Always in Zugzwang

They've had almost no positive effect yet on this winter. But what the hell!

HA! I'm assuming you meant to include a "snark" tag on that statement!!

Huh, wadda you know...another foot for NYC-BOS! I'll be!

Well that looks interesting! Though how in the hell our thicknesses here are still well above 540 with the low bombed out off the coast of Maine, I have to wonder.

I definitely agree with this...though I'd add interesting and aggravating. Heck, it's like a baseball game where you're hammering the ball, tons of hits, lots of scoring opportunities, but you strand runners at 2nd and 3rd all the time, and have barely scratched out a run through almost 5 innings. Or if you prefer, like racking up yards in a football game but you've only scored a field goal by the half. Any other sports cliche comparisons are welcome!

Corrected!

Good point, that's true now that I look back and recall the past several cycles. That's always a concern, as is the case where you've got one great solution that skews things. I think with every model and their ensembles for this event, we've just about run the gamut of possibilities in the past few days!!

Yes, the mean does look great. However, what are the individual members like that make that up? That is, are "warmer" solutions the reason the mean QPF is that high (but not necessarily good for snow)...while perhaps colder, offshore solutions are relatively dry? Not trying to come off negative, but an honest question here. I'd be curious if there are two camps of solutions in there.

That's what I was about to say...extremely so, in fact.

Interesting...though a little hard to tell exactly where the freezing line cuts through and exactly where the low is centered with all the other stuff on there. But it does look a little east.

I can relate to that! Hence, my quest for that fine bottle of single malt I mentioned earlier...

But see, the ironic thing is that you're saying this to a bunch of other people sitting at home on a Friday night reading a weather board... EDIT: Perhaps even more ironic is that DT is updating his facebook page sitting at home on a Friday night as you wrote that...

Well yes, what I meant to imply was that if someone said pick a model run and it will happen, I'd take the 12Z GFS from today in a heartbeat. So yes, obviously taken verbatim, not taking into account any trends, etc. that it might possibly be indicating for later runs.

...and here I thought I was only kidding. Wow!

Who cares about the NOGAPS, bring on the CRAS baby!!

Amazing! It would appear that energy in Canada might be at least part of the reason, which I think you mentioned a little earlier.

Amen to that! I'd still take the 12Z GFS solution, as I'm sure most everyone here would.

Well, we all would love some good SECS, and even more, great HECS!

Amen!!! It's not like you've got people sitting there at their computers saying nefariously, "now, how can I work things so that DC gets screwed on every snow event!" or something. Yeah, it's frustrating in some situations to see wild swings or a wide variety of solutions and not know what the heck to do...but it's amazing the progress made in just the past 5-10 years. Heck, I remember in the late '80s into the early '90s when the NGM was "it", with some LFM output for the medium range once a day! The NGM came out twice daily, was a short range model, and I remember sitting there during big events waiting for the printouts to finish!!

I've been reading all the posts and analysis on and off throughout today, and I can certainly appreciate how difficult it is to assess this event. Model guidance with a wide variety of solutions, etc. I think this description here gives a realistic and pretty good discussion in a nutshell. With such a spread in model depictions, the old "educated guess" is about as good as one can do at this point. I only hope things shake out so that we can get a really good event around here, rather than another wide-right screw job or driving rainstorm after a token couple of inches. Personally, if given the choice right now of "pick a model solution, and that's what will happen", I'd like to see today's 12Z GFS verify as shown. Pretty much everyone scores big with that one.

Uhhh, Feb. 5-6 last year ring a bell??? No, it wasn't 36" as in the Washington-Jefferson storm...and I don't care that DCA gave an anemic-looking 17.8" amount officially. But there were widespread 20-30"+ amounts within the DC/Baltimore metro areas. And I think one place just outside the DC beltway did get 38". QPF amounts then were in the 2-3" range, too.

Great movie with a lot of great quotes in it!! I'm waiting for someone to cue the record player to play that part from "The Marriage of Figaro", as in the film. On second thought, perhaps "The Tales of Hoffman" might be more appropriate!!

HA...perfect!

Pretty much! Same here. I loved going outside in the late evening on Friday as it began to snow and accumulate. Next day, I was out taking pictures as often as possible, and taking measurements. I'm sure the neighbors were wondering who the fool was walking around with a yardstick (all in the name of science, ya know!). Perhaps one of the coolest things about that storm is it was the first truly major event since Feb. 2003...a long time coming, and it was very exciting to finally break that drought. Even for this area, 7 years between "big storms" is kind of a long time. And by major, I'm talking widespread double-digit amounts (10-12") or more in the metro area (even as measured at DCA!). We certainly had some good moderate or better events in the intervening time, but also just missed on some or ended up with a lot less than originally thought (Feb. 2007 comes to mind, lots of sleet/ice when it looked for so long like we'd get hammered...and Feb. 2006, we got 8-10" or something like that, but that storm ended up hitting areas to the north like Philly and NYC a lot harder...and in Jan-Feb 2005 we had some chances that ended up being a lot less, though it was cold I recall).

Ahhh, good memories of that, as I dig up my photos! I remember leaving work early Friday, getting the last minute shopping done (only chance I had to do it) with checkout lines backed up down the aisles. Seeing the first of the snow begin around 9:30PM. 9" on the ground by mid-morning on the 19th, total of 20". Here's some pictures: Pretty much looked like this for much of the day on Dec. 19. Icicles the following day after the storm.