This scenario seems like a needle in a haystack to me. The end of the GFS had pretty much all of those main features in those locations and the 850s are boiling hot. And so are surface temps...at least as it relates to snow.
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Pattern December Doldrums 2025 🎄 ❄️
- Thread starter SD
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This scenario seems like a needle in a haystack to me. The end of the GFS had pretty much all of those main features in those locations and the 850s are boiling hot. And so are surface temps...at least as it relates to snow.
NBAcentel
Member
I’ve seen enough. Go all in on the Aleutian ridge going poleward, that’s what we got to do. That’s probably the more realistic way to get out of this mess, and even the CFS doesn’t do it till mid Jan
(FYI I can’t believe I’m showing a CFS output, that’s hysterically down bad)
(FYI I can’t believe I’m showing a CFS output, that’s hysterically down bad)
Don't worry April will change this pattern right to cold
NCHighCountryWX
Member
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- Dec 28, 2016
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Courtesy of Thomas Mabry
What the ----
Temp spreads are nuts right now. At 9:55pm obs
43 durham
34 rdu
26 sanford
42 charlotte
31 gastonia
44 KATL
32 Fulton co
48 clemson
32 pickens
41 GSP
43 durham
34 rdu
26 sanford
42 charlotte
31 gastonia
44 KATL
32 Fulton co
48 clemson
32 pickens
41 GSP
With the abnormally warm air locked in until through the New Year, at least, I would not be surprised if some of us will be chasing severe weather instead of winter weather if we can get the right atmospheric dynamics. It wouldn't be the first time this has happened.
Nomanslandva
Member
Geeze -8 and -6 that must have been when we set our record up here. I remember my Mach1 fuel line froze twice on the way to college one of those days. Lots of water lines were breaking too. Let's not do quite that again.
HailCore
Member
There was some crazy aggressive single GEFS member showing 6 inches in Atlanta from that storm yesterday, but obviously a substantial outlier. Not sure how that ended up transferring into local weather data/forecasts as that was the only indication that I saw.
I didn’t see anyone talk about the -NAO on steroids on the 18Z GFS for 12/23+, which is understandable since it’s just a GFS run. But look at how much the NAO plunged on it:
12/16 18Z GFS NAO: plunges 12/23
18Z GFS H5 for 12/23:
But what makes this more interesting is the NAO drop on the last few GEFS for the same time: keep in mind this is only 7 days out!
Last 3 GEFS for 12/23:
18Z GEFS NAO: green line is mean
Compare that to the 6Z GEFS NAO: follow the green line (mean)
12/16 18Z GFS NAO: plunges 12/23
18Z GFS H5 for 12/23:
But what makes this more interesting is the NAO drop on the last few GEFS for the same time: keep in mind this is only 7 days out!
Last 3 GEFS for 12/23:
18Z GEFS NAO: green line is mean
Compare that to the 6Z GEFS NAO: follow the green line (mean)
NBAcentel
Member
we also somehow pinwheeled the trough around AK back into the pacific pumping a western/Canadian ridge bridge to the -NAO, looks like the Canadian was gonna do the same as well, honestly not a bad look here, almost Nino-ish in nature with the undercutting 
NBAcentel
Member
Would love to see this on some ens over the next day or so 
NBAcentel
Member
Fwiw the EPS has the same exact run to run change as the OPs tonight, not as extreme but pretty extreme for a ensemble run, looks like the -NAO is trying to have more influence 
Both the 0Z GEFS and EPS means have the most -NAO in the 6-14 day portion of their forecasts of any run since 10/31 per the WxBell history!
0Z 12/17 GEFS:
0Z 12/17 EPS:
NBAcentel
Member
Honestly wouldn’t shock me if we attempted some funky NPAC ridge/-NAO ridge bridge
Kudos to cfs catching 1st glimpse of this. Just had a monster 935mb storm roll up through the greenland, scandonavian region yesterday. Shook it all up imo. Good times ahead? Should see the ensemble means start catching on to this over next day or two
Edit: Kudos was to yesterday 12z cfs run. The 0z cfs last night very LR waffled around and doesn't have the ridge bridge like previous run. But as FRO and Gawx posted some other ops caught the -NAO potential. Hopefully it comes to pass, as its the only life preserver we have next 10-15 days to shake up the pattern. Our Friend over near Alaska isnt gonna budge for a while, so maybe we can bridge over to him, negate some of the neg influence.
Edit: Kudos was to yesterday 12z cfs run. The 0z cfs last night very LR waffled around and doesn't have the ridge bridge like previous run. But as FRO and Gawx posted some other ops caught the -NAO potential. Hopefully it comes to pass, as its the only life preserver we have next 10-15 days to shake up the pattern. Our Friend over near Alaska isnt gonna budge for a while, so maybe we can bridge over to him, negate some of the neg influence.
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Christmas Day AC v/s Fireplace Battle:
Euro and Canadian say I'm using the Fireplace ( Mid 40's-50 )
0Z GFS says I'm running the AC ( Mid 60's)
Euro and Canadian say I'm using the Fireplace ( Mid 40's-50 )
0Z GFS says I'm running the AC ( Mid 60's)
Has a Big Artic HP come and Just anchor down in in prime location for us from 27th- throughout rest of run. I can live with a 1050 HP centered over western NY
NBAcentel
Member
6z AIFS printing out a nice fantasy event
christmas wedge popped up like the undertaker on the 0z Euro
23.1 again this morning
Webberweather53
Meteorologist
I agree. We can point to all the examples we want to see verify, but it’s gonna be tough to pull off here.
The only way we get something substantial in this sort of pattern is to shorten the wavelengths appreciably and force something to cut off underneath a west-based -NAO block that retrogrades west of Greenland or so.
It’s a lot easier to pull this kind of solution off in the “shoulder” part of the winter/February or March when the mean wavelengths are shorter vs the dead of winter
mydoortotheworld
Member
Late to this conversation lol but I think it’s funny to point out to those who say “if you want cold move north”… with the warmup that’s coming you’re gonna need to move reaaally far north
WolfpackHomer91
Member
snowed 3 weekends in a rowThe last time we had 2nd half of Dec with a stout aleutian ridge was Dec 2021...and Jan 2022 flipped and was quite wintery.
Fingers crossed...
View attachment 179128
View attachment 179127
thu night rain 
CNCsnwfan1210
Member
Much needed gif here, more liquid is good whether it’s frozen or not.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
NWS forecasted high for Gboro is 56 today.
At 930, temp will have to climb 23 more degrees. Pretty thick cloud deck has set up shop. Im taking the under today.
At 930, temp will have to climb 23 more degrees. Pretty thick cloud deck has set up shop. Im taking the under today.
Brent
Member
The last time we had 2nd half of Dec with a stout aleutian ridge was Dec 2021...and Jan 2022 flipped and was quite wintery.
Fingers crossed...
View attachment 179128
View attachment 179127
Still the biggest snowstorm I've seen here to start February... It snowed for 2 days straight
Some of the events lately have been like 2 hours haha
For many years now I've kept my thinking simple and have pinned my hopes on a positive PNA. We've just had a very cold first half of December, but the PNA has been negative the whole time. But to start up the month, we've had a negative NAO and initially a negative AO which has gone strongly positive -->As others have noted, we still have some cold air in NW North America.
The future of the indices are looking like:
PNA - Will continue to stay negative into the LR. Usually bad, but so far hasn't hurt us much; maybe for gulf storms...etc.
AO - Was initially negative in early December but has gone strongly positive. This is supposed to go negative in the LR. GOOD
NAO - Initially negative in early December but has gone positive. Looks to go back negative to end the month. GOOD
So, I guess I can take more favor in the NAO, if it gets cold
The future of the indices are looking like:
PNA - Will continue to stay negative into the LR. Usually bad, but so far hasn't hurt us much; maybe for gulf storms...etc.
AO - Was initially negative in early December but has gone strongly positive. This is supposed to go negative in the LR. GOOD
NAO - Initially negative in early December but has gone positive. Looks to go back negative to end the month. GOOD
So, I guess I can take more favor in the NAO, if it gets cold
The last time we had 2nd half of Dec with a stout aleutian ridge was Dec 2021...and Jan 2022 flipped and was quite wintery.
Fingers crossed...
View attachment 179128
View attachment 179127
The PNA flipped from -2.6 in Dec of 2021, the most -PNA Dec back at least to 1950, to +1.0 in January of 2022. That rise of 3.6 is the largest Dec to Jan on record. The 2nd largest rise from Dec to Jan is 3.2 (-1.6 to +1.6) in 1984-5 while the 3rd largest rise is 3.1 (-1.8 to +1.3) in 2010-1. All three of these were during La Niña. Currently, the GEFS is forecasting Dec as a whole to end up near -1.7.
Do you know if it was forecasted to flip back in December 2021 and if so how early in December was it forecasted? Just curious if this can flip suddenly without much notice.
I remember Webb was on here calling that pattern progression spot on starting about Christmas and others starting picking up on it a week later
MichaelJ
Member
We could all just move to Mirny Russia https://www.skylinewebcams.com/en/weather/russia/far-eastern-federal-district/mirny.html
At first I was thinking that would be tough to locate. But then I checked my pics and luckily I have several GEFS PNA forecasts from Dec 21-Jan 22!
Here were the 12/15/21 and 12/26/21 PNA forecasts. Note the 12/26/21 forecast, which went through 1/9/22. All members were 0 to -2. But the actual 1/9/22 ended up being +0.2. So, it was too slow in predicting the turn to a +PNA:
Here were the 12/31/21 and 1/5/22 forecasts, which go through 1/14/22 and 1/19/22, respectively. They had finally turned to +PNA but weren’t positive enough as 1/14 was actually +0.7 and 1/19 was actually +1.0 vs these forecasts of ~+0.4 and ~+0.1, respectively:
This final image shows the actuals for the entire Dec-Jan 2021-2:
@Webberweather53
**Edited for correcting final image
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Webberweather53
Meteorologist
Yeah it looks like I picked up on Jan 2022’s progression right on Christmas thereabout.
Did see a few very early hints of Jan 2022 being good as far back as mid-December
Webberweather53
Meteorologist
An important thing to note about this January compared to 2022:
This January honestly looks quite a bit different, big thing being there isn’t a coherent Pacific MJO event & forthcoming +EAMT to give us a more +PNA/+TNH/-NAO type pattern.
This January honestly looks quite a bit different, big thing being there isn’t a coherent Pacific MJO event & forthcoming +EAMT to give us a more +PNA/+TNH/-NAO type pattern.