with 3 days out being as far as one dare peep some days?
Perhaps a bit exaggerated
but yes. This is not usual so you are not sure how things can unfold. For example, about the coming SSW, yeah it could be the SFW, but it opens some questions. The Sun has not yet rise over the Arctic, so how the stratosphere will stay warm until the end of March? Will waves activity continue during March to sustain the warming of the Stratosphere until the Sun rises and brings energy to the polar stratosphere? This is what happened last years, wave 1 after wave1, a continuous pile of wave 1 bringing again warmth to the polar stratosphere until the rise of the Sun. Of course, a dynamical breakdown of PV is forced by wave activity, but usually SFW occurs not too far away from the equinox, even if dynamically forced. But there is one big wave which comes, destroy everything with some lasting effects during 2 - 3 weeks, and then comes the Sun. And there is no need to pile up wave 1 over wave 1 to make the junction. For the 2016 SFW, I count at least four (4 !) waves 1 -perhaps even 5, I didn't try to count rigorously- during the end of February and the month of March. Speak of a fury...
And for this March, GFS is showing again the VP being almost perpetually assault by waves 1. So this leads to be more confident that, yes, what is coming is the SFW. But this is only a rationale by analogy (is this plain English?). For the moment, at least for me, I don't have a satisfactory explanation of the mechanisms of such extra early SFW, or if there is a reason why we are potentially seeing such an event two conservatives years.
I don't see also how the PV could get back in the saddle. But it is not again really satisfactory to say "I don't see". And for my brain, this is really frustrating because the rationale is not closed. If the train of wave 1 don't occur, the PV could in theory reestablish itself. But yes I don't see how in the middle of March such a mess could strengthen again. So I need to invoke the wave 1 activity and bet that GFS is true, without having any beginning of explanation of how it is possible to have such a fury of wave activity. And indirectly it implies that once the train of wave 1 is en route, it needs to continues at least until the end of March to make the ends meet. But there is nothing, to my knowledge, saying something like, if wave 1 starts to destroy the PV at the end February then the wave 1activity must continue until the end March. Actually it even sounds quite absurd xD Perhaps the PV is "feedbacking" itself trough the troposphere - stratosphere interaction, but is quite weak as an argument. And where is the wave 2 and eventually wave 3? GFS is not always showing something like a canonical wave 1. So, is it that an extra early SFW depends upon wave 1 activity? Or can wave 2 activity plays a role? This opens a lot more of questions. And there is also the vertical propagation of the wave, baroclinic, barotropic, how also this thins play together last year and perhaps -probably?- this year. Bref, actually, I am like a dog trying to bite its tail
So yes it is really difficult to forecast what could happen... And I am not a weather model (not yet xD ) but I think that sometimes they can be quite lost yes. They were build upon assumptions and equations from the 20th century, and the way models are build is probably impeding their forecasts ability.