I remember that....forecast for the final event was mostly rain with ice inland. Ended up as a pretty big snow event (8-14 inches). I remember Bruce Schwoegler seemed almost beside himself about 2 days before the 3/7 finale saying how there was a decent chance the current snow would get washed away....lol.
Yeah this seems like the reverse....we may pick up an inch or two in a couple different waves and then the Tuesday event ends up mostly IP/ZR.....guess we'll see. Could still break colder like '96 did inside 48 hours.
GGEM sort of follows Reggie....mostly ZR and rain....sleet way into NNE on that run. That's nearly a full phase with the northern stream which seems unlikely, but that is how the storm would look if that happens.
Yeah pretty much....this is weak. Still have to watch if guidance ramps up QPF in the final 24-36 hours since a lot of the analog setups are more robust....but it looks like this one is going to just be a C-1" deal for may....maybe a spot higher amount north of pike and then some FZDZ...maybe a pinger here or there.
Yep, the classic "pixie dust" sleet with frigid surface temps. You get these crappy flakes forming below the warm layer so the sleet is more like a 3 or 4 to 1 ratio.
The arctic cold in low levels is really impressive even at like 900-925mb....definitely more of a sleet sounding. You want torched 850s for ZR....these 850s are barely around 0C.
You aren't getting ZR when you are barely above freezing in the warm layer and like -9C at 925mb, lol. That is a paint peeler if I ever saw one.
Guidance has definitely been a bit too mild on most of our medium range threats recently. Best chance for icing IMHO is the freezing drizzle or light freezing rain on the first "system"...esp southern portions of CT/RI for Sunday/Monday.
You can see the difference between the two camps....
Euro ------> warmer for 2/17, colder for 2/18-19
GFS ---------> colder for 2/17, warmer for 2/18-19
GGEM kind of in between.
Hopefully we luck out and are just far enough north on both.
The 2/18-19 event is trending colder....that is likely to happen if 2/17 ends up warmer as the partial phase of the two streams in that event will lower the heights behind it a bit more.