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Pattern Dazzling December

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Man what is going on
 
Dynamically, it makes a little more sense to me for the vortex to hang back a bit over the Rockies before ejecting eastward than getting strung out like the gfs shows. It sitting there a little longer will allow more cold air to pour into the trough (& arguably favor an even colder outbreak down the road), but delay its arrival by a day or so downstream.

 
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I'll give the GFS devil its due. I figured it would change by 12z and it didn't and it's ensembles trended back to a wintry solution with the first wave. I still think the 2nd system has the best shot and this first one is better situated to set us up for the 2nd. But it is funny to see the GEFS trend towards the op this run
 
We're getting an early reminder of how hard it can be to get a good snow for most of us, even when we manage to get the cold. At one time, we were looking at the 19/20th system to be the table setter and maybe deliver something, then it became the 22/23rd system that is now hanging by a GFS thread. Now we are hoping for that to pave the way for the Christmas/Boxing day system and that one is all over the place.

Remember guys, these specific pieces of energy and all the moving parts make the forecast VERY complicated going forward. It looks likely we may get a good week or so of legitimate cold, with energy in the neighborhood, and that is all most of us can really hope for. Lots of potential, but, as we know, it may not deliver. It's much better to see the players on the field (at this point) than for them to have already given up. Pretty much anything could happen at this point, hopefully we can get something to line up by the end of the month!
 
Would be awesome to start to see more hits with the after Christmas system. It's difficult to get excited about the first system, for obvious reasons down in my neck of the woods. Hopefully with the Euro getting in full range, we can start to get more bites on that. As we get closer to the timeframe, and we begin to lose that timeframe, then that would be unfortunate. But we have several more days to figure it out.
 
BullCityWx said:
Just to play devils advocate, the energy at 500MB on the GEFS has moved from roughly the Maryland panhandle to Dulles-ish to roughly Yanceyville in the last three successive runs by 18z on next Friday.
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The Euro moved a 340 decameter PV 3000 miles east in 24 hours the other day.
 
CaryWx said:
That may take a weekend's worth of runs
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Oh.. I agree. Everything that I’ve ever learned about studying the climo of winter storms tells me that the first system should cut and then we get our window for a winter storm several days after. It is hard to take the GFS seriously, but now it’s ensembles come back to it.
 
Rain Cold said:
Normally, I have one foot out the door when models are showing long range great arctic cold periods and 7 day snowstorms. It makes sense to be skeptical of those things, since like was pointed out earlier, the cold always seems to back off as we head closer and the storm track always seems to shift west and north. That's pretty typical to see, so it's understandable and reasonable to not get too excited about historic patterns showing up.

That said, we have a lot of anomalous blocking showing up, which, if real, makes depictions of anomalous patterns somewhat more believable. Now I'm not going to stand ten toes down in the sand on historic stretches of cold and blizzards. But given the support in the guidance and apparent configuration of teleconnections, an unusually cold and stormy pattern is more likely to be real than normal, IMO. When you couple that with the fact that we usually can't buy a fast start to winter, it's already been plenty cold, and Christmas is just around the corner, we have some exciting times ahead.

Even if it doesn't work out like we all hope, at least we're not waiting until late January to get the party started this year.
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This really would be against climo down this way. Close, right on the edge of where climo say yes, but, yeah, it's a stand alone storm for these parts, and, like you say, given the pattern quite possible. Climo said no way to your storm, for me anyway, but you pulled it off, so strange things do happen, and in this case, make some kind of sense, lol. I remember decent storms between Xmas and New Years Day, but only your storm at Xmas and before. Larry says there were a few pretty good ones scattered in since the late 1800's, even some I should remember, but I'm pretty sure this one, as depicted would push climo pretty far. And anyway, most storms with me, if I didn't sled it, it didn't happen, lol, so it would have to stick out like snow on Xmas. This would be a Jan/Feb type storm way out ahead.
 
Hoping for system 2 to produce. The cold weather will be great for the Holiday but already seeing some moderation in temperatures reminds me of last year. But as many have said opportunities exist in the next few weeks.
 
a lot of that is because 2nd system still 9-10 days out, most non-gfs ops end at hr 240. CMC had our man right before model ended:

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GFS had our shortwave, but it got caught up in some baja low chicanery
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as it turns out... lot of kinks to work out but models to wit still have
a. a western ridge and big eastern trough
b. lot of cold air
c. at some point, a shortwave entering and diving through the rockies

which is about all you can ask for 10 days out
 
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