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Pattern January 2020 - Operation Thaw Alaska
- Thread starter KyloG
- Start date
We’ve got low -60’s showing up in Greenland. This is an anonymously cold and tightly wound vortex that isn’t going anywhere for a long time. At this point it wouldn’t surprise me if the majority of North America ends up AN for the month of January. I think we just might need to accept it and look forward to February when this thing has more of a chance to weaken. The areas in and around the arctic were overdue for a brutal winter and they’re getting it.
I posted it in the wrong thread, but nice +PNA, that’s pretty much it tho 
Yeah idk cmc kinda straddles the fence euro releases the closes low in the west. Could go either way really
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12z GFS leaves me feeling really optimistic. We start to see the TPV start to inch across Nunavut and a +PNA taking shape. Take heart!
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GFS finally supports my thinking. Recognize the pattern first. Too far out to know the details of when but I think January will feature a winter storm west of the blue ridge.
Deeper into winter climo we get, the easier cold air will win the race esp for the areas who already saw 1-3” so far this winter in the Deep South. Favored position on the back side with a juicy southern stream, Mississippi/Alabama could see a sig. snowfall (3-6”+).
BillyMurrayWx
Member
That would be a big dog look for Birmingham to Chattanooga to Knoxville. Too bad it’s in fantasy land. I still think that cold air in Alaska eventually comes crashing into the Eastern US in January and Opens up potential for most on here.
ForsythSnow
Moderator
What a wild GEFS run
For you guys, I wouldn’t won’t to change the pattern to overwhelming cold that would get the Carolinas in play. You would be shooting yourself in the foot while east of the Appalachian divide becomes overwhelmingly favored. Keep the same pattern going and west of the blue ridge is going to get smoked by one or two. See members 3, 12 and 14 above.
I like the GEFS in terms of most likely being right in this pattern. To the east into North Carolina needs to watch for CAD mix or cold rain. Both sides of the divide are not likely to be snowy together. I would be excited if I was in Tennessee back to the south-west. If your in Charlotte to Raleigh, all is not lost if the pattern changes in time for Feb/Mar that’s plenty of time to score.
If you get a steep trough to slow down and go negative tilt, than overrunning precip into colder air with a developing SFC low is somewhat possible, gefs hinting at that, gfs hinting at that, (with that trough in the 200hr range with the +PNA) much better chance that would work out for the western SE if a setup like that was to happen
RollTide18
Member
What a wild GEFS run
Member 8 looks like a nice NW flow Flizzard for a lot of the board and member 17 looks like a Feb 73 redux.
Some of the analogs I’m looking at had the first statewide snow for NC on the very last week of February with 3-10”. While areas to the west scored sooner but their winter ended earlier too. Really need CAD to save us for some MIX bagged events in the mean time is all I’m watching for in January.
Yeah a strong 50/50 “wavebreak” helps the ridge to flex, creating a strong west based -NAO, altho I would really don’t know if thats exact with lower heights around central/northern Greenland
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Personally, the NAO can do whatever. I really like seeing ridging build toward the pole from Asia. If we can get the low over AK to continue to build westward and flex the eastern Pacific ridge, a bridge across the pole would put us in the freezer.
pcbjr
Member
precisely
whatalife
Moderator
Looks like the 12z EPS is headed in that direction.
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Reason why I like the -NAO is that while the process of a -EPO would destroy it, why it’s there temporarily with a building AK ridge it would slow things down, and we wouldn't have to worry about threading any needle Becuase even with a -EPO, Miller B Storm tracks are more favored, NAO block would help keep cold in longer and better MSLP over the US and a better storm track (-NAO favor miller A tracks), let’s just hope we can somehow get them together in the future, but yeah if we just get the -NAO by itself, meh
The 12Z EPS doesn't show that GFS 1/3-4 SE cold shot but it does show that any torching ends by 1/7 fwiw. It also has a short near normal period around New Year's.
We'll see as the models have not been reliable. But even if it wrong and the torch keeps going past 1/7, we'll survive as there are way worse things to worry about.
We'll see as the models have not been reliable. But even if it wrong and the torch keeps going past 1/7, we'll survive as there are way worse things to worry about.
Round Oak Weather
Member
So far this winter all the models have been able to forecast is 3 days out anything past that it seems to change every model run. So I don’t put much stock in anything after that.
Looking through the 12z members, the only thing most of them have in common is a stout west coast ridge at 240hrs. By 360 hrs a good chunk of them still have the stout ridge with a smaller percentage showing the thing shooting into Alaska which would explain some of the bitter anomalies in the image above. Otherwise they are all over the place regarding other features so the Mean should be tossed except for the +PNA and perhaps a little for the -EPO.
The 12Z GEFS and EPS seem to have taken a step towards better. That's not really surprising considering it couldn't get any worse than what it was showing. With so many moving pieces its bound to change from run to run. I would suggest looking at the long range pattern like you would a 5 day snowstorm. Look at trends and look for model agreement and consistency. Hopefully the better trends continue. But it could easily go back to a dumpster fire since it seems to want to revert back to that look every few cycles. For every good day of trends we get 2 to 3 bad days. Bamwx and some others don't wait for trends. Instead after one or two cycles they're all in again and then if flips right back on them.
packfan98
Moderator
Here's the last panel on the 18z GEFS. I don't hate it.
if we can keep those lower heights off the SE coast we should be money for a seasonal January. Overall not a lot to work with here but I’ve seen worse in the past 10 years. Plus it doesn’t take crazy anoms to catch the tail end of a retreating high to score something east of the mountains.Here's the last panel on the 18z GEFS. I don't hate it.
NCHighCountryWX
Member
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2016
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- 1,461
So far this month, Arctic sea ice growth has been second highest on record. More sea ice has formed so far this month than the area of Alaska. Arctic sea ice extent is very close to the 1981-2010 mean.
You won't hear this reported by @CNN @nytimes @BBC or @NPR
You won't hear this reported by @CNN @nytimes @BBC or @NPR
TPV parked over there gonna help around the artic
Regarding the Arctic, hopefully this map will cool considerably over the next week or so as the strong +AO gets going/going to be fun to watch as it has been quite a number of years since sustained colder than normal there this time of year:
NCSNOW
Member
We do. Farm right beside cross creek is my inlaws. Thurs is 1st time since knee surgery. Hopefully goes well. WE NEED THE PNA TO GET +++ AND STAY.
Freeze 1/6 to Gulf coast per 0Z GFS.
Flurries/light snow deep into the SE with the cold plunge. @pcbjr high only in 40s with upper 20s next morning! Winter’s revenge?
Edit: And note that the origins of this airmass are actually largely Pacific I think. This shows how with a deep enough quick plunge, the SE can still get pretty cold even when the airmass isn’t primarily Arctic in origin.
Edit: This is followed by a very cold pure Arctic airmass, but it isn’t as cold for most of the SE as the prior one because it is only a glancing blow though the upper Midwest and NE gets very cold.
Flurries/light snow deep into the SE with the cold plunge. @pcbjr high only in 40s with upper 20s next morning! Winter’s revenge?
Edit: And note that the origins of this airmass are actually largely Pacific I think. This shows how with a deep enough quick plunge, the SE can still get pretty cold even when the airmass isn’t primarily Arctic in origin.
Edit: This is followed by a very cold pure Arctic airmass, but it isn’t as cold for most of the SE as the prior one because it is only a glancing blow though the upper Midwest and NE gets very cold.
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has something to do with Alaska being so cold maybe?
Good thinking but looking again more closely, it appears the Alaskan bitter air comes down into the Midwest and NE with the follow up cold front, the one that cools the SE back down somewhat but only with a glancing blow.
Hopefully if that cold is coming into the NE, maybe a well timed high can help set up a CAD storm
Anchorage looks to get even colder into the first week of January anyway, so downstream effects won't occur until mid Jan or later anyway.
John1122
Member
00z Euro, Eastern Alaska is around 50 degrees warmer at 144 than it was 3 days ago at 216. So operation thaw Alaska may not be quite as hard as it was looking a few days ago. New Years Day 00z temps were 55-70 across the entire South off that same 00z Sunday run. This run temps are low 40s to around 50. Much much improvement as far as torching in the New Year.