Scarlet Pimpernel

Well, that does sound familiar, though I cannot quite recall the show it was from (so perhaps dating myself too, haha!) There's of course "Karate Kid", as well: show me wax on, wax off...sand the floor...paint the fence...side-side. Yes, Daniel-san, only when you master these, will you get a true HECS!

Very good! But perhaps minus 1 point because he used "Yoda" rather than your usual "Yoder"!

I totally get the frustration and disappointment thus far this winter. I'm sure those experts and others who put forth thoughtful long range predictions of above normal snow, and saw the same promises in the long range guidance, are just as exasperated. It's been a rough season for anything medium to longer range. But I do have to make a couple of comments on what you say here because it seems a bit unfair to me. While there were many bullish forecasts, I don't recall any of the more experienced posters making comparisons to 2009-10 or promising any HECS this winter. Yeah some hype and excitement perhaps at previous weeklies. But I think a bunch of other posts in here got overly weenieish and perhaps made some assumptions about what was being said. And "as likely as any year to produce a HECS" doesn't mean much because in any year the odds of such are not likely anyhow. Not only that, but we can easily score well above normal snow around here without a HECS. Just look at 2013-14 and 2014-15 for example. And this year the DC metro area scored a solid 10-12" event a few weeks back...not a HECS but a great moderate or better storm. So let's see how it pans out through mid-March or there about. No, we may not get the Ferrari this winter but I suspect we'll end up better than a used '98 Kia. Perhaps along the lines of a newer Honda Civic.

Same here. I read through the stuff yesterday afternoon that looked quite good. Checked earlier this morning and saw only a few additional posts, mostly saying how the 00Z suite looked like crap, etc., etc. Then read what @showmethesnow followed up with and also looked at some of the ensemble stuff myself and thought "dafuq is going on in here?!" Thank goodness for those who offer more level-headed and reasoned analysis! I didn't get the dumpster fire posts. Now to be fair, the way even the ensembles (at least the GEFS) have jumped around every 6 or 12 hours doesn't lend a lot of confidence in the ~d10+ range, but I still didn't get the cliff jumping.

Round-about way of indicating you were...dare I say!...fringed?! I jest, of course (honest)! I did see that elongated band headed right for Westminster on radar, looked pretty impressive. Nice day and a nice little event for sure!

Right around 1.5" today. Great little event that was a lot more than I anticipated (expecting a dusting or so). I'd say this was perhaps even better than the same amount I got Tuesday, simply because it was cold powder that stuck to everything right away.

Well, maybe there's been some fantasy banter thoughts...but that is a threat window that has been showing up for a little while now. Not that it matters what I say here per se, but seems too far out to consider it a "specific threat", it's still kind of longer range right now and could disappear anyhow. So discussion of that "window" here to me would be warranted...until it actually becomes a legit threat. Six of one, half dozen of another, I suppose.

Well...as long as it doesn't translate to "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine!"

Did we seriously just get NAM'd by the Euro? Relatively speaking of course!

You are spot on about Cleveland (and northeast OH in general). They do have more actual snow days simply because it's colder plus the Lake effect (even if it's light). With the right flow, you can get at least flurries nearly every day. But what I've noticed in all the years I grew up there and now living here for the past ~18 years...is that a storm of 12"+ in Cleveland is really quite rare, at least on the synoptic level (Lake effect is a totally different, and localized, animal). Until I moved to this area, I *never* was in a 20"+ storm. Not once. I now have seen four of them starting with the PD-II storm in 2003 (first real storm since moving here in 2001). Add in a couple of 12"+ events on top of that through that time. Even with some far more dangerous and severe winter storms that I've been through in Ohio, you don't get the same prolific QPF producers in the midwest that you can with coastals, of course. Though we occasionally did share in the outskirts of major East Coast storms there (the 1993 storm is a prime example). (ETA: There's also the fact that winter in northeast OH is noticeably longer...you can get legitimate snow from early November through early April most years. I don't know how many years the Indians had their home opener snowed out!).

If the control run...and every single other model...goes batshit crazy for the next 9 days and that storm happens like shown, then we can guarantee a Cleveland Browns vs. Washington Redskins Super Bowl next year! (ETA: or maybe it would be the Detroit Lions rather than Washington...)

That's a big change from even just yesterday, isn't it? Or was that the Euro's forecast I'm thinking of? Either way, yeah, there were a lot of members going into the COD but also many pushing into 7 at that point.

Didn't realize your average was that much! Thanks for the better context, and as I suspected, the variance from year to year is much less than it is out this way. Actually, your average is surprisingly not extremely less than KCLE (my home town), really. I think their mean annual snow is 55-60", some of that is lake enhanced. Of course if you go east and southeast of the city it increases dramatically due to lake effect snow (100"+ in the heart of the snow belt...yay Chardon in Geauga County!).

Even the Browns have a better shot at a winning season than that! But seriously, that was a nice run even if the control is way out there extreme. It is nice to have some signal for the post-frontal snow and another opportunity shortly after. And cold!

Send it to @Jebman...I'm sure he can have it tuned up in perfect working order, and overnighted to you in time for that!!

I see what you're saying here, and agree it's a matter of perspective to an extent. 20" here in metro DC would be looked at differently simply because it exceeds climatology. But then again, your climo is (I believe?) about double that in DC. I would guess the variance from year-to-year is notably less, too. In terms of absolute amounts, a "meh" winter here is nearly always totally craptastic, as it implies probably getting < 10" or even worse, low single digit amounts. And there have been plenty of those. So then we get into subjectivity. Yeah, we got lucky with the 10-12" here in the middle of a "blah" pattern where things happened to work out. But if winter ends with a couple more dink events that just pushed us over the mean, I don't think many here would consider it a good winter all the same. Especially if it's mostly warm with weekly flood watches outside an event or two that gives us a sloppy 1-3"/2-4". We'd feel lucky to get that one event, though, to be sure. Now, if that one event was, say, like Jan. 2016...that would be viewed differently of course because that's an historic level event. But even still, I know a few in here said they thought that outside that event, 2015-16 sucked (even though, other than the record warm Dec. 2015, the rest of that winter was a bit colder than normal for Jan-Feb). On a related note, I think a lot of people didn't much care for 2006-07. Certainly not the first half. But to be honest, despite the fact that we didn't get a lot of snow in the end and just missed on the V-Day storm (getting sleet and ice instead), I actually kind of liked that winter because it was very cold from the end of January into early March, and there were opportunities in there too. I think expectations play a part, too. Not long ago all guidance was pointing to a great period for winter weather, and prolonged at that. Then suddenly, things got uncertain or even not so great looking and we feel that now we have to try salvaging something. Though there are also indications lately, I guess, that it might not be all bad and there is improvement indicated. So I'm sure many are feeling a letdown because we seem to have "lost" that great potential that seemed so likely.

Nah, you had a good explanation on what the 06Z GFS was showing in the framework of that one model run. Made sense, and was interesting because normally we don't look at things like 850/700 mb vorticity. It was a very subtle setup, which I suppose could still happen or at least come and go in the models. Even it is low probability. As for winning the Mega Millions...I think you have an ulterior motive, wanting to win that in order to pay off Vegas debts, am I right?!

Well, let's just hope it's not a box office flop! Otherwise Ji will be calling this the Ishtar of winters!

@psuhoffman...Many thanks for that detailed explanation, appreciate your efforts and the plots to describe what was going on in 2015 (vs. currently). Definitely shows how it can work if you have that similar look, but also it's amazing just how lucky it was that we pulled things off in Feb/Mar 2015. I admit, I LOLed at this pretty hard! So true! It almost makes one wonder what snowstorm321497024632q0498732 would write in a paper explaining the difference between monetary and fiscal policy, if he were in your class. Wait, on second thought, that would be a very poor idea...I don't think I'd want you subjected to that!!

Whistling past the graveyard, are ya??

@psuhoffman...There's been some discussion of the WAR and whether anything can get that to move out of the way, e.g., if we can finally get some kind of -NAO to boot it out. Question I have for you, if you remember any details of this offhand...how did we get Feb. 2015 to "work", so to speak? Not suggesting these two situations are the same, but as you know that winter kinda sucked until close to Valentine's Day, then we had like 5 weeks on the heater (or extreme cooler, as it was!). I don't recall any -NAO to speak of that winter (or the one before, in '13-14), but we had a favorable +PNA/-EPO. I seem to recall the WAR was killing us in Jan and early Feb of 2015 before we finally got things to go right. Was the PNA ridge just simply in a better location then? I can't remember the other nuances of that season. Just curious, trying to find out ways things could potentially work for us at some point the second half of this season, at least hopefully.

Mmmm, sounds tasty!!

You're probably not all that far from where I am (seeing that you list Bethesda as your location), and I had a similar experience riding the edge of the dry slot. It lightened up for several hours after about 8:30AM, but never completely stopped. I had 17" on the ground around 8AM, then got a couple more during the time it was lighter. The CCB then came through mid afternoon into the evening and hammered us for like 5 hours at ~1"/hr rates on average (I ended up with 24" total; 5" fell in the CCB action). No complaints from me on that storm at all. But it is interesting that barely 10 miles farther up from me in MoCo, they got ~30" or so from reports I saw...they stayed in the heavier stuff for the pretty much the entire day. The bands in the afternoon, once they finally moved in, were quite wicked!

Haha! I actually remember someone in high school (early-mid '80s) who had a purple Gremlin. Yes...purple. He got a lot of flak for that car, but he made fun of it himself, too ("you must be from the west side of Cleveland to have a car like that", etc.!)! My sister-in-law had an old Chevy Cavalier years ago that ran, shall we say, inconsistently at times. She used to call it the Cadavalier!

Yeah seems the LOTFW ensembles have performed best lately!