ORH_wxman

The limiting factor right now is duration. The higher model runs were longer duration. It required that trailing shortwave to partially phase in….clearly many in here were biting on that solution (hence the disappointment by many now that it’s trended away from that idea) but I’ve always thought it was a bit aggressive given the pattern. If we can slow this down a bit by trending the block a pinch stronger, then maybe we can bring those back….but I typically do not bank on complex shortwave interactions to deliver the goods. The single shortwave can still produce a really nice 8-10 hour period of moderate to heavy snow though. It has a nice neg tilt and a good high to the north to maximize frontogenesis.

Everything encased in ice here from overnight ZR. Maybe a quick squall incoming

Well 50s ain't happening, so.....

And? This is going to have good moisture. A thump will be a pretty decent warning event. We’re just not getting 12-18” without CCB snows. That’s been the realistic best case scenario and it could still happen, but best to not expect it.

Nobody is real out paying attention because of 2/28, but there could be an inch or two of fluff for some on Saturday afternoon. That has been slowly trending just a bit juicier. It will be a very cold snow too.

The assumption of trends is a common error in forecasting.

Yeah overnight runs really take away that trailing shortwave interaction. So that will put a cap on the thing’s potential. Still can’t complain though about a solid warning snowfall.

Mode is the most common result out of the trials.

Correct. Yeah I’m this storm there is good clustered agreement which is why the mean and median are roughly the same, but in storms with more disagreement, they will definitely diverge some.

In this case, there’s isn’t much difference between median and mean, but when you have a handful of members skewing the mean, it can be very relevant. It’s a good feature to have.

That’s a cool feature. Didn’t know they had 50th percentile on wxbell. In many senses, that is superior to a mean.

OP run looked a little blockier than 12z so not a total surprise. Prob why EPS followed suit.

Even a foot is pretty much deep winter. What the average pack for Stowe village (not the mountain) in late Feb? 18ish? But the foot you have is obscenely dense.

Could be a real goodie for SE MA.

I think you mean 1921? The November all-timer that crushed all the way down to south of PVD? But yeah, that was a coastal too. Kind of like a colder version of 2008.

1973 was actually a coastal too but not like 2008 was. It was more elongated but def still a coastal storm.

Yeah you want to see at least 1.5” of QPF for a big icer…preferably higher than 2” but this storm had pretty efficient accretion down there due to generally light rates so it prob could’ve been a real biggie if it had even 1.4-1.6 of QPF. If your accretion efficiency was 80% which is above the median of 72%, then 2 inches of ice QPF will produce 1.6” of flat ice accretion which is about 0.70” of radial ice (radial ice is usually about 40% of flat ice). In 2008, I measured close to an inch of radial ice, which was incredible considering we didn’t have super efficient accretion rates in that one….but shear QPF overwhelmed the efficiency issues in that. We were putting up 3-4” of QPF.

That’s an all-timer type storm. Top 5. Hard to be too disappointed in a winter that produces a top 5 storm…regardless of the rest of it. At least my own personal grade would be at least a C. I prob couldn’t go much higher because I do enjoy having snowpack for a chunk of the winter and snow around the holidays…both of which were an utter dumpster fire this year.

We’re maxed out after 2008. We’ll never see another like that in our lifetimes. It was a life storm for ORH hills over to far NE MA and far S NH.

Not super similar. That one was more of a straight overrunning setup and didn’t involve a compact shortwave running into confluence like this one. It did have that northeast to southwest gradient in temps. This setup is not super common. CIPS said top analog was Feb 21, 2005 and that was a 5-9” type event for a chunk of SNE though it was clearly weaker than this modeled event…both aloft and at the sfc.

The Euro suite is definitely ugly for 3/4 all of the sudden. Very strong cutter signal on the EPS…other guidance isn’t as bad but I didn’t love the 12z look today overall. Hopefully it trends back in the next few cycles.

So it would still be an F if you got, say, 17 inches in the Feb 28th storm and then just a few scraps in March? I guess the rest of the season was bad enough to maybe warrant such a grade but 17 inches is a big storm…esp for the CT river valley.

Nice temp gradient today…80 at IAD and 78 at BWI

The only “threat” that made it anywhere close was the 1/23 “happy ending” event. That wasn’t a big deal though. Maybe 2-4” with some 5-6” lollis.

We never got a good threat inside d6 in December. Unless you count 12/16 for elevated interior north of the pike. But that excluded about 90% of the posters in SNE.