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Pattern January 2020 - Operation Thaw Alaska

Nick_boynton_ said:
If you’ve tracked storms in past years you would know the threats 5-7 days out are very sneaky and although you don’t see operational support you look for ways a storm could possibly form both the Gfs and euro have the pieces on the table for something to happen January 5-7.. those type of threats can sneak up on us as we usually see our winter storms show up within the 5 day mark that’s why I think it’s at least a decent potential to watch ... yes a 2-3 day cold blast isn’t a pattern change I completely agree all I’m saying is that no model had been correct in the pattern in the long range and there is a lot of minute things that can change like ridging placement out west and end up giving us a much colder pattern
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Yeah they can be sneaky sometimes. I think the Euro ensembles gave some on this board a general 5% chance of squeaking out an inch around around the 7th.. which is still a little high imo. Many here have been tracking winter storms for 10++ years so staring this holy grail of suck pattern in the face is sort of the big story right now. Because it’s as bad as advertised..edit: and while models do the flippy flop and jump around, I would say that the one consistent feature on them all is that west based -EPO, which is the nail in our proverbial coffin. We need serious help
 
Jimmy Hypocracy said:
Yeah they can be sneaky sometimes. I think the Euro ensembles gave some on this board a general 5% chance of squeaking out an inch around around the 7th.. which is still a little high imo. Many here have been tracking winter storms for 10++ years so staring this holy grail of suck pattern in the face is sort of the big story right now. Because it’s as bad as advertised..edit: and while models do the flippy flop and jump around, I would say that the one consistent feature on them all is that west based -EPO, which is the nail in our proverbial coffin. We need serious help
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Respectable .. where’s the -NAO when you really need it .. let’s hope the models continue to do the floppy flips in the medium to long range to help us out a bit
 
Nick_boynton_ said:
Respectable .. where’s the -NAO when you really need it .. let’s hope the models continue to do the floppy flips in the medium to long range to help us out a bit
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There's not even a hint of blocking as far as the eye can see. We really need that to change to help us out, particularly if the Pacific isn't going to play ball. Assuming it's not going to play ball.
 
Jimmy Hypocracy said:
Yeah they can be sneaky sometimes. I think the Euro ensembles gave some on this board a general 5% chance of squeaking out an inch around around the 7th.. which is still a little high imo. Many here have been tracking winter storms for 10++ years so staring this holy grail of suck pattern in the face is sort of the big story right now. Because it’s as bad as advertised..edit: and while models do the flippy flop and jump around, I would say that the one consistent feature on them all is that west based -EPO, which is the nail in our proverbial coffin. We need serious help
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There really is no persistent feature on the models except it being very transient. Loop the Euro from a few days ago to the end of the run.
 
Rain Cold said:
There's not even a hint of blocking as far as the eye can see. We really need that to change to help us out, particularly if the Pacific isn't going to play ball. Assuming it's not going to play ball.
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Exactly.... and I think 2 different things/issues/scenarios/events/insert word are being discussed here. 1) long term sustainable cold weather pattern, which is not being shown thinks to the -epo location and no blocking whatsoever on any model and 2) a perfectly timed winter weather threat, that can occur with a tall pac ridge even w/o blocking, tPV sliding south just a tad wouldn't hurt either, anyway this seems possible in the short range. Probably a good idea to reference which we are speaking of when we make comments about model projections
 
Arcc said:
There really is no persistent feature on the models except it being very transient. Loop the Euro from a few days ago to the end of the run.
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Euro being the lesser of the two evils. Looks workable. I mean what’s the driving factor for what’s going on in the Pacific? Because if the level of suck is relying solely on MJO phase then I’m not so optimistic AEE350D7-B14B-442E-882A-88A8380C62DE.pngFB7E0E17-0579-4B1B-9420-55172F21A272.png
 
GaWx said:
There’s cold and snow showing up for only 6 days out. Why isn’t this being focused on in this thread right now? Forget about the LR and look at what may be just ahead, folks.
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Right? If we can get snow within the next week, it can torch the rest of the winter for all I care. This upcoming potential is why I never really ever wave the white flag in winter because even in patterns that aren’t great, we can still score.
 
Parker said:
I am starting to get vert excited about the 5-6 day period. Moisture is increasing and ensemble support is increasing. This is how most of our threats usually happen, by popping up into this window. Can’t wait to see the 12z GEFS
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Yeah how often does the deep south get a snow that is modeled 7+ days out. Not very often.
 
GaWx said:
There’s cold and snow showing up for only 6 days out. Why isn’t this being focused on in this thread right now? Forget about the LR and look at what may be just ahead, folks.
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We can do both in here, after all it is the January discussion thread.... also probably been burned too many times, once the potential threat shows up consistently over the next 24 hours or so, traffic may pick up.
 
GaWx said:
There’s cold and snow showing up for only 6 days out. Why isn’t this being focused on in this thread right now? Forget about the LR and look at what may be just ahead, folks.
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At the moment looks like a light event for some if it verifys not expecting nothing in my neck of the woods probably cold and dry here
 
This 12Z GFS threat for 1/5 would be enough to exceed all of last winter in many areas of the SE should it verify.

Edit: kudos owed to @Webberweather53 should this verify?
 
I had a feeling a couple of days ago this period had some potential with the screaming upper level jet winds and nice cold air mass(850s are really really cold when the moisture comes in). Probably just a light event, but I'll take that over nothing anyday.
 
John1122 said:
Euro pops a +PNA and fires some deep cold our way.
ecmwf_T850a_namer_11.png
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Ill go to my grave saying this. But of all the TCs, for the SE nothing does us more good than a +PNA. First and foremost on my wish list. Then I care about 50/50 lows, neg nao etc. Nothing does us more good getting cold here than a well positioned ridge up the NW and Canadian Coastline.
 
I feel like we had a similar event in 2017/2018? with some northern energy diving down and closing off just on the Lee side of the mountains
 
Jimmy Hypocracy said:
View attachment 29267
Couple tweeks
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Flow is really progressive. If you roll the run through start to finish, you see the troughs and ridges advance west to east at light speed. Need the western ridge to pop more. Need the northern wave to open up. Need the kicker to hang back quite a bit. The flow is so active, coupled with the fact that there's no blocking (nothing to slow things down), a very light, quick-hitting event seems like the best we can get. But, I'll take it and run.
 
Wow some real positivity in the thread I love to see it .. looking like some real potential here and I’m hoping the euro can climb aboard but a threat within 120 hours ... is something I just absolutely like to see .. upper level lows can be fun and surprising for many so during peak climo u can help but get a little excited for a little fun...
 
Fast fish. 0-384 4 troughs move through with number 5 on the doorstep and number 6 waiting in the wings. I made a gif, but it's too big and won't load. Anyway, just imagine it, I guess.
 
ForsythSnow said:
I don't think anyone saw this trend coming. It disappeared and everyone looked past it.
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Not really lol, this period around Jan 5-15 I’ve highlighted since at least mid Dec and i know I’ve talked about it on here the last several days at least. Not sure how much more consistent you want me to be
 
Webberweather53 said:
Not really lol, this period around Jan 5-15 I’ve highlighted since at least mid Dec and i know I’ve talked about it on here the last several days at least. Not sure how much more consistent you want me to be
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I'm sure you were alluding to that system around the 9th or 10th versus this first one on the 4th and 5th. While you were interested at this one beforehand, and everyone was as well, we moved past that system and onto the next like normal. I'm sure some others had their eyes on this time frame as well, whether it be just guessing, using their model data, or some other method. Also what does it matter who called it first or not? If anyone gets snow it's a win. There's no prizes to be won.
 
At one point, a trough was forecast to dig into the western US around the tail end of the 1st week of January, that's basically disintegrated in later forecasts and we've significantly trended towards a respectable +PNA.

gfs-ens_z500trend_us_17.png


Later in the period ~ Jan 10th when the pattern is supposed to turn warm, there's obviously still a respectable ridge over the SE US & Mid-Atlantic, but again the western US trough is trending weaker in later GEFS runs of late.

As we've seen many times this winter so far, the pattern may verify more progressive than forecast, with the SE US ridge being a significant but more transient feature. No doubt this is a crappy pattern from the 10th & beyond but it could be much worse.

Based on what I'm seeing wrt tropical forcing and pre-existing mid-latitude pattern, I think there's a decent chance a better pattern returns yet again sometime around the last week of January (Jan 25-30 ish)

gfs-ens_z500a_us_43.png

gfs-ens_z500trend_us_22.png
 
ForsythSnow said:
I'm sure you were alluding to that system around the 9th or 10th versus this first one on the 4th and 5th. While you were interested at this one beforehand, and everyone was as well, we moved past that system and onto the next like normal. I'm sure some others had their eyes on this time frame as well, whether it be just guessing, using their model data, or some other method. Also what does it matter who called it first or not? If anyone gets snow it's a win. There's no prizes to be won.
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No, we definitely haven't moved onto a different system, there was/has been no definitive threat to begin with, only a favorable pattern and a threat window of Jan 5-15, which has remained practically unchanged since I started talking about it in mid December and only narrowed to about Jan 5-10. I'm not gloating here, I'm just trying to make sure you get your facts straight here on who "gave up" or "never saw this coming", etc because I've been very consistent on this period for the last several weeks. I could really care less if I saw it before anyone else, I do care if people misrepresent or overlook my points of view.
 
Easy to see why the GEFS has ramped up support near the front end of this "threat window" ~Jan 5-10 given this trend at 500mb, definitely a decent pattern for overrunning/anafrontal-type look if we get a southern stream wave at the right time &/or have enough forcing from a passing upper trough.

gfs-ens_z500trend_namer_12.png
 
ForsythSnow said:
I don't think anyone saw this trend coming. It disappeared and everyone looked past it.
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It doesn’t really matter, but I posted about the specific 500mb vort trends for this storm yesterday...not at length, but the animation and the trending at 500mb anomalies and how bad the GEFS predicted the setup at 00z Jan 4. Lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
ForsythSnow said:
Bring it! Low DGZ and a frozen column is perfect to see some light snow. With it being so close and the trends increasing I definitely can see something happening.
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It wouldn’t just be light, these soundings support Convective snow with steep low level lapse rates and weak instability, I know pulling a sounding from the GFS that far away is pretty much useless, but those soundings remind me of February 2013 where I got Convective snow, just a lower tropopause, if this thing could somehow go negative tilt quicker- 320B965E-9456-42B6-8F29-265ABDA35C12.png
 
Webberweather53 said:
At one point, a trough was forecast to dig into the western US around the tail end of the 1st week of January, that's basically disintegrated in later forecasts and we've significantly trended towards a respectable +PNA.

View attachment 29272


Later in the period ~ Jan 10th when the pattern is supposed to turn warm, there's obviously still a respectable ridge over the SE US & Mid-Atlantic, but again the western US trough is trending weaker in later GEFS runs of late.

As we've seen many times this winter so far, the pattern may verify more progressive than forecast, with the SE US ridge being a significant but more transient feature. No doubt this is a crappy pattern from the 10th & beyond but it could be much worse.

Based on what I'm seeing wrt tropical forcing and pre-existing mid-latitude pattern, I think there's a decent chance a better pattern returns yet again sometime around the last week of January (Jan 25-30 ish)

View attachment 29273

View attachment 29274
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I hope you're right about the end of January. I originally thought week 3 would start the transition to better, although that is likely going to prove to be a false start. I've been thinking the end of the month as well as the month of Feb would be when we'd have a few periods for durability of a favorable winter pattern. Nothing magical about that...just watching model trends, incorporating seasonality, and counting on earlier bouts of blocking as hints of what may lie ahead later in winter, along with an active STJ.

I actually think our odds of a significant winter event (or more than one) go above average later on.
 
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