MAG5035

11 minutes ago, mahantango#1 said:

From our great friend DT: last call 

Looks pretty reasonable. I wonder why his northern fringe goes to infinity at the PA/NY border. 

46 minutes ago, Atomixwx said:

My point and click is calling for 2-4 inches tonight. HWO posted. I suspect CTP will probably hoist advisories across the board at 2:00.

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This is the kind of event our area overachieves on if the good precip and forcing are north enough. 

1 minute ago, Itstrainingtime said:

I appreciate your dedicated effort to extend the hash just far enough east to include me. 

 

Haha I didn’t know everyone was putting their snow maps out while I was working on my post. The snow map game is strong in here today. 

My map for this.

Tried to make a compromise in blends but perhaps on the bolder side. I anticipate CTP needing another tier or so of advisories in the central and upping at least the western half of the watches to warnings. 3-5” amounts should be common in the main swath. Big question is in or near the area I hashed. I was going to get cute and try to highlight two distinct areas but I’d probably need a bigger map. Any rate I feel the hashed area has the best chance to see an embedded swath of 5-6”+ and/or local totals of 6+. Best 700mb forcing is in there coupled with 700mb temps in the low minus teens. The fluff bomb potential is high with that. The southern Laurels will have that plus the benefit of some extra upslope forcing and colder surface temps.. hence the distinct 5-8” I anticipate there. The other snowfall max is probably somewhere in the northern Mid-Atl (northern VA/northern MD, where better 850mb forcing will be. That won’t yield the bigger ratios like the 700mb dynamics that should be residing in southern PA. 

29 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

My comment was based on the quick changing situation last time and a compare to this time.  36 hours before the event, not many models have me getting 5" or more with the last system yet I had a WSW.  Now, there are several models that suggest 5" here and there is nothing from them except a down play of the situation.   They could of course be right but it is not consistent with their actions on the last system.  We are actually down to 24 hours before the event at this point.  

Yea that is true, and they honestly looked really good by the end of Sunday when things shifted south a bit. They upgraded high confidence counties to warnings and kept the watches that reached into the Sus Valley. The big shift south Monday at <24hrs til go time really sent the forecast sideways.  Then they never downgraded the warning they had for here last event either when it was abundantly clear AOO-UNV wasn’t getting 6+. Even JB said just prior to the event they needed to get rid of the warnings  for the State College area haha. They just turned it into a 2-4” winter storm warning, which I’ve never seen before. Then of course the high confidence counties above I-80 that were originally warned didn’t even see any snow in the end. What happened with the Tuesday event was brutal, and I don’t know if there was much to be done with that kind of a shift in guidance. 

I don’t expect anything drastic to happen with this system. Precip shield should have much less of a northern gradient than Tuesday and big thing for our area is determining how much of southern PA to put in advisories IMO. Wagons north seems to be the theme of happy hour so far (need the Euro yet). 

To be fair, LWX’s watch statement is for most likely outcome of 2-4” with isolated 6” amounts in heavier bands. That’s a bit of a stretch for a region that needs widespread 5” or more to verify a warning, technically. Both ends of the spectrum between CTP and LWX haha. 

16 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

There is more evidence to have a Winter Storm Watch out now than there was for the last storm, IMO.  Not only do they not do that they suggest it is too early for a WWA.   Local news channels are beating the drum and going with 2-4 or 3-5.    I try to stay away from insulting and not going to do it here, but this does seem bad.    There are some NWS sympathizers among us, and I appreciate the viewpoint, but this is not great. 

Certainly there’s support for the southern Laurel’s to have one. You’d think a coordination with LWX/PBZ having watches in Garrett/Western Alleghany in western MD (LWX) and Eastern Preston in WV (PBZ) would possibly warrant a watch up into Somerset. Those high elevations are probably going to be low-mid 20s during the height of the event. Temps aloft are supportive of a higher ratio event and couple that with some upsloping and I believe some of those short range models are onto something having 6”+ up in those areas. I dunno about watches east of that yet. Like I said a bit ago, probably don’t need to rush the advisories. I’d wait to see 0z and then go from there. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a mention in the HWO about any accumulating snow or prospects of it at all, though. 

I dunno, I doubt it but maybe getting burned on models bailing south 100 miles in the 24 hr lead up to Tuesday mornings event made for some cold feet. 

6 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Also, Sterling tapers their amounts down south of DC while CTP says the heaviest may be south of DC.

Weird take, the only thing that represents what CTP is talking about in their AFD was the 12z GFS op. Everything else supports advisories in at least the first tier or two of counties in southern PA currently. No need to jump the gun issuing them just yet but I’m not sure what guidance they’re basing the current take on. 

Also weird, the snow here has transitioned to graupel 

Snowing here now. 

2 minutes ago, Atomixwx said:

Snow has commenced.

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Got dark in a hurry down here. Waiting for the precip to reach the ground. At 39 with a 26ºF dewpoint so probably can manage some flakes out of this. 

18 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

Yea, as I mentioned before/above WB had the Euro showing snow over Central PA at 7AM Sat Am while Pivotal has it exiting far SE PA at that time.   The snow maps do not matter anyway but I do like consistency of output.   

 

Here are both Pivotal Nam's outputs.  I am calling Harrisburg the accum mark beside Cumberland County.

 

 

You’ve done it now, I’m using math haha. Trying to see how Pivotal calculates it’s Kuchera vs WB. So, basically it applies an equation that uses the max temp in the lowest 500mb. In this instance the warmest temp is the surface temp.. which according to the NAM holds at 31ºF for the event. 

Applying that equation using the surface temp (31ºF = 272.594K) yields a 9.13 to 1 ratio via Kuchera. Right around its output and also <10:1. WeatherBell’s output is greater than 10:1 so something different is being calculated, whether they don’t use temps right at the surface or maybe they’re applying the bottom equation for all temps, which technically would be wrong. To simplify, the bottom equation is used for the max temp being less than or equal to -2ºC. Plugging that same temp for MDT (about -0.5ºC) into would give about a 10.5 to 1 ratio. Interesting, maybe the codes cracked on that. That would definitely make a difference in map output with marginal temps. 

26 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

I was focused on the LSV.  10-1 is higher in the LSV (on Pivotal).  I see out your way Kuch is higher.   10-1 has Harrisburg at 3 and Kuch is 2.7. 

Hmm that’s interesting, Weatherbell is 3.3” Kuch and 2.8” 10:1 at Harrisburg. Splitting hairs at this point in time really but given colder surface temps and a much colder column ratios should be better than 10:1. 

Here’s the 24 hr Kuchera for the NAM for specifically Saturday. It’s a little bit higher than 10:1.

50 minutes ago, GrandmasterB said:

Certainly some weenie optimism in this take, but this is the type of set-up that could bump north in the last 24-36 hours. It would be a kick in the nuts to NVA and southern MD crew, but that’s even more reason to believe it will happen.

It could also generate a broader area of snows as well without much deviation to the low track but a bump north certainly wouldn’t hurt. Something to hone in when this gets deeper into the short range. This probably won’t have the razor thin margin like yesterday’s event. Other thing is it going to be much colder in front of this wave. 850 temps in southern PA during the event is -8 to -10ºC and 700mb temps in the low minus teens. Great column for big ratios for a change. I think I-80 and south is in play for at least 1-2”. Just a tenth or two of liquid equivalent probably makes a decent advisory event. Could be a narrow swath of borderline warning totals, but right now the prospects of that seem to favor those just south of us (perhaps northern MD). 

4 hours ago, Itstrainingtime said:

I think recently someone...maybe it was @mitchnick shared verification scores for models. I honestly don't remember the details, but what's also interesting to me is how each of us has our own personal lens on how we perceive models perform. For example, regarding the GFS...I tend to agree with you, at least somewhat. Yet, our neighbors to the south are vilifying the GFS and have crowned it the worst model out there right now. I know PSUhoffman is speaking loudly and often at just how awful the GFS is. 

All of this is interesting. 

I don’t personally think any one op model or ensemble has really stood out from the rest this winter for better or worse. They’ve all been generally to sometimes wildly inconsistent at longer leads (beyond D7). That comment might come off like well duh.. it’s beyond D7,  but the focus on that time range should be more towards the large scale pattern and not individual features. And typically you can hone in on a general theme at least, but this year has been more difficult. That could be a product of the general pattern this winter, which has been blocky and has an active southern stream/split flow. 

Where I would direct any ire towards modeling this winter if I were to do so is the extended products… specifically the Euro weeklies. They have been too cold all winter at longer leads and they were a catalyst in the lead-up to expecting the perfect 500mb pattern (to the tune of a 1978, 2010, etc) this month and that led to sky high expectations.. and the associated disappointment when it hasn’t quite worked out that way DESPITE delivering to some degree with yesterday’s and likely Saturday’s system. 

Doing WeatherBell’s temp forecast contest this winter, I got burned in December leaning towards Euro weeklies with blending. Although most did because no one was expecting the kind of warm December we ended up with. You only have from the 15th to the 20th of the prior month to make these predictions and that’s it. I learned my lesson in January and placed 6/98, anticipating a warm front 10 days or so and a cold second half, with the pattern slower to transition. The cold shot in the middle of the month was so significant that the late month warm-up actually saved my forecast from being way too warm in the central part of the country. They rank the models in that too, basically they calculate the rankings based on the total temp error between the 12 stations you pick temps for. The GEFS extended and Euro Seasonal were ranked within the top 5. The Euro weeklies ranked 57th.   

Just got my gauge the rest of the way melted out..

Event total liquid: 0.36”, of which a tenth was rain and the remaining 0.26” was snowfall that accumulated 2.3”. Yields roughly a ratio of 9 to 1.

High today was 40ºF and some patches of snow remain. High wind gust so far this evening is 29.3mph. Temps are falling now (34ºF) and some NW flow snow shower action starting up. 

53 minutes ago, Jns2183 said:

Boston is only at 9" for the year

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Still doing better than Minneapolis, that climo station (Twin Cities) is at like 7.3” for the season and averaging +19ºF for the month to date so far. I think it might take a Jan 94 type arctic outbreak to keep them from having the warmest DJF on record at this point. 

2 hours ago, AccuChris said:

I really like the CTP people and they do a bang up job but this storm was not their finest hour.  Yesterday they had my area in 4-8” with WSW and then last night lowered it to 3-5” and still with a warning.  Im at 5” now and still have an hour or so to go.  Sometimes the NWS folks lean way too heavy on the National Blend Model solution but this storm was horribly predicted via the Canadian suite of products and only late yesterday did the Euro finally catch on

This was a brutal storm to get a handle on. At the time of @Blizzard of 93’s last stand on Saturday night, north central was locked for the best totals on most guidance after things were mostly pretty far north Saturday. Main question at that point was trying to nail down how much of the central and Sus Valley was going to see meaningful accumulating snow on the back end. South trend started Sunday and it was a pretty notable one but it still favored the swath near the I-80 and they issued warnings accordingly and kept watches issued to the south Sunday eve. Still fine at that point for making some tweaks as needed (adding a couple watches or downgrading some warnings to advisories)

Where it really went sideways was yesterday, when everything tightened up and really went south. It’s pretty much go time at that point being under 24hrs til the event starts and now your suddenly looking at a big chunk of warned counties getting little or no snow at all, and southern counties that weren’t in a watch at all looking to be in the axis of best snowfall and warning amounts. There’s not much you can do with a big shift like that in that short of lead time. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t downgrade warnings to advisories back this way (Altoona/State College and surrounding counties), and they even inserted advisory amounts into the warning statements. I’ve never seen that before. This was a frustrating storm here, and definitely for the folks in here to my north. I’m glad a lot of the subforum scored a pretty big event out of this at least. 

17 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

GFS too north, EC 0Z too South for the Icon Sat snowstorm.  At least a possible tracking event this week.    A shallow trough promoting it.    84 hour Nam looked interesting as well. 

I’m intrigued by it. The first northern branch system goes north of PA Thursday, reinforcing some decent cold to be in place for the Saturday wave and it will already be a good bit colder this week in the wake of today’s system. Despite it being much colder, the low track north of PA with Thursday’s system will drive a brief surge of warmer surface temps (upper 30s-low 40s) that would likely be mostly light rain at lower elevations prior to frontal passage. 

Today’s system had a bit of a front running wave Sunday that might have had a hand in setting the boundary further south that the main wave ended up running on. So the Thurs wave evolution is going to have to be watched to see how it sets things up for Saturday, among other things like timing of both these features and  jet stream interaction. 

38 minutes ago, DDweatherman said:

@MAG5035 what kind of SLR did you measure up there? Temps ended up being solid here and 850’s were plenty good. Makes me think ratios may have been closer to 10:1 than expected. I was seeing some decent flakes during the 2” an hour stuff

I’ll have to melt out my Ambient rain gauge to see what kind of number I get. Going off pasty consistency of snow it’s likely a 7-8 to 1 type snow. The best deform snow missed here to the south and east, so we had a nice moderate rate mostly but not intense snowfall. That took a bit to start piling up. 

You were under the good FGEN forcing, so while 850 and 700mb temps weren’t ideal they were probably cold enough to generate a slightly better than 10:1 ratio in terms of crystal growth. Surface temps matter to a point, but when it pours snow and starts piling up you can get decent fluff factor on marginal surface temps with good snow growth aloft. 

14 minutes ago, Atomixwx said:

Not that I didn't believe you, but Jesus H. Christ. Woodland was the cutoff.

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I noticed that, I was looking at the 511 cams up there a bit ago and the one that’s at the actual Woodland exit on I-80 has nothing at all on the ground, and the Woodland camera on 322 that’s probably like a mile or so from the interstate camera looked like it had a coating. 

The obligatory daybreak snow pic

I’m out of the snow now over here, only about 2.3” total. 

Temps down to 32ºF and moderate snow. Accums starting on the grass.

Snowing in State College on the 511 cams. They also show the road caving already in the 7 mountains region east of State College on US 322. 

Really wet snow falling here, not accumulating yet. Temp/dewpoint down to 35/33ºF.