January 2026 Medium/Long Range Discussion

[NorthArlington101]

Well the AIGFS has some overrunning only 12 days out… temps cooperate. Generally 2-3” with more further south. 

[JenkinsJinkies]

6 hours ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Well the AIGFS has some overrunning only 12 days out… temps cooperate. Generally 2-3” with more further south. 

Would still be enough to mothball the futility thread for the season.

[CAPE]

8 hours ago, Ji said:

So we are all set then

Jan 20-21 secs

[nw baltimore wx]

6z gfs is the wettest run for this weekend yet. Just about doubles the totals of earlier runs across the metros.

[JenkinsJinkies]

Just now, nw baltimore wx said:

6z gfs is the wettest run for this weekend yet. Just about doubles the totals of earlier runs across the metros.

Looks like the first time in a while that a 6z run looks promising.

[Terpeast]

2 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

Looks like the first time in a while that a 6z run looks promising.

Big miller a coastal at 10-11 days out. Borderline rainer verbatim, but it’s something. Very promising

Euro more of a miller b skipper 

[TSSN+]

31 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Big miller a coastal at 10-11 days out. Borderline rainer verbatim, but it’s something. Very promising

Euro more of a miller b skipper 

Let’s get that down to day 4 before it’s promising haha 

[North Balti Zen]

4 hours ago, nw baltimore wx said:

6z gfs is the wettest run for this weekend yet. Just about doubles the totals of earlier runs across the metros.

I really want to see something overperform in terms of precip at some point - would feel a lot better about any future snow hopes if we could see something juice up and hit at gametime - so let’s start that this weekend I say.

[Scraff]

Love to see both the GFS and Euro with something fun. Today is going to be a good day of for model watching. I can feel it building.

[aldie 22]

Im not mad with that gfs storm out here

[Ji]

Im not mad with that gfs storm out here

Is the guest room all set up?

[stormy]

A disturbing ECMWF that has dropped from 1.19" rainfall to .69" from 00z to 06z. A 43% drop in 1 run is not good!

Maybe 06 was a fluke and will return at 12z?

[Ji]

A disturbing ECMWF that has dropped from 1.19" rainfall to .69" from 00z to 06z. A 43% drop in 1 run is not good!
Maybe 06 was a fluke and will return at 12z?

The storm track is really not conducive for a ton of rain for us

[clskinsfan]

2 hours ago, Terpeast said:

Euro more of a miller b skipper 

Whcih seems more likely in this setup correct?

[mitchnick]

3 hours ago, Terpeast said:

Big miller a coastal at 10-11 days out. Borderline rainer verbatim, but it’s something. Very promising

Euro more of a miller b skipper 

I think everyone (ok, many) would take this!

[clskinsfan]

[Kmlwx]

Just now, mitchnick said:

I think everyone would take this!

 

Poor Wes  

[Ji]

EPS snow went from 0 to 1.5

[TSSN+]

This place needs a full time psychiatrist on staff. 

[SUNYGRAD]

[WxUSAF]

30 minutes ago, Ji said:

EPS snow went from 0 to 1.5

Assuming that’s all falling after D7, that’s basically climo for a 1 week period in mid January. 

[stormtracker]

36 minutes ago, TSSN+ said:

This place needs a full time psychiatrist on staff. 

Wait till it’s gone on the 12z and a SER is there.   
 

 

[adelphi_sky]

1 hour ago, TSSN+ said:

This place needs a full time psychiatrist on staff. 

This place would be great research material. lol. Having said that, I will pencil myself in for SECS on Jan 20-21. 

[nw baltimore wx]

I should probably drop this in banter because I really don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’m looking forward to the release of the monthly ENSO discussion in a few days. Fingers crossed that the Nina is heading to, and may get to neutral for the rest of winter.

[mitchnick]

6 minutes ago, nw baltimore wx said:

I should probably drop this in banter because I really don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’m looking forward to the release of the monthly ENSO discussion in a few days. Fingers crossed that the Nina is heading to, and may get to neutral for the rest of winter.

You can get a good idea on the short term at this link with the warming temps under the equatorial Pac and Cfs2 wind anomalies. I doubt we see much help this year with a westerly wind burst progged around the 1st of February. Probably too little, too late for this year, but positive for next (famous last words!)

https://www.stormsurf.com/page2/links/ensocurr.html

[Eskimo Joe]

1 hour ago, Kmlwx said:

Poor Wes  

Poor everyone east of I-81. 

[Ji]

starting in phase 7 would be a good start....

 

[psuhoffman]

24 minutes ago, nw baltimore wx said:

I should probably drop this in banter because I really don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’m looking forward to the release of the monthly ENSO discussion in a few days. Fingers crossed that the Nina is heading to, and may get to neutral for the rest of winter.

 

14 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

You can get a good idea on the short term at this link with the warming temps under the equatorial Pac and Cfs2 wind anomalies. I doubt we see much help this year with a westerly wind burst progged around the 1st of February. Probably too little, too late for this year, but positive for next (famous last words!)

https://www.stormsurf.com/page2/links/ensocurr.html

Unfortunately there is no evidence a nina weakening during the winter period actually helps us at all.  I understand where this narrative comes from.  Nina is bad...so nina ending must be good right?  Problem is there is no actual evidence of this.  Now it's an incredibly small sample size so take it for what it is, but the last 2 examples and the only 2 in the last 30 years where a nina faded during the winter were two of our worst least snowy winters ever, 2016-17 and 2022-23.  Going back 50 years there have been 5 examples and not a single one turned snowy because of the nina fading.  2 and 5 are small samples so maybe its just a fluke but I tend to think the issue is with 2 other factors not being weighted in the "nina bad so nina ending good" logic.  

1) there is a lag to enso impacts on the pattern

2) enso neutral isn't necessarily any better anymore.  This doesn't get talked about much but the most significant cause of our snowfall degradation is what has happened to enso neutral winters.  From 1900 to 1995 enso neutral winters were significantly snowier than cold enso winters, and the odds of an above normal snowfall season in enso neutral was significantly higher, and almost as high as Nino winters.  

However in the last 30 years 6 of the 7 enso neutral winters were below average snowfall at BWI and the median snowfall for enso neutral is actually no better than nina years during that period.  

So if you factor in those 2 things...nina fading to neutral during the winter doesn't really do us any good because of the lag and the fact the enso neutral isn't any better anymore.  

[Solution Man]

9 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

 

Unfortunately there is no evidence a nina weakening during the winter period actually helps us at all.  I understand where this narrative comes from.  Nina is bad...so nina ending must be good right?  Problem is there is no actual evidence of this.  Now it's an incredibly small sample size so take it for what it is, but the last 2 examples and the only 2 in the last 30 years where a nina faded during the winter were two of our worst least snowy winters ever, 2016-17 and 2022-23.  Going back 50 years there have been 5 examples and not a single one turned snowy because of the nina fading.  2 and 5 are small samples so maybe its just a fluke but I tend to think the issue is with 2 other factors not being weighted in the "nina bad so nina ending good" logic.  

1) there is a lag to enso impacts on the pattern

2) enso neutral isn't necessarily any better anymore.  This doesn't get talked about much but the most significant cause of our snowfall degradation is what has happened to enso neutral winters.  From 1900 to 1995 enso neutral winters were significantly snowier than cold enso winters, and the odds of an above normal snowfall season in enso neutral was significantly higher, and almost as high as Nino winters.  

However in the last 30 years 6 of the 7 enso neutral winters were below average snowfall at BWI and the median snowfall for enso neutral is actually no better than nina years during that period.  

So if you factor in those 2 things...nina fading to neutral during the winter doesn't really do us any good because of the lag and the fact the enso neutral isn't any better anymore.  

Key word in this write up= Unfortunately 

[clskinsfan]

11 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

However in the last 30 years 6 of the 7 enso neutral winters were below average snowfall

I mean if we are being honest below average is the norm with everything but a Modiki at this point.