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Pattern Jammin January 2023

Rain Cold said:
My argument would be that while both a favorable and an unfavorable pattern can produce a snowstorm, you're going to have a better chance in a favorable pattern. I suppose that's why we think of it as a favorable pattern to begin with.

In this case there is simply no cold air and we're hoping for a feature to form that will enable what cold there is to be maximized in both its intensity, transport, and duration over our area. It's unfortunate, but that looks pretty unlike to happen.
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I would say if we do get a snow in a bad pattern it will show up inside day 4 or 5. No way do the models have the timing of key pieces right in a bad pattern at day 8 or 9. I've seen storm signals show up at day 8 or 9 verify but it's rare. And that's in the best of patterns. The pattern in December wasn't great for winter weather. That's why we didn't even have any bites on models other than goofus and day 8 or 9. That pattern was only good for vodka cold.
 
RainlessSnowless & Grumpy said:
Neither to be honest. Skill more than 7 days out is low for a storm either way. Ensembles are the most useful for long range patterns. But if you do use Ensembles for a storm signal it's best to do it like I described in my post and just count the hits and not pay attention much to a skewed mean
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I get that! Maybe this should be in banter but then what is everyone basing what they’re posting off of. Simple single runs, ensembles, overall current pattern? I’ll agree that 99.9% of the time the odds are stacked against us in the SE and I’m not arguing for or against any winter weather precip at this point.

I’m just asking is the flip flop of many due to being let down so many times or is there more knowledge out there that speaks for or against it? Just seems when the gfs shows a signal and the euro doesn’t, it’s just the stupid gfs! When the euro shows a signal but the gfs doesn’t, the euro is on crack.

When the single models show something 10 days out, you can’t believe a single model run and need to look at ensembles. When the ensembles show anything, you can’t trust the ensembles you have to look at a specific run.
 
Rain Cold said:
You could probably use that same thinking for a lot of this discussion though. You could say that they all missed the thing at day one that screwed up the thing at day 2 that messed up the thing on day 3 that caused the 50/50 not to form on day 5.

I think what happens is that the models tend to show if storms or blocks or 50/50s out in time and then have them set up in really favorable positions even further out in time that lead to wintry scenarios for our region. Unfortunately, they tend to frequently overdo these features and suppress the height field too far to the south and show winter storm solutions that are probably and usually unrealistic.
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This is what I describe as the "Back 2 the Future" syndrome.
One minor thing changes everything,
And the entirety looks completely different afterwards.
Ur prior post is why I'll never punt an entire month nor even 2 weeks,
No matter what modeling & or analogs show.
No matter how consistent it's being shown.
If u live in region such as I who have never gone a entire winter without at least 1 minor event. (52 years & counting)
Then I highly doubt this is going to be the year u see nothing.
 
jeremyt said:
I get that! Maybe this should be in banter but then what is everyone basing what they’re posting off of. Simple single runs, ensembles, overall current pattern? I’ll agree that 99.9% of the time the odds are stacked against us in the SE and I’m not arguing for or against any winter weather precip at this point.

I’m just asking is the flip flop of many due to being let down so many times or is there more knowledge out there that speaks for or against it? Just seems when the gfs shows a signal and the euro doesn’t, it’s just the stupid gfs! When the euro shows a signal but the gfs doesn’t, the euro is on crack.

When the single models show something 10 days out, you can’t believe a single model run and need to look at ensembles. When the ensembles show anything, you can’t trust the ensembles you have to look at a specific run.
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The best way is to just focus on the pattern 7-10 days out. And the ensembles are the best at that. The very knowledgeable ones on here fro, Webber, grit and a few others focus on the pattern. They haven't bought into this storm at all because of pattern recognition using ensembles. If you want to know if a threat is real pay attention to those guys.

As far as the flip flopping with posters some of that is due to being excited seeing something pop up and they latch on even though they know it's probably not going to happen. Then 12 hrs later when it vanishes they get upset. I'm guilty of that myself. Being older than a lot on here I've been burned so much so yes that contributes to some of my pessimism.

Best advice is to just have fun on here reading the ups and downs. Eventually you'll learn who the wishcasters are, who the bittercasters are and who knows their stuff.
 
The truth is, when you have a model or models showing a winter storm beyond 4 or 5 days, you really need to see fairly good model agreement on the general features that are to come together to make the scenario unfold, and there really needs to be a cold air source that the models also agree on. Even then, it's not even close to a lock.

I'm just saying that if you're going to give a winter storm (outside of the mountains) genuine credibility at that range, there are things - things favorable for a winter storm - that need to be consistently modeled pattern-wise and feature-wise.

That doesn't mean that a winter storm can't sneak up on you at D3. But the chances of a winter storm sneaking up on you at D3 go down drastically when your highs are in the 50s and lows in the upper 30s ro 40.
 
Yeah we should probably put a fork in this one. The key feature isn’t happening. Couldn’t get a phase so no deepening 50/50 and weak energy drills off quickly. Our hope relied on that 50/50. Models have completely lost it now and we needed this trend better today and it’s not happening. Need to punt to the end of January. Hope everyone here in the CAD areas like a bunch of 40 degree cold and cloudy days because they’re coming.
 
Mike is working on some pretty sick plots here to eventually showcase on his website (which is down atm for maintenance).

This plot shows the super ensemble mean height anomaly across the last 2 model runs (0z and 12z today) from the GEPS, GEFS, & EPS (so 6 model runs in all) as well as the signal-to-noise ratio of the ensemble mean anomaly across all ensemble members from all model suites.

Super cool

 
FallsLake said:
Yep. My grid forecast has me at 32 tonight. Wouldn't that be terrible if 32 ended up being the coldest night of January.
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It probably won't be there are some encouraging signs that we set the wheels in motion as early as 1/15 to start transitioning to a workable pattern post 1/20. Cold availability may be a bugaboo though I'm not sure if we can get anything poleward enough to really dump but we will see
 
SD said:
It probably won't be there are some encouraging signs that we set the wheels in motion as early as 1/15 to start transitioning to a workable pattern post 1/20. Cold availability may be a bugaboo though I'm not sure if we can get anything poleward enough to really dump but we will see
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The Crusher didn't have a super cold mass to work with.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
BHS1975 said:
The Crusher didn't have a super cold mass to work with.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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That's the best thing about this time of year we need a cold airmass but nothing out of the ordinary for it to snow. What the euro and some of the other models were spitting out the last couple days wasn't that cold it was just great wave timing with a seasonal cold shot sandwiched in
 
BHS1975 said:
The Crusher didn't have a super cold mass to work with.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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It fell in a 10 day window that produced 4 seperate winter wx events here IMBY. We had a .2 ice event 2 days prior and it was still frozen on the limbs here that Monday night when the epic suprise unfolded. What made that event so awesome . That and it was a whopper for those in its path.

1993 wasnt a stellar winter eitheir. But it started to turn mid late Feb. I was in SW NC mtns then. So never say never, no matter how grim the computers look or the pattern is you are stuck in.
 
Billypg70 said:
This is what I describe as the "Back 2 the Future" syndrome.
One minor thing changes everything,
And the entirety looks completely different afterwards.
Ur prior post is why I'll never punt an entire month nor even 2 weeks,
No matter what modeling & or analogs show.
No matter how consistent it's being shown.
If u live in region such as I who have never gone a entire winter without at least 1 minor event. (52 years & counting)
Then I highly doubt this is going to be the year u see nothing.
Click to expand...
There is not enough data to feed, not enough super computing to run the data over and over with subtle changes... not enough buoys, not enough balloons, not enough high tech stations, and not enough money slotted to provide for better data, so we get what we get. It's better than when I got interested in weather in the 50's, but it should be much better by now. I have 52 right now at 6pm, and that's not an unusual temp for this time of year, nor would 22 be. It's winter, and as you say, still too many little variables, holes in the data, to be very accurate beyond a few days. Climo seems to be the best predictive tool, but the best storms can go against climo, lol. Maybe it's the surprise of them that makes them extra special.
 
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