CAPE

Here! Drinking a Cocoa Loco in celebration of the coming sleet bomb, or freezing rain, or whatever lol.

Not really a hobby. More like being a fan of a bad football team.

First/only/final call for my yard: 1/2" of snow, 1/2" of sleet, 0.2" of zr, topped off by 20 mins of snizzle.

This captures the initial thump pretty well.

That second wave is worth watching. Pretty nice on the Para, but it could possibly evolve into something a little more.

Nice to see the Para back on WB.

ICON has the second wave for later Friday with an inch or 2 for southern/eastern areas.

He did it!

Isn't the north trend as we approach game time a universally accepted weenie rule?

I wonder if WW has ever deleted a post.

Dude..

6z NAM and GFS are a bit north of their previous runs. Not a good move for those of us living on the southern/eastern edge. Really need to see continued slight adjustments south.

Somewhat interesting discussion from Mount Holly. Nothing earth shattering, and pretty much agrees with my assessment that the front end is everything here.. Changes...Guidance overall has shifting southward some with the surface low track and therefore is colder. Given enough consensus, shifted some higher snowfall amounts farther south and east. If this colder trend holds, then there may be less freezing rain and just snow/sleet. Still maintained a zone of freezing rain however late Thursday afternoon and evening. Despite some increase in the snow/sleet totals south and eastward some, no changes were made to the Winter Storm Watch. In addition, after collaborating with our neighboring offices we opted to remain with the Watch at this point with no upgrades just yet. Expect all snow at the onset over most of the area due to the cold/dry airmass and the enhanced lift/dynamic cooling in the frontogenesis zone. Given a robust 850-700 MB jet, would expect that we will start to see a transition to sleet from south to north Thursday afternoon. How fast this warm layer aloft progresses north is still a question as guidance continues to wrestle with this. The 00z NAM and some other guidance is a little colder and trended south some with the surface low track. The forecast soundings, especially from the NAM show a decent sleet potential into portions of the I-95 corridor later Thursday afternoon and evening. We continued with a blended approach which gets sleet mixing in across the I-95 corridor. Since the consensus was a little colder, did not bring the mixed precipitation as far northwest as previously. The warm layer aloft may not be well pronounced which may result in more snow, although lighter precipitation intensity could tip that more toward some sleet. Snow and ice amounts...Total were increased some a bit farther south and east based colder trend. The thinking is that a zone of quick accumulations (rates up to 1 inch per hour) occurs with the initial burst but totals then will likely be cut down by mixing later in the event. As of now, the timeframe from about 6 AM to 2 PM Thursday looks to feature heavier snow intensities and when the road conditions should tend to deteriorate quickly. Over the New Jersey coastal plain and southern Delmarva, amounts will be highly dependent upon how well the dynamic cooling with the initial precipitation overcomes the encroaching warm layer aloft. Generally expect 1-3 inches at this time, but amounts further northwest in this zone could get 3-5 inches if the progression continues slightly south. Regarding ice amounts, confidence is rather low at this time, stemming from uncertainty in the positioning of the freezing rain/sleet transition zone. But currently have some areas in the vicinity of I-95 with up to a tenth of an inch of ice Thursday evening.

Para was the first model to hint at some additional action on the backside. I noticed it several runs ago- during the brief time when WB offered it lol.

NAM has 2" of sleet here and a half inch of zr lol. Building an iceberg.

Yeah it has been clear since this first began trending back from what looked a rain event, that the best possible outcome would include quite a bit of non-snow p-types for the coastal plain. But now that we are here, the way to maximize the snow part is to get it to come in hot and heavy on the front end. Maybe the precip 'fork' look will morph into something different in the next few runs.

None of these maps are ever good lol. Just looking at the thermals I know what I need here. Precip needs to come in fast and fall hard, and even then 2-4" is probably the best outcome before mixing. That has seemed like a reasonable expectation, but with these latest solutions implying an initial dry area, that wont work. Now we are seeing some potential on the backside on some guidance, but I don't trust that a bit given how the coastal looks to evolve. That will end up being little to nothing at this latitude.

These things always seem to go from something simple and workable to convoluted. The good front end thump is perfect for this set up with the legit cold/dry air in place initially. That idea seems all but gone. The regular GFS still has it though. I will probably have to kick it out of bed in a couple hours.

This is what it looked like at 12z lol.

Yep that is a hell of a betrayal. Matches everything else though.

It never came out on WB at 18z. What does it look like? It was my baby, but I am sure it betrayed me.

Did the 18z Para have a malfunction?

Looks like it. I just hope I can get in on the goods of one or both. Kind of looking betwixt and between here for the snowy parts.

I think we have an evolving situation with the back end. Euro now has 4"for southern DE. That dead zone is kind of brutal, but will probably change.

I just noticed my rain gauge says 1.25" I forgot about the snow/sleet/ice caked on there that melted in the last 2 days. I think I probably got 0.6" or so last night. It poured for a while.