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I'd be okay with a sleetfest here in Central VA, as long as we get warning level snow first. Would be great to keep the snowpack around as long as possible.

I think he's more right than wrong. Phones know

Yup. What the models showed yesterday with it being mostly NS energy meant a quicker storm with that sliding by first with its WAA that everyone worried about being smushed. If the NS and SS merge then it slows it all down, allows it to crank, and while the WAA gets more robust it also has a longer SE/E fetch off the oceans. A strong HP to the north helps but thats only at the very low levels for the coastal plain. Upstairs the warm layer will smash in to the fall line. Feb 04 a good example. Was a nice storm for DC but had sleet for hours until ULL swung thru

I was just wondering about this last night - thanks for going back and finding it. I seriously remember being at dinner on Valentines Day and checking the 18Zs (yes, really), and even though it looked fine, you could feel what was about to happen as ECMWF shifted south. So if we make it through today... maybe I can actually start feeling some confidence in this thing? P.S. My friend the MOGREPS, so this isn't just a banter post:

Okay, since this is medium/long range discussion, I didn't see an issue showing what the forecasters are thinking.

No, it petty much is. Though arguably it’s a mix of that and a colder/better oriented scenario 5.

A nail biter for sure ( well, at least for us in SNE ). The next few days will be telling. Thanks for you insight.

Is the 6z Euro your "greatness" scenario, or is it not there yet? If not, what do we need to trend towards?

At this point, I'd take cold rain over some of the freezing rain modeled. Cliff diving will be reserved for an historic ice storm, not a miss. I wonder if there's value in having a prep thread for this system. I know if you're reading this board, even as a layman like me, you probably have a better idea than most about what to expect. But this is probably going to be a long event without power in the cold for a swath of people who have no other heat source, and may not have the amassed clothing and other accoutrement, to say nothing of experience, to deal with it. Even lurkers here might benefit from a common sense list of things to think about.

I’m not going to lie I love where we are at. I’m a little nervous about mixing down at UVA but as long as we don’t see any crazy north shifts today everyone should be fine for a (primarily) cold smoke. All the models have pretty much trended exactly how we want them too as well. Only thing is id love it if we don’t keep pushing this storm back!

Hmmmmmm.... Could it be.......

Great trends overnight but now the threat of mixing def exists for me. 2016 at this lead time looked like 10”-20” of cold powder and I ended up getting 11” with rain and a dry slot.

I hadn't had a chance to get out yesterday's mountain report, but I'm posting it now - conditions should be fairly similar today with the cold temperatures keeping everything well preserved. Although we’re currently between defined weather systems here in Northern Vermont, snow continues to fall, with a few tenths of accumulation down here in the valley and a couple of new inches reported up at Bolton Valley. In sessions on the mountain over the past few days, I’ve found the powder conditions to be quite respectable, especially at 2,500’ and above, and with temperatures remaining fairly comfortable today in the 20 F range, it seemed another outing was in order. The Village parking lots filled up by mid-morning yesterday, requiring my older son and I to do a bit of shoveling to create a parking spot, so I headed out a bit earlier today to make sure I wouldn’t need to park down at Timberline. Based on the rate at which parking spots were filling up this morning, it was feeling less busy than yesterday, and that’s not too surprising because visitors from out of state frequently use the holiday Monday as a travel day vs. a ski day. Today I was shooting for a smaller tour than yesterday, but I also wanted to spend a decent amount of time above that ~2,500’ level where the deepest/best powder conditions have been found. So I headed up the Bryant Trail to the Bryant Cabin, then continued my ascent with a traverse above Gardiner’s Lane that topped me out around 2,800’ in fairly short order. I made my descent through a fun combination of four or five different glades, with a big chunk of that being through some of the terrain in the JJ’s area. I also made it out to Gotham City and skied the Alchemist glade. I was initially a bit leery about skiing Alchemist, since it faces somewhat south and is below that 2,500’ level, but it wound up delivering some excellent powder turns. Its pitch and tree spacing fit the available powder very well, and the entire eastern section of terrain was untouched, so it was first tracks through there. I’d say relative to the past few days, there was an interesting transition in conditions today that I hadn’t expected – that demarcation line for the best skiing at around 2,500’ has definitely begun to blur. The additional snow probably altered things a little, but between the powder settling and the subsurface drying out and appearing to become more frangible, the quality of the powder skiing above 2,500’ dropped down subtly, and the quality of the powder skiing in the 2,000’ to 2,500’ elevation range has come up somewhat. The skiing is still the best where the powder is deepest at those higher elevations, but I’d say it was quite good everywhere in the 2,000’ to 2,800’ range I skied today, with those subsurface changes appearing to play a big role.

Overnight - The EC-AIFS has trended further south but also a lot more amped. the other major guidance has trended north and more amped. There’s been an improved consensus. I think it’s most telling to see the EC-AIFS amp up but that doesn’t translate to a track further north. This is important. I like the 6z EC-AIFS - its current depiction and QPF as a baseline from here.

My man, we don’t need weather app screenshots. Put them in banter if you really need to.

The Euro is doing exactly what we wanted it to with my breakdown yesterday. It’s managing to get help with the NS and have a legit HECS on the table.

Imagine if this had happened 40 years ago, before the Hadley Cell swallowed the world....that 30" in VA would be in GA!!!

My son just texted that Apple weather says 2 feet this weekend

Hopefully history doesn't repeat. Would like to know the difference e.g. cold, HP placement and strength.

Toss AI GFS because I don’t like the outcome.

2010 is not walking through that door. wagons north (somewhat).

You want the GFS and its products showing a miss south at this stage.

Yes, lots of them. Most seem to be very good for us, if we are okay with any type of wintry weather. By the way, I really like the change to the "Key Message" format of the NWS GSP AFDs, rather than the short-term, mid-term, and long-term format of prior years.

Some place, not sure where, is gonna get absolutely smoked by this thing down south. Could be arkansas, could be south carolina.