high risk

roads are ok here in southern Howard County, but there is a pretty glaze on the trees.

This is a legit concern. Most of the 00z hi-res guidance increases the lull time.

This is a good catch, but the idea of that initial band having some sleet in it is an outlier solution, and the associated forecast soundings have a warm layer that is just barely above freezing. Something to watch for in the evening runs, though.

because the snow falling tomorrow morning will fall at temperatures in the 20s which always causes problems

Fantastic agreement among the hi-res models for the initial band of snow at some point during the 7-10am or so time frame (earlier for those further west) followed by a break for a few hours before the main batch of precip arrives with snow changing to sleet to (maybe a period of freezing rain) to rain through the mid/late afternoon hours (with the temps taking extra time to crack the freezing mark north of I-70). I still believe that the morning snow band is going to cause a lot of road problems with the temps in the 20s.

It's worth noting that there is really good agreement that there will be a band of snow pushing across the area during the morning tomorrow. It's narrow, and it won't last long (and it's not clear how far south it will extend), and accumulations won't be great. BUT, it will fall with temps in the mid 20s, so it will likely cause some travel troubles. It's also clear that we then get a break before the primary precip band arrives from the west. How much we can warm before it arrives will of course determine the impacts from that.

No doubts at all about the shear. NAM nest showed a strongly forced line of convection moving through very early Sunday. As Yoda notes, instability is pretty meager, but temps will be rising through the 60s Saturday night, so being able to mix down some momentum to the sfc isn't a total fantasy.

Getting stickage now in southern Howard County. Impressive rates.

Later tonight???? This event is over by 8pm at the latest.

Cwg calling for 65 5 days from now I think it's legit and may actually end up too low. Most guidance shows 850 temps approaching +15 here. Saturday and Saturday night are likely toasty, and Sunday could be too if the GFS solution is too fast.

Ah, so it's a Kuchera-derived product. And I missed that you were referring to areas well west of DC Metro. Thanks!

I'll bite. Where are you getting that the NAM ratios are 11-12:1???

I like what I've seen from the Kuchera plots. I'll admit that it drives me nuts when it's going to be an all sleet or a white rain event, and people post the 10:1 maps screaming "The GFS/NAM/whatever is predicting 14" here. LOL." The models are NOT doing that. Any sleet or snow gets tallied together into a liquid amount, and then the web sites slap on a generic ratio that makes a product with already severe limitations 5x worse.

I'd respectfully argue that it's way better than 10:1 maps in any sort of sleet or mixed events or in a daytime event with lousy rates or super warm ground. It fails in the events with it knows that that the temps are marginal and cuts amounts that can stick, but in the real world the rates overcome the marginal temps.

Nope. Still going strong....