ORH_wxman

I remember that vividly and Scott (CoastalWx) and I were talking about why so much QPF was being thrown inland on guidance leading up to it. We were legimately puzzled because the upper air and mid-levels didn’t really support that type of QPF layout. We theorized that because heights were so obscenely low in that event, perhaps it was giving guidance trouble because the temp gradients and lapse rates were so obscene (hydrostatic models would have more trouble with extreme lapse rates)…but that was just a theory. Who knows the real reason. It was the RGEM that showed the potential bust up there first along with the positive bust down in eastern MA about 24-36 hours before the event. RGEM had its random hall of fame season that year…we joke it was like Brady Anderson’s 50 HR season in 1996….it also absolutely nailed the death band in the Jan 2015 blizzard along 495-ORH-Ginxy along with red flags in western SNE and then nailed the redevelopment and prolonging of the Feb 2nd event that year.

There seems to be cross-guidance agreement on strong confluence and a good antecedent airmass. Those are two things we haven’t had much of this season. So I would agree there is reason to be more optimistic than previously. Still, lead time isn’t inside of 6-7 days yet so we need to cross that threshold.

At least we know who to blame if this trends to shit.

Look at those scooter highs.

If we don’t get a -NAO, a good analog for -EPO/-PNA/SE ridge but a cold gradient pattern is March 1967.

This look has definitely gotten closer than a lot of previous setups. I think I mentioned yesterday this is one of the few nice looks I’ve seen get inside day 10 all winter. The others were back in December and maybe we can count 1/23. Still plenty of reason to be cautious though. You get a couple wrong movements in the shortwaves and it could turn into another cutter, but I do like the trend of the front-running shortwave being stronger.

We used to go in 2001 and 2002 when I was in college. Exchange rate was about 1.55 to 1.60 to 1….it was awesome. More importantly for that age in college, the drinking age was 19 there so those couple years pre-21 were great to hop the border…we were both legal and what little money we had went very far.

We’ve never had any overrunning snow events with a SE ridge and -PNA.

I like that the front-running wave around d6-7 is trending stronger. That is going to help push the boundary further south behind it.

Even ORH only averages about 2.5” in November. He is less than that obviously.

We don’t even need an epic winter. A mere +2 with average snow would feel like Caribou compared to Philly and DCA climo which is what a swath of SNE has basically felt like this winter.

Yeah there’s a million different ways that system could go. It could be rain initially and then flipping or it could be a cutter or it could be all snow. The cold advects in during the storm on that run so the beginning is warmer…though it looked plenty cold enough aloft the whole time, so if it started as rain on the 18z GFS, it would prob be extremely brief and right on the water.

Our temps this winter have basically made BOS into DCA. BOS winter is about 7F colder than DCA on average.

At least this one has creeped inside of 10 days. I honestly can only count a handful of larger threats that got inside 10 days (the Dec 16th and Dec 23rd storms, maybe Jan 23rd?) before evaporating or trending worse.

You talking about the system at day 9-10? That’s a full blown snowstorm on the GFS….even a Scooter-approved arctic high building in. But let’s get it inside of 5 days. A lot of the models have that system. But some (like GGEM) are pretty warm with it.

I would say it was a little confusing in that it implied the rest of February would be warm which it might not be. Specifically, the weeklies kind of cut it off around 2/23ish…a bit of semantics but the last few days of the month could be more wintry than one might glean from that tweet. But he might have not had the daily breakdown available…week 2 as a whole is going to be warm but it is front-loaded warmth…that 2/24-2/27 period might be cold. I agree it was a pretty accurate description of weeks 3/4.

18z GFS would be quite a shock to everyone’s senses…getting those 60s later this week and then only having that one colder day on Saturday to rebound back to 40s/50s next week before that boundary presses south and we get 36 hours of snow at temps in the upper teens to mid 20s (depending on proximity to coast). Anyways, that one could still cut too. Less likely though if the front runner system around D7 is stronger and pulls the boundary south behind it further south…I think that is a major key to the D9 system.

Weeklies are still weenie-ing out.....I am not sure I buy the west coast ridging/+PNA pattern with aleutian low it keeps showing....however, it does show that UK/Iceland ridging retrograding westward into the NAO domain which would help a lot even if the west coast ridging doesn't happen.

You’re north of pike…good chance you get at least one advisory-plus type system. Hell, it could be next week

I'd agree....even an east-based NAO like building into Iceland/eastern Greenland would be pretty good. But that look seems unstable with the flat ridge over the south....I'd expect it to try and build back northeastward unless the NAO is forcing it from doing that. It's an active look though, so if we could keep on the cold side of the boundary, there could be multiple storms to track in a fairly short time.

If you retro that UK/Iceland/Scandi ridging, then the pattern becomes very loaded for snow....that's prob the one way to get any type of sustained period for snow threats as we go into early March. I currently put it at a low probability but high enough chance that it is worth watching

Yeah it is pretty similar description to what the weeklies did on Thursday....they started cooling off right near end of month and then went cold/stormy look for first 3 weeks of March.....ensmebles today are similar for end of Feb...colder, but not frigid. Gradient look....trying to build eastbased NAO ridge too, but I'm not buying that until its inside 10-12 days.

How would anyone have the weeklies yet? They don't come out until after the regular ensemble run is finished.

A -NAO is good to have for what Tip calls "sub-index events"....basically like in a -PNA/-NAO pattern, you have that firehose of shortwaves spraying the west coast and they run into the NAO block and get forced south of us as overrunning events or SWFEs or "NJ model" redevelopers. When you have a big +PNA, it's probably bad to have a monster west-based NAO block....that's congrats Carolinas up to Mid-atlantic...and I agree with Tip that the PNA rising is the bigger correlation to large-scale big-ticket QPF events (aka, our "big dog" storms) than the NAO. One of the reasons winter weenies like the NAO blocks (myself included) is that they make it harder to get cutters so if you have snow around, its less likely to get melted out in a big rainstorm or warm sector. It keeps it wintry....more useful in mid-winter for that than March admittedly where we are fighting the solar insolation more and more each day.

Yeah...might get going in the first week after the 4th or 5th, but otherwise, I'd think the meat of it would be like Mar 7 to the equinox....at least that is what the weeklies showed, but it's hard to trust them, even at week 3. I'm going to assume no NAO blocking until it's pretty solidly inside of 12 days.