Always in Zugzwang

Heh...you said "bust!"

Reminds me of that old "that's impossible!" Little Caesar's ad:

@mappy, your spring avatar reminds me...tulip photos coming not too long from now (well, OK, later in April)!! Will post those when I take them of course, as I normally do! In the mean time, probably some other spring flowers as they come out.

Well, I wasn't here for that event (was in northeast OH at the time), but locally DCA recorded I think 6.6" as I recall? Of course, that's DCA measuring. But many others in the metro area received a foot or more even, before sleet and ice moved in. The storm was obviously "special" on the large scale given the wide area it covered, with anything from severe weather to blizzard conditions and feet of snow (48" in Syracuse, something like that!). Not to mention unreal heavy snows in AL/GA...in March. From what I've read about that storm for the local DC-Balt area, it still met blizzard condition criteria. For a mid-March storm in this area, that's quite impressive. There was also some pretty deep cold for a couple of days after that (true for much of the eastern 1/4 or so of the country). So maybe not a HECS in the metro areas just going by snowfall amount...but definitely taking into consideration everything else (wind, cold, snow, and ice). In northeast OH where I was, we were on the western edge of that storm and still had blizzard conditions. About 8-12" snow locally and gusty winds, along with temperatures in the teens or low 20s. Not sure what the pressure was in DC (DCA), but I recall the central pressure of that storm was on the order of ~960mb at its peak. To compare and give an idea of just how big that is, the Ohio Blizzard of 1978 (Jan. 26-27, 1978), which I lived through, went right through Cleveland. KCLE recorded their lowest pressure on record, 28.28" (957mb) as it went through. That may still stand as the 2nd lowest non-tropical storm pressure in the continental US. We didn't get extremely heavy snowfall from that...7" at KCLE, a bit more west...but 40+ MPH winds and gusts pushing 100 MPH near the lakeshore, along with temperatures in the single digits made it extremely dangerous (temps fell from mid 40s to the teens in about 2 hours, during the pre-dawn hours, and continued falling into the single digits for the rest of the day). That snow fell on top of about a foot of older crusty snow that already was on the ground.

The crazy pickles (Daffy Dills!!) are blooming all over here right now!

Must be a change in the BASE STATE!! Seriously though, the fact that you're optimistic about the possibility coming up is encouraging, as I know you're very cautious about such things. I think a lot of people have become extremely jaded and cynical so it's difficult to not think this is just another fantasy that will go nowhere. But given what you, @CAPE, and @brooklynwx99 have been saying the past couple or so days, pointing out that there are notable differences from the status quo of our other pattern looks that fizzled, one has to feel better about this. It may be March, but hell, I'd take a good event to see this winter off, that's for sure.

Well, to be fair, any discrete threats may well be very discreet!

Should we just punt the mid-March possibility, sh*t on the blinds, and come back next winter??

Hahaha, the inverted negative of the Ron Paul gif!!! RuPaul might be more entertaining!! (ETA: OK, looking at that gif...gotta admit he looks kinda like a vampire! It's a bit freaky! LOL!)

How about a honey badger on meth...or sloths on speed?

I know...and I'm really not giving up on things completely either just yet, at least through about mid-March. BTW...I copied my previous reply to you to the Banter thread, but I'm sorry if I misconstrued your comment to me about the futility thread as somehow telling me to stop complaining (which I wasn't trying to do, but anyhow).

Lots of caves there...we ought to be spelunking!!!

That's fair, to a point. Sure, looks like he nailed how little snow and all that we got. But let's be realistic. Even knowing it was looking like a dud year, it's a bit much to go to the far extreme in a winter forecast made back late last fall. So an element of ribbing or "bashing" wasn't that out of line at the time, especially in an area where just one moderate event can make the winter. That would be like people saying we're in for record snow and lots of HECS events before 2009-10 began. Even knowing that looked like a pretty big winter going in, nobody was going to go to the high end extreme in that case.

OK, whatever...no need to wag your finger at me for my previous comment. Perfectly aware there is a futility thread. I was responding in kind to what PSU said is all and adding my own thoughts now that we're getting nearly into March. If I read your intent incorrectly, my apologies.

Very true...and I know you typically aren't a deb, though at times quite snarky this winter. Which I totally get, given how utterly frustrating it has been. I don't think anyone with any sense of reason expected a "great" winter this year by any means. But I really don't think anyone, even the most pessimistic, thought it would be this devoid of anything. Like essentially wall-to-wall. The anti 2013-14 so to speak! We've had one 0.5" snow early morning on February 1 (where I'm at, anyhow) that was gone before noon...well, OK, there was like 15 min. of some flurries at the start of that Arctic blast over Christmas weekend and a bit of snow TV yesterday. And it's not just the paucity of snow, it's also just how extremely warm it's been (other than most of December being a bit below normal, enhanced by Christmas weekend). When you have a +7 temperature departure for January and February (just looking at DCA for reference, but pretty much the same most everywhere here), you're really hard pressed to get anything. Not like we've been cold and dry or anything like that. So assuming we don't really get anything the rest of this season, offhand, what would you rank this winter in terms of futility or near-shutout? Say, compared to 2001-02, 2011-12, or 2019-20 for instance? In terms of warmth and lack of snow?

At this point we need the winter equivalent of the Immaculate Reception. Instead, all we got was the Immaculate Deception!!

Hopefully the right trajectory so that it will at least clear out by later Friday and leave us a decent weekend!

Hahaha, yup! That's exactly what happened! Not only that, but we also all got thrown under the bus!

Well, that's a fair point, it did seem the Euro went more toward the GFS (I assume you're talking about the 18Z Euro ensemble mostly?). But right now, it's hard to really say which model is moving which solution. The 00Z GFS actually seemed to up the ante with that even farther north and west solution, and quite wound up.

Not sure I'd necessarily say brutal, but I sure as hell wish the GFS would have at least given a hat-tip to the more favorable solutions that's for sure!

It's hard to say. Is that "extreme outlier" (GFS, I assume you mean) really all that extreme? OK, I would maybe doubt that much of a wound up system and maybe not quite that far west as what the 00Z GFS showed. But the end result...too far north and west where we just get rain...is hardly an outlier at this point. Maybe that sounds a bit cynical, but you know what I mean. And you're right, all we can do for the next couple of days is keep on trackin'. If this goes totally down the sh*tter by Monday or Tuesday, well, that will probably be the end of it.

I guess we wait and see what the GEFS ensembles look like...oh well.

So a rainier rain then compared to the last couple of runs.

Haha, that works too! Maybe...MAYBE!!...if we actually can reel this damned thing in, we should start up that classic bus!!

So, Herbie the (VW) Love Bug (ICON) crushes us!!