Scarlet Pimpernel

Exactly! If we can get a blustery 3-6" powder and some truly cold air that goes through Christmas weekend, that's a HUGE win in my book. Like I said earlier, everyone was all ga-ga (understandably) over the GFS showing an Arctic front blasting through with a brief period of decent snow the other day. Point being that (most!) everyone would have been all for that even with just a couple inches of snow. Now some other things are coming into perhaps better focus with the evolution here, in a good way for us. Let's hope that continues. I'd really only be disappointed if we get almost nothing and then a blast of dry cold. But we don't have to get a HECS either (I'd take it, to be sure!). Right...and very good point. We've seen different solutions from the GFS and Euro today, though overall the same general setup. And all of those outcomes drop some decent snow here while it's more than plenty cold. Can't complain at that. Having some good leeway is a huge plus, let's hope that's real in the end.

We pray to Jobu. Just don't steal his rum!!

It really was a surprise too! I remember it was raining, then looked out the window not long after and these fat flakes were coming down! It ended a short time later but like I said, still pretty cool.

I was living in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in DC at the time. I do remember that early morning wet snow Christmas morning, like rain changed to snow for a time I think. We didn't get a lot other than to whiten the grass a bit, but it was pretty cool for awhile!

Yup...both the GFS and Euro would be a white Christmas with a very wintry feel. If that were to occur, it would be the only "truly" wintry Christmas that I can recall since I moved to this area (in 2001). You could say we technically had a white Christmas in 2009 with the leftover snow pack from that Dec. 18-19 storm. But even then, it was being washed away right on Christmas with rain. And it beats the hell out of 65-70 and humid.

If my eggnog is spiked well enough, I'll be able to look out my window and see deep winter conditions and track the next one, regardless of what the actual weather is!

Regardless of the precise snow amounts shown, fact is we all would stand to get at least a halfway decent amount or more in time for Christmas. The other day everyone was all excited about that Arctic front blast that was showing up, even as it gave far less snow than this depicts now today. I'm glad it's showing more of a potential for a coastal storm at this point instead of a frontal passage. (ETA: Looking at the temps, it would be like cold powder for everyone too)

This reminded me of an old sports joke about Pete Rose's gambling on baseball (no offense to any Rose fans out there)... So, it was recently Pete Rose's birthday. Nobody was sure of his exact age, but the spread was 3 years! (rim shot, please...I exit stage right!)

Except for heat. Always bet the over for temperatures at DCA!

Totally agree. 2009-10 was incredible but you are correct that there was a lot of dead space, especially the very end of December through nearly all of January. Not that I minded the end result, of course! LOL!! But yeah it wasn't the same in terms of constant tracking like that period in 2015 and nearly the entire winter of 2013-14. Heck, I remember even YOU were saying after '13-14 that you were practically exhausted of tracking events, it was so busy that season! Jan. 2016...that's the longest tracking I remember in my time here (well, maybe the PD-II storm too?). Even that first Feb. 2010 HECS may not have been as long in advance. I still have a vivid memory sitting in that Starbucks where the old Barnes and Noble was in Rockville (it's now a Burlington!), the Saturday before. I was checking the discussion in here and it's like all the global models "clicked" on emphatically showing a big storm the next week. And just like that, we all knew it. Sure, many details had to be parsed out, but we all knew a big, very impactful storm, was coming the next weekend. It was game time. That was a cool feeling! I got almost nothing done the entire next week following the latest guidance as it came in!

Good to see ya, @vastateofmind! Fellow March 25 birthday! Hope all is well...

That was an amazing period ushered in by that nifty squall along the Arctic front on Feb. 14! But there was another period that was pretty decent, too...Jan. 30-Feb. 10, 2010? (ETA: I joke a bit of course, because everyone knows about 2009-10. But in all seriousness you're right about us being streaky AF here, or so it seems. Even that record-breaking 2009-10 winter was streaky: amazing December that started early and then the HECS...followed by kind of "meh" late December through much of January...followed by that amazing 12 days from end of January into mid-February.)

Thank you for summing up the Cleveland Guardians so well! (But seriously they had a great season so I cannot complain.) Or to use a football analogy, something my brother said years ago when the Browns had Bernie Kosar. He joked about the typical "Kosarian drive"... 85 yards, chew up 10 minutes on the clock...and settle for a field goal!

And an interesting broad, sort of squashed, trough underneath the block and downstream of that ridge. Whether that's necessarily good, I'm not sure, but I like that look.

I won't worry about whatever "typical Nina" indices may or may not occur. It's now December 13, we are looking at some unreal cold (compared to much of the past decade of Decembers!), and quite possibly some snow that's more than a dusting. If we urp up a hairball and don't get anything other than chapped skin from cold and dry, will I be disappointed? Yeah, of course, as will everyone here! I personally don't think that will occur (and I don't have a cat, but people in my family do, and an urped up hairball is disgusting!). But all the same...we have Jan-Feb-Mar left after this and I don't see us getting only diddly squat that whole time. Last year, we had the one early January event that mostly affected DC southward, and a nifty final event in mid-March. But last February sucked as did December. So there's that.

Well to be fair, those Europeans like keeping things too warm over in these parts! (ETA: And I was referring to the current run of the GFS and to @CAPE's comment, not to the 12Z ops Euro that was posted before).

Someone engaging in a meltdown over an ops run 10+ days out? Say it ain't so! That person you infer probably has 2 letters in their name, involving the 9th and 10th letters of the alphabet?

That's what it looked like to me. I know, parsing details of a model some 10 days out, but still. That's one hella dynamic system there and if it happens that way I could see a burst of heavy snow right as temps crash. Not like a huge amount, but still. In that Feb. 2014 event, I got about 2" in less than 2 hours as that Arctic front breezed through. This looks more intense than that. If something like that happened, probably nearly all of us would be pitching tent...so to speak!

Oy Gevalt! A 20 degree difference between PG and MoCo in that 1st panel! Now...if we can get a nice little wave to propagate up the front...well...hmmmm!

Perhaps something like Feb. 14, 2015...or even more so??

GFS drinking vodka cold for HH today???