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Pattern January 2021 - Joyless January

Rain Cold said:
Thanks, makes sense. How does the EPS mean look in relation to the control? I don't like using the control for anything because it's just an ensemble member and likely to be wrong. But I would guess the EPS would be more favorable than the GEFS, and that would probably be more correct. I would also guess that we'll have to endure some MA action before we see the action.
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Rain Cold said:
That was sort of going to be my question....I get the benefits of the pattern as it relates to big eastern snowstorms/KU events, but just because big snowstorms occur out of patterns like this, it doesn't mean the SE is necessarily favored. Does this type of configuration favor the SE or more the MA and NE? Kylo's composite map above looks ok for the SE. I still think we're going to have to find a way to inject some much colder air into the pattern. Hopefully, that will be available as we get into February. There seems to be some wide optimism for that.
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If I lived DC north I'd gas up the snowblower. Down here we have to be realistic. We aren't getting but a couple storms even on a good year. I don't really see that block fading so I'd say we're in good shape to do that . Like you I just believe we'll have to wait until late Jan for more cold. Even 09-10 sucked for snow until late Jan.
 
Ollie Williams said:
The CMCE wasn’t bad either, but again, a MA/NE type look too.
View attachment 61095
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We need a northern stream shortwave to sneak thru & underneath that block and sit over the Great Lakes at the right time to suppress the storm track to the south & those usually don't show up in NWP models til we get into the medium range. If that happens, then you're looking at a Mar 1927 type setup imo. Mar 1927 would have been destined for the Great Lakes had it not been for that trough in the NE US

1609339948686.png

1609339925596.png
 
Webberweather53 said:
We need a northern stream shortwave to sneak thru & underneath that block and sit over the Great Lakes at the right time to suppress the storm track to the south & those usually don't show up in NWP models til we get into the medium range. If that happens, then you're looking at a Mar 1927 type setup imo. Mar 1927 would have been destined for the Great Lakes had it not been for that trough in the NE US

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That blocking orientation has got to be hands down my favorite look! That's also got the longwave pattern to some of our other great CAD Events. January 2002, February 2004, December 2018. Notice the Aleutian low, 50/50 low, and ridging over Canada!2002-01-02 00z 16.png2004-02-25 00z 16.png2018-12-09 00z 16.png
 
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Colorado would be an amazing place to live as a weather enthusiast & having been there a few times it's beautiful. You can get epic supercells and tornadoes in the spring & summer and then big time snowstorms and cold basically every winter. Got all the way down to -50F this morning in the Rockies.

 
ajr said:
Unrelated, but how do you generate a vorticity map based on what I presume were only surface observations at the time?
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ERA-20C is a reanalysis model that assimilates surface sea level pressure and marine wind observations, then uses the 2013 version of the operational ECMWF model to assimilate the data and an iterative Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOFs) takes advantage of known relationships between disparate and adjacent data points in the well observed part of the record to help the reproduce corresponding past fields of geopotential height, precipitation, vorticity, etc. Having been a frequent user of these datasets for my MS thesis, I don't consider the low-mid level data to be all that unreliable. However, the stratosphere, precipitation, upper level velocity potential, etc are extremely uncertain and fortuitous at best.


Here are the corresponding papers that detail these reanalyses.

https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/qj.2528?casa_token=PPZiNbv3xa0AAAAA:4ucdFRpt47ENss3cYTGDjzeXxElhzuFzTyQhard3-ZYDPhQW1zvNWQLVR8MRr4fd5i4WJ2IL34xkHxI

https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/29/11/jcli-d-15-0556.1.xml
 
Webberweather53 said:
Colorado would be an amazing place to live as a weather enthusiast & having been there a few times it's beautiful. You can get epic supercells and tornadoes in the spring & summer and then big time snowstorms and cold basically every winter. Got all the way down to -50F this morning in the Rockies.

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yea that is my dream place to live weather wise. heck this sept they got a 10" snowstorm and the next day it was 80.
 
Rain Cold said:
This area seems to be important:

View attachment 61109

Quite a bit different from this:

View attachment 61110

Hopefully, that changes around a little bit.
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Just need a few shortwaves in the right place, transient ridge right along the Idaho stovepipe & a northern stream wave over the Lakes. I think the latter is more important because without the lakes trough, the storm cuts NW.
 
Rain Cold said:
This area seems to be important:

View attachment 61109

Quite a bit different from this:

View attachment 61110

Hopefully, that changes around a little bit.
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Yup! If we're being picky, we need the ridge not to be centered south of Greenland and end up further SW, that's the only caveat to this look. Otherwise, the 50/50 low is going to end up too far east, and the storm can't phase with it well enough and allow high pressure to come down and suppress a system. You need the heights centered over Saskatchewan or Alberta. Although at this point I'm not too concerned considering on a larger scale, we have that look.
 
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