NJwx85

Okay I'm speaking about the people on this board, mostly snow and weather enthusiasts. Not the general public.

A lot of people forget that in general when it comes to snow for the I-95 corridor, the deck is stacked against us. Theirs a reason why seasonal snowfall averages are what they are. You need everything to come together perfectly and a major component to that is blocking. The fact that we're even looking at such a big storm in such a progressive pattern is amazing in itself. More or less relying in this case on the phase/energy being so explosive that it turns into a dynamic bomb.

I believe the Northern stream wave that's going to eventually dig and phase is still located up near Alaska. Not in a great area in terms of sampling. I think we still have time for a significant shift but we're starting to run out of time.

The real problem on the GFS is that the flow is too progressive and it might be correct given the weak blocking. This run of the 12z GFS closes off Southeast of Cape Cod. I believe yesterdays 12z run closed off near the twin forks. About a 100 mile difference and why your surface low is so far East. That surface low is going to be to the NE side of that closed off ULL. Western areas need about a 200 mile Westward shift to get into double digit snowfall while Long Island needs about a 100 mile West shift on the GFS. The 12z GGEM is a complete disaster for everyone. Never closes off. Flow is way too progressive. Luckily it's a terrible model. The 12z NAM closes off near the NJ coast in an almost perfect spot. I haven't seen the 06z Euro 500mb but I'm guessing it was similar.

Blocking would have helped some with this storm but if too strong would have made this a DC to AC special.

The GFS except for a hiccup run here and there has been very insistent for days that this slips wide right. The Euro on the other hand has flipped flopped some. The NAM is still out of range but I like it’s general idea. Overall confidence is lower than I would have expected it to be this time yesterday and the kicker coming through the lakes Friday morning is worrysome.

One of the really awesome aspects of this storm is the potential for a long duration event thanks in part to the interaction with the cold front coming in from the lakes. The 18z NAM has light to moderate snow breaking out over the area well ahead of the coastal storm thanks to this interaction.

I think we know which camp the NAM is in, and I'm not surprised. It used to be a saying that the NAM and Euro combo was deadly. You can see the absolute mega band of lift setting up already at hour 84.

No, clearly said unhappy. The Euro is the only model that brings the big totals West of the city.

Better to play it conservative. A lot can happen inside of 96hrs. The GFS also cannot be completely ruled out. A compromise solution between the two would still leave a lot of the sub forum unhappy.

Textbook KU. This run splits the difference and tracks the ULL over the twin forks and then SNE. It's a much better track for areas West of the Hudson and potentially brings mixing issues into Boston.

Snowfall maps are extra useless with this storm. The models simply cannot pinpoint where the heaviest banding is going to occur so they broad brush a lot of snow. When you see totals like this, it means that you're going to see a lot of areas over 18".

Someone is going to cook under a band of 3-5" per hour with these dynamics. Probably going to be a screw zone just West of where that sets up. The wind is also going to be factor, limiting ratios.

This area is still going to do well. You will be measuring snow in inches however while SNE and E LI measure in feet.

They were both miller A storms. Both had very similar 500mb setups. The difference was the incredible blocking that occurred with the 96 storm. A meteorite would have gotten stuck under that banana high.

The only model currently showing that much snow West of the city is the Euro and we don't have the latest run yet. The problem is the track of the ULL. For the interior to do well the ULL needs to track over Long Island instead of Cape Cod.

I wouldn't go more than 6-12" for anyone West of the Nassau County line unless things shift substantially.

LOL at the Canadian. 952mb SE of the benchmark. Just look at how ridiculous these winds are. If it verified, it would likely bring a period of sustained hurricane force winds to cape cod and possibly the rest of SE NE with heavy snow. Just unreal model porn. Strong signal for a rapidly deepening and very damaging system. My initial thoughts are that you probably want to be East of the Hudson river for the big, big numbers but I think most of NJ and the Hudson Valley will still do really well. If you compare the more recent runs of the GFS to the ones that were showing a bigger storm further West, not much has changed with the upper air pattern. Subtle differences in timing are making big differences.

Boxing Day was a pure Miller A.

Embarrassing

Yup, right up there with March 2001 which many on here are too young to remember.

Miller A's always have a narrow jackpot zone with a major screw zone just to the NW of wherever that sets up. See 1/26-1/27 2015 and to a certain extent 12/26/10 as examples. It doesn't get any sharper than this.

Strong storm signal. Reminds me of 1/26-1/27 2015.

Never said 12 hours of snow. Said a good thumping for a few hours if I recall correctly.

Snowed moderately at my location in SE Rockland County from 8pm to 1am. Finished with about 3” before the changeover. It thumped for a good 3 hours.