January 2026 Medium/Long Range Discussion

[Ji]

I've always been in the "no snow is like snow at home" until I spent nearly a week on the Tug. In that time I witnessed nearly 100" of snowfall. I spent time there. I went grocery shopping, went to dispensaries, went on hikes (on snowmobile trails lol). It was like i lived there. I wasn't in a hotel. I was in a house (Airbnb). It made the experience a lot like getting 100" at home without being snowed in for a month. I stayed in Pulaski one night for the mega band. Nearly 4 feet fell overnight. By 9am the town was fully open. I highly suggest any snow lover do a week on the Tug. F our shitty climo lol

Is it easy to drive around there? There is no super mountain type areas right?

[dailylurker]

1 minute ago, Ji said:

Is it easy to drive around there? There is no super mountain type areas right?

It's super easy to get around. There's lots of beautiful little snow towns all over the area. The road crews are amazing. I was driving around in my pickup truck during a 3 foot snowfall and had no problem. Arby's was open lol. Being snowed in is a southern thing. We got 20" yesterday from 7am to 1pm. By 2 roads and parking lot were clear and sun was out. It's such a beautiful place. Everyone is really friendly too. They couldn't understand what a Jebwalk was lol. People thought i needed help and kept asking me if I was ok. 

[JenkinsJinkies]

17 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

WB 12Z EPS show last no chance of snow over the next week.

Thats because the thaw will have just ended by then.

[Terpeast]

5 minutes ago, dailylurker said:

It's super easy to get around. There's lots of beautiful little snow towns all over the area. The road crews are amazing. I was driving around in my pickup truck during a 3 foot snowfall and had no problem. Arby's was open lol. Being snowed in is a southern thing. We got 20" yesterday from 7am to 1pm. By 2 roads and parking lot were clear and sun was out. It's such a beautiful place. Everyone is really friendly too. They couldn't understand what a Jebwalk was lol. People thought i needed help and kept asking me if I was ok. 

Haha that’s funny about them asking if you needed help. 

Did you stay in one place the whole time, or did you move to wherever the band was setting up for the day?

I’d love to do this when my second kid is old enough to understand what snow is and how to have fun with it. 

[WEATHER53]

26 minutes ago, Ji said:

Yea not sure why he is showing snow maps from now through the end of a torch lol

For guidance 

[Ji]

Euro weeklies mild till late January

[CAPE]

48 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

People hate the snow maps, but on quick glance at the WB 12Z EPS show last no chance of snow over the next week.  Hopefully, this will look better by next Sunday for the following week.

Ofc there is no chance of snow for the next week- we are moving into a well advertised mild pattern with temps in the 50s and maybe low 60s lol. This is in the shorter range when the ens members will naturally exhibit less spread- when we expect each of them to more accurately depict the actual outcome.

 

[Terpeast]

For fun, if anyone hasn’t cliff dived yet - 12z euro tries something mid month. Tilt that vort a bit more negative and boom.

 

has ensemble support, too

[Terpeast]

And remember, it only takes one!

[CAPE]

Can we please ban all snowfall map posts in the medium-long range thread. Those who post them have no clue how this works lol. They should immediately be sent to banter or the digital snow thread.

[Ji]

Can we please ban all snowfall map posts in the medium-long range thread. Those who post them have no clue how this works lol. They should immediately be sent to banter or the digital snow thread.

What snowfall maps lol? No models are showing any snow lol

[CAPE]

4 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

For fun, if anyone hasn’t cliff dived yet - 12z euro tries something mid month. Tilt that vort a bit more negative and boom.

 

has ensemble support, too

I still think there is a good chance we see snow mid month.

[CAPE]

1 minute ago, Ji said:

What snowfall maps lol? No models are showing any snow lol

The snowfall maps still exist even when they show nothing for a given region. You aren't this dumb. See WW's post.

[Ji]

The snowfall maps still exist even when they show nothing for a given region. You aren't this dumb. See WW's post.

Well ww post was dumb. It was like posting a snowfall map in September

[dailylurker]

1 hour ago, Terpeast said:

Haha that’s funny about them asking if you needed help. 

Did you stay in one place the whole time, or did you move to wherever the band was setting up for the day?

I’d love to do this when my second kid is old enough to understand what snow is and how to have fun with it. 

We had our main place in Locona. Base camp. We actually had 3 other locations in other town. We only needed two. Our base camp pretty much jacked the entire event. Thursday night was the crazy event. At first it looked like ground 0 would be Parish. At around 2pm we left base camp in Locona and blasted south to Parish. We went in the Airbnb and did a radar check. At that point Katibatic made the call. He said "It's coming and it's going to hit Pulaski." We then pushed north and pulled into Pulaski right as the jaws music started. The sky looked like a thunderstorm was incoming. It blasted the hell out of Pulaski. We got well over 3 feet in hours. Once that was cleared up we headed back to base camp. Another 40" fell at base camp. I observed a lot of interesting phenomena during the most intense bands. I'll post details later. I experienced some really weird stuff thst I didn't know happened during these events. 

You definitely can just get one place. I suggest Locona area. I experienced about 100" of snow there. 

It's only 6-7 hour drive from this area. 

[CAPE]

38 minutes ago, Ji said:

Euro weeklies mild till late January

Ok. The latest EPS goes out to the 19th and looks like this-

The Weeklies for the period beyond looks like this(anything prior to this is irrelevant-see the EPS)

Looks like a continuation, and a pretty good look to me.

[Terpeast]

2 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Ok. The latest EPS goes out to the 19th and looks like this-

The Weeklies for the period beyond looks like this(anything prior to this is irrelevant-see the EPS)

Looks like a continuation, and a pretty good look to me.

Looks decent to me, and that things haven’t really trended worse at all. 

[Ji]

Ok. The latest EPS goes out to the 19th and looks like this-

The Weeklies for the period beyond looks like this(anything prior to this is irrelevant-see the EPS)
Looks like a continuation, and a pretty good look to me.

It’s workable but it’s definitely not as cold as it was a few days ago

[SnowenOutThere]

Holy fuck. The level that this thread has reached in the past couple days is abysmal and the worst I’ve seen since joining here in 2021. What I will say is I joined this forum in middle school and never felt the need to clog up these threads like some posters and frankly it is embarrassing for them. Additionally, for the posters whose lives seem to revolve around snow we live a mere 2-3 hours away from towns which average 170 inches of snow a year with 8in+ OTG right now! If you must see snow that desperately you have options other than complaining! Personally, I’ll be taking a step back for a bit for at least a week as 1. I recognize I can’t add value to long range forecasting 2. I like tracking discrete threats 3. It’s not worth reading aside from a few great posters. I implore those who need to see snow to go out to WV, and for everyone else to enjoy the hopefully brief period of milder weather as there’s more the outdoors than just snow. 

[osfan24]

2 hours ago, Ji said:

@mitchnickthis is what a real snow chart looks like

from this time last year

Your posts are spot on. No one seems to want to hear the facts. That said, I am still waiting to shovel all of this snow from this chart. Pretty sure e28 was what I got.

[JenkinsJinkies]

3 minutes ago, Ji said:

It’s workable but it’s definitely not as cold as it was a few days ago

It’s January, we don’t need vodka cold.

[CAPE]

1 minute ago, Ji said:

It’s workable but it’s definitely not as cold as it was a few days ago

How many 'epic patterns' have we seen advertised on guidance in recent winters that produced nothing? Plenty. Most of the snow we have gotten recently have occurred in gradient patterns with cold pressing south and a flat SE ridge leading in- very much like the EPS/Euro weeklies are depicting mid to late month.

[Ji]

It’s January, we don’t need vodka cold.

It works if there something to our south

[Stormchaserchuck1]

17 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Ok. The latest EPS goes out to the 19th and looks like this-The Weeklies for the period beyond looks like this(anything prior to this is irrelevant-see the EPS)

Looks like a continuation, and a pretty good look to me.

Right back to -PNA. Year of the La Nina. 

[Eskimo Joe]

41 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

And remember, it only takes one!

Would be happy even with a few solid advisory level events even. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Negative PNA is not what you want to see in January. In January it has a higher SE ridge correlation than other Winter months. 

Other guidance had been showing -EPO/-WPO, more of an arctic ridge than N. pacific ridge. Hopefully it trends back. 

 

[Maestrobjwa]

26 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Right back to -PNA. Year of the La Nina. 

At the end of the run?

[Weather Will]

1 hour ago, CAPE said:

Ofc there is no chance of snow for the next week- we are moving into a well advertised mild pattern with temps in the 50s and maybe low 60s lol. This is in the shorter range when the ens members will naturally exhibit less spread- when we expect each of them to more accurately depict the actual outcome.

 

Missed my point.  I know it is not snowing this week....the ensembles beyond 7 days stink and people should not get anxious about it.   If the ensembles light up next week inside 7 days that means we have something to track because inside a week they are worth looking at because they are more accurate as you state above.  

[Stormchaserchuck1]

2 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

At the end of the run?

Looks like that's a +270dm anomaly on the mean, so given average model error from that range, we have a 50% chance of having +140dm> anomaly.. the hope is that it moves a little north, instead of staying over the n. pacific water. 

[bncho]

On 1/1/2026 at 12:59 PM, SnowGoose69 said:

Historics argue we are in a real good spot next winter.  The weakening PDO the past two winters now coupled with the La Nina strength as of 12/31 in 3.4 argues we would see a Nino somewhere in the 0.5-1.2 range next winter and it would likely be able to couple with the atmosphere vs the 18-19 event.  There has never been a Nino over 1.2 the ensuing winter when we've had Nina numbers where they were on 12/31.  Almost all of the Mod-Strong events had either cold neutral or just below that.

FWIW (and it's probably not worth much IMO) since 1985, the years listed below were Ninos that were preceded by double dip (20-21, 21-22, and 22-23 don't count as that's a triple dip) <0.5 PDO Ninas and/or neutrals (at or below 0*C).
09-10: DCA: 56.1" | IAD: 73.2" 
02-03: DCA: 40.4" | IAD: 50.1"
97-98: DCA: 0.1" | IAD: 5.9"
86-87: DCA: 31.1" | IAD: 42.7"

If we were to remove the ones that were too strong/weak to fit that 0.5-1.2 category, we're left with this.
02-03: DCA: 40.4" | IAD: 50.1"
86-87: DCA: 31.1" | IAD: 42.7"

IMO it doesn't matter because we're dealing with such a small sample size but at least it's worth taking a look at. Probably belongs in the ENSO thread as well lol