It's heavier during the 00-03z or so window this evening - could be a sneaky period of moderate snow (or sleet, per the NAM nest) here before a change to light sleet or rain.
I was very pleased with the GFS too, but the GFS para has the same general shape of the QPF field but cuts down the amounts between DC and the MD/PA by at least 1/2.
I liked the 850 wind axis a good deal more in the nest, and there is more precip later Monday in our area than in the parent, but there is certainly no argument that even this run didn't get it done for our area.
except that if we fail on the CCB, 6-8" for areas north of DC probably isn't the default option. 3-5" seems more reasonable, and that could legitimately fall to 2-4" (see NAM nest).
Correct. Everyone laughed back in December when the NAM was the first model to show that storm coming much further west and ruining chances for heavy snow along the I-95 corridor. That doesn't at all mean that it's correct now, but to completely dismiss it at this stage comes with risk.
Most of the source of spread in the ensembles (SREF and HREF not included) comes from tweaks to the initial state, and one must go further into the forecast period before those tweaks start to manifest themselves as significant spread in the outcomes. If we forced spread to develop much faster in the forecast, it's likely that the spread in the longer ranges would be unusably large.
Still a bit too far north with its maximum love (for us Howard County folks), but each of the last 4 cycles has see the GFS para shift southward with the location of its max. Just need one or two more....
Yeah, don't overlook this. NAM nest was notably drier than the parent. PWs seemed quite a bit lower over the source region for the moisture - not sure if it's correct, but I don't recommend completely dismissing it either.
Not really relevant to totals, but the NAM and especially the NAM nest like the idea of a lead band around sunrise Sunday followed by a break before the primary swath of warm advection snow arrives.
Perhaps slightly, but bigger changes in the low-level temperatures are more likely if the background synoptic solution changes. Of course, you're right that as we get closer to the valid time, it's even better to use the 3 km NAM nest.
Very clear that the 00z NAM has a much stronger wave moving across the midwest than the 12/18z GFS did - looks much closer to the 12z Euro. It's also not as progressive as the GFS, but it's a little faster than the 12z Euro/Canadian.
If we're going to parse ICON details, the 2m temps show that at some of what is being presented as "rain" would fall into a sub-freezing air mass, with the freezing line barely to DC by 09z Monday.
Some of us had two follow-up snowfalls.
That Friday was another synoptic snowstorm, but there was a vort that Tuesday afternoon that put down a band of heavy snow across DC and the east side of town. I got another 6" out of that unexpected event.