Scarlet Pimpernel

2 hours ago, paulythegun said:

8 hours ago, ravensrule said:

Fixed. 

Hahaha!  I would have never thought that post by @Deck Pic would be a RR bat signal, but there ya go!   But I guess it's like anything else, it's in the eye of the beholder what one sees!  There's a Tom Lehrer song called "Smut", and one line goes "When correctly viewed...everything ls lewd!"

On 2/29/2024 at 10:51 PM, George BM said:

Forecast Discussion

Saturday, March 16, 2024 3:28PM EDT

Blizzard Warning in effect from 8AM EDT Sunday, March 17, 2024 until 3PM EDT Monday, March 18, 2024

High Wind Warning in effect from 9AM EDT Sunday, March 17, 2024 until 6PM EDT Monday, March 18, 2024

Hurricane-Force Wind Warning in effect from 2PM EDT Sunday, March 17, 2024 until 6AM EDT Monday, March 18, 2024 (for tidal-Potomac and Chesapeake Bay)

 

Life-Threatening Late-Winter Storm to cripple the region.

Temps are currently holding in the mid-50sF across the DC metro area but are already starting to fall in far northern Maryland as the cold front associated with the strong northern stream system drops south through the region. Temps will plummet out of the 50s and through the 40s and 30s through the evening and reach the lower 20s in many areas by morning as the unusually cold airmass pushes in. As this occurs through the late afternoon and evening hours skies will become overcast both from lift associated with the southward moving cold front and from the strong southern stream system to our south/southwest. There may be enough lift and moisture associated with the front for some light sprinkles and/or a few flurries/light snow showers to develop through the evening before precip slips to the southeast. Northerly winds will become quite gusty during this time with gusts of 25 to 40 mph.

As the strong southern storm system moves toward the coastal Carolinas tonight it will begin to phase with a second powerful northern stream vort diving south from the eastern Great Lakes/ Toronto region leading to strong diffluence over the surface low leading to rapid deepening. The two will pinwheel around each other as they phase bringing the southern storm and associated surface low northwards as rapid deepening takes place allowing snow to overspread the region by morning from southeast to northwest. The snow will quickly become heavy as NE winds increase with gusts to over 50 mph across the region likely by midday. Temperatures during this time will be in the lower 20sF leading to windchills in the single digits. By the late afternoon/evening the surface low will slow down and eventually stall over the Virginia peninsula/ southern Chesapeake Bay area. The surface pressure could be as low as the mid-950s in millibars breaking monthly low-pressure records in that area. Meanwhile, the areas northwest of the surface low (the greater Washington DC and Baltimore metros) will be getting the worst of this storm with blinding snowfall and widespread 60-75+ mph wind gusts w/ 80-90+ mph gusts along the coast of the Bay. In fact, snowfall rates in the heaviest bands will likely be in the 4-6”+/hr range leading to visibilities as low as 50 feet (effectively zero visibility for the sake of argument) from the late afternoon hours through the night and into Monday morning. Temperatures will remain in the 20s throughout the duration of this event with upper teens possible in the higher elevations north and west and temperatures closer to 32F in far southern MD and along the bay where warmer air will be located near the surface low. Windchills during the duration of the event will stay in the single-digits for most w/ negative single-digits in the mountains and lower teens in southern MD and along the bay.

Near-whiteout and conditions and severe wind gusts will still be ongoing by dawn Monday as the low-pressure system slowly pulls northeastwards. Heavy snow will continue through the late morning to midday hours before tapering off from west to east. When all is set and done with total liquid-equivalent precipitation of 4-7”+ across the region, snowfall totals of 4 to 6 FEET will likely be commonplace with snow drifts of as high as 30 feet possible. Areas in southern MD and near the Bay may end up with slightly less (roughly 2 to 4 feet) as the warmer air associated with the low-pressure center cuts down on totals in that area.

This will be the worst blizzard, by far, to impact the region since weather records started in the later 1800s. It will essentially be a high-impact hurricane with snow instead of rain as the main precip-type. People who venture outside during this time may get disoriented and lost in the whiteout conditions and/or get seriously injured by flying debris. Emergency services may not be able to reach you for days should something happen to you outside. This is the DC and Baltimore urban corridor not Lake Tahoe or the Japanese Alps. We’re not equipped with the snow removal equipment that they have. So, if you absolutely must venture outside during the storm no caution that you use would be too extreme given the circumstances.

Temperatures will only rebound to the lower 30s as skies start clearing by mid to late afternoon on Monday.

 

Forecaster Wannabe: George BM

Meh...DCA will only measure 17.8"!! 

30 minutes ago, Ji said:

we cant get away from cutters!

 

Ours is the eclipse after the eclipse, dontcha know!!

2 hours ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Taking up drinking for lent. On a tequila kick lately. Sipping on the Casamigos attm...not horrible, but there are better if you are willing to spend the $

Wait...I thought one is supposed to sacrifice and give something up for Lent.  Not engage in further "sin"!!! 

As for tequila, not normally a fan of it straight-up, generally prefer it in something like a margarita.  Though I've had a couple several years ago that were remarkably smooth.

Personally, I prefer a fine single malt Scotch.  Straight-up, not on the rocks.  <ScottishBastardVoice>Aye, Laddie!  Get yerself a REAL drink, a nice dram, will ya!</ScottishBastardVoice> 

12 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

I’m on drought watch for summer 

Expecting the Nats to have a bad season?? 

9 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

How does it rotate when it’s flat? 

OK Kyrie, we have absolute definitive proof that the earth CANNOT be flat.  Proven by none other than our feline friends millennia ago! 

10 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

lol dude it is a smoothed +2 meter anomaly. come on

Also, that's for...November!  Can't be overly concerned about whether or not something can "work" in that pattern that early in the season.  And it's like 8 months away, what's the point in hashing out details at this point?

2 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Well actually the rapture would take some the opposite of his direction 

Very true...probably still enough left behind for his agents to "take care of!" 

5 minutes ago, Ji said:

we need a +PDO with a west based Nino. If that dosent work.....then hopefully the rapture can just happen asap

Even though @WxWatcher007 is in retirement, I heard the Reaper still has his agents standing by the phones now to assist those in dire need...

Just now, stormtracker said:

This winter has made me bitter.  Time to bring back tear Beethoven avatar.  

Yeah, I think after the epic-looking pattern disappeared about a week ago, we definitely needed the Beethoven with the tear!  That pretty well crushed everything.

8 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

He and his fucking Harpsichord using ass can go suffer eternal La Niña and a SER.  

LOL!!!!  OK, c'mon now...I love Beethoven and he's still my favorite composer.  Unfortunately, I was unable to find an image or a gif with him doing an eyeroll!!  So I settled for the Austrian dude...but don't diss his music TOO much!

(ETA:  I await a lecture from @Maestrobjwa on the merits of Beethoven vs. Mozart and his harpsichord using ass!)

The Panic Room is still going??  Even when things are already done?  C'mon!!!

32 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Need an eye roll reaction symbol

Mozart says...to that 46 day ensemble control snow map:

3 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

Long range is always volatile and unreliable. Models nailed most of Dec/Jan in general from way out in time. What really stung this year was a combination of holy grail expectations and applying that to all long range guidance. When we thought the upper level mean pattern out in time looked "classic nino" there were still plenty of problems lurking. Models were never cold and snowy under the hood. The only period that lit up 10+ days out with both snowfall and analogs was Jan. Other than that it's looked pretty bad to me. 

I keep saying this but if we want snowfall, there is only one reliable feature that's a well placed/stable -AO. It can and will snow in any enso state when the AO is below -1. Conversely, an AO in excess of +1 can eliminate snow in any enso. 

This speaks for itself imho. Not hard to see the correlation this year lol

 

Something that really stands out is how bad models missed the abruptness and magnitude of the + moves from 10 days out. That's a big reason we spent so much time in a near shutout pattern. When the AO skyrockets, it's at least a 2 week reset before things can get cold and line up again and that includes going negative first. 

I'm thinking this winter's underperformance isn't as complicated as first thought. The entire big winter thesis beyond enso was blocking. Dec was a big warning shot that wasn't happening as expected. Then things just kept repeating. If the AO stayed negative in Dec like big winters, those wet southern waves may have felt a lot different imo. 

Good points here, Bob.  I'll say that despite wanting to be optimistic about the highly favorable "holy grail" looks that showed up for mid-February to mid-March is that once things got a bit more into range, there really were no storms popping up.  I know one cannot take those silly snow maps at face value, but typically when we see an approaching good pattern, crazy stuff starts to appear on the horizon in the ops and ensembles.  That happened maybe a couple of times, I think, but it was basically "blah" looking and even kind of warm.  That's the other thing, I didn't see a consistent "trend" or whatever toward colder, at least near the surface.  Despite some good 850-mb cold looks.  I was thinking to myself several times how nice 850 looked but shook my head at the BL temps.

3 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

You know I agree. But as ridiculous as it is that’s become political and I respect that they’ve banned politics from this forum for the sake of discourse. But now some have become emboldened to attack any mention of warming. That’s not politic MFer that’s just objective reality. It’s Fng wamer. That’s not a debatable thing. And I’m done with attempts to act like the FACT it’s warming is either political or not reality. There has to be a line in the sand against the crazy somewhere. This is mine. 

PSU...I totally agree with what you say here.  It's sad...pathetic...aggravating...that warming has become a political football (hot potato, as it were??).  For F's sake, you cannot argue the data, humanity's influence in the past century or whatever, etc.  I don't care what one's views are, this is just simply the reality.  One's political views honestly shouldn't matter for something like this.  But sadly, this is the bullshit reality we live in, and one feels helpless to do much about it when those in power and who have influence on policy, sit there and piss into the wind.  Whatever.  Sorry if I got too political there, but it's more than that.  Fact is, all too many people can be so damned selfish and have no concern or care for how their decisions or policies may affect the world around them.  Apologies...done with that rant.

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Btw that was a way more impressive call than anything I’ve ever attempted. It’s one thing to predict a stj wave in a split flow at range. It’s another to pick out a progressive NS wave with a pressing cold boundary in a chaotic flow during a pattern change no less. I don’t know if people realize how crazy amazingly awesome that was. It was like hitting for the cycle with a grand slam while pitching a perfect game. Kudos! 

You could call it the Shohei Ohtani of amazing weather forecast calls!

Well, I'm not totally giving up on the winter but I'm definitely of the @Bob Chill Zen attitude right now.  If we get something that looks fun, I'll check it out and great!!  If not, don't much care at this point.  And I don't think we're done, to be honest, but we'll see.

With that, I'll post a couple of photos I got today.  One is a tiny icicle I saw in a tree, gave it a silvery black and white look which I thought was cool.  And a snowdrop flower, they are always one of the first to come up even before actual spring.

I know it's out there beyond la-la land but did anyone else notice the anafrontal snow the GFS tries to give us around March 2?  It has shown up before around that time so this isn't exactly a one-off appearance of this.  Not the most likely, yeah, but something, and I don't think we're done for the season yet.

3 minutes ago, Deck Pic said:

0z GFS is hilarious...a stripe of 0.5" QPF+ just north of DC

I'll gladly have what the GFS is toking.

8 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

We do have this one 

How about Mozart doing an eyeroll???  (couldn't find one with Beethoven!)...

(ETA:  It's widely known that Mozart, other than being a world-renowned composer, was an immense snow weenie in Austria at the time.)

11 minutes ago, Ji said:

seems like something will  happen late next week. Where is that -NAO we needed?

 

It ate too many mints.

7 minutes ago, dailylurker said:

High clouds are already flowing in from the west. Hopefully that caps the temperatures a little bit. Maybe it helps keep the ground colder as well. 

6 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

My thoughts too. I’m at 37/19

Instead of brining the roads, the TRUE snow weenie covers his lawn and driveway with a layer of ice cubes to ensure instant stickage!

3 hours ago, ravensrule said:

Uranus

On that planet, they shit the blinds every winter! 

42 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

But I’m done with worrying about it. I won’t be surprised either way at this point. Was today just a one last fluke tease run on the way to a final rug pull or a real indication?  Ehh. I don’t have the patience left to dig into it really. If we get multiple days of improvements and it gets into a more believable range I’ll jump back into it.  For now we still have a legit chance for the wave I liked all along if we can get some minor adjustments. After that I’ll let the chips fall where they may. 

Yeah, pretty much on the same page as you.  Let's just see how things shake out from now through mid-March (I'm talking after this event on Friday night).  I'm not sold on "your" storm just yet (the one around the 24th, right?), though obviously there is a signal there.  Too warm??  But we'll see, I haven't followed that much of late.  And I'm not at all ruling out some decent event in March at some point.