BLOG: Winter Not Ready To Let Go

Please follow the link to my latest blog. I take a look at the March 21st-25th time frame which could be anything from no storm, to rain, to snow.

http://njstrongweather.blogspot.com/2015/03/will-winter-go-out-with-bang.html

Great write up Frank lets wait and see if old man winter has a trick up his sleeve

Great write up Frank.  I was thinking about doing a write up this morning, but this pretty much echoes my thoughts to a T.  I will add a side note regarding the MJO signal.  By the image below you can see that MJO forecast is currently strongly exiting phase 6 region into phase 7.



In the water vapor Sat image below you can see that there is convection in the phases 6 and 7 region.  Although the energy in these regions are clearly a part of the equation, Typhoon Bavi is currently dominating the linkage with the upper level patterns into the mid latitudes rather than the true MJO.  You can clearly see there is a ton of energy being infused into the upper level pattern by this system enhancing forcing up into the mid latitudes by the process of diabatic heating.  A phenomenon Rb pointed out a day or two ago.  
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 The other thing to take away with the image above is to notice the broad trough that is exiting off of Japans coast.  Very soon if not already this trough will link up with the moisture feed from the Trop Pac compliments of the MJO and Bavi and continue to strengthen the trough S of the Aleutians which in turns re amplifies our -EPO/+PNA couplet.  This is seen best in the Sat loop below.  Also take note of the bottom right of the loop.  The convection feeding into Bavi and the upper level flow here is the energy from the MJO.  Models, regarding Bavi, appears to continue it on a westward track and eventually weaken.  It appears that it will not be captured by this trough but rather escape underneath it and may or may not cont to influence the overall upper levels.  This is significant because if it were to recurve and be absorbed into the trough coming off Japan it would infuse even more energy into the mid latitude upper level pattern leading to an more potent down stream effect similar to when Top cyclone Nuri did in November.  Again this was pointed out by Rb a day or two ago.  For our area this would translate to even colder air pressing into the NE and stronger chance at a late season snow storm threat.  


There are two main points to this post:
1) I think it is incredibly fascinating studying these images and loops and conceptualizing how this part of the globe has a direct relationship with how our area will be affected in the 7-10day, so im doing it to eventually look back in hind sight after it plays out to see how it all worked for future references.  
2) The stronger the link to the tropics in the Pacific the more likely we see colder air invade the NE and the greater chance we see the potential for energy to come together and come off the coast and possible give the NE some late season winter weather.  (Coastal or no coastal; Rain, snow, sleet, whatever..too early right now)  I cannot wait to see the sat images and loops in the Pacific in a few days when the MJO is forecast to be well into phase 7 and approaching phase 8 and Bavi has continued on its track west.  In addition I am looking forward to seeing how this translates into what the models are seeing for our area.  I am learning a ton from this late season set up.

Great write-ups guys!!!

These write up are amazing filled with knowledge great job sroc

12z models showing just this! Long way to go but already getting some consistency between the GFS and CMC for this time frame. And the coastal plain benefits on 12z HA, what are the odds though.

Great work here guys! That energy is going to spell havoc on the east coast by this weekend for cold and stormy activity IMO. People are going to be in for a big surprise!
Models are going to flip flop like a fish out of water butt he hot hand model is the CMC and it has shown on about three straight runs snowstorms for fri and again sun - double the pleasure type storms - only time will tell.

Frank,you are amazing,you were the only one to predict this so far in advance,now Jeff Smith is talking about it,you really missed your calling,i don't think it will be a blockbuster,but even 3-6 is pretty good in late March Your talent is second to none

I'm having a hard time seeing where our southern stream is? It looks to be buried under a split flow in the west. The block only works if there is a favorable Pacific or a potent southern stream...and both those things could be missing.

Models look like trash today. Hopefully this doesn't turn into a cold/dry stretch.

chrism wrote:Frank,you are amazing,you were the only one to predict this so far in advance,now Jeff Smith is talking about it,you really missed your calling,i don't think it will be a blockbuster,but even 3-6 is pretty good in late March Your talent is second to none

Thanks but the trends today were awful. I'm not as high on this event as I was last week.

-NAO looks great, but the trough is too broad and the Pac ridge is collapsing. Southern stream having a hard time ejecting out. Let's see if this changes again tomorrow.

chrism wrote:Frank,you are amazing,you were the only one to predict this so far in advance,now Jeff Smith is talking about it,you really missed your calling,i don't think it will be a blockbuster,but even 3-6 is pretty good in late March Your talent is second to none

Frank gets all the credit cause his avatar is so handsome.

Frank.we will get something out of it,hopefully it wont just be for higher elevation areas and too north?

chrism wrote:Frank.we will get something out of it,hopefully it wont just be for higher elevation areas and too north?

We shall see! 1 - 2 inches this time of year isn't so exciting. All melts the next day.

Frank_Wx wrote:

chrism wrote:Frank.we will get something out of it,hopefully it wont just be for higher elevation areas and too north?

We shall see! 1 - 2 inches this time of year isn't so exciting. All melts the next day.

Make it big or keep it dry, or at least moderate storm. Not willing to give up with one day as we know things change on a dime this year.

So we are only expecting temps in the 30 s and 40s when can we see spring pattern take over

Once again NAO blocking does not look to have a whole lot of staying power. Without it flow remains too progressive and our pieces cannot come together. -EPO and PNA still bring the cold but surpresses the S energy. This is as per model trends. From now over the next few days we shall see how it trends.

IMO the Atlantic blocking will hold the key. Without it or if it's too east based, or breaks down too soon Precip is not going to overcome climatology. The EPO and PNA will probably not be enough to bring the winter Precip to most if not all of us on this board this time as opposed to prev SWFE earlier this season. We need the flow to slow to allow enough time for a potent system to generate the cold to overcome sun angle etc.

AO and NAO hurt us a lot this season but still a lot of areas are well above normal with snowfall. Imagine if we did get a -AO and -NAO? A lot of more places would see record snowfall.

12z GFS is perty.  Long way to go.  Not sure I buy it yet with a Low to the NW and a High to the NE over the canadian maritime.

It is a very nice coastal, a jog to the west and I'd be a Godzilla verbatim for some. But temps look iffy. Of course the upper air is more important how does that look compared to yesterday?

We are at 120 hrs though for the end of possible event which isn't so crazy far off, and this HAS consistently been  a solution on GFS, and other models but more so on GFS.  Lets see if CMC and Euro follow like they did 12z yesterday. 12z CMC also has it at 114-120 hrs but much too warm, northern areas get fringe snow a few inches verbatim.

We have Euro again! Nice coastal, scrapes coast and looks cold enough for snow, 5 days to go but seeing this come up consistently.

yes jon euro looks good. here are bl temps for nyc per sv maps. what we have to fight is sun angle as much of snow falls between 18z and 00z. .5-1"qpf


hr102
700 -7
850 -3
925 - 2
BL 34
.3
hr108
700 -7
850 -1
925 0
BL 33
.3 - .4

another thing to note ground is no longer frozen. this may end up being an elevation storm.

algae888 wrote:another thing to note  ground is no longer frozen. this may end up being an elevation storm.

Marginal temps or lackluster precipitation rates wont cut it during the day this late in the year. Many learned that a few years ago with a coastal that had marginal temps around 32-33...dynamics of the system had no chance to win out over the temps and sun angle