ORH_wxman

18z NAM juiced up quite a bit. Esp CT into central MA.

This event has fairly steep low level lapse rates so the source of warmth will be from ground-upward. Not a situation where we have elevated warm layers.

It is def warmer than GFS...but still likely cold enough for the areas we were already talking about in the interior from near Kevin up through ORH hills.

There's still something unsettling about the Canadian suite giving almost zero precip while the GFS is trying to spit out low-end warning level snows in some spots. I'm guessing the canadian suite is mostly out to lunch, but the GFS is likely too juiced. Euro/NAM seem like a decent compromise right now hedging more toward GFS.

Kevin does well on SW flow in the BL. His terrain actually causes noticeable upslope in that direction unlike a NE wind. His area to W ORH hills will prob do the best in SNE.

GGEM has an icing threat 12/11-12/12....16 year anniversary, hard to believe.

Some pretty decent snow growth profiles on the GFS for central CT up through central MA and even getting up into NE MA. GFS BL is decently cold too so I'd expect accumulations easily in the elevations and prob even lower areas too near 495 and down toward N Windham county and NW RI if that verified.

Compressed flow seems like it's going to limit this upside to advisory levels outside of northern half of Maine perhaps. But yeah, if it can dig just a bit more, then maybe there would be more widespread 3-5" amounts over interior....but as of now, I'd keep expectations more in the 1-3" range and hope you get a higher lolli. This is kind of trying to pop late which always makes me a little nervous....the radar will look ghastly until the 11th hour and stuff tries to almost redevelop over us early Thursday.

NAM has a nice ribbon from near Kevin up through ORH....it even cools further east inside of 495 as we get toward daybreak and they might pick up an inch or two. Might be tough right on the coast, but there's a brief burst of lift when it's cold enough.

06z euro was def one of the juicier runs. That might get some advisory snows into ORH hills and maybe even near Kevin. I don’t have 06z but on the 00z run you can see how the 925 temps become problematic inside of 495

Last December never looked that good down there. Models did have a big NAO block but marginal cold so it would’ve been a heavy lift south of NE if it did materialize. This is different type pattern with a huge arctic dump into CONUS but in the west…more akin to Xmas week 2022 though still a few differences from that one too.

Gonna be tough to snow SE of 84 and E of 495 in this one.

At least we have cross polar flow so it’s arctic air not too far away. Still doesn’t help us a ton though if we start digging troughs into Baja and SCal. Hopefully guidance is a little too aggressive otherwise we’re prob cooked for at least a week.

I think we just focus on bad outcomes a lot more nowadays. Def didn’t used to be like that. Even years like Dec 2008 where we got a big -EPO western trough, we’d track the goodies and then bitch a little about the Xmas Eve cutter but then jumped right back on the horse. It def helps when you are getting good events mixed in. When you squander the favorable part of the pattern it prob causes everyone to focus on the negatives…which is how it has been the last few years. Partly bexause we had so few favorable patterns.

Prob 2-4” outside of 495…and esp with some elevation.

It’s when the western trough digs really deep underneath the EPO ridge.

Fwiw I just deleted like 20+ posts. We have the whining/banter thread pinned so no real excuse on not using it.

NAO blocking feels unlikely given how strong the PV is. But what frequently happens when you have an AK ridge that poleward is the eastern ridge becomes flatter with time. So you end up with a gradient pattern with a lot of cold spilling over the top.

AK ridge never really truly goes away. It reloads a bit west but this is very poleward so caution flags for the all-torch-all-the-time crowd despite New England looking warm on this prog…there’s certain types of patterns where it’s easier for torches on models here to underperform and this is one of them.

Here’s EPS. Despite OP run showing nada, there’s def a weak signal for a system around that same time the GFS is showing one…if we can tighten up that northern stream just a bit then we have something

If there’s a type of pattern where modeled warm spells could actually underachieve here for a change, it’s that type of look in the N PAC. I still expect some mild days but perhaps it won’t be these week-long 45-55F type patterns we’ve seen a lot of in the past two winters. If you’re keeping legit cold nearby, you hopefully tap back into fairly quickly when you get a mild spell.

Brutal. I experienced a smaller version of that in Ithaca during college. Places maybe 20 miles north in Cortland county would get into this decent bands on NW multi-band flow…while not quite as organized as those single band events, they would often get some of the meatier bands within the event and get 10-15” while we were dinking and dunking for 3” or something. But unlike IAG, at least sometimes we’d get the right flow and get a single band down the finger lake of Cayuga…and when that happened, it was like real lake effect. We’d go total whiteout and get 4” per hour type stuff. Usually didn’t last too long in that flow but it didn’t have to when you snow that hard. @OceanStWx can attest. It was often frustrating but def not as bad as IAG. IAG might be in the worst spot for snow within 75 miles. You might have to go well southeast to a snow hole like Elmira before getting into worse snowfall territory.

Yeah far N Canada above average is fine. It’s when southern Canada gets furnaced is when we have issues. That’s our source region which is why we’re frequently torched when they are.

18z euro was a bit sharper with shortwave. Trend that a little more and could sneak some 3”+ amounts. I’d want to see it trend a bit more though.

Weeklies looked pretty good at least. With that WPO/EPO ridging and no sign of consistent west coast troughing, we might see relaxations fairly short lived. We’ll see though…we’re always on edge when even a transient west coast trough hits these days.