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Pattern Jammin January 2024

RDU NWS on Friday system....

Our next chance for precipitation comes as the mid/upper level low
sags south from Ontario strengthening a mid-level jet to 80-110 kts
over the TN Valley and southern Mid-Atlantic. At the nose of this
jet, strengthening upper divergence and moistening mid/upper levels
may lead a slight chance for rain or snow over the west and northern
Piedmont, and northern Coastal Plain (Albemarle to Roanoke Rapids
and locations north) early Fri morning, before transitioning to all
rain after 8 AM. There is still a fair bit of uncertainty during
this time on the strength/timing of the upper trough, leading a low-
confidence forecast on Fri.
 
NCSNOW said:
Ive been around a while in NC. You younger guys keep throwing around how great the 80s and 90s where. They werent all some crank them up to be. Yea we had a couple noteworthy artic blast (7 dayish in length) , a big snow jan 88. Really those where the highlights. I can remember way to many Above normal winter days and thinking its never gonna snow anymore. The 70s where stellar and the best decade for winter wx in NC imo was 2000-2010. Espeacilly 2000-2004. In central NC you had the crusher,Historic Catatstrophic ice stirm Dec 2002 and the Feb 28,2004 upper level thundersnow beast( 17 inches here).
Bottom line we are in a slump. They come an go down here because of our location. The rubber band will snap back the other way soon. Always does.
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Post of the year above IMO! Thanks for posting what I have been thinking as I read posts here for a long long time. I live in the deep south. Central GA. I have lived here for 32 years. We average about 2" of snow per season. That means some years we get a good snow or two. More years that not, we get shut out. If I tally up all of the snow I have received over the last 32 winters and divide by 32, it comes to....really, really close to 2. We are in a snow drought right now. We have been in them before. Usually, the snow drought will end with a few years of above or well above average snowfall. Maybe, this year is the start of that. Only God knows. It does seem like in recent years that the base of troughs have plunged and/or settled more to our west. It also seems that more winter weather has focused west of us where the troughs have been centered. While it is disappointing, I also remember the same thing happening from time to time in the 90's and early 2000s. Bottom line is that I will take where we are right now and what appears to be in front of us for the remainder of the winter with more optimism than the prospects that most winters present. I have lived through many winters where I don't really see much of a possibility of a good pattern or storm to track. If you live in the deep south, love winter weather and are disappointed when you don't get it, you will spent most winters disappointed. This is not a new development.
 
RockHillSCWx said:
Safe to say all winter storms these past few years are:
1- NE Storms
2- Mid-atlantic storms
3-Mid South

I'm just mind blown at our 70's theory that if it snows in Big D or Baton Rouge or Mississippi we goin' get snow. ?‍♂️
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Mostly mid-south to (interior) NE

Safe to say all winter storms these past few years are:
1- NE Storms
2- Mid-atlantic storms
3-Mid South
 
Mitch West said:
Ight yall, how long do you all think this thaw last? Seems fleeting. Maybe we can salvage the tail end of January. Can’t stand the idea of tossing time away.
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Couple days either side of 7 days. Wouldn't be too surprised to see the the cold dump to our west first and get a SER reflection to temporarily delay it
 
Myfrotho704_ said:
Back to square 1. Finding the pattern (it’s coming)
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"I don't know how much gas the viewers have left in the tank Johnny"

But yeah, we have some ensemble agreement on this Alaska Ridge pattern for late Jan into early Feb

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CaryWx said:
Back to looking at the multi-hundred-hour maps. :rolleyes:
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I think they've done a good job so far this year with the pattern at that range. I think the tall PNA ridge is coming and we'll have another window. The MJO is appearing to want to meander in phase 6 but it loses a lot of weight anyway come Feb. Seems like Webbs graph showed even 4 was actually decent in Feb.
 
RainlessSnowless & Grumpy said:
I think they've done a good job so far this year with the pattern at that range. I think the tall PNA ridge is coming and we'll have another window. The MJO is appearing to want to meander in phase 6 but it loses a lot of weight anyway come Feb. Seems like Webbs graph showed even 4 was actually decent in Feb.
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They have actually done a fantastic job. They sniffed out what’s going on right now & they have been showing the thaw coming for several days now.
 
SD said:
Couple days either side of 7 days. Wouldn't be too surprised to see the the cold dump to our west first and get a SER reflection to temporarily delay it
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I think the positive here is that with the MJO working thru the Pacific and with AAM on the increase, the pattern should be in progressive mode to where it would favor the trough not backing into the west. This is opposite of our current state here in early-mid Jan where we were in retrograde mode. But for sure, you could be correct...the western ridging and amount of incoming Pac Jet is always very sensitive to what is going on in E Asia and with the MJO as you know. A few days ago, I was having concerns over mega Pac Jet extension but that has since backed off some. The ideal scenario would be the AK ridge pattern developing with cold air sent down into the CONUS, then have the Pac Jet extend (but not over-extend) into split flow thereafter
 
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Mitch West said:
Ight yall, how long do you all think this thaw last? Seems fleeting. Maybe we can salvage the tail end of January. Can’t stand the idea of tossing time away.
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We seriously looking Jan 28-30 as being back out of thaw full steam ahead. Good news is this week will be great,minus no snow as next saturday- sunday should be coldest of year. But we quickly get return flow going early the week of Jan 21. So that 5 to 7 day stretch is no doubt a punted week already. You can write it off and take it to the bank. After that starting Jan 28-29 per the ensembles ,the Fab Feb,build snowpack midwest 1st pattern kicks off. We got 6 weeks till March 10-11. Which 90% of time, is the end of frozen qpf here.
I agree, I hate punting any days in Jan, espeacilly a whole week long stretch. But it is what it is. If we can hook a couple of good storms during that 6 week stretch, it will have been a huge success in my book. I hate super el nino patterns. They are the worse and most stuborn. But I have to say, we have avoided the torch this winter, outside Christmas week and the week of Jan 21-28 coming up. Big el ninos are stellar at putting the pac firehouse on NA and never letting up. I long for a neutral winter with neither la nina or el nino. Been a while. The Pac by far is the biggest player, dictator to our winter wx, when we get neutral it weighs down its influence.
 
Mitch West said:
They have actually done a fantastic job. They sniffed out what’s going on right now & they have been showing the thaw coming for several days now.
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They always do pretty good LR when you have a strong dominant signal like we have this year with super el nino. Dont know why, but my past expierence observations is this tends to be the case. Now when you dont have a dominant signal, then its like watching wind shield wipers daily.
 
Tarheel1 said:
That’s how the Christmas 2010 storm looked a week out! $$$
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Lining up with GEFS now? Wasn't the 0z euro showing a dryslot.

Ral NWS latest...

the next weather-maker will be come in the form of a s/w trough
progged to move across central NC on Friday, with sfc low pressure
initially developing over the srn Miss Valley on Thursday and
quickly lifting NE and across the Southeast and Mid Atlantic regions
on Friday in a Miller-B fashion. The secondary/coastal low is
handled somewhat differently between the GFS and ECMWF, with the
latter model dry-slotting our area on Friday as the coastal low
quickly lifts away to NE. Meanwhile, the GFS is slower and wetter
with the coastal low and keeps it closer to the NC coast early
Friday. Should the latter scenario unfold, forecast soundings and
partial thickness p-type nomogram suggest that the precip will
start out as snow or a rain/snow mix north and west of the US-1
corridor on Friday before changing to rain... with all rain south
and east of US-1. Since QPF is rather modest even in the GFS, any
snow accums would be light and likely sub-advisory criteria. Stay
tuned.
 
With weather you always have to a patient individual and you definitely don’t get that from southern wx enthusiast that might not understand how everything actually works but just wants to discuss and follow people discuss winter weather possibilities. I’m not a patient person in general but I understand in weather you don’t have a choice but to be, but man this is really frustrating to basically waste 2 months just to start back at square 1. Problem is even in good patterns which we look to be heading into, there’s still no guarantee bc of how perfect everything has to be. Today’s mid south storm is a perfect example of what could’ve been had the WR just sharpened up a little more and this goes to a board wide hit. I’ll remain positive because that’s really all you can do with things you can’t control but it’s still just annoying to have to start back over from step 1.
 
With the system for the 19th. I see they have backed off accumulation for even the Smokey’s around Gatlinburg. It went from 1-3 to up to an inch. Any chance they get any snow or is it just going to get less and less. I couldn’t go up there for tomorrow’s storm but was going Thursday for Fridays storm.
 
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griteater said:
This one has repeat of today / tomorrow written all over it. Hard bargain east of the mtns
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Yep, the best way for us to get a good snowstorm east of the APPS is a cold high over eastern Canada, Upper midwest (not to far west) or the NNE US allowing for a direct discharge of Arctic air over the far southeastern states and a storm track running over N Fl. Really tough to get arctic air in the SE east of the Apps to be perfectly timed with a La/Tx storm track as a lot of them cut big time. The Mtns will deflect and hold up the cold until it has moderated some more what happens west of the Apps
 
RainlessSnowless & Grumpy said:
I think they've done a good job so far this year with the pattern at that range. I think the tall PNA ridge is coming and we'll have another window. The MJO is appearing to want to meander in phase 6 but it loses a lot of weight anyway come Feb. Seems like Webbs graph showed even 4 was actually decent in Feb.
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What worries me is the homework you did in studying Jan's Wo snow almost always leads to no or much less than average snow in Feb.
That made this week so important to just get flurries,
Looking at where we are RN and given what the models r showing this week and the rest of the month is very worrisome.
Hope this is one trend that gets broken this year.
 
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Billypg70 said:
What worries me is the homework you did in studying Jan's Wo snow almost always leads to no or much less than average snow in Feb.
That made this week so important to just get flurries,
Looking at where we are RN and given what the models r showing this week and the rest of the month is very worrisome.
Hope this is one trend that gets broken this year.
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Well the good thing is that out of the 4 El Niños that did that since 1950 2 of them went on to produce around 4 inches for the winter which is only slightly below average and would be very welcomed right now. But it's true it doesn't paint the best picture to get a big one and have a great year. There were some way back that did go on to get over average but I don't know if Enso data goes back that far.
 
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