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Pattern January 2021 - Joyless January

Webberweather53 said:
Bingo. Yes it's really not that simple as some here are trying to make everyone believe. It's not as easy as give me cold air & a big cold high to the north to transport and then that's automatically the best setup for everyone. It gives you a certain type of winter storm but that's not always a good setup for most including areas like say the coastal plain/I-95 corridor of NC, where Miller A cyclones usually deliver bigger winter storms per capita than overrunning or CAD.
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These are strawmen arguments. Nobody has said that you can't have a winter storm without a high. And nobody is saying that you always have to have a high to get a winter storm. But for non-climo areas, a high pressure in or near a favorable spot is more ideal than the reverse, if you are looking for a widespread winter storm. Northern and northwestern parts of the SE have a much easier time seeing snow in marginal setups where there is no strong cold air feed.

Stable cold air transport into the area widens the window for frozen precipitation for a greater duration of the storm. It's not a guarantee, but it is generally a better scenario than having a stale air mass in place or hoping that a wave sneaks in before the fresh air mass quickly departs.
 
NCSNOW said:
correct it was a ULL on roids
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That storm was more than the ULL low however. Just the overrunning part of it put down 6-10” across a lot of Charlotte metro with 4-6” back to the north and west during the morning and early afternoon. It wasn’t until the evening that the ULL started moving through with the insane rates and thunder snow.
 
Rain Cold said:
These are strawmen arguments. Nobody has said that you can't have a winter storm without a high. And nobody is saying that you always have to have a high to get a winter storm. But for non-climo areas, a high pressure in or near a favorable spot is more ideal than the reverse, if you are looking for a widespread winter storm. Northern and northwestern parts of the SE have a much easier time seeing snow in marginal setups where there is no strong cold air feed.

Stable cold air transport into the area widens the window for frozen precipitation for a greater duration of the storm. It's not a guarantee, but it is generally a better scenario than having a stale air mass in place or hoping that a wave sneaks in before the fresh air mass quickly departs.
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No these aren't strawmen arguments, and I'm not overcomplicating this, because it really is this complex. Whether you wanna actually admit it or not, you can easily get big if not gigantic winter storms even well outside of climo favored areas without one as the Jan 2000 & Dec 2017 examples clearly show (among so many others). Is a big cold high really better for winter storms? You need 2 ingredients here and too much of one often, if not nearly always means not enough of the other.

It depends on the setup and the kind of winter storm you wanna see, in many instances, and perhaps a majority of cases with monster cold highs you end up actually w/ too much cold air and you don't get storms at all. If you're looking for big coastal lows that provide the biggest hits to your backyard and mine, then no you probably don't want a big cold high sitting due north of NC, if you want a CAD event then obviously the answer yes. For a hybrid/overrunning the answer is more often than not yes but always or as necessary as you're making it out to be.
 
Webberweather53 said:
No these aren't strawmen arguments, and I'm not overcomplicating this, because it really is this complex. Whether you wanna actually admit it or not, you can easily get big if not gigantic winter storms even well outside of climo favored areas without one as the Jan 2000 & Dec 2017 examples clearly show (among so many others). Is a big cold high really better for winter storms? You need 2 ingredients here and too much of one often means not enough of the other.

It depends on the setup and the kind of winter storm you wanna see, in many instances, and perhaps a majority of cases with monster cold highs you end up actually w/ too much cold air and you don't get storms at all. If you're looking for big coastal lows that provide the biggest hits to your backyard and mine, then no you probably don't want a big cold high sitting due north of NC, if you want a CAD event then obviously the answer yes. For a hybrid/overrunning the answer is more often than not yes but always or as necessary as you're making it out to be.
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By your own admission, in almost every scenario other than the extremely rare phased bomb miller A, you want a high either to the north or northwest nosing in to provide some offsetting cold and dry air during the storm. That's all either of us have been saying. Now stop this nonsense.
 
Myfrotho704_ said:
Not far off from the December 2018 winter storm but way more blocking View attachment 65265View attachment 65266
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Finally some confluence over the northeast. This could easily trend better with an even stronger high! Still a long ways out, but I like this look better than anything I've seen thus far. Hopefully we can reel it into range with better trends for once.
 
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