January 2021 Forecasts and Discussions

[Monty]

Over 130mm of rain in the first 5 days of January. Over 60% of the monthly average. Looks like we dry a bit the next couple days.

[Hawk]

Yup, props to Nito again this am..he called it many weeks ago. La Nina? > but looking very Ninoish instead. Thats all we have received this winter so far. Maybe La Nina just wont have the influence that is used to in the past. Maybe now it means we "may" be colder and wetter, or just wetter only. This winter looks to be the latter..very wet..which Nito also told us many many days ago too.
Let's all hear it for Nito...calls it like it is

[Hawk]

We will be at mid Jan with the local mountains accumulating weeks of rain and snow cycles. I wonder what the mountain base elevations will look like around mid Jan? In a Nina year? Yikes.

[Monty]

Snow packs are near to above normal at the locations I’ve checked recently

[Monty]

Sorry boys and girls. We were gifted a generator for power outage backup yesterday. Expect any inclement weather to steer clear for the next couple years at least. #winter2022-2023

[Hawk]

Snow packs are near to above normal at the locations I’ve checked recently

Yes snowpacks are good...but quite sloppy on the slopes this year around here..many rainy soggy days and wet slopes. If a real Nina was here, mountains would have major snowpacks already with all this precip. I guess that just may not happen much anymore.
Mt Washington seems to always do quite well though!

[wetcoast91]

Yes snowpacks are good...but quite sloppy on the slopes this year around here..many rainy soggy days and wet slopes. If a real Nina was here, mountains would have major snowpacks already with all this precip. I guess that just may not happen much anymore.
Mt Washington seems to always do quite well though!

1999-2000 was a pretty good year up there during a Nina.

Pretty similar in the lowlands with temps constantly running near or above seasonal norms.

[Monty]

Whether it be A Nino or a Niña we are really only now just entering the time of year when we typically see Enso become more of a pattern driver. The early season stuff always seems like more of a crapshoot regardless of SSTAs.

[wetcoast91]

Whether it be A Nino or a Niña we are really only now just entering the time of year when we typically see Enso become more of a pattern driver. The early season stuff always seems like more of a crapshoot regardless of SSTAs.

Good news is that the AK vortex is set to die. We are either going to see periodic ridging or some cold regime take over. Either is going to result in a drier period which is completely fine by me.

[PortKells]

Hmm. Still a lot of uncertainty. I hope the ensembles continue to improve. We've seen the operational on the warm side for several runs now. But the EPS is last to board so we wait.

[Coquitlam79]

Time is running out for a major lowland snow event until February or March. The stormy wet pattern looks to be ending soon but may be replaced by a ridge. Would love if it was a cold arctic high and not a fog inversion type pattern. The sudden stratospheric warming in the arctic should weaken the polar jet, wobbling the jet stream and pumping up a ridge on the west coast. Polar vortex in the East and the snow lovers are rejoicing there for the mid to late month period. We may be far enough North to see some storms over the top of the ridge but it won't be great for a snowy pattern. So, say that pattern lasts 10-20 days which is standard for the type of pattern so that takes us to February. Likely an AR to replace the ridge pattern at that time of year. That pattern usually lasts a few days so we basically have a 4 week window from early February through first week of March. After that it's basically Spring. Could happen like 2018 and 2017 both saw snow events in February.

[PortKells]

I have no idea what you guys are looking at. The gfs ensembles are extremely bullish for cold for being that far out. The operational are meaningless, please don't put stock into them until we're under 200 hours at the least.

[PortKells]

gfs-ens_z500a_namer_65.png

gfs-ens_T850a_namer_65.png

Right in line with the weeklies. Very surprising le vel of agreement.

[wetcoast91]

But...

[Typeing3]

12z GFS ensembles: