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Pattern December, Make analogs relevant again

I believe I read about a snowstorm in the GSP area in the 1800s or so, and gave us 28" of snow and it was in December! Pants overload right there!
 
GFS Ensembles showing some love to NC, nearly as much snow on the mean of the 6z run in RDU as there is in portions of the Texas panhandle, which is impressive considering that they're much more likely to see a big snowstorm show up in the medium range...
gefs_snow_mean_east_65.png
 
Webberweather53 said:
GFS Ensembles showing some love to NC, nearly as much snow on the mean of the 6z run in RDU as there is in portions of the Texas panhandle, which is impressive considering that they're much more likely to see a big snowstorm show up in the medium range...
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EPS of course isn't as enthused...
eps_t2m_snow_m_conus_61.png

eps_tsnow_a_conus_61.png
 
Meant to post this earlier but GEFS 16 day total precipitation anomalies... Certainly some disagreement w/ the EPS over the SE US. Pacific NW and north-central Rockies are dry as a bone underneath that huge upper level ridge that's about to show up
gefs_tprecip_a_conus_65.png
 
Still a lot of positive signs. The direction we're headed in still looks good. The middle of December could be fun.
 
I don’t remember seeing this much agreement between the models. The ratios are gonna be high too.


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If we play our cards right the next few weeks, could end up looking at a potential Miller B/overrunning setup in/around December 13-21 or so. Need a couple dominoes to fall first, namely this ridge over the Canadian Rockies and Alaska has to retrograde to help pull the vortex back a little over SE Canada or at least give the SE US ridge a chance to induce broad/moist southwesterly over top a presumably arctic air mass. We also need a few storms near the beginning of this pattern change to put down a decent snow cover in the northern tier, but if we can do these 2 things, we put ourselves in a good position to score in the 3rd week of December. Regardless this pattern change is undeniably real and we'll get nice and cold beginning at and just after this time next week.
 
Webberweather53 said:
If we play our cards right the next few weeks, could end up looking at a potential Miller B/overrunning setup in/around December 13-21 or so. Need a couple dominoes to fall first, namely this ridge over the Canadian Rockies and Alaska has to retrograde to help pull the vortex back a little over SE Canada or at least give the SE US ridge a chance to induce broad/moist southwesterly over top a presumably arctic air mass. We also need a few storms near the beginning of this pattern change to put down a decent snow cover in the northern tier, but if we can do these 2 things, we put ourselves in a good position to score in the 3rd week of December. Regardless this pattern change is undeniably real and we'll get nice and cold beginning at and just after this time next week.
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Also seeing a pretty robust convectively coupled equatorial Kelvin Wave forecast to propagate into the Pacific towards the end of the first week of this month. This could only help to reinforce the upcoming pattern (esp the -NAO and deep trough of low pressure south of the Aleutians) and I can imagine it will project onto the RMM principal components so it'll look like there's an MJO event over the maritime continent but it's actually just a kelvin wave superimposed onto favorable bgd Walker Cell that's enhancing its dynamical structure over the eastern Hemisphere and West Pacific...
 
We got the New Marvel Infinity Wars trailer today and hints of optimal winter cold pattern for Snow showing up today..... what other good news shall this day bring
 
There may not be a winter storm that will affect most of the SE states during the upcoming likely colder pattern. After the initial cold plunge, temps. will moderate some and then a storm system could come about. Some places will probably not be cold enough to support frozen precipitation, but could start off at the onset as a winter mix and have back side snows. Or, there could be a rain to a snow event like the EPS control was suggesting at one point. Basically, a system that does come about during the colder pattern, won't be an all snow event, but could have a longer duration of frozen precipitation vs rainfall. It all just depends.

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WeatherWatch said:
There may not be a winter storm that will affect most of the SE states during the upcoming likely colder pattern. After the initial cold plunge, temps. will moderate some and then a storm system could come about. Some places will probably not be cold enough to support frozen precipitation, but could start off at the onset as a winter mix and have back side snows. Or, there could be a rain to a snow event like the EPS control was suggesting at one point. Basically, a system that does come about during the colder pattern, won't be an all snow event, but could have a longer duration of frozen precipitation vs rainfall. It all just depends.

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Most winter storms in the southeast aren’t all snow anyway.
 
Idk, few year ago in 09/10 one of the two, we started off snow all the way trough and live in SW Al. Your right the first plung of cold air may not have a winterstorm but second one could. That said next weeks first cold shot doesn't have a storm with that but the gfs suggest the second shot does at 240/252 range.
 
NorthGaWinter4 said:
Most winter storms in the southeast aren’t all snow anyway.
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Not necessarily, if you're looking at winter storms on a larger scale (as whole) in the SE, yes most of them do. Some area's in the SE do start off as all snow, and remain all snow. The area's can differ with each system. It depends on where the warm front will be that's associated with systems, wet bulb temp, 850 temps, surface temps. etc. As whole, some winter systems in the SE can have more of a longer duration of frozen precipitation than rainfall during the time of the event.

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... and the band keeps playing on ...

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ATL has over the many years of records had on average a much smaller % of its wintry precip (liquid equivalent-wise) to be from SN vs, say, a location like RDU. A rough guess for ATL since the late 1800s is that liquid equivalent precip associated with SN has been no more than 20-25% of the total of that associated with the total from SN, IP, and ZR. The vast majority of 1"+ liquid equivalent winter storms at ATL were mainly from ZR or IP.
For RDU, that figure is probably somewhere about double the 20-25% of ATL with perhaps as much as 50% of liquid equivalent of wintry precip from SN.
So, for a place like ATL, just looking at SN totals is very much undergoing the average impact from wintry precip. That's also very true at RDU but not nearly to the same extent.

*Edit: That being said, the NUMBER of major winter storms at ATL being mainly SN is not too far from 50% of them. It is just that the average liquid equivalent from a major SN is much smaller than the average from a major ZR.
 
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Really hope we have some storms to track in December. Between now and the first of the year is the slowest period at work, so there's nothing but busy work to do. It's even more boring than usual.
 
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