Scarlet Pimpernel

Now THAT'S a true die-hard! Grilling in these elements!!! Reminds me of the Feb. 14, 2015 Arctic front event that dropped a quick 2" blustery snow (and then turned bitter cold), when @Bob Chill said he was out in his garage grilling during those squalls!!! I believe he said that was actually one of his favorite "minor" events; I feel the same about that one! As for me...doing the traditional chicken soup over egg noodles. Got one of those pre-cooked chickens from the deli to cut up, plus some carrots, celery, onion...yummmm!

I had the same thing happen to me during the 2009-10 epic winter, at my apartment at the time in Silver Spring! It was for the Feb. 5-6 event in fact. Was clearing off and digging out my car in the space I had it parked. Took a short break to go inside and left the shovel in the snow right next to the car. Came back and...GONE! F*ing F**ckers!!! Fortunately I was able to borrow another one from someone and finish the shoveling.

Not sure about all 3. I'd have to think DCA will be hard-pressed to go below 0. Maybe single digits but you know how that location is right on the water. But one never knows. This is a serious airmass and we'll have snow/sleet cover with plenty of cooling at night once this has cleared through. Nearby DCA in the metro area? I can definitely see a possibility for that.

I'd generally agree on the winter event scale. While not a HECS with 20"+ snow, it's obviously very high-impact and it won't be disappearing anytime soon (making the impact even greater). The amount of sleet on top of the snow is insane. And it is "dry" sleet (if that's a thing), not the kind that clings together on the ground. It almost literally blows around with a gust of wind (or walking through it). I'm sure that will freeze solid at some point.

That's probably about what I have in Bethesda/Silver Spring, I guess the same general area as you. Went out a short while ago and just did a snow depth measurement (no actual snowboard that was cleared, etc.) and it was in the range of 6-7" in various open, flat areas. So given that there's probably been a fair bit of settling with moderate to heavy sleet for the past few hours, I'd probably lean toward ~7" total snow/sleet. Hard to walk in, a real workout! Like walking on sand.

That's kind of what I'm thinking too. Maybe that clipper-type system around Friday but it's the time after that perhaps that may be good, hopefully! In fact, yeah it's an ops deterministic, but today's 12Z GFS shows an "incoming" potential at the end of its run at 360-384 hours!! CMC kind of hints at something too around hour 240 (end of its run). ECMWF, nothing much in particular but hints of stuff "out there" in time. Key takeaway for me is, we should have some tracking going on for awhile, and hopefully we'll cash in and score!

Might be the alcohol content, too!!!

As much as I REALLY wish this could have been all or mostly snow, I don't totally mind experiencing what may be a veritable sleet bomb. In 2007, for the Valentine's Day storm when I was in the Capitol Hill area of DC, we got 3" of sleet. No snow at all. But that was a relatively warmer storm (I think it went just above freezing for a short time after the sleet before temps plummeted, and it didn't start as cold as this one). This event will be very cold throughout. I hear people talking about sleet bombs from 2017 or 2018 (??) but I don't recall that, maybe closer to the metro areas it wasn't much of anything compared to other locations. I do remember we were expected to get a ton of sleet in 2021-ish?? Ended up with an inch maybe that was over before noon, kind of a bust.

Fortunately, at least, the NAM was not correct in terms of QPF it appears. But yeah, there was no way the mid-level thermals were going to hold on in our area through the entire morning (though my hope of hopes was that we'd luck out through 18Z!).

Just hold up your beer can, eyeball the relative height of the snow out there on the deck against the can, and there ya go!!!

Sure, maybe I can check into that sometime! The gloves I have are fine, obviously not intended to be removed and put back on all the time LOL! But you have to remove them for taking photos. Something like finger pads when having to do that may come in handy.

4.5" on the ground as of ~7AM or so this morning when I went out for a Jebwalk with the camera. Already more than what the NAM was showing for the entire event even with sleet (take that, NAM!! ). Very cold of course, but not that breezy. Had to cut the walk a bit short because taking my gloves off occasionally to take photos, my hands damn near froze!

Not that it necessarily matters at this point or that anyone really is paying attention to it, but to me it appeared that the 00Z GFS looked more or less similar to what it showed at 18Z.

Awww, now that's a rather nice philosophical way to word things!! Or wait a minute...are you not so subtly calling us all FLAKES?? (You wouldn't be wrong, hahaha!)

OK great, thank you! I'll look here for 00Z and beyond model discussion as well as current obs then.

Has this now become the obs plus any model discussion thread? Other one was locked. Just wanted to check.

I recall from some time back that you're from Louisiana originally! Gumbo is some amazing stuff for sure! As for me...doing an old-fashioned chicken soup tomorrow.

No specific event thread for next weekend, but check out discussion in the "January 2026 Medium/Long Range Discussion" thread. There's general talk there about potential beyond this current one there.

Very cold out, though I don't have an exact temperature measurement. Cloudy.

GFS around 8-10" through 18Z, according to TT 10:1 maps? That may be a little while after a flip but it's close to that time. Certainly after that it's sleet. (ETA: Talking about the DC-Balt metro corridor)

Is that time more or less in line with most other guidance except perhaps the NAM? Certainly the heavier precip up to the time we flip is better.

Well damn. I think the goal should be that we at least accumulate more snow than the amount of salt that now lies on roads and other paved surfaces!! It's ridiculous, the amount of salt that I saw on sidewalks outside some places today!!! The latest NAM has me doubting we'll accomplish that, however!!

Leaving aside whether or not the NAM is too aggressive with slamming that mid-level warmth in too fast (and too much)...I really wonder why it is so anemic with the QPF surge. I mean, it seems like it has generally the same overall synoptic setup and progression as most other models, I believe?

Same. I don't necessarily question the NAM's thermals per se for the most part (though I have a sense it's perhaps too aggressive on that). But it is clearly on the really light end in terms of QPF up to the point where most flip to sleet. Nearly every other model has a good, solid thump of snow into at least mid-morning or so tomorrow. Given LWX's latest forecast, I can only assume they view the NAM's QPF as a low outlier as well. We will see.

I'm tempted to ask but...maybe I shouldn't!!!