Cobalt

Seeing what you guys get in snow events where us in the immediate DC area are walking between raindrops (pun totally intended) just to manage a meager snowfall is really encouraging me to look for places out that way once the time comes. Gotta deal with being on the outskirts of UHI hell for a few years though.. although some of my college choices are absolutely beautiful in the winter so outside of the DC area for just a little while might not be such a bad idea.

I think this precip distribution map smooths things out, but it's still a useful tool for overall ptypes.

In range if I'm not mistaken, GFS tends to dry up a bit, so this is nice to see. It's been a while since we've had any sort of system like that stay frozen.

You're in a pretty good spot for this event. Can't imagine you won't crack 30" on the year from this, and I'd imagine three 6" events in any given year is an impressive feat in a Nina, even out there. Enjoy!!

Its not a good run. It has .5-.6" QPF before 850s give way for your area.

Better update your Facebook page of this stunning new turn of events

Seems just really dry since not much sleet It's about on par if not a tiny bit wetter than 18z. I think this illustrates where that precip is going a bit better. Kuchera is being pretty funky, and since it's likely not gonna be 10:1, it's a good compromise to just extrapolate the snow precip side of the panel to ratios slightly lower than 10:1.

Euro would technically be in the NAM camp, but actually it just doesn't really have a wave 2, not much energy left behind. I guess if you split the difference between that and the NAM everyone's happy lol

Since you posted this, the HRRR got snowier, the SREFs got snowier, the 12k NAM got snowier/colder, and the 3k NAM will likely follow. I know you're banking on us to fail. We fail a lot, and probably will still manage to fail. We're good at that, but that's the thing. You can say that we will fail 48 hours before every event and you will likely end up right most of the time, but that's because of the climo we have to deal with! It's kind of what Judah Cohen and JB do, only in reverse and with less analysis/backing. Kind of pure modelology actually.

Here's a fun comparison! I know it's the HRRR at range, but most guidance has wave 2 impacting our area. HRRR at hr 46 Aaaand Euro at the same time. Just a tiny difference.

No Short Pump jackpot on DT's first guess.. not sure if that's something to be concerned about or not

KU 101 also suggests that our KUs storms don't come from a +AO, +EPO, +NAO, and -PNA regime in a mod Nina. The fact that there's even an outside chance of getting close to warning level snows within a vicinity of the metros is pretty impressive here.

Snow showers move through on the trailing end of the system. Would be nice to get an inch on top of the snow/sleet pack.

I wouldn't say that exactly. The wave 2 we were talking about on the 12z run is practically nonexistent on the 18z. Regardless, the axis of heavy precip moved NW some, but 850s and 700s only gave in a little. It's actually wetter for the initial thump for IAD and points NW I believe, it's just that it lost the ~.2-.3" qpf that came from wave 2. 18z has been wonky the past 2 days, not that I'm too certain about anything in regards to off hour runs.

Just my humble opinion, but I don't think any operational model ensures that we're safe. Mesos are clearly trending more positively, but they still blast that warm nose through our region, and they were right to a degree with that feature in previous events. I would say that the past few model suites have cemented the fact that a significant wintry event is going to unfold. 0.5"+ QPF of any frozen is rather significant, and most models put that total at almost twice that precip output.

I remember it being the only model to hold onto the Feb 7th system as well. Pretty nice run it's on.

ICON panels still coming out, but it looks pretty darn juiced. Nice to see models not lose any precip with some actually getting wetter as we get towards 40hrs until onset. Gives us a cushion for when/if they lose a bit of juice as they have so far during this winter in short range.

Some of those 1hr panels have 0.2-0.3" of precip fall, basically all sleet. Not sure I've ever seen sleet accumulate as fast as snow before, but regardless that would be ~0.6-1" of sleet an hour? Can't imagine seeing that happen, but it would be quite the sight.

NAM has 850s at -3 to -5 at hr 45, meanwhile 700mb temps are +3. Need to see the charts on that, it's likely not right, but that would be an unholy sleet bomb for sure.

:/

Thursday's system is outside of the Day 3-7 Hazards Outlook, but this shows the potential for cold following the event. Might be a deep winter look if a majority of the subforum avoids rain or temps shooting up on Friday.

Yeah, I guess the main takeaway is that it starts everyone EZF north as snow. Wave 2 looked pretty potent but obviously it doesn't go out to that range.

I think your idea of the lack of a temperature gradient plays into it too. Whether it's the PAC torch lingering from November or warm SSTs in the Atlantic, we really haven't had much of a major fluctuation in temperatures. No temps in the 60s whatsoever (not many days peaking over 50 either), but not many subfreezing highs either. The entire period from Jan 15 to Feb 15 was basically as climo as you could manage in a winter. Now that we actually have a major temp gradient into the country now, we're finding ourselves in a potential snowy setup in a rather imperfect pattern. This is closer to banter/speculation now, but I've wondered how the major loss of snowpack plays into things too. Not as of recently, but with how rapidly the Dec 16-17 snowpack melted off with the Christmas Eve deluge. That basically wiped the 30"+ snowpack away for the areas that got that big of a snowfall. Those same areas would've gotten a snowpack efresher with the Jan 3 system, but I just remember the potential pattern change being delayed shortly after the rainstorm came into range with it being modeled to erase that snowpack. Im not too informed on how that would've impacted January, and I imagine it wouldn't have done much, but surely losing that square mileage of snowpack factored into the lack of any major temperature gradient in the Eastern US.

As others have mentioned, 850s/700s basically hang on and keep DC and Northwest snow outside of a few 1hr panels. Regardless, here's how much falls before 850s get borderline. Pretty exciting stuff.

Changes back to snow for a good bit of the area through 05z Friday. Great run for most! Glad it's catching on to the initial thump being faster/wetter.