Duane S.

The inference being you are ruling out any cold snowy spells in January? Good grief... Back to the actual models and continued consistency of some sort of cold spell around the 17th.Ties in nicely with the MJO going into phase 6 and I don't think it is necessarily all doom and gloom thereafter with the suspected over-estimation of easterly transit of the MJO by NCEP because there are hints that waning into the COD could be swiftly followed by a more amplified re-emegence into phase 6 and beyond. Therefore our flimsy looking Mid Atlantic High could be transformed into a much better looking HLB heading through the last third of Jan IMO.

Ah yes, all looks very familiar to where I currently am in Les Gets. Brown patches aplenty and a fair few runs are closed or near death traps due to the ice on thin base. I have never seen so many snow mobiles carrying the injured! :-( But like you say, mustn't grumble. Thank heavens for the dumping on the 28th of December because it is that and that alone that we are still having half decent skiing on. Today wasn't bad after the cannons had done their work overnight but tomorrow looks a bit colder which in these conditions probably isn't too good. Thursday cloudier with the chance of some light snow (probably rain lower down) then Friday more of the same before rain sets in later in the day. I do fear for next week but remain hopeful the following week will see the start of the big improvement! I too found solace in one of my favourite watering holes on the slopes

Great charts just beyond Mid month showing up on 12z GEFS. In addition to member 4 posted above, there are plenty of others that would be more than welcomed by most people reading this forum I am sure. A selection (there are more)... Yes, yes, a long way away, but worth watching over the coming days

Hi Chiono. Yep, the rain has taken its toll here, the slopes had a real spring look about them today with a lot of brown showing and slush in a lot of areas. The backedge snow duly arrived and deposited about 20 flakes on my head before stopping, so no help there. Maybe the end of the week there could be something quite meaningful but again it may struggle to fall as snow at lower levels. That said, there was still plenty of skiable snow around, especally higher up and for a Sunday it was not busy at all. The old guys of the mountains (for want of a better way of describing them) are all saying here that the real snow is coming on the 20th, looking at the latest charts, they may well be on to something!

Constant rain overnight here at about 1,250m, as per the forecast, although not nice to hear it outside slowly eating away at the still pretty decent snowbase! Hoping for a couple of cm of back edge snow later on this morning.

As BFTP says Morillon is pretty low down as resorts go and is just round the corner from where I'm heading this weekend. Rain has been looking possible for Saturday into Sunday at sub 1500M for a while now but it really could be touch and go and more recent forecasts have made me become more optimistic that it may well start as rain but turn to snow quite quickly. Thereafter nothing overly mild on the cards, maybe the odd day a little on the mild side but nothing too drastic. Also keep an eye on Friday the 9th, this could get interesting, hints of a decent dumping in parts of the Alps. Enjoy your trip.

Well, I will take this for the last op output chart of 2014 thank you very much... Much better run with an interesting ejection of energy SE on D8, better Arctic ridging throughout and eventual Greenland heights in FI land. A zonal outlook is soooooo 2014. Happy New Years everybody!!!

It's not a "phantom warming", it's underway now, as forecast. It is affecting (and will continue to for a while) the troposphere just not currently in a favourable fashion for us to get a cold spell as it stands. +NAO whilst likely to remain for the forseeable is not "due to the MJO", moreover the MJO is not helping reducing the +NAO signal. Correct though, winter is not over!

Sounds good to me, will allow ridging in behind

Absolutely and it sort of reinforces my point in that every one of those famous winter cold spells stated, had they happened in the internet era, we would likely have had a fair idea they were coming from all the various background signals / drivers but not necessarily from preceding trop charts. As you say though, early days still and I'm sure we'd all take a mild next 3 weeks in order to get a cold spell come the end of Jan. As for snowless winters, much more common than not down here! :-)

Can't argue with any of that! I think the MJO could come to our rescue though. Phase 5 is always problematic both in terms of poor forecasting and actuality as this is often where it drops into the dreaded COD, I think this is due to the topography of the Indonesia vicinity. But it works the other way sometimes with the MJO emerging into the Pacific in a much stronger amplitude than forecast going into 4/5.

I know it was meant in a light hearted fashion but even so. Picking out one 500 / 850mb tropospheric chart, on its own, to rule out a major cold spell 2 weeks from it is flawed. Even more so when the chart used is over 10 days away! Timmytours example above is a good one. A pretty dreary outlook if looking at this chart on just it's own... Roll on a week and not only do we have this... We also have getting underway one of the greatest winters of the 20th century for cold and snow in the UK.

You are certainly not alone in that respect Blessed. I'm due to depart for a week on the 3rd and I have been far more concentrated on Northern Alps than the UK when viewing the charts from the past 7 days! Does seem like there is potential for a moderate snowfall this coming weekend, maybe 10-15cm or so, which would be nice. Thereafter broad westerlies look like dominating. Not too much in the way of snowfall during the week (as it currently stands), hopefully not too much in the way of a TM airmass but it does remain a possibility mild south westerlies could prevail.

Nice tease from the ECM, no surprise looking at the strat charts, shame it can't happen though because apparently cold is not possible before Mid Jan!?! Rule nothing out folks, as I posted yesterday, the eye candy charts are nearly upon us.

Mobilty from the models this morning but a lot of uncertainties within. None more so than member 7 of the GEFS (oh yes, shamelessly cherry picked) who tracks the low SE all the way into Southern Italy and the Arctic high then does noses over to see what's going on and it all ends up being, well, rather interesting to say the least... We can but hope!

Amen to that. I had ice on my windscreen at 2:30pm this afternoon and look at my location!

Cheers Sylvain, I assumed it was not being run at the moment. Any chance you can make them look as good as the chart I mistakenly posted?

Yep, just spotted that myself! Thought that was way too good to be true :-) They must have stopped running the BC version a few days ago then. Ah well back to drawing board.

Hmmm, very interesting. Running through the GEFS, at around D10 the EP ridge is there in all its glory as expected and its influence our side is pretty muted, run the bias corrected charts (and this example is typical across the members), this... Becomes this... Edit: ignore the above! (like we should have done in the first place when it came out?) Wrong date on the chart, didn't spot it when posting. That aside, the 18z still a pretty good set of ens all in all though.

I noticed this when viewing the run earlier. Even though on the face of it there is little to cheer about on the EC 12z, that trough disruption at the tail end of the run does infer the possibility of ridging up ahead of it. It may be gone by tomorrow but then again, maybe not. I stand by my comment made earlier on today that given the warming and wave2 activity due up in the strat shortly, eye candy FI trop charts are just around the corner. Now whether they verify of course is a completely different matter... Also, agree with comments made by some posters today. The standard of posting is worst I have ever seen it on here at the moment. Seriously, if you are going to have a hissy fit every time the charts go through a spell of showing 'poor' output, either move to Siberia or find another hobby, it is ruining what is otherwise the best forum on the internet.

Gutted for those who having endured a week of no snow then had the irony of a massive dumping stopping them from getting to the airport on time as they headed home!! It will hit some resorts hard as it always does. Once this happens to you, you inevitably start looking higher up for your next snow fix. Looking at Les Gets/Portes Du Soleil (vested interest as that is where I'll bee this time next week), Looks like a bit more today then nothing much all week but cold enough for the cannons to do their stuff and a good base to work off. The weekend looks like turning a bit milder before better snow potential going through the following week with the likelihood of fronts approaching from a broad westerly direction. Although these can often be of rain lower down in this region so hopefully there will be a good Northerly element to it.

Yes, I'd noticed there seems to be a relatively short lag, presumably having a strong E-QBO helps a bit in that respect. Wave2 is interesting though. The forecasts are continually pepping it up in strength and whilst it does wane quite quickly, this may still change. And even if not you can't help but think a much bigger wave2 event is waiting in the wings to bulldoze in very shortly afterwards.

Yes but as always, there are two ways of looking at it. Are the op and control out of kilter or are they leading the way? Guess we won't have the answer to that for a while yet.

ECM op full of promise this morning. Not surprising after viewing the latest strat charts which (if correct) could send the forum rollercoaster into warp speed over the next week or so. With the Arctic high coming into range on the ECM to start influencing matters on our side of the NH but a deep vortex still to our NW, I can see moods swinging back and forth between Atlantic depression and unmitigated elation as the models struggle to get a grip.

I was going to big up yesterday's ECM strat charts but I can't follow those excellent summaries by Matt and Lorenzo! Other than highlighting my 2 favourite charts of the run... Not far off a technical SSW (day 7-9 actually closer but this is better in terms of the whole column reversing, albeit too far north for an SSW) Strongest yet I note today's 00z ECM op is interesting and whilst it has the distinct look of another attempted mid Atlantic ridge that will topple, I'm not so sure it will be that clear cut with what is going on up above, yet.