January 11th-12th 2025 East Coast Snow Storm Potential

For educational purposes...

The difference between a monster and minor storm seems to be consolidated and ejecting SW energy vs held back / trailing SW energy, the latter of which has been the thorn in our side for getting a decent storm as of late. What in the atmosphere is causing this holding back of energy in the SW instead of letting it release consolidated downstream?

I’ve been following this thread for years because I find it all so interesting and never comment but I wanted to say and I mean this with all due respect. every single  time there is potential for snow you guys start celebrating the victory in the 1st quarter even when you say not to and then give up in the 2nd quarter and wallow in defeat. If I’ve learned one thing from following this page is it’s not over until it’s over. How many times do these systems make a drastic change from day to day? If it looks leaks bleak on Friday then it’s still not over, we’re talking about the weather, it’s so unpredictable, just give it time unfold. Just my two cents.

OMG Irish is funny, and Crippo’s question is an interesting one. NJDevil17’s point is well made. I think if we analyze, we learn while I have the tendency to want at times the simplest, common denominator: will it snow?  Here I get both analysis and simple. I like both

What I like most is my order of fleece-lined jeans. Another tool of the aging to combat the cold. My jeans now laugh at the wind. Here’s hoping I don’t get cooty and wear them in the summer

crippo84 wrote:For educational purposes...

The difference between a monster and minor storm seems to be consolidated and ejecting SW energy vs held back / trailing SW energy, the latter of which has been the thorn in our side for getting a decent storm as of late. What in the atmosphere is causing this holding back of energy in the SW instead of letting it release consolidated downstream?

Crippo I believe Rb attempted to throw an answer at this some time ago, but to be honest I dont recall the details. Im sure even Ray, although Ill let him speak for himself, probably cant give the exact answer with any true certainly, but rather with his current understanding of meteorology and experience.

From my own experience the one thing Ive noticed is the Pacific pattern has been less than ideal. I think thre likely is a multifactorial answer that for any given storm that this happens may have a slight diff of combination of factors that ultimately lead to a similar out come. I know with this set up the nice west coast ridge ends up tilting positive, ie SW to NE, which we have called a wave break. The top of the ridge is crashing over the base of the ridge by effectively getting out ahead of the base. This seems to be happening as a result of additional Pac energy continuously progressing from W to E. Combine this with some likely complex factors involving the elevation of the Rocky mountains as the energy reaches the WC of the nation and you prob have your answer buried in this. I have additional thoughts about it but the ability to effectively communicate them is beyond my paygrade. Hope it helps a little at least.

Interestingly, at the H5 the Euro is a lot closer now to consolidating the n/s energy than the GFS, but to no avail. They've almost switched places from yesterday, but the end result at the surface is the same: no-go for anything big. NAM running now. Through hour 45 looks closer to the Euro. So I suspect it too will be close to the consolidation, but not close enough. We shall see shortly.

NAM is a no-go as well. Rb seems to be inching closer to taking his victory lap on this one. lol. Still time to go for beneficial changes though. As heehaw says, a lot of energy with this, and it is a close pass. It's not like the storm doesn't exist anymore; its track and development is just a little off -- that at least gives you something to work with for positive changes in the next couple days. But I think it is increasingly unlikely now that we are inside of three days that this develops into something "big." I mean there are those surprises. Remember "Boxing Day Blizzard" wasn't a "thing" until 24 hours out. I just wouldn't count on it.

NJDevil17 wrote:I’ve been following this thread for years because I find it all so interesting and never comment but I wanted to say and I mean this with all due respect. every single  time there is potential for snow you guys start celebrating the victory in the 1st quarter even when you say not to and then give up in the 2nd quarter and wallow in defeat. If I’ve learned one thing from following this page is it’s not over until it’s over. How many times do these systems make a drastic change from day to day? If it looks leaks bleak on Friday then it’s still not over, we’re talking about the weather, it’s so unpredictable, just give it time unfold. Just my two cents.

Each system and situation is different. We are all weenies and get excited and want snow but try not to wishcast. What the GFS once showed days ago was a possibility but It is pretty clear now within 3 days that a big storm is not happening. When all models show basically the same thing consistently it's basically over. That's not to say that some can't get an inch or 2 from the northern stream but the hopes of a major storm are meteorologically DOA.

billg315 wrote:NAM is a no-go as well. Rb seems to be inching closer to taking his victory lap on this one. lol. Still time to go for beneficial changes though. As heehaw says, a lot of energy with this, and it is a close pass. It's not like the storm doesn't exist anymore; its track and development is just a little off -- that at least gives you something to work with for positive changes in the next couple days. But I think it is increasingly unlikely now that we are inside of three days that this develops into something "big." I mean there are those surprises. Remember "Boxing Day Blizzard" wasn't a "thing" until 24 hours out. I just wouldn't count on it.

No victory lap from me here, Bill haha while I acknowledged the possibility and the real risk of that lagging energy, my preliminary thought was that it should have ejected, but I was forced to change my idea later Monday/yesterday morning. Even if I had been able to stick to my initial thinking, there’s always something to be learned from every event, and for me, it’s that the long-standing tendency of trapping energy in the Southwest continues. So going forward, that will be something that I make a concentrated effort to incorporate into future forecasts.

This should have been a bomb, Miller A from Gulf Coast up to OBX and then poof!!!! The frigging kicker LP in GL just shreds the storm, but I've never seen this.

Thr GFS at 110 hours showing an absolute bomb was a possibility as was what we have now being modeled. The system starts to ramp up and make strides and then poof. The angle of the PNA is off as is the NS. Shows how hard it is to get a great historical type storm. The players are on the field but aren't giving together. We have the teles aligned but MJO in COD leaving a still progressive flow. Until we can buckle that, N EPO being modeled from 16th onward should, maybe allow this and MJO  forecast phase 1 and 2 wave should help. All snow is good snow.
Some minor tweaks in the next 48 hours hopefully.
Watch the EURO show a bomb at 110 hours only for the GFS to be Dr. NO and score a coup!!!

sroc4 wrote:

crippo84 wrote:For educational purposes...

The difference between a monster and minor storm seems to be consolidated and ejecting SW energy vs held back / trailing SW energy, the latter of which has been the thorn in our side for getting a decent storm as of late. What in the atmosphere is causing this holding back of energy in the SW instead of letting it release consolidated downstream?

Crippo I believe Rb attempted to throw an answer at this some time ago, but to be honest I dont recall the details. Im sure even Ray, although Ill let him speak for himself, probably cant give the exact answer with any true certainly, but rather with his current understanding of meteorology and experience.  

From my own experience the one thing Ive noticed is the Pacific pattern has been less than ideal.  I think thre likely is a multifactorial answer that for any given storm that this happens may have a slight diff of combination of factors that ultimately lead to a similar out come.  I know with this set up the nice west coast ridge ends up tilting positive, ie SW to NE, which we have called a wave break.  The top of the ridge is crashing over the base of the ridge by effectively getting out ahead of the base.  This seems to be happening as a result of additional Pac energy continuously progressing from W to E.  Combine this with some likely complex factors involving the elevation of the Rocky mountains as the energy reaches the WC of the nation and you prob have your answer buried in this.  I have additional thoughts about it but the ability to effectively communicate them is beyond my paygrade.  Hope it helps a little at least.  

Between you and heehaw responding to this, I don’t have to add anything haha what makes this field so bi-polar is the elation of making a great forecast after suffering the anxiety of any number of model runs up to and even during an event, coupled with that same anxiety followed by self-verification and associated frustration when a forecast is missed. And, in both cases, there are components to every forecast that we will never know if we actually got it right because of those components, or simply luck, because there’s no way to run a controlled experiment on the atmosphere and test the result of each component separately. The best we can do is formulate hypotheses and then test them on future systems, but each system is different, so there’s always constant trial by error. And just when you think you understand, here comes Mother Nature to play the role of Lucy and pull the football away from your Charlie Brown. This is one of the times Lucy pulled the football away, but the trick is to focus on what we can learn from it to help us formulate a better initial hypothesis next time…..cough…..18th-22nd……cough……

heehaw453 wrote:I like this curl on the h5 12Z GFS

Open wave with all your vorticity directed offshore. Aside from instability snow showers as that trough moves overhead, I don’t expect much from that verbatim.

@NJDevil.  In response to the comment above I do not believe anyone celebrated any sort of victory with this at all.  Quite the contrary actually.  I believe there were sound reasoning mentioned by myself and others as to how this might not work.  That said Weenie reactions to weenie runs of course!!  That's what weenies do, esp when we are snow deprived, but if you look back at when I started this thread I thought I was very clear in the initial post the morning of the 5th that this by no means was a forecast, and warned that everything from the Frankzilla soln to the oogatz soln was still possible.  And while I thought the -AO, -NAO combo would be enough to get it done, I quickly pointed out in my follow up post on the 5th at 2:12pm after the days 12z runs were done that this wave break idea was a fly in the ointment.  The PNA while positive, will end up collapsing at just the wrong time compliments of a large swath of 500mb energy crashing the coast behind the ridge causing the wave break; ultimately preventing that SW energy from coming out and up.  It is what it is.

Just because we have had trouble winning the game doesnt mean we dont play it.   At least thats my mind set.  Shit Im a Giants fan. Losing seasons are common these days. Last 5-6 years or so of being a Giants fan are very similar to the last 5-6 years of the winter season in terms of outcomes.

Anyway I dont take any real offense to the statement.  Hell I take responsibility for starting a thread.   I tried to carry the weight on my shoulders, but as it turned out the weight was just too heavy...

I cannot believe it, what a joke. A storm that went from literally being a bomb off the EC of over a foot of snow, is now absolutely nothing, zero, zilch, nada. Not a flake to be had on Saturday/Sunday.

Just wow! I truly need a job where I can put out forecasts of a megastorm only to completely reverse course a couple days later and still get paid a handsome sum.

A heavy snow to no snow but the as the truth, it all lies in the twain.