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Pattern January 2021 - Joyless January

If anyone needs a boost I present to you

00z GEFS ensemble member number 15

hour 348

birdman definition: things are now looking favorable for a swath of 12-16.5 inches of snow from Asheville to Raleigh and blizzard conditions with 45 mph looking likely on January 4thView attachment 59108

birdman definition: things are now looking favorable for a swath of 12-16.5 inches of snow for Stokes and Wilkes and blizzard conditions with 45 mph looking likely on January 4th for Wilkesboro. The skies have healed and the birds are hungry.

FTFY
 
I hope I'm not jinxing us here when I say this: not gonna lie, I've been waiting for the shoe to drop on a torch pattern to rear its ugly head around here, I still don't see any definitive signs of one on the horizon (yet).

I mean... maybe we try to flip towards a more stereotypical NINA/-PNA look by mid-January as an MJO wave tries to encroach on the Maritime Continent. However, if we see a sudden stratospheric warming event begin to try & take hold by then, as the current hemispheric z500 pattern suggests, you might as well toss that idea out the window & just buckle up for the ride that'll ensue.

SSWEs matter more for Europe & it's basically a coin flip whether the pattern gets better or not after one begins around here.

Some research I did in passing on storms several years ago on winter storms in NC and global tropics circulation patterns showed that when we snowed, it usually occurred when -VP (cool colors) showed up between 30-60E longitudes over the East Indian Ocean. I suspect if there is a relationship, it has to do w/ a westerly wind duct opening up over the Tropical Atlantic, encouraging Rossby Waves over N America and the east Pacific to move equatorward.


Lo & behold, one of these 30-60E longitude -VP200 bursts is starting to show up on the models in early January as an MJO-like wave enters the Indian Ocean.

View attachment 58829


View attachment 58831

It's concerning to me that the EPO, WPO, and PNA are not wanting to line up for us in the long term. What are your thoughts on these and how they may affect our winter?
 
I'm still hopeful:

PNA - Looks to stay positive into the LR
AO - Looks to stay strongly negative into the LR
NAO - Now looks to go negative in the LR (did have a more neutral look with past runs)

CPC - Climate Weather Linkage: Teleconnections (noaa.gov)

I'm not sure what we're seeing is really a true -NAO. The block is too far east, with ridging where we need an averaged negative anomaly for our 50/50 lows. We need the big block further west over canada/western greenland, not the atlantic IMO. That's why I think the teleconnection is neutral and not very negative.
 
I'm not sure what we're seeing is really a true -NAO. The block is too far east, with ridging where we need an averaged negative anomaly for our 50/50 lows. We need the big block further west over canada/western greenland, not the atlantic IMO. That's why I think the teleconnection is neutral and not very negative.
Man I would say neutral is still better than we've had in many years. I would like to see the PNA more positive as we head into January. That and the AO (getting some of cross polar flow) could do the job.
 
Dude has a PhD and responds on Twitter. He is a snow lover just like the rest of us. He’s very scientific in his approach and just like us, he’s at the mercy of the models. I don’t think he’s a hack at all. He’s quite knowledgeable.

I think most people on here don’t know him very well. I think several years ago he was wrong and one of two popular posters on here (and the other forum) called him out and everyone else joined in to be in the “in crowd”. I see that a lot.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Dude has a PhD and responds on Twitter. He is a snow lover just like the rest of us. He’s very scientific in his approach and just like us, he’s at the mercy of the models. I don’t think he’s a hack at all. He’s quite knowledgeable.

He’s had his mistakes for sure, but he still has a quadrillion times as much met. knowledge in his belly button as the folks in the peanut gallery complaining most about him have.
 
The complaining in here and other non-whamby threads, is overdone imo considering we’ve had the coldest start to winter in years. Also, the amount of complaining in these non-whamby threads is ironic considering the criticism that @ryan1234 was receiving recently for just trying to be realistic about the chances for snow in NC around Christmas. Double standard. All he was doing was trying to be realistic to minimize the chance of the later complaining.
 
The complaining in here and other non-whamby threads, is overdone imo considering we’ve had the coldest start to winter in years. Also, the amount of complaining in these non-whamby threads is ironic considering the criticism that @ryan1234 was receiving recently for just trying to be realistic about the chances for snow in NC around Christmas. Double standard. All he was doing was trying to be realistic to minimize the chance of the later complaining.
Agreed
 
It's concerning to me that the EPO, WPO, and PNA are not wanting to line up for us in the long term. What are your thoughts on these and how they may affect our winter?

Without a positive EPO & WPO we're not risking getting a SE ridge (as is often the case when both of those go negative). Oth, the PNA if it turns negative in late December probably wouldn't last long as the -NAO will force the western trough to progress east & turn into cut off upper lows over the east-central US & we'll see a +EAMT re-extend the Pacific jet in early January and restore +PNA if it's lost. We can certainly get winter storms with +EPO/+WPO/-PNA/-NAO, it's just that without a +PNA we almost certainly aren't going to see Miller A cyclones; all the winter storm cases in my archive w/ this teleconnection configuration featured only Miller Bs &/or hybrid/anafrontal setups. Also, outside of the mountains and far western & NW piedmont of NC, there was very little in the way of wintry weather from these +EPO/+WPO/-PNA/-NAO cases, which means in late December we'll be stormy & seasonable w/ lots of cold rain to go around!
 
Without a positive EPO & WPO we're not risking getting a SE ridge (as is often the case when both of those go negative). Oth, the PNA if it turns negative in late December probably wouldn't last long as the -NAO will force the western trough to progress east & turn into cut off upper lows over the east-central US & we'll see a +EAMT re-extend the Pacific jet in early January and restore +PNA if it's lost. We can certainly get winter storms with +EPO/+WPO/-PNA/-NAO, it's just that without a +PNA we almost certainly aren't going to see Miller A cyclones; all the winter storm cases in my archive w/ this teleconnection configuration featured only Miller Bs &/or hybrid/anafrontal setups. Also, outside of the mountains and far western & NW piedmont of NC, there was very little in the way of wintry weather from these +EPO/+WPO/-PNA/-NAO cases, which means in late December we'll be stormy & seasonable w/ lots of cold rain to go around!

To reinforce this point, today's 12z GFS gets close 2 times within the first 9 days of producing another CAD/Miller B event. Granted, the mountains & NW piedmont of NC would be favored (if anywhere) to see frozen precip out of this.

1608568864625.png


1608568905522.png
 
Without a positive EPO & WPO we're not risking getting a SE ridge (as is often the case when both of those go negative). Oth, the PNA if it turns negative in late December probably wouldn't last long as the -NAO will force the western trough to progress east & turn into cut off upper lows over the east-central US & we'll see a +EAMT re-extend the Pacific jet in early January and restore +PNA if it's lost. We can certainly get winter storms with +EPO/+WPO/-PNA/-NAO, it's just that without a +PNA we almost certainly aren't going to see Miller A cyclones; all the winter storm cases in my archive w/ this teleconnection configuration featured only Miller Bs &/or hybrid/anafrontal setups. Also, outside of the mountains and far western & NW piedmont of NC, there was very little in the way of wintry weather from these +EPO/+WPO/-PNA/-NAO cases, which means in late December we'll be stormy & seasonable w/ lots of cold rain to go around!
So if we get a +epo +wpo -pna -nao the upstate sc over to the Charlotte area and eastern nc we won’t see a winter storm
 
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