Scarlet Pimpernel

Was that the one around the 20th of Feb in 2015, over a weekend? We had extremely cold antecedent air leading into it. It was like 10 degrees out the morning that hit, and we got warning-level snows and some ice even as the low was in what is normally a very unfavorable spot for us to our west. But it took so long just to warm up to freezing, and the mid levels held on for quite awhile, we scored a decent snow here. (ETA: 'd by Fozz, looks like that indeed was the same storm!)

So, seems like there's a bit of a "WAR" going on between Ralph and PSU. Hopefylly it will be a cold one!

Feb. 14, 2015...yes, literally Valentine's Day. Front went through on a blast of wind and those snow squalls. I got about 2" from that in the space of an hour or so. Though the squalls were not wide-spread...several areas got little or nothing...depended on where you were. The following day it was still windy and in the teens.

You're talking about that wave coming down out of Utah and the 4-corners region, correct? I was looking at that too, it's close there to phasing with the SS near the Gulf.

Yeah, for some reason the "follow up" wave next week seems to be more likely than the one we were hoping for this weekend. Obviously some differences between the two cases, and the thing next week has support from several models at this point (whereas this weekend, it showed up on a couple of runs here or there but nothing consistent). ETA: But one way or another we need that front to go through the region before the wave gets up here of course!

Unless it shows 30"or more for his yard, shouldn't let Ji see any model! And he still might not be happy!

Looking at TT, it appears the main low is in the Gulf around 144h, then comes up to the FL panhandle area. But appears that it comes in "discrete" pulses, though there is a main center of sorts. Looks like an interesting time, if that cold front actually goes through in time and there is SS energy to rotate up toward us.

Maybe about an inch or 1.5" for the event. It was very pretty out earlier this morning!!

Reduced to hoping for a few flakes as the Arctic air rushes in on Sunday! Well, that and perhaps still having a few piles of what's on the ground now still left over.

Man that sucks, in a sort of ironic twisted kind of way! Sounds like something out of that movie "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" (Steve Martin & John Candy)!! I've never been to Vegas myself, but my brother has gone a couple of times. He (and others) said it's one of those places you really need to see at least just once in your life. Just to experience the lights, casinos, whatever. I don't know how much he ever won or lost, but it wasn't much either way from what he said. Somehow reminds me of the first time I went to New Orleans, with a friend while in grad school (was in Atlanta at the time). For years, my dad had pestered me that I should visit there, telling me what a neat town it is (he had been there many times when he was younger), and especially since I was relatively close to go there. While there, I called him from a pay phone (yes, pay phone...had no cell phone in the mid '90s!) and said "Guess where I am right now?" which I think had him slightly concerned so when he asked where, I said "I'm looking out over the Mississippi River, sipping a beer!". To which he replied "Ah, so you *finally* made it to New Orleans!!" I didn't even have to mention the location, he knew. I agree with him by the way, a very neat town and very unique!

Well, as long as you don't have to come home in a barrel from an unsuccessful venture in Vegas!! But seriously, safe travels, and hope you had a great trip! And here's to having some good tracking once you're back in the area!

Ha! I'd laugh if that happens, as temperatures fall into the teens or low 20s at the same time! Talk about making good on lemonade right there...

That 2nd storm Feb. 9-10 was damn near impossible to measure accurately, especially with all the other snow from a few days prior and with it blowing around all over. I marked down 12.0" where I'm at, but that might have been a bit of an underestimate. At least I saw a few other nearby reports on the order of ~14", so my measurement (such as it was) was in the ballpark anyhow.

I suppose my recollection of the exact amounts "fringed" you with only 25!!

I see...sorry if I misunderstood what you were looking for there (thought you meant "last week of January" in general!). As for whether sub-zero temps are still showing up for next week, I don't know at this point. Maybe some areas?

During the extremely cold month of Feb. 2015, DCA cracked into the single digits for lows in the middle to later part of the month. BWI got close to zero, and IAD actually did record a below zero reading in the second half of that month.. So yeah, I don't think it's impossible to get sub-zero in late January (not that it will happen, but you get the idea).

Ha! Yeah, I woke up to barely white-out conditions with 40MPH wind gusts through much of that day, and barely recorded a foot of wind-driven snow! To be fair, there was a sharp cut-off close to northern VA I think, but even those areas got some solid amounts. And even DCA got over 10"! Granted, central and northern MD scored best with like 15-25".

Just remember...don't mess with Jobu. It's very bad to steal Jobu's rum...VERY bad!

Yes, those are generally not worth hoping for, but they do happen upon occasion (not saying it will here, though would be nice of course!). What we'd really need (require?) for that is a trailing piece of energy along the front after it passes through and we're in the cold air again. And hope the front doesn't move so fast that any secondary wave is pushed too far offshore to affect us.

It was indeed a big mess over the entire area. I think areas farther west in MD/VA/WV got decent snows out of it too. It was very cold leading into it, and despite the low center going well enough to our west (as I recall?), we never changed over to rain even in the DC area. We got a bit of snow, then all sleet...about 3-4" worth. Areas east/southeast of DC (Annapolis, etc.) probably had it worse because they ended up with more freezing rain rather than sleet. The whole thing then turned into a block of ice for the next couple of weeks as it remained quite cold for the rest of that month.

But, but...it's all like a vacation, isn't it?? (that was serious snark there, by the way!). This is the one thing I think a lot of people don't see or perhaps don't get. When the shutdown ends, it's not like you just go back to work and move on like nothing happened. There's a ton of sh*t that is backlogged from the past 3+ weeks. If you've got experimental stuff that was running or whatever, that may have failed or otherwise data may have been lost because nobody is there to keep an eye on it. Stuff that I would have normally done around the beginning of the month may not still be there to recover when I get back. And on, and on...

Amen! Almost as bad as not working/not getting paid, it's been in the back of my mind how much stuff I'll have to recover from when this is eventually over. Some things just simply may be lost.

I made a mention of this in the medium range thread, when the discussion turned to the possibility of a "flash freeze" here on Sunday afternoon. I also experienced the "White Hurricane" (as we called it in northeast OH...I grew up in the Cleveland area at the time). That still stands as the fastest and most dramatic temperature drop I've seen, a 30 degree drop in two hours (mid-40s at about 4AM to the teens by 6AM), and it came with a blast on 70+ MPH gusts. It was a brutal storm, not really so much from the snow (we got 6-12" in NE Ohio, on top of some old snow), but the extreme cold and wind. I also remember the low pressure associated with that storm, it bottomed out at 28.28" (957 mb) at KCLE, and it set low pressure records across a large area. It was highly unusual to have a system "bomb out" like that over land, as it moved north out of the Gulf, through Ohio, and finally north of Lake Erie into Canada. I recall a lot of what you describe, the various stories, etc. On the 30th anniversary of the storm (2008), I was able to get an electronic copy of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which had a sort of historical remembrance of it. Also have a weather almanac by Dick Goddard, who was a local Cleveland meteorologist (he was very good, and very well-liked there)...he covers that storm in there. Since you're from Ohio, you might want to check out the book "Thunder in the Heartland" (by Thomas W Schmidlin & Jeanne A Schmidlin), they cover a wide range of significant Ohio weather events (not just winter stuff...but they do also have a great discussion of the 1978 blizzard).

Well...I'll let others give perhaps a better explanation, but here's my two copper coins worth (all it's worth perhaps!). I thought I saw in other model runs that showed this follow-up wave scenario, that there was in fact some energy left behind. So perhaps that is part of it. I also wonder if that, in conjunction with extreme baroclinicity along that front, is partly the cause as well (extreme temperature drop in < 6 hours). This of course all assumes those solutions are right, and taking them verbatim.

Oy Gevalt!!