TSG

Said it 2 years ago and I'll say it again: It blows my mind how many non science-minded folks we have shouting their useless opinions on this forum these days. Go to banter or even better, Twitter, if you want to masturbatorily tell everyone their analysis or forecast is wrong (while offering no real counterpoint or useful critique). It's so effing weird and it's gotten worse the last 10 years with the "spread" of the internet. I'm starting to believe social media was a mistake. And I share Bob's sentiment. There's some previously decent posters who have lost their marbles the last few years. We need a lot less "OMFG look at the GEFS #WinterCancelled" repeated ad nauseum every 6 hrs. Post's like Bob's latest used to be much more the norm. Not living or dying by the latest model runs, but taking days/weeks worth of output as a whole and drawing higher level conclusions until those features got into the medium range. Thank you @psuhoffman and @CAPE (and a few others) for being voices of reason in here when a lot of others have exited over the years. That being said, my ignore list got a bit longer this morning

oh come on PSU... we both know that was not a comparable setup. First, positively (Jan 3rd) vs negatively (Dec 11) tilted troughs. Second, the storm on the 11th had another piece of energy over the GL pressing that cold into the backside which gave us a couple hrs of changover, instead of the 0-15 mins we're used to with cold chasing precip. There is no such mechanism available for the storm on the 3rd, at least not as currently depicted.

Yeah, no, the onus is not on everyone else in the room to go look and see if you're claims are true. That's your job. Bring some evidence to the show or expect that you'll be ignored. the GFS looks pretty accurate to me for this period. What are you looking at? Dec 19th 12z GFS, valid 00z Dec 27 12z GFS today, valid 00z Dec 27

Not sure I understand the macro comment. Typo? meant micro? I am certainly on your side when it comes to it being more difficult for us to see snow now than in the past. I've been called out multiple times for supporting it. I don't think this specific case can be attributed to that much if at all though. The SW flow at the surface up to ~900mb starts on the 30th/31st when that shortwave is still exiting Canada, not when it digs into the South and starts coming East on the 1st/2nd. There is NOTHING to resist that flow. No sign of a high pressure to our North anywhere. This is such a classic way for us to fail it's making my head spin that people are acting like it would normally work 10+ years ago. There's a friggin GLL (Great Lakes Low).... what I learned to be our #1 enemy for snowfall around here. IMO this setup sucks and would still suck if it was in the distant past.. And if we weren't all so traumatized from years of low snow I think more would be calling it for what it is. If you do have a specific example of where this worked previously I'll happily eat crow, but thinking back on past seasons this just seems like a stinker of an opportunity top to bottom.

I think a lot of people are ignoring the 48 hrs leading up to that point. Sure we have subzero 850s, but that doesn't matter if we've had SW flow at the surface for 2.5 days. This is not a good setup for snow anywhere below high elevation. Would you really expect snow in Winchester on the 3rd looking at this setup on the 1st? I wouldn't.

I don't understand the doom and gloom over this setup on the 3rd. This just isn't a good look for MA snow and never was. There's no real cold in the East to work with yet, it's all behind the storm. We need it in front.

i'm going to disagree pretty strongly on this point. The boundary layer up to ~900mb is torched from 2.5 days of Southwest/South flow starting on the 31st. Yeah these kind of storms can bomb out and make up for less than ideal temps, but there's no real cold for the storm to pull down from the N/NW. The panel below says it all, >0C 850s all the way to Maine... 45-50F surface coming in at 20kts off the Atlantic over NJ/DE. That's just not a recipe for snow in the Mid-Altantic in my experience, bombing cyclone or not.

Canaan and Timberline have about 1000' of extra elevation over Deep Creek/Wisp which helps a lot when temps are marginal. Those resorts almost always maintain better snowpack.

Late season form and we haven't even hit the solstice

This is how I feel right now. Not sure which way temps are going to play out the rest of winter, but with this many storms hugging the coast the past few months, it's hard for me to imagine we don't get a flush hit at least once before April.

PBP much appreciated. Taking Stormtracker's place this year?

What? there absolutely is an effect. Hagerstown is at like 500ft ASL, the Catoctins then top out over 1800ft just to the East. Wolfsville is definitely not benefitting from upslope, but it's not because the terrain isn't high enough. It's because they're only at 1000ft ASL and 1.5 miles East of the highest terrain in the Catoctins. They're sitting in a shadow too. It's not as bad as what Thurmont faces but it's enough to be easily seen on a map (below).

How many years have you been doing these now? Damn impressive this year. I thought we were going to blow through your numbers a couple weeks ago but the slowdown does seem imminent.

Do we have any fall leaf color experts in here? I'm wondering if the rain from Ophelia can save us from going straight to brown in the drought stricken areas or if this is just a little too late.

Still at 984 on the latest recon pass. Fresh convection popping up in the western half with a decent amount of lightning. Might get another small drop in pressure before landfall

the 5-10 miles of cooler SSTs along the coast are not going to have much effect on how strong this is when it lands

SSTs offshore are well over 80 These two stations are roughly equidistant from the current center, NW and SE respectively. The GS is between those two so temps are likely even higher where the storm is. Frying Pan Shoals is now at 80.1, was at 81.7 just before midnight. https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=41013 83.8 at this buoy https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=41002

that's rich after reading your last 10 posts in this thread. The storm is strengthening and it's clearly got tropical characteristics at this point. You've been poo-pooing this like a 5 y/o who needs a nap since yesterday.

And? that waters been getting churned by TS force winds for hours and hours. What was the temp 24 hrs ago?

Thanks for confirming how insufferable Gtown grads are

Glad we finally got this recon pass so all the debs can shut it and crawl back into their miserable little holes

Planning to chase this one from the Northern Neck. My parent's have a place on the Rappahanock side in Lancaster County. I'm thinking Reedville will be an exciting place on Saturday.

Do you have any visibility into what the equipment spec is? Is it a pyranometer? reference cell?

As an engineer in the solar industry, #1 has me breathing heavy

some 65+dBZ returns on that cell sitting over I-83