TriPol

The fact that the EURO has been running for about 10 minutes and no one has really said anything is saying something.

Definitely some warm air issues at the coast

Interesting how we're getting so much from such a weak low pressure.

Go down south. Plenty of that this week.

126 still snowing Tuesday morning.

Lee Goldberg said a higher chance of 12+ inches more North and West. I don't see that at all.

Gorgeous

It's only at 96 hours right now. Starts Sunday night, light, then gets going Monday. I'm not even through with Monday. How do you know this?

According to the GFS, Monday is the main event.

Is it me or is this much more suppressed?

We are in phase 6 https://charts.ecmwf.int/products/mofc_multi_mjo_family_index?base_time=202601210000

Is this true for lake effect snow too?

So, historically, if we get the highest ratios, we get lower amount. Fantastic tradeoff.

So if it’s 5 degrees outside, the ratios could be 6:1 and it’s 30 degrees outside it could be 15:1?

I’m not a Met and I don’t play one on TV, however; if we’ve got a chance at sleet, petty good bet that we don’t have 20:1 ratios. We thought this would be suppressed to the south originally, but even with that, we’d get .5 of QPF, which would mean 5-8 inches. Remember, there’s a snowstorm next week after this too. Now we’ve got the chance that maybe either the high pressure isn’t as strong as originally thought, or the low pressure is coming closer to the coast… which will warm the air. Warmer air = lower ratios.

It doesn't look all that impressive.

Right but how many times since then have we had Weenie suicides? Dozens. We're tracking a storm and then it dies. We never talk about those. But March 2001... it's a right of passage if you're going to be a weather weenie, you have to have a shot of scotch in your hand, be half drunk, and talk about it until the cows come home. We've had worse disappointments.

Is it tradition to discuss March 2001 every time there's a winter storm in our backyard? It's almost 25 years. Models have improved a lot since then. Can we let it die?

Go back here: NYC was in the bullseye a week out. Wound up being a record producing snowstorm for NYC.

Predicting where and when thundersnow will happen is difficult, but... this is the setup could give us that. Interestingly enough, the Great Lakes are forecasted to have Snowspouts this weekend.

According to the EPS mean, there is a definite indication of a MAJOR coastal low pressure center near the latitude of the Mid-Atlantic to Southern New England areas. The evidence that the ensemble members are plotting closely together shows that the group appears willing to evolve toward a coastal redevelopment or borrowed coastal system as opposed to working directionally inland. The Normalized Spread of the ensemble members indicates a low degree of spread across the Northeast region as indicated by the region of North and Central New Jersey and a decreasing amount of uncertainty narrowing in New York City. The greatest area of spread, i.e., the west and south of the city, indicates the confidence level for the track is very high. This also indicates mid-level pattern evolution will transfer to the surface of the climate system in an uncomplicated fashion. The ensemble indicates the same path of motion that has been forecasted by the H5 atmosphere since prior to multiple computer models becoming consistent at the H5, including last night's European model update. At this time the only remaining questions are how much water will fall within the axial centerline of maximum impact and when will maximum rainfall occur. This is why we chase storms all winter. Why we stay up until 3 am refreshing, analyzing. All because of storms like this.

Virga really isn’t a concern in a setup like this. Yes, the antecedent air mass is dry, but this is a deep, dynamically forced system with strong large-scale lift. Once precipitation starts, the column moistens very quickly. Virga issues tend to happen with weak forcing, shallow lift, or fast-moving systems trying to overcome dry air. A closed H5 low with sustained ascent overwhelms that problem. You might lose the very first echoes to evaporation, but not the storm itself.

From H5 (500 mb) height, we are looking at exactly the setup that has a high potential (high ceiling) for the NYC area for a major winter weather event. The ECMWF depicts a then fully closed 500mb low in the Northeast with large negative height anomalies and a slow pivoting flow. It represents a true 500 mb closed low, that is no longer open or progressing as a trough. It is vertically coherent, dynamically mature and no longer associated with the fast zonal flow of upper levels. The closed 500mb low will eventually be around for a period of time, not a question mark of how long. A compact and centered cold pool aloft is also critical to snow production efficiency. Closed mid-level lows create steep lapse rates, which in turn create significant lift and space throughout the region to support snow band formation, and through the mesoscale process create the large snowfall totals in NYC. Most storms that produce over 18 inches of snow are not continuous, steady snowfall, rather they are created by the time and conditions that create the most snow through banding.

There is no model showing 6 inches of snow for nyc right now. Nothing. Zero. We can all appreciate your need to stay conservative, but we should also stay reasonable.

I hated that with a passion. Up to a few days prior, I believe we thought we were going to have a pretty decent snowstorm. Not like this, but 6 inches of snow I think? It's been almost 20 years.