Long Range Discussion 22.0

Frank_Wx wrote:Above normal temps are expected through the next 10 days - however - there’s a small window of opportunity appearing on the models next Sunday into Monday. A pseudo-ridge over the PNA ridge thanks to digging piece of upper energy off the west coast, may sneak a piece of polar energy into our area and possibly giving us our first accumulating snowfall event of the season. I placed the SCI at 5% as we wait and see what transpires next week.

As per usual in a crappy pattern we will be searching for baby bear.  As of now there will be 3 main areas to focus on regarding this threat.  

First.  There will be a weak LP and great lakes cutter develop, warm out ahead, that lifts NE on Saturday, labeled 3 on the image below. As the upper level energy lifts out, it will head towards the 50/50 region, (50N latitude/50W longitude) give or take.  This energy will without question be important to provide confluence ahead of the approaching energy to help lock in some cold air for our system to work with and to create enough of a bottleneck in the flow to allow the pieces to come together.  It MUST be in at least close to an ideal position in order for our next approaching system to have enough cold air to work with.  

This brings us to the second area(s) to monitor the evolution of.  I have labeled energy 1, (northern energy), and energy 2, (southern energy).  The N energy will dig into the plains while the S energy will eject out of the south.  The timing and interactions between these two energies relative to each other is the second area of focus.  Typically we want 2 out ahead of 1 with cold air in place in our area.  




And the 3rd area to watch the evolution of is the area labeled 4 below and its strength, timing, and interactions with the pseudo PNA ridge Frank mentioned.  





So regarding the first point.  If 3 ends up to far NE in the Mid Atlantic there will be no pseudo blocking out ahead and/or there isn't anything to lock the cold in place ahead of our system and the SE ridge flexes back, heights raise ahead of the system along the EC(maroon circle), and the warm air invades.

Regarding point 2.  If the energy 1&2 interact to early and strongly then we run the risk of raising heights out ahead(ESP if energy 3 is too far N&E), and we get the cutter and we are warm sectored.  If the S energy is not out ahead enough then the N energy could act to steer it S&E and OTS like we just saw with the last system.  We want just enough interaction to lift a LP up the coast, but also off the coast a little to avoid warm air invasion.

Regarding point 3.  If the timing of the energy 4 is too fast then it will act to de-amplify the PNA ridge making the energy labeled 1&2 more diff to interact the way we want.

Again when the Pac pattern sucks, AND the Atlantic pattern sucks it will make it very difficult for things to come together just right.  There are any number of things or combo of things involving Energy 3 to the NE, or how energy 1&2 interact in the central CONUS, or how energy 4 interacts with the PNA ridge out west, that can screw things up for our coverage area.  Also keep in mind like the last system we tracked we had model runs that for a short period in the medium range showed baby bear.  But remember baby bear solns in the long and medium range MUST be taken with a grain of salt until we get in tight to crunch time when we have a pattern like we currently have.  That said it has snowed in shitty patterns before and it will again, so....

We Track!!!  

As an aside, IF we get towards mid to late week and things are looking promising for this threat I WILL NOT be the one to start its own thread. The last system was looking great until I started the new thread. Literally models immediately shifted after I did so. I hang my head in shame.

That is all.

Trust the process. That is all.

Irish wrote:

rb924119 wrote:

What does this mean?

A winter-weather weeny’s dream lmaooo ridge out west, trough in the eastern U.S., and lots of Atlantic domain blockiness centered during the month of January. To be honest, though, I’ve not used this in the past, so I’m not sure how well it’ll perform. But it fits with my longstanding ideas

The GFS Operational just lost its mind tonight in the extended. It doesn’t develop a Stratospheric Warming Event - it develops a full-on Stratospheric inferno lol the ensembles should be mightily interesting, to say the least.

It also was hinting at the commencement of the final progression of the long awaited pattern change, but it was still about 3-5 days short. Fun times ahead, folks. Buckle up.

500mb conts to be a jumbled mess with great variability from model to model and run to run regarding he time frame of Sat through Tuesday. There is def a a storm signal still embedded there for sure. Lets see what shakes out over the next few days.

https://mobile.twitter.com/webberweather/status/1470566092523270145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1470566092523270145%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanwx.com%2Fbb%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fwebberweather%2Fstatus%2F1470566092523270145%3Ft%3DtdVI3P6ihZKSFuvI3qkQ6w26s%3D19

I know that it’s the happy hour GFS suite (I.e. 18z, and those of you whom have known me a while know that I don’t like off-hour runs, i.e. 06z/18z runs), but what I saw at the end of the 18z GFS suite tonight is exactly what I’m looking for at 500mb. The European trough sheds its eastern flank and retrogrades westward a bit (while remaining a quasi-permanent feature), thereby allowing an opening for downstream ridge amplification in the area of 70-ish East longitude (Kahir’s Connection) but also forcing a progression of the pattern DOWNSTREAM. This, by default, then allows our persistent Aleutian ridge to begin shifting east in the means and near the west coast of North America (while maintaining amplitude into Alaska, -EPO). This, then, begins to force our western North America trough begin shedding energy downstream and “handing off” to the Atlantic trough to our east. This allows the Atlantic trough to our east to begin discontinuously retrograding westward with each successive handoff from the western North American trough. Eventually, the western North American trough would shed the last of its energy (eject a shortwave), allowing the ridge behind it to quickly slide in over western North America and explosive cyclogensis to ensue in the western part of the Atlantic trough, which would foster the last of the discontinuous retrogression. This is why I said when I first presented the idea of the January flip that I could see it come in with a bang. Once this process occurs, then the whole kit and caboodle will crash into this eastern trough from Canada, and we go into the freezer. Because of the combination of the overall pattern progression, MJO/ENSO forcing, and then Stratospheric forcing aligning, this will have staying power. We HAVE to see if the general progression modeled in tonight’s 18z suite continues to show up. The GFS suite has admittedly lead the way with this whole thing, and is continuing to adjust to the concepts presented earlier. This is HUGE folks, and I’m even more excited.

On top of that, this is a PHENOMENAL thread that deserves a read. Same results, slightly different angle of analysis: