eduggs

I'm not trying to be pessimistic. But if you look at the 500mb chart, the ULL is over Chicago on Sun. night. That is unfavorable for us except with the deepest arctic airmass in place, in which case we'd get IP and ZR. The secondary SLP tracking near or south of us doesn't save us because the lower and mid-levels have already been torched due to the position of the ULL and primary SLP.

What a weenie map. Must be some phantom sleet somewhere in there for NJ, though I didn't see it in the panels. No snow anywhere near NJ or SENY on that run.

To me, the problem is that every wave takes the same path: CO to IL to Ontario. The upper levels drive SLP formation, which in turn drives fronts and airmass advection.

Lots can change as weather forecasting is unpredictable. But storm 1 is not looking promising except maybe distant N or NE suburbs with some ZR to start and inverted trof snow showers to end. I'm more interested in storm 2, but the trof axis has been immovable for days of model runs and it is too far west. A break from the rain and some decent cold still looks to be 10 days away, if it comes at all. I'm hoping for some positive surprises.

Could very well be. But the 0z was a slight step back from 12z in terms of wintry hopes locally. The trof has sharpened up, strengthening the primary SLP and increasing warm SW winds. Not the 0z I was hoping for.

For the moment, I'm firmly of the opinion that the Sun-Mon event will be rain for the coastal plane through our area. I don't like the trough axis being so far west - it virtually guarantees a primary slp near the Lakes. This looks too much like so many events so far this year. That said, there is some counter evidence to potentially threaten the narrative. The 18z ICON, 12z UK, and 12z CMC were all pretty close to a wintry event. The 12z EC wasn't too far off. And the 12z JMA looked like a snowstorm. So far the 0z ICON shifted slightly the wrong way. But any additional movement SE and/or colder for the rest of the 0z suite would put us close to the game.

Locally I'm approaching 10 months since the last 1" of snow and 24 months since the last 6" event. I decent event in 3 years. Just brutal.

Still minor changes aloft. Not big enough changes for areas outside of SNE unfortunately. But better than it shifting NW I suppose.

Is the event over for BOS?

Take the win. Could be a turning point.

How far off was QPF from the 3 or 4 run average on the EC? Or was it more the 3rd party clown maps that were off?

Radar looks pretty sweet. But oddly April-esque. Like a late Spring Ocean Gale. Very ragged echoes.

Good thing long term verification is so poor. I'd go warm for early Feb. because of persistence and background alone. But it's really too early to know. People can throw around all the correlations and analogues they want... they are modest at best. A small, unexpected wrinkle can change everything. We won't be able to see much into Feb. for at least 5-7 days.

Enjoy what you can even if it's an imperfect storm! Looks like a TROWAL to me - notoriously difficult to model. Full sunshine out my window for the first time in what feels like weeks... but your storm looks exciting AF to me. BOX snow map looks reasonable. Low low expectations leading in makes whatever happens more fun. Bust potential for sure. Funny how we miss the threats hiding in plain sight while we look for something more archetypal.

No argument. Worst winter of my lifetime to date hands down for both snow and temperatures.

It would be exciting if there were a renegade TROWELL or inverted trof well to the west of the modeled precip. shield. It's not like it's completely unprecedented, but very unlikely in this situation. There are just limited lifting mechanisms to generate precip. west of eastern LI. Scattered flurries are probably all most will get outside E LI, or SECT.

Problem might not just be surface temps. Might just need to wait until the mid-levels are saturated. There could also still be a warm layer near 800mb.

I think the radar looks pretty encouraging at this early juncture and low level temps look to be just cold enough for most areas west of the Canal. I share Tip's memory experience that these retrograding, decaying ocean lows with a NW displaced and unwrapping precip. field tend to underperform. But some of that failure was due to low level dry air, which we are not dealing with. So far I like the look on radar and satellite. I could see a band of .5" per hour developing tomorrow-tomorrow night. Could even envision a dual snow max with one inland near the Canal, and a second a little further west in a pivot zone. I'm probably biased by my rooting for someone to get a win.

For sure. And also not spoiled rotten from years of overperformance relative to climo.

Any snow lover in EMA not enjoying this setup is doing it wrong IMO. Weekend, long-duration, sub-basement expectation, nowcast with 0-4"+ possible. It checks a lot of boxes. These are special.

Fun, highly trackable, modestly long-duration event. I expect localized winners and losers. This could end up being the most fun event of the season for some in part because it's happening during a weekend, partially during the day.

Good question to which I don't have a great answer. Personally I don't consider anything past 10 days, even ensembles. And I try not to put much stock in anything beyond 7 days. Right now I'm looking for a specific mechanism shown in successive ensemble runs across multiple models that deliver a seasonably cold airmass to the SE and mid-Atl. I don't care about future modeled NAO or PNA state because I consider those lagging and not leading indicators. But I should note that I'm looking for different things locally than most of SNE, particularly C and NNE.

I've been on these boards as long as you have. I think you're a very good forecaster. But my observation is that our board collective success at seeing good outcomes coming beyond 10 days is very low. There are all sorts of biases at play - confirmation, recency, availability etc... and a tendency to explain away failures and exaggerate successes. What I have observed is that during lousy winter periods, things tend to flip more favorable every, lets say, 2-3 weeks. With people claiming to see a favorable "pattern" coming a roughly similar intervals, these things are bound to line up every now and then. But we are still limited by model skill at those extended ranges, and if we bothered to actually keep score, we would see that the success rate is very low. If someone wants to do it, go back through the past 2 years of posts and look up how often someone posted a "good look." Brooklynwx is a perfect candidate to focus on. Then count up how many times the good look beared fruit.

We're speaking past each other and probably not reading full posts. Problem is simple. The seasonable modeling bias across the full spectrum of guidance beyond 7 days is too cold in the east and too warm in the west. People aren't making the adjustment. So again, the problem is the correlation between a modeled "good look" and future outcome, superimposed on top of a questionable correlation between a loosely defined "look" and local non-mountain snow. The solution is to 1) focus closer in and 2) pay more attention to specific ensemble modeled features as opposed to mathematically averaged parameters.