All Activity

Where are all the pretty pinks and purples?

Sunday, January 18, 2026 8:58AM EST Shallow layer of very cold air will continue to undercut the warm/moist environment overhead. As temperatures fall into the lower 20s as we go through the morning, showers and thunderstorms will begin to overspread the region owing to an approaching shortwave with decent elevated CAPE (MUCAPE 250-500+ J/kg). As this elevated convection overspreads the region torrential rain falling into the lower 20s surface temps will efficiently freeze on all untreated surfaces allowing for significant icing. Freezing showers and thunderstorms will continue into the afternoon. Precip will change over from freezing rain to sleet from NNW to SSE as the sub-freezing layer becomes deeper allowing for upwards of 2 to 4 inches of sleet on top of the significant ½” to 1” of ice accretion. The ice accretion itself will lead to widespread power outages. Temps will fall into the teens as we go through the afternoon and into the evening. There will be a lull in the precip by the mid evening hours as the first shortwave moves to the ENE. But the next one will be right on its heels. The second and more life-threatening shortwave will approach the region by the early morning hours of Monday. Precip will overspread the region from SW to NE between 4am and 8am starting off as snow briefly along and north of I-66 and Route 50 before changing over to sleet as we go through the morning hours. Once again, elevated instability will be plentiful owing to unusually warm and humid air over the SE US overrunning the very cold lower-levels of the atmosphere here w/ MUCAPE upwards of 500+ J/kg again. As we reach the early afternoon hours showers and thunderstorms will really start training over the same areas, generally the Greater DC and Baltimore metros. Surface temps will rise into the 19-23F range. But with very warm air just of the surface, precip will change over into freezing rain. This is when the truly historic destruction may occur with ice accretion rates in excess of ¼ to ½” per hour over the course of the afternoon into the evening. By nightfall, many areas may have received an additional 1.5” to 3” of ice accretion leading to universal power outages and tree damage with many structures also experiencing significant damage. Precip will exit the region by midnight with skies remaining overcast as we go towards dawn on Tuesday. This will be a historic and life-threatening event that will affect many aspects of life locally over the next several days or few weeks.

Running out of time though unfortunately

Whoa...check out this video clip from out near Erie. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/185dALhiJN/

Happy New Year to all of you weather weenie folk in here. Looks to start wintery in feeling and perhaps sight in some areas.

Also enough to put us into the top 10 Decembers of all time.

Seriously looking at this possibility we need the NS to slow down in relation to the southern shortwave as right now it is outrunning our southern piece by a solid 12-24 hours. While obviously this would be a major change its not altogether impossible if pieces start moving this way by tomorrow morning. Additionally, our southern shortwave moving further north (which is the trend considering our block failing to form) would help in this process. Another thing to note is a small piece of energy detached from our shortwave out west which seems to help move it push the precip north and constructively interact with the NS. Looking at the recent Euro run (top) vs old run (bottom) this is quite clear to see. Now that previous discussion was focused on salvaging this into a decent snowstorm. If instead we set our sights on a far more reasonable coating to 1inch storm we just need the Euro as it is to be right. Though, an interesting solution is the NAM. The NAM opts to have no NS interaction and instead brings a stronger southern vort north on its own. While this has the thermals shot (partially due to no cold push I assume) it manages to get a solid quarter inch of ice in the area. As for now all we can do is see which way the models evolve. Though, it wouldn't surprise me to see this creep north as @Terpeast mentioned with the blocking up north failing to materialize.

Friday. 11 am. DCA. WINTER IS COMING THIS WEEKEND

The first third of the month's certainly not good. TWC/Wunderground's wanting first full week of January to be repeats of Januaries 1998 and 2023 with a blowtorch.

A day late and a dollar short!?!

Man I went big for BWI this year trying to send them some good vibes. I hope late January produces for them.

Looks like NWS just measured 1.9” since 4pm including an inch in 80 minutes so should hopefully get into that 3-5” range.

Same here with the snow. Light to moderate with a dusting on all surfaces.

We'll take 40s and rain instead..we need the rain though

FWIW the NAM replacement is a sleet storm up to DC

Picked up an inch before switching to freezing drizzle. 28 degrees so it’s creating a glaze pretty efficiently on the roads.

Winds really picking up with gusts in the mid 30s and it’s dumping. Can’t ask for a better birthday treat!

Woulda been a real Bomb if we had a bit more PNA ridging.

Watch this be a reverse Feb 20 type bust where we manage to get a phase of the NS and southern energy within 5 days of the event.

This was the first storm I “tracked” on a weather community. I was only 14 years old. Joined up on the weather channel forums and wright-weather I believe. About 1-2 weeks before this storm our local met. Hurricane Schwartz had a segment on NBC10 Philly about a pattern change in the LR. He spoke about something called a -NAO which made me curious. Not sure why I remember this vividly, but I do lol. I always loved weather and snow so I did some internet searches and found the message boards. Before this I would get my weather news from TWC local forecasts and their 5 day outlooks lol. There was no model snow maps really that I remember. If I recall, people just posted snow fall amounts from the MRF or ETA. Using precip maps and soundings I suppose. Anyway, the night of the storm I stayed up all night watching the radar. I remember speaking to our very own Ji on AOL AIM and him telling me how big of a bust this event was for DC. I didn’t know much, but watching the radar I could tell the storm was farther E than expected. Luckily it just clipped us good enough to get a few hours of +SN in the morning down here in Philly. Ended with around 8 or so I believe. I remember speaking to someone in C Nj on aim early in the morning as well. He was going nuts at how heavy the snow was and reported thunder snow. I think his screen name was Boltaire or Killerhamster. He could be a member here since he lived in your region, who knows. Good times, then later in that season we had the March 01 bust which taught me a lot about this hobby .

Snowing moderate to heavy here for the last hour or so. Just measured 3 inches. It seems north of the city is getting it now.

Small bumps NW on the EPS..

With the approach of our next system, winds already began shifting to a more southerly direction, and that pushed some lake moisture and accumulating snow into the area this afternoon. I see the BTV NWS has us in the 3-6” shading here in the valley with some 4-8” shading farther north along the spine toward Mt. Mansfield, and that generally seems to mesh with the point forecasts I’ve seen. Some modeling gets the mountain areas up toward half an inch of liquid equivalent in the Mansfield area, but most seem to be more in the 0.2” to 0.3” range. As noted in my previous post, every bit of liquid equivalent that comes with this system will do that much more with respect to improving the quality of the snow surfaces, so it will definitely be interesting to see how the mountains fare.

Keep moving it a couple hundred miles north.

So jealous. Enjoy