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Pattern January 2021 - Joyless January

If I am not mistaken, Doesn't the GEFS have a warm bias in the medium to lon grange? Which makes that southern slider event even more interesting.
 
If the majority of the I-20 corridor (outside of GA & SC) sees their 2nd accumulating snow in less than a week here, would be hard to argue that this isn't a great pattern or we don't have enough cold air to work w/ here as some have previously claimed. It's not that we don't have enough cold air to work w/, it is just not going to the right places at least for folks in GA & the Carolinas.

Mellish mentioned in his blog and had mentioned previously that in this pattern you classically see increasing snows to the north and to the west before it gets here (NGA/SC/NC).


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This is going to happen, maybe not these exact amounts or locations or timing but NC and probably a good hunk of SC and the upstates of MS/AL/GA are going to cash in on something similar to what the GFS has....sometime between Jan 15th and Feb 15th

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Yeah I think the signal of a winter storm between the 15-30th is strong. Models will struggle until 5 days out from a particular event.


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Can we please not start a thread until it’s looking very clear?
Like less then 24hrs away clear.
We usually start a dedicated storm threat thread when it starts to dominate the main discussion thread. We will see if the trends continue to improve the next couple of runs and probably make a thread tomorrow morning if things are looking good. It's ok if it doesn't pan out. We don't control the weather. Sometimes it's fun to go back and look at these threats in the archives that don't actually produce. It can be a useful tool to have most of the relevant data and model runs in one thread.
 
Yeah I think the signal of a winter storm between the 15-30th is strong. Models will struggle until 5 days out from a particular event.


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I think you’re right. There just seems to be so much energy flying around right now that it’s impossible for the models to zero in specific waves and what they could develop into. In fact I could see something pop up only 2 days or so out with this... something like the 1/20/2009 storm for central and eastern NC. There was no talk of any snow with that one until literally the day before it hit when I woke up to a Winter Storm Watch for the late night and following day.
 
We usually start a dedicated storm threat thread when it starts to dominate the main discussion thread. We will see if the trends continue to improve the next couple of runs and probably make a thread tomorrow morning if things are looking good. It's ok if it doesn't pan out. We don't control the weather. Sometimes it's fun to go back and look at these threats in the archives that don't actually produce. It can be a useful tool to have most of the relevant data and model runs in one thread.
That’s very fair
 
The back half of GSP's long term disc this morning
A brief period of quasi-zonal flow then is progged to begin as the
synoptic trough pulls away, but another deep shortwave will swing
through our area Sunday night and Monday. The models are not yet in
good agreement as to the depth of this wave, and accordingly whether
it produces precip as it blows thru the CWA, though they are
currently reasonably close on timing. We almost certainly would have
sufficiently cold profiles to expect snow to predominate as p-type
over the majority of the zones, if the wave can muster enough
moisture. While a few of the NAEFS ensemble members depict the
shortwave as kicking up a coastal low and bringing us substantially
more precip, this isn`t a strong enough signal to affect the means
very much, so it looks wise to keep PoPs very low for this part of
the forecast.
 
12z ICON doesn't look bad setup-wise at day 5. A big sfc low & accompanying mid-level vortex over New England is gonna help suppress the next storm coming in stage left over TX & provides significant cold air for this setup.

Don't necessarily need a big cold high to the north to provide cold air, low-level cold advection works for both sfc highs and lows. They both just need to be in the right juxtaposition.

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The 12z ICON is trending towards a slower/more amped storm this weekend over New England = more cold air/suppression for the coming southern slider.

Definitely a fan of this trend here in the Carolinas.

View attachment 65192
Where's the cold HP in this pic though Webb? I really do not see a source area other than some back wrap from the NE LP.
 
Interesting pattern shown late January. I love the strong -50/50 low signature, key to some nice cold wedges. Love the pacific ridge going up to the pole too. Translates to cold enough for us to have a good time.

Will it show up? And will the SE ridge be muted enough to keep things to our south? At least it's something to watch.

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Isn't that cruising out of the picture though? Transient?
It's also a dry, downsloping westerly wind vs a north or northeasterly wind from a parent high to the north, which would then interact with a moist south or southwesterly flow aloft to create overrunning. I'm not sure how an overrunning winter weather event occurs with downsloping west-southwesterly winds east of the Apps.
 
Isn't that cruising out of the picture though? Transient?

It's been persisting more in subsequent runs. Cold sfc highs are related to but not directly correlated w/ low-level cold air, synoptic-scale sinking not forced hydrostatically by low-level cold is just as if not more important in generating big sfc highs.

It's also a dry, downsloping westerly wind vs a north or northeasterly wind from a parent high to the north, which would then interact with a moist south or southwesterly flow aloft to create overrunning. I'm not sure an overrunning winter weather event occurs with downsloping west-southwesterly winds east of the Apps.

Well, no that would be cold air damming, not overrunning. Overrunning is analogous to anafront setups and involves a weak/ill-defined sfc wave riding along a boundary and throwing warm/moist air back into the cold side of the front leading to freezing precip. Like CAD though, there's some element of isentropic upglide that helps force ascent but it can occur in the absence of the Apps and basically anywhere in the SE US. You don't necessarily need a cold high to the north to make overrunning happen, it happens pretty frequently right along cold fronts in their absence.

The early December 2017 storm in Atlanta is a good example of a big overrunning event happening near the tail end of the winter season w/o a cold high to the north. Cold sfc highs are often present but they're not necessary as this case shows:

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One notably difference between the 00z & 12z icon is the s/s wave that comes on shore in northern Cali is significantly weaker and when it interacts with N/s it essentially shears out instead of phasing properly thus you are left with is dying precip over the se instead of a gulf low forming..
 
Looks like that one (Atl) occurred with a GL LP in place as well. Unusual set up I would think
 
Looks like that one (Atl) occurred with a GL LP in place as well. Unusual set up I would think

I guess the point I'm making here is that big cold highs to the north aren't necessary at all in overrunning. This one occurred in early December and south of NC in a place w/ much crappier snow climo. Thus, we can easily get an overrunning event in NC w/o cold high to the north in the heart of winter
 
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