Scarlet Pimpernel

Nahhh, don't want that really. I mean, the pattern will almost surely relax and change at some point, and I fully expect some part of February to be warmer/unfavorable (hopefully not a torch though, at least). But I hope for some kind of last blast of winter toward the 2nd part of February and early March, that would be nice!

I admit I'm getting a bit tired of the hourly HRRR model postings and wringing hands at every single little change.

Not that there's a real "choice" per se, but whom would you rather they face in the NFC championship? I would think they would be better matched with the Rams, with the Eagles being tougher. But then again, they dropped 45 on the (admittedly somewhat defenseless) Lions so you never know in a playoff game!

My older brother is a big Rams fan (has been his whole life, for some reason!)...years ago when they were particularly awful, he used to joke about calling them the Lambs, and saying "Silence of the Lambs" every time they lost!

Congrats Commanders/WTFs, from a lowly (very lowly!) Cleveland fan! Browns sucked this year so I haven't paid much attention, but I'm glad the playoffs have shaken things up a bit. Now, can we please knock KC out of it? I really don't care to have them in another SB!

Yeah I was just flipping through the 00Z and 06Z GFS quickly and there are definitely some potential events in there! And it appears plenty enough cold air hanging around through the period.

I know, right?! I come in here this morning and it's all doom and gloom, yet I don't see all that much different from several hours ago late last night. Geez, can we just let this happen how it will and try to have fun with whatever we end up with? I've always thought this would be a general 2-4" event, maybe 5-6" in some spots, but too many seem to think everyone is getting warning-level snows.

Wow! Whoever the Commanders play next week is going to be in for a serious game (not jinxing it by saying that before the game is actually over!). Of course, Rams or Eagles will have a much better defense than the Lions but still.

Unreal first half for the WTFs!! Just the 2nd quarter alone even.

You should use the daylight depth product, probably more accurate in this scenario.

Nope...just "angling" for bad humor is all! (But seriously, I do have a math background).

Is cyan the new @Ellinwood gray???

That's one of the things we can excel at!!! We're a very...uhhh..."obtuse" bunch at times! And "acutely" sensitive to every single model change!

Models totally blew the eclipse last April!

Actually a bit surprised they're not going somewhat higher for the N MD counties.

The RGEM still has the falling iguana line too far north and west. But it ticked a bit more south last run.

Yup...not all that long ago this looked like a decent minor or so level event, probably no more than 3-5" anywhere, with a blast of cold on its heels. Still a lot of fun! Then we had a few model runs that gave DC and other areas 6"+ and all too many people raised their expectations to that level. So tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth at every single blip. I get the concern we've had about temperatures in the metro areas, that's certainly legitimate, but this belief that we're all going to score a warning-level snow (or else it's a failure) is a bit much.

I mentioned this in the Banter thread, but this event kind of reminds me of Feb. 14, 2015. Not exactly but similar in some ways. We got a burst of snow squalls near evening for about an hour or so (got 2" where I'm at, though I know it was somewhat localized), which was followed by the Arctic blast on strong winds. It actually turned quite brutal out that evening, and remained extremely cold the next week. That's the last time I recall getting the level of cold that's projected for next week, on the heels of tomorrow's event. And the system tomorrow looks to be better than the one in 2015 (more general snow overall). I suspect we'll have a similar scenario with rapidly falling temperatures as the really cold air blasts in. (ETA: That 2015 blast also kicked off an amazing 4 week period of winter!).

For anyone familiar with Pitch Meeting (Ryan George)...

Same here. Always like @stormtracker's annual tribute to Dr. King. And the one he uses is a bit different than the photos of him that you usually see. He looks pretty young in that one? Wonder where/when that was taken.

The NAM 3-km, as I understand it, is still very good guidance for thermal profiles. As for overall precip, not sure.

I've been thinking, this is a very interesting period coming up starting tomorrow through next week. To me, it's kind of reminiscent of mid-February 2015. The event tomorrow reminds me of the burst of snow and squalls we got late in the day of Feb. 14, a quick 2" within an hour or so where I'm at. That was along the leading edge of an Arctic blast, it got very cold and windy in a big hurry that evening. It was really cool! That was followed by some extremely cold air the following week. That's the last time I remember it being so cold around here like that, and next week looks to be similar. Maybe the event tomorrow will be a bit more than the one in 2015 here in the metro DC area, if we're lucky!

I'm far from an expert on AI or anything like that, but here's my understanding: The "regular" ECMWF model is based upon dynamic and thermodynamic equations (speaking very simply here), with a set of initial conditions and observations to start from. Those equations are evaluated through time to obtain forecasts. The AI version is based upon some collection of past "training data" (such as previous atmospheric conditions and observations, and perhaps analogues), which are sort of "regressed" or "correlated" against an independent set of observed data (think of it as a highly sophisticated multi-linear regression, in a way). Others can chime in, I hope this is reasonably accurate of a description albeit kind of simple.

ICON somewhat juicier than it was earlier, it seems? Just going by what I saw here on a snow clown map above.