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Post Turkey Day Storm Threat

Baroclinic Zone

By Baroclinic Zone,
in New England

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ORH_wxman

ORH_wxman

Posted
Posted

This run is just fine. We'll have chances folks. Just remember to take a peek at the Calendar.

It has -30C 850s ripping toward the N plains and lakes by the end of the run. That is good news as it will get the -18C 850s that we require to get a snow event before January here. :snowman:

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moneypitmike

moneypitmike

Posted
Posted

It actually does in the big picture even if not on that exact day....which btw I can sing a certain Beatles song and finally know the answer....

I think "Help", "Yesterday", and "Let it Be" will drive all us weenies to despair. (More than we are already).

If you see "I am the Walrus" in the next week, people will love you.

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moneypitmike

moneypitmike

Posted
Posted

GFS seems to have backed off on the big chill for the weekend after Thanksgiving. Seems more in line with the Euro now. Pretty bland run through day 10.... the Arctic Assault later in the run could be just fantasy lol.

Looks a little bustery though with that low meandering, no?

It's a bad omen that Andy hasn't come in with a spectular depiction of the UK.

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Typhoon Tip

Typhoon Tip

Posted
Posted

Man, I guess we're preaching to the choir with some of this stuff.

Some of you are seriously going to freak out if an event in late November or the first few days of December doesn't pan out?

:) I remember one lowly December of 1993, sitting there at Christmas kind of bemused for having purchased a nice sled for a nephew's present, while brown painted the landscape over bear frozen ground as cruelly as the mind's eye could see or deny. The apple-cheeked little guy woke up for 4 days and counting post the Holiday to peer out the window upon unanswered prayers - just one among many means by which circumstance teaches us as young children that there really is a demon guiding all.

We are all walking, breathing incarnations of the Stockholm Syndrome; only in this paradigm, we peer back upon our lives while rocking gently away in our elderly decrepitude as though the travails of the journey were actually substantively enduring, and not really moments when the demon stole mirth for its own hideous amusement. It is probably a Human condition, a kind of defense mechanism to enter the grave in a state of having subconsciously accepted rationalized delusion lest one's final act is paralysis in realization of despair. And, to a small child that could not care, it was not so funny.

They left to go on back home some 2 days before New Year's, and as though some great mocking winter god - in cahoots no doubt - was in silent wait the moment their flight left the New England gates the snow came, and came on relentlessly. What had been an O-in-how-many-attempts-start went on to finished that year with a spectacular 80+" snow total for the season in Acton Massachusetts, and most in New England - particularly eastern areas closer to the ocean rather ironically, were over that total. It was the epitome of the counter-intuitive winter, with (for those that understand what teleconnectors are and how to use them the modulating one's forecast philosophy at any given time) our nearest endearing North Atlantic Oscillation index influential maintained a positive standard deviation for almost the entire duration - sometimes exceeding +4 ....while Worcester was in S+ with occasional pingers.

Less dark humor and more thinking: I believe that winter really drove home a point that we cannot wholly depend on the assumption of cool versus warm departures based on the NAO. Factually, I do not know what the EPO was doing that year, but I will say that my own experience and verification combined prove that near neutral PNA that occasionally spikes to as little as +1SD while a the EPO block is trans-Siberializing the utter cryospheric crap out of Alaska and the Northwest Territories of Canada is actually more correlated to inducing Great Lake ice locking, car won't start traffic halting, idiot tongue sticking to flag pole cold as any NAO. In fact, I am willing to extend that the NAO is even over-considered for storm production in general. There is a lot of misconception about the role of the NAO mass field state, and seeing as it is nearing Thanks Giggedy - er, I wish - perhaps we should spend a moment to remind.

If you are a person that foundations your sense of happiness, or derives your ...well, let's call it 'positive attitude and energy', over whether the models crank out a stem winder low replete with snow measure in feet, and live on in your own private tortured frustrated anguish because weeks have gone by since the last over-advertised failure rocked your word and pissed you off, eh hmm ... if you listen closely to the following and try to incorporate these concepts into your expectations, you will have erected a pretty good wall of defense against the tyranny of a bad AFD and/or model con job.

1) Negative NAO does not mean it is going to snow! Repeat after me class: 'Negative NAO does not mean it is going to snow'; 'Negative NAO does not mean it is going to snow'. I have cringed in the passed when I have read ...even from the great NCEP middle range debaters down in Washington (and they are great - that is no dig!) words to the affect of: "SNOW STORM CONSISTENT WITH THE NEGATIVE PHASE OF THE NAO". The primary reason for my cringing is not just for the fact that is not right, but because I instantly sense the suffering of millions of weather enthusiast like a seen where Obe Won wigs out when Dantooine was obliterated by that Death Star thingy.

2) Here's the basics: A west based negative NAO means that you have a cold mass-compensating lowered heights pinned into the regions over southeast Canada and the lower Maritimes. This region balances out (think conservation of mass) the fact that there are positive anomalies at mid and upper levels over the Davis Straight and/or Greenland areas -eyes of the choir beginning to roll. But wait! Therein is the deeper problem (and the source of the confusion), 'what does that mean about the heights over East Coast'?

To really answer that question correctly one has to consider not the snap shot of the heights, but what are all the fundamental characterizations of the field. Those consist of gradient, and the actually upward or downward displacement from the norm. People consistently ignore the gradient and that is the seed of the growing madness, the fruit of which is beautiful but just as toxic as the forbidden apple. Why? Because, in order for any storm to develop you have to have the initiation of restoring forces. Example, when a jet streak associated with a short wave encroaches over an area there is a counter-force (conservation of mass as derived in fluid mechanics) that causes air to beginning moving toward the jet streak at right angles. Because air is intrinsically warmer on the equatorial side of the jet streak, that counter-force motion of air is Warm Air Advection - without which no storm will evolve. The reason for that is advanced and requires understanding the processes of thermodynamics, ...too involved to get into here (we'll keep this conceptual). If you are an astute reader, you may begin to see why gradient is all important.

At first guess one may leap and think, 'great! lots of gradient means higher winds - more jet streak!' But that is wrong wrong wrong. There is a difference between balanced geostrophic wind, and differentiating wind. Quick primer: Geostrophic balance happens when the pressure gradient force is equal to the Coriolis force above the planetary boundary layer. Immediately, incorporating that idea into the greater topic of discussion, a lot of gradient means a lot of balanced wind forces, and naturally, the wind velocities are positively anomalous during times of increased gradient. So, if you have a strongly negative NAO, you have a lot of gradient between say Miami Florida and Boston Massachusetts, so the balanced wind field aloft is going to be moving along like a bat outta hell - 100kts or more in some cases.

Now we have to consider the differentiating wind associated with the jet streak. What does that mean? Well, in simplest terms, if a S/W (jet streak) is injected into the flow from ...circa out west, said jet streak may have an in situ wind max of ...oh, say 100kts at the 500mb level (keeping it basic). It is moving along in a balanced field that is on the order of 50 kts. Now, that 100kt jet streak wind max is about to move into 'bat outta hell' region. Ask the question: What is the result of differentiating a 100kt wind max against a 100kt balance wind regime associated with the crushing suppression of an -NAO west based block? Answer: 0 ! 0, in this case, means 0 restoring force, 0 Warm Air Advection, and ultimately 0 storm genesis.

This is all just in the absolute sense - obviously this is just to illustrate the point. The next time we see the Euro camp and GFS clusters flagging a -3SD NAO, I'd be a little more worried than hopeful at first. At a later time, I will post why it is the entry into and exit out of the NAO periods (both negative and positive) that are the intervals higher correlated to inducing that mirth and sense of well being of the storm zealot.

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TalcottWx

TalcottWx

Posted
Posted

Wow, rough night.... had my head outside a window in the 93 tunnel puking was we drove. Basically a disaster of a night. Woke up and didn't even know how I got home. Don't drink on an extremely empty stomach.

One of those days now, heavy heavy naps and recovery.

It's rough trying to catch up on the storms when I'm mobile, Kevin says its a snow or mix for the interior no matter what the solution is. Sort of ruins things and makes me clueless to what actually shows what.

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