One much needed storm is in the bag and I can report first hand that the mountain skied very well today. I can also report first hand that it is always a good day when a blog entry can be done from the MRG bar in the afternoon with a beer in hand. There has been lots of talk about the potential weekend event and when I talk to fellow skiers and riders it seems they all know about it and already know what is going to happen to it. What the heck am I here for then ;)
It does not look as if things are going to come together quite as we would like over the weekend. Southern branch energy in the jet stream will consolidate off the Carolina coast on Saturday (bringing more snow to DC I am sorry to say since they have no appreciation for it) while a weakening storm exits the eastern Rockies. The weakening system is the piece of energy that we had hoped would take the drivers seat but there are too many chefs in the kitchen I suppose to make this happen. Nonetheless, there is some minimal hope with this decaying system. It will make a last ditch effort at intensifying off the New England coast some snowfall is still possible Sunday into Monday as a result (a light accumulation). In the meantime temperatures will stay on the below side of seasonable thus continuing what has become a building stretch of rain and ice free weather. The Sunday/Monday should've been big snow event will mark another intrusion of colder temperatures but we have seen considerably worse than the readings we will see early next week.
The active weather will continue as promised. It was mentioned in the last update that a late next week snow seemed probable and there is rather good clarity of a relatively organized winter storm late next week. The time frame would be Thursday, a week from now which means lots of fine tunings will be necessary. In the forecasting game however, one loves to see ensembles from separate model packages provide this kind of consensus so early. This consensus includes a storm riding up the coast Thursday spreading snow into New England. In the wake of this storm a nice pool of instability should kick the snow shower machine into gear and set up the weekend of the 15th/16th as the best of the year.
Beyond that, the pattern continues to look active. We will see a tightening of the jet stream in the Pacific but as this is happening the Arctic Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation will turn negative helping to anchor the cold in North America while more storm system cross the country. This should mean more snow to talk about.
the GFS last I saw looked awful with rain :(
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