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Pattern January 2020 - Operation Thaw Alaska

I feel like we had a similar event in 2017/2018? with some northern energy diving down and closing off just on the Lee side of the mountains
 
Jimmy Hypocracy said:
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Couple tweeks
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Flow is really progressive. If you roll the run through start to finish, you see the troughs and ridges advance west to east at light speed. Need the western ridge to pop more. Need the northern wave to open up. Need the kicker to hang back quite a bit. The flow is so active, coupled with the fact that there's no blocking (nothing to slow things down), a very light, quick-hitting event seems like the best we can get. But, I'll take it and run.
 
Wow some real positivity in the thread I love to see it .. looking like some real potential here and I’m hoping the euro can climb aboard but a threat within 120 hours ... is something I just absolutely like to see .. upper level lows can be fun and surprising for many so during peak climo u can help but get a little excited for a little fun...
 
Talk about support from the GEFS...
GEFSSE_prec_snens_162.png
 
Fast fish. 0-384 4 troughs move through with number 5 on the doorstep and number 6 waiting in the wings. I made a gif, but it's too big and won't load. Anyway, just imagine it, I guess.
 
ForsythSnow said:
I don't think anyone saw this trend coming. It disappeared and everyone looked past it.
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Not really lol, this period around Jan 5-15 I’ve highlighted since at least mid Dec and i know I’ve talked about it on here the last several days at least. Not sure how much more consistent you want me to be
 
Webberweather53 said:
Not really lol, this period around Jan 5-15 I’ve highlighted since at least mid Dec and i know I’ve talked about it on here the last several days at least. Not sure how much more consistent you want me to be
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I'm sure you were alluding to that system around the 9th or 10th versus this first one on the 4th and 5th. While you were interested at this one beforehand, and everyone was as well, we moved past that system and onto the next like normal. I'm sure some others had their eyes on this time frame as well, whether it be just guessing, using their model data, or some other method. Also what does it matter who called it first or not? If anyone gets snow it's a win. There's no prizes to be won.
 
At one point, a trough was forecast to dig into the western US around the tail end of the 1st week of January, that's basically disintegrated in later forecasts and we've significantly trended towards a respectable +PNA.

gfs-ens_z500trend_us_17.png


Later in the period ~ Jan 10th when the pattern is supposed to turn warm, there's obviously still a respectable ridge over the SE US & Mid-Atlantic, but again the western US trough is trending weaker in later GEFS runs of late.

As we've seen many times this winter so far, the pattern may verify more progressive than forecast, with the SE US ridge being a significant but more transient feature. No doubt this is a crappy pattern from the 10th & beyond but it could be much worse.

Based on what I'm seeing wrt tropical forcing and pre-existing mid-latitude pattern, I think there's a decent chance a better pattern returns yet again sometime around the last week of January (Jan 25-30 ish)

gfs-ens_z500a_us_43.png

gfs-ens_z500trend_us_22.png
 
ForsythSnow said:
I'm sure you were alluding to that system around the 9th or 10th versus this first one on the 4th and 5th. While you were interested at this one beforehand, and everyone was as well, we moved past that system and onto the next like normal. I'm sure some others had their eyes on this time frame as well, whether it be just guessing, using their model data, or some other method. Also what does it matter who called it first or not? If anyone gets snow it's a win. There's no prizes to be won.
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No, we definitely haven't moved onto a different system, there was/has been no definitive threat to begin with, only a favorable pattern and a threat window of Jan 5-15, which has remained practically unchanged since I started talking about it in mid December and only narrowed to about Jan 5-10. I'm not gloating here, I'm just trying to make sure you get your facts straight here on who "gave up" or "never saw this coming", etc because I've been very consistent on this period for the last several weeks. I could really care less if I saw it before anyone else, I do care if people misrepresent or overlook my points of view.
 
Easy to see why the GEFS has ramped up support near the front end of this "threat window" ~Jan 5-10 given this trend at 500mb, definitely a decent pattern for overrunning/anafrontal-type look if we get a southern stream wave at the right time &/or have enough forcing from a passing upper trough.

gfs-ens_z500trend_namer_12.png
 
ForsythSnow said:
I don't think anyone saw this trend coming. It disappeared and everyone looked past it.
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It doesn’t really matter, but I posted about the specific 500mb vort trends for this storm yesterday...not at length, but the animation and the trending at 500mb anomalies and how bad the GEFS predicted the setup at 00z Jan 4. Lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
ForsythSnow said:
Bring it! Low DGZ and a frozen column is perfect to see some light snow. With it being so close and the trends increasing I definitely can see something happening.
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It wouldn’t just be light, these soundings support Convective snow with steep low level lapse rates and weak instability, I know pulling a sounding from the GFS that far away is pretty much useless, but those soundings remind me of February 2013 where I got Convective snow, just a lower tropopause, if this thing could somehow go negative tilt quicker- 320B965E-9456-42B6-8F29-265ABDA35C12.png
 
Webberweather53 said:
At one point, a trough was forecast to dig into the western US around the tail end of the 1st week of January, that's basically disintegrated in later forecasts and we've significantly trended towards a respectable +PNA.

View attachment 29272


Later in the period ~ Jan 10th when the pattern is supposed to turn warm, there's obviously still a respectable ridge over the SE US & Mid-Atlantic, but again the western US trough is trending weaker in later GEFS runs of late.

As we've seen many times this winter so far, the pattern may verify more progressive than forecast, with the SE US ridge being a significant but more transient feature. No doubt this is a crappy pattern from the 10th & beyond but it could be much worse.

Based on what I'm seeing wrt tropical forcing and pre-existing mid-latitude pattern, I think there's a decent chance a better pattern returns yet again sometime around the last week of January (Jan 25-30 ish)

View attachment 29273

View attachment 29274
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I hope you're right about the end of January. I originally thought week 3 would start the transition to better, although that is likely going to prove to be a false start. I've been thinking the end of the month as well as the month of Feb would be when we'd have a few periods for durability of a favorable winter pattern. Nothing magical about that...just watching model trends, incorporating seasonality, and counting on earlier bouts of blocking as hints of what may lie ahead later in winter, along with an active STJ.

I actually think our odds of a significant winter event (or more than one) go above average later on.
 
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