December 3-4, 2023 | Winter Storm

[MaineJay]

What the heck.  Might as well have something to talk about.

East Asia shows a nice little trof, with maybe some negative tilt.

12z GEFS.

0z EPS

GFS

ECMWF

No promises, but the models do have some potential for active weather.

There's a few EPS members that are ambitious for my backyard.

 

[Penn State]

There’s a lot to like about this timeframe. With the potential for a -AO, -NAO, and +PNA.. one would think that’s favorable for something to happen. 

[bigben89]

20 minutes ago, Penn State said:

There’s a lot to like about this timeframe. With the potential for a -AO, -NAO, and +PNA.. one would think that’s favorable for something to happen. 

Let’s hope at this point…

[MaineJay]

1 hour ago, Penn State said:

There’s a lot to like about this timeframe. With the potential for a -AO, -NAO, and +PNA.. one would think that’s favorable for something to happen. 

With the EPO going positive, mild Pacific air might precede this event, so we'd need the PNA ridge to bubble up as fast as possible to try and tap some colder air. 

The Greenland ridge looks to wobble into northern Canada, kinda blocking the best avenue for cold. The set up could give us a good storm track, but with a marginal air mass.  

 

[1816]

Closing pitcher is still sitting. Setup guy heading to the bullpen. 

[Penn State]

1 hour ago, bigben89 said:

Let’s hope at this point…

I know I feel like it’s been a slow start.. but I’m also impatient. There’s a lot of good indications, but those don’t always translate. I get a little worried when I see so many systems track to the NW. Certainly feels like rinse, wash, repeat from the last several years.. but with the El Niño, should be different eventually. 

[MaineJay]

Machine learning models might be more varied ed than the NWP models.

AIFS. I think this is ECMWF in house model

 

FourCastML from NVIDIA

 

Graph cast from Google

 

Pangu from Huawei

 

[bigben89]

That was fun while it lasted.

[MaineJay]

GEFS have some stem winders in there. As I've mentioned, the +EPO Pacific air is probably the biggest headwind.

 

[StretchCT]

ICON - probably a little to close to the coast for most situations, but upstate NY should usually be snow from this. 

  CMC with the one two puch on the coast, first one in what is usually a good spot, second too far out. But NNE makes out. 

 

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by StretchCT

[StretchCT]

12z GFS focuses on second punch and  buries N Maine.

Edited November 27, 2023 by StretchCT

[MaineJay]

12z GEFS

[MDBlueridge]

Looking awfully active from here to December 12-15 timeframe. 

Need that northern stream to play ball. 

[MaineJay]

Just so we can compare the Ukie, which is the most out of sync with the other 3, has the lowest height out in front.  Extrapolating from this point, I think the Ukie would be considered the most desirable from a winter weather standpoint.  We'll see how they stand in 12 hours or so.

[MaineJay]

EPS has about 10 maybe 15% of it's members going sub 970.

 

[Penn State]

I’m really liking the 2009 vibes.. If this “second punch” works out on the 5th, there’s indication for something mid-December. I’m pretty sure that was December ‘09. Set-up, and then main course. 

[MaineJay]

13 hours ago, MaineJay said:

Just so we can compare the Ukie, which is the most out of sync with the other 3, has the lowest height out in front.  Extrapolating from this point, I think the Ukie would be considered the most desirable from a winter weather standpoint.  We'll see how they stand in 12 hours or so.

Spread increased, and not by a little bit, overnight.  Timing differences on some if these features is over 12 hours, maybe as much as 24 I'd say. I mean, the GFS says to pull the dates back to the 3rd even. 

Let's trace back the pieces of energy, but there's so many. Hard to tell what's gonna merge with what, spatiotemporal differences not withstanding.

GEFS have more spread

Than the EPS

 Quite a few snow bearing systems in the EPS for some.

Hard to tell if the GFS and the CMC with their more consolidated trofs are too eager to merge some of these energies.  The Ukie and EC keep more pieces discrete.  Something to watch going forward, not only for this storm, but for model behaviors this season.

[telejunkie]

CPC highlighting the chance...

[MaineJay]

Hard to find much clustering in the GEFS.

[Penn State]

This is looking better and better.. still not there, but going in the right direction.. at least I think so! 

 

[Penn State]

Noticeable shift to the west.. sharpening of the trough. I like it! 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Penn State

[so_whats_happening]

-NAO seems to be really far north for the mid atlantic. Looks like an interior New England storm for some accumulating snows as of now and cold rain for most of the coastal plain for 4th-5th there is some trialing energy but it seems too close to the exiting system to allow much in the way of deepening. Who knows still have a solid 3-4 days of changes but seems like a wave spacing issue right now. Would really love to time the western ridging we have had to a system but should get there soon enough this season.

[MaineJay]

GYX

Quote

Afterwards, the pattern looks much different for the weekend
than it was looking yesterday. High pressure behind this system
looks weaker and more likely to remain farther to our north,
causing the front to stall across New England, rather than
clearing the region. Weak waves of low pressure then progress
along this front, with one bringing the chance for scattered
showers on Saturday, and another doing the same on Sunday. At
the same time, the high to the north will filter in cooler air
on northeasterly flow. While precipitation looks light through
this timeframe, the set up overall looks favorable for some
mixed precipitation. With such a notable shift from yesterday`s
forecast, it`s still too early to try to pin down any kind of
sleet or freezing rain areas, so this forecast will remain with
rain and snow wording given the uncertainty that remains.

Eyes then turn to whether a stronger coastal system develops in
the Monday to Tuesday timeframe. Between Friday and Tuesday, it
looks like no less than five disturbances will pass either
through or nearby New England. Of these, the fourth and fifth
look to have the best chance to become more organized early next
week. Models have actually come into worse agreement since
yesterday on the progression of these systems, so at this point
we`ll just have to wait until we get a little closer in time
before being able to have higher confidence. Given the fairly
drastic change for the weekend forecast from just 3-4 days out,
it`s difficult to have much confidence in next week`s forecast
at this time.

 

[so_whats_happening]

With a nice vort moving through we could get some upper level enhancement to take place from about WV/MD through SNE to produce some flakes im not sure much can come from it but there is always potential. Storm seems to develop too far out to sea with a ridge in the West collapsing before something gets going. This would be around the 6th time frame where the 3rd to ~5th looks to be a strung out wave and with just enough cold into New England interior could get a nice thump.

Early season storm but like that it wants to try and do something around the area. Let's see what we can get when the NAO is done.

Edited November 29, 2023 by so_whats_happening

[MaineJay]

3 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said:

With a nice vort moving through we could get some upper level enhancement to take place from about WV/MD through SNE to produce some flakes im not sure much can come from it but there is always potential. Storm seems to develop too far out to sea with a ridge in the West collapsing before something gets going. This would be the 5th-6th time frame where the 3rd-4th looks to be a strung out wave and with just enough cold into New England interior could get a nice thump.

Early season storm but like that it wants to try and do something around the area. Let's see what we can get when the NAO is done.

With Pacific air doing it's thing, the strung out nature along a boundary in northern NY/NE, light occasional over running events seem to make sense.  

 Easy for the models to spin up the bigger storms in the long range, but they seem to be either less deep, less phased, or both as they come closer to "reality".  So again, late blooming storms over the Atlantic also make sense.

  Could always use more snow at the ski areas, but I think they will take this type of start to the season. It's been plenty cold for making snow, and we've avoided any destructive rain in the mountains.

  At least it's not a parade of cutters. 🤣