwa]

3 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

The SER is part of the base state we are dealing with this winter. It is a function of the La Nina and fits Nina climo. The key is cashing in when there are windows when it gets squashed or acting as a flat ridge / gradient. It was a certainty the SER would pump at times this season.

Now see...ya can't help but think about 22-23 when that thing went on steroids the entire season (I think the NAO linked up with it). I was used to seeing that in February of a Nina but that thing surged basically the entire winter, smh Now this is a different setup, of course...but I had been under the impression that the ser was more of a February thing in ninas.

[mitchnick]

Today's weeklies are a touch better temp wise than yesterday. Maybe the bleeding has stopped?