CAPE

Snow here with a solid coating, but I am guessing it wont last much longer.

Ok, as long as you realize the TT "snow" maps are shit.

Interesting tidbits from Mount Holly AFD- The ultimate evolution of the first southern-stream perturbation will be what is responsible for our winter weather late tonight and Thursday. A strong anticyclonic upper-level jet streak will combine with midlevel differential cyclonic vorticity advection to aid in intensifying surface low pressure from the northern Gulf of Mexico tonight to the Mid-Atlantic coast Thursday afternoon. Intense warm advection atop a low-level baroclinic zone will aid in widespread precipitation to the north and northeast of the developing low. Meanwhile, a strong surface high will remain in southeast Canada, providing cold onshore flow for the northern Mid-Atlantic preceding the storm. Models are, as usual, too moist with the predecessor boundary-layer environment, with dew points a good 6-10+ degrees lower than model consensus today. This will be important in two ways. First, it is likely that low-level saturation requirements will delay precipitation onset in our CWA, with snow not likely to get going in earnest until near or just after daybreak. Second, models are likely too warm at the surface, especially during the main "thump" of precipitation during the morning hours. Sided with colder guidance here. With models trending slightly northward with the warm-nose influence on precipitation type on Thursday, our inclination was to be a little less aggressive than consensus in this regard. No question that the strength of warm advection will be intense, likely leading to a veritable sleet storm in a good chunk of the area as the event unfolds during the day. However, there has been a tendency for higher-res guidance to be a little too aggressive in shunting the warm nose to the north this season. Of course, there has also been a tendency for northwest shifts in the snow/sleet/freezing rain geographical distributions within 24 hours of the event (playing out once again with today`s guidance). It will be quite interesting to see how the 00z solutions play out, as run-to-run variability has been diminishing confidence in the forecast for this event considerably.

Dude.. SLEET.

Suggestion- Post in banter. When you have something relevant and interesting that adds to the discussion, post in the main threads.

Para says keep hope alive. Still total weenie. It's gonna crash and burn. At least our "new" GFS will be fun again. Plenty of digital snow.

You always take it in stride. It's those north Carroll dudes who think they live in Canaan or something.

Wow just looked at the 18z GFS. Not going well approaching game time. NW folks okay in the main thread? How is Jayyyy?

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.