February 2026 Medium/ Long Range Discussion: 150K Salary Needed to Post

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, SnowenOutThere said:

Quick question but what is causing that central US ridge bridge to the NAO? We even seem to have a decent Atlantic and if the PNA isn’t killing us yet then what would it be?

Remember the colors are just representative of height anomalies but the anomalies are using past 30 year climo so in a warming environment they are behind the curve. In the past the heights would be lower in the ridge and so you wouldn’t see red linking to the ridge in Canada. Increase all the heights and…ridges link easier and yes this is a huge issue but I don’t talk about it anymore because it’s obviously related to the elephant that we can’t talk about without a handful of people trying to blow up the thread for political reasons. 

[psuhoffman]

5 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Actually what's next is <5000dm over Alaska, which is worse. Then a stronger -PNA evolves after that.. it gets progressively warmer and warmer, but the pattern change to tip us over freezing line is happening in the next few days. 

We’ve had snowstorms in warm patterns before. When it was 45 the day before and after.  We don’t need it to be arctic cold to get a snowstorm in mid February. 

[SnowenOutThere]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

Remember the colors are just representative of height anomalies but the anomalies are using past 30 year climo so in a warming environment they are behind the curve. In the past the heights would be lower in the ridge and so you wouldn’t see red linking to the ridge in Canada. Increase all the heights and…ridges link easier and yes this is a huge issue but I don’t talk about it anymore because it’s obviously related to the elephant that we can’t talk about without a handful of people trying to blow up the thread for political reasons. 

Ah, got it. Basically part of our ridge bridge problem isn’t necessarily the actual height lines but instead that the thickness lines of the of 500mb chart keep going up… which is related to the hyposometric equation… which states warmer air takes up more thickness in the atmosphere… which means the atmosphere is warming up and the result are new “ridges” on the charts. Funny how it all comes back to that one thing. 

[psuhoffman]

6 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Nice.. I hadn't had a snowstorm over 5.5" here until this Winter. Your Hudson bay/Baffin island block is +300-350dm. Pacific pattern is a little bit further west. Our biggest storms actually happen in a gulf of alaska low, so it's really a fragile difference, where exactly that pacific pattern is. 

That was the loading pattern. The pacific anomalies are identical. 

[psuhoffman]

4 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

Ah, got it. Basically part of our ridge bridge problem isn’t necessarily the actual height lines but instead that the thickness lines of the of 500mb chart keep going up… which is related to the hyposometric equation… which states warmer air takes up more thickness in the atmosphere… which means the atmosphere is warming up and the result are new “ridges” on the charts. Funny how it all comes back to that one thing. 

Yup.  

This is the past 12 months. It’s red everywhere on average. Thicknesses are increasing. This is just the reality. And since snow requires cold…

[Stormchaserchuck1]

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

That was the loading pattern. The pacific anomalies are identical. 

528dm over the top is all you're getting here in the east. Most times the Pacific pattern pumps a SE ridge, like this time. Notice your energy wave in the middle of the ridge. Maybe at some point in the future the pattern will appear and I'll say no rain! and I'll be wrong! One day.. 

[SnowenOutThere]

While we’re dancing around the elephant in the room I’m going to address it. Look at the fucking 0z GFS

Technically it’s a win! It snows for the NOVA and north crew. But seriously what the hell are we doing with our lives if we have a pure coastal low and the area of frozen in the dead of winter after 2 weeks of extreme cold is that small. I mean there’s almost no frozen on the north side! That’s not normal! It’s not a shit the blinds pattern. This is direct evidence that our planet has changed and I’m tired of dancing around that fact. If we lose storms like these then our lives are waiting for the one in 10 years shots like this January and praying chance lines up.

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

528dm over the top is all you're getting here in the east. Most times the Pacific pattern pumps a SE ridge, like this time. Notice your energy wave in the middle of the ridge. Maybe at some point in the future the pattern will appear and I'll say no rain! and I'll be wrong! One day.. 

ok jus saying you said you never seen it and I gave you an example. I’m not saying this is the most common thing or we want a +400 N pac ridge. Of course not. Just that we have snowed with this kind of setup before when there were extenuating circumstances to overcome the pac pattern 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

3 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

While we’re dancing around the elephant in the room I’m going to address it. Look at the fucking 0z GFS

Technically it’s a win! It snows for the NOVA and north crew. But seriously what the hell are we doing with our lives if we have a pure coastal low and the area of frozen in the dead of winter after 2 weeks of extreme cold is that small. I mean there’s almost no frozen on the north side! That’s not normal! It’s not a shit the blinds pattern. This is direct evidence that our planet has changed and I’m tired of dancing around that fact. If we lose storms like these then our lives are waiting for the one in 10 years shots like this January and praying chance lines up.

The 1027mb High pressure moving off the east coast has nothing to do with it? This one doesn't need to be blamed on global warming. It's 12F right now lol and has been that way all Winter. 

[bncho]

3 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

While we’re dancing around the elephant in the room I’m going to address it. Look at the fucking 0z GFS

Technically it’s a win! It snows for the NOVA and north crew. But seriously what the hell are we doing with our lives if we have a pure coastal low and the area of frozen in the dead of winter after 2 weeks of extreme cold is that small. I mean there’s almost no frozen on the north side! That’s not normal! It’s not a shit the blinds pattern. This is direct evidence that our planet has changed and I’m tired of dancing around that fact. If we lose storms like these then our lives are waiting for the one in 10 years shots like this January and praying chance lines up.

That’s pathetic for Feb 15.

[psuhoffman]

3 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

While we’re dancing around the elephant in the room I’m going to address it. Look at the fucking 0z GFS

Technically it’s a win! It snows for the NOVA and north crew. But seriously what the hell are we doing with our lives if we have a pure coastal low and the area of frozen in the dead of winter after 2 weeks of extreme cold is that small. I mean there’s almost no frozen on the north side! That’s not normal! It’s not a shit the blinds pattern. This is direct evidence that our planet has changed and I’m tired of dancing around that fact. If we lose storms like these then our lives are waiting for the one in 10 years shots like this January and praying chance lines up.

Oh I agree but I stopped making this point because some agree and they get tired of hearing it because it’s depressing and the others won’t believe it and will cite examples of when it’s cold as evidence it’s not warming and it’a a waste of time arguing with them 

[SnowenOutThere]

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Yup.  

This is the past 12 months. It’s red everywhere on average. Thicknesses are increasing. This is just the reality. And since snow requires cold…

Learning about this stuff in my atmosphere and weather course this fall really shows how just objective it all is. I remember I had to learn and derive the whole solar forcing equation and calculate the temperate of earth based on the suns output. In the observed temp equation there are three variables. 1. Solar forcing 2. Albedo 3. Greenhouse gas absorption. That’s it. You can do the math and it all checks out. Then everything else falls from there. Storms ride baroclinic boundaries and the polar jet. Both of those shift north in response to our temperature. To emphasize it will snow again we will get a HECS again but gradually our chances slowly run dry until we’re all fighting for scraps over a 50 mile frozen shield on any storm that doesn’t have a great pattern. 

[Chris78]

I hate to interrupt PSU and Chucks ongoing dissertation but the Ukie snows on us at the end of its run.

Looks like it would be a snow to rain situation but looked like a thump was happening at hour 168

[wasnow215]

4 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

While we’re dancing around the elephant in the room I’m going to address it. Look at the fucking 0z GFS

Technically it’s a win! It snows for the NOVA and north crew. But seriously what the hell are we doing with our lives if we have a pure coastal low and the area of frozen in the dead of winter after 2 weeks of extreme cold is that small. I mean there’s almost no frozen on the north side! That’s not normal! It’s not a shit the blinds pattern. This is direct evidence that our planet has changed and I’m tired of dancing around that fact. If we lose storms like these then our lives are waiting for the one in 10 years shots like this January and praying chance lines up.

That's just one run of a pretty poor model-at this range I mean. 32° in Cuba last week for the first time ever, and first 8 days of Feb rank  top 10 at least all time in this region, for avg cold daily temps.

[wasnow215]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

Oh I agree but I stopped making this point because some agree and they get tired of hearing it because it’s depressing and the others won’t believe it and will cite examples of when it’s cold as evidence it’s not warming and it’a a waste of time arguing with them 

Sorry lol

[psuhoffman]

2 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

The 1027mb High pressure moving off the east coast has nothing to do with it? This one doesn't need to be blamed on global warming. It's 12F right now lol and has been that way all Winter. 

Because we had a god damn perfect epo/pna pattern. Of course it can still get cold if everything is fucking perfect. We’re talking about losing snow along the margins. losing those snows we used to sneak in when the pattern wasn’t good. 

[SnowenOutThere]

3 minutes ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

The 1027mb High pressure moving off the east coast has nothing to do with it? This one doesn't need to be blamed on global warming. It's 12F right now lol and has been that way all Winter. 

I agree that the setup is flawed. So does PSU. That’s not really our point though. The point is that we need to still snow on flawed setups like this one, if not, then we’re stuck waiting for years to get a good winter. As a note to that yes it’s 12 degrees now but our super cold pattern has been super dry! That’s normal, and that’s okay but shows why we need to be cold enough in our non super cold patterns. 

[bncho]

@SnowenOutThere the 0z GFS looks like an April storm 

 

[SnowenOutThere]

3 minutes ago, wasnow215 said:

That's just one run of a pretty poor model-at this range I mean. 32° in Cuba last week for the first time ever, and first 8 days of Feb rank  top 10 at least all time in this region, for avg cold daily temps.

Yeah dude I’m not here to say it won’t get cold or snows gonna disappear forever. Climate change takes time. Im here to say on balance we lose stuff on the margins. Additionally, that gfs run won’t be true (and god knows it won’t be right till the day after the event) but they still show a “real” possibility bound by our physical laws. That storm happens in some possible world; though hopefully not our own. 

[SnowenOutThere]

2 minutes ago, bncho said:

@SnowenOutThere the 0z GFS looks like an April storm 

 

Welcome to the hobby! You should’ve been here for the legendary PSU runs of 2024 and 2023 and those perfect track storms. Just diabolical low in the perfect position and 35 degrees plus heavy rain. Something I’ve found to help is I go on hikes into the mountains during those perfect track storms cause they’re still cold enough (for now lmao) to get accumulation. Though it’s sad because I’m only another 1000 ft up or so (which moist adiabatic lapse rate is 4ish degrees) and that would be our base climo a hundred years ago 

[wasnow215]

6 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

Yeah dude I’m not here to say it won’t get cold or snows gonna disappear forever. Climate change takes time. Im here to say on balance we lose stuff on the margins. Additionally, that gfs run won’t be true (and god knows it won’t be right till the day after the event) but they still show a “real” possibility bound by our physical laws. That storm happens in some possible world; though hopefully not our own. 

Im not denying it's different. It is-but this winter and really last winter, has actually been...well... winter. And we had gone several years with basically no winter.

 

I agree with what PSU has been saying. This will be a good test to see how it works out... Pacific is crap, but other parts are decent. Also, SEEMS like models are over the place more now than 5 years ago. But I've done no official evaluation. I'd have to quit my day job for that haha.

[cbmclean]

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Because we had a god damn perfect epo/pna pattern. Of course it can still get cold if everything is fucking perfect. We’re talking about losing snow along the margins. losing those snows we used to sneak in when the pattern wasn’t good. 

Next year will be extremely telling.  If a decent central or even west-based El Nino develops, can you guys score with marginal homegrown cold, without crazy EPO blocking?  Are we starting an exit out of the dreg -PDO minimum?  Can we ever have regular bad pattern that isn't a shit the blinds?

[SnowenOutThere]

Just now, wasnow215 said:

Im not denying it's different. It is-but this winter and really last winter, has actually been...well... winter. And we had gone several years with basically no winter.

 

I agree with what PSU has been saying. This will be a good test to see how it works out Pacific is crap, but other parts are decent. Also, SEEMS like models are over the place more now than 5 years ago. But I've done no official evaluation. I'd have to quit my day job for that haha.

I agree with this. The past 10 years or so have been historically bad and not the sole fault of climate change. Frankly, if it was just climate change alone causing such a dramatic shift then I wouldn’t be in college right now because clearly our planet is mega fucked so id live up the life I had left. Thankfully, it’s not our baseline and instead just bad patterns and climate change together. We will get good winters again but they’re just harder to come by. As a last note I think this storm is a great read like you said but only if we get a “perfect track”. I mean if we get a primary in the Ohio valley or west it’s raining even if it was 1700. 

[wasnow215]

3 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

I agree with this. The past 10 years or so have been historically bad and not the sole fault of climate change. Frankly, if it was just climate change alone causing such a dramatic shift then I wouldn’t be in college right now because clearly our planet is mega fucked so id live up the life I had left. Thankfully, it’s not our baseline and instead just bad patterns and climate change together. We will get good winters again but they’re just harder to come by. As a last note I think this storm is a great read like you said but only if we get a “perfect track”. I mean if we get a primary in the Ohio valley or west it’s raining even if it was 1700. 

Very true! It was encouraging also here in Central, Va on Friday, we actually scored with a clipper. Had 3.5" in SW Chesterfield County in less than 4 hours! Can't remember last time a clipper did some damage.

[LordBaltimore]

49 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

Learning about this stuff in my atmosphere and weather course this fall really shows how just objective it all is. I remember I had to learn and derive the whole solar forcing equation and calculate the temperate of earth based on the suns output. In the observed temp equation there are three variables. 1. Solar forcing 2. Albedo 3. Greenhouse gas absorption. That’s it. You can do the math and it all checks out. Then everything else falls from there. Storms ride baroclinic boundaries and the polar jet. Both of those shift north in response to our temperature. To emphasize it will snow again we will get a HECS again but gradually our chances slowly run dry until we’re all fighting for scraps over a 50 mile frozen shield on any storm that doesn’t have a great pattern. 

It's not that simple. Like not at all, in any way. Yes, the climate is warming from human emissions, but that doesn't translate to "baroclinic boundary moves X miles north". And there's no way to even calculate a half-way semi reliable change in temperature because of various knock on effects related to clouds and patterns of heat distribution . It's not a linear equation like that. 

[poprock49]

11 minutes ago, LordBaltimore said:

It's not that simple. Like not at all, in any way. Yes, the climate is warming from human emissions, but that doesn't translate to "baroclinic boundary moves X miles north". And there's no way to even calculate a half-way semi reliable change in temperature because of various knock on effects related to clouds and patterns of heat distribution . It's not a linear equation like that. 

You're right that climate change isn't linear (almost nothing is) and that there are other factors, but it really boils down to emission-caused warming. Saying otherwise is dodging the issue imo. And applying the non-linear logic just makes things worse for us as the climate is warming at an ever increasing rate! DC's snow climo used to be around 20 inches; it is now 13.8. I was reading an old (2018 or 19) CWG article the other day and it cites DC's climo as a bit over 15 inches, because that's what the average was for the 1981-2010 data period. That's a 1.5 inch decline (20+% of the total loss) from a mere 10 year shift! That's a shocking statistic that I never would have guessed before I started learning about this stuff. I'm no expert, but that's my two cents.

[Weather Will]

WB 6Z NBM para for weekend 

[Weather Will]

WB 6Z GFS.  Low dies over Tenn. Valley this run and starts a slow transfer to the coast.

[snowfan]

As we get started on Monday, the Euro, Canadian, and GFS all have a storm in the same general window next weekend. As of now, it looks like the further N and W you are from the metros, the better you. This is also in line with WPCs current thinking.

 

[Weather Will]

At least the NWS is not saying partly sunny for Sunday anymore!

Sunday

A chance of rain and snow. Cloudy, with a high near 39. Chance of precipitation is 50%.