Nice thread. Another one of the storms where warning signs showed on one or two model runs a few days out but because the overall trend wasn't a total disaster it was assumed they were outliers. Mesos came along and said there was something to those bad runs. Thats why they exist. To nail down the small stuff because for as good as globals are they can't get specific local dynamics nailed down until the storm forms and gets going.
All i know is that the power of warm layers cannot be denied and when they are modeled they will perform. At least IMBY. Blame warming oceans or whatever. Until we get a Krakatoa I will just assume snow will be more and more difficult to get DC east.
Thats because the orange arrow is warm air. When they draw it going over us its too far. We need that arrow to stop near VA Beach for us to get the cute puffy cloud