Kmlwx

People have mentioned it before - but it's pretty clear to me that a lot of folks just use analogs totally wrong. I think the red taggers and the veteran snow trackers (psuhoffman and others) use them *correctly* Too many people see an analog date for big snow and assume big snow is "likely" and on the flip side - somebody will see a Boxing Day analog and get spooked. We should use analogs for large scale patterns NOT end results. It should go without saying that an analog is never going to be a 1:1 match down to every last detail. And in an atmosphere where one tiny change can have a big impact...even a 99% analog could go a completely different way in the end. Long way of saying yes - if I see Jan 2026 in the future analogs in future years - I will absolutely roll the dice with that.

I split time between Odenton, MD and Colesville, MD - both still have serious issues - especially side roads. Both counties seem to be working hard (but slowly) with big machines to widen the main roads. Sidewalks in a lot of communities are abysmal (even HOA places). I even filed a complaint with Anne Arundel County about the HOAs failure to remotely clear the sidewalks of ice a week after the storm. They switched snow removal contractors sometime between last winter and this winter - the new folks SUCK. My neighborhood in Colesville is notorious for people leaving their cars parked on the road before a snowstorm - and this led to my dead end street being a single file lane...and the county hasn't returned to widen it at all.

Yeah it's pretty crazy...my neighborhood is very slowly improving but still largely single file - and the entrances to the subdivisions are really tricky if you aren't careful (limited visibility around turns and such with the piles). Even with the cold temps after - I think if this had been cold powder - we'd be largely back to full lane usage on all roads. Randolph Rd and New Hampshire in my area as of this AM still had essentially a whole 2/3rds of a lane missing and ice jutting out into the left lane form the medians in spots. By far...the ICC is the best cleared road I've seen in my travels to and from work. They've even hauled snow out from the shoulders to allow the shoulder to be reopened. This is up there with the Feb 2007 sleet bomb in my "memorable storms" mental catalog. I don't have @psuhoffman's uncanny memory for ALL storms - but this one will be one I certainly do not forget.

I would argue that the sleet glacier might have nudged the impact of this past storm to major. I know the amounts won't echo that - but the impacts relating to the bitter cold after I think edge this upwards.

I'm just going to go down with the ship. HUGE SNOWSTORM for MBY regardless of what models say

Was just coming here to post this! Big changes from even just a few days ago

Yes sir

I will say this - I agree it is probably dead for the metro area(s). Sure, coastal/eastern sections are still in the game. But one huge caveat here...I know with remote sensing the whole "data sparse regions" argument is less valid - however, when we are dealing with some pretty small scale changes that can make big changes, I would probably at least mentally keep one eye on this until the s/w hits the west coast and the energy up in Canada (which is a mess of stuff flying around) is sampled/resolved better. I don't think it's going to make any huge shifts...but there might be a point where it gives us a little glimmer of hope here in the DC/Baltimore areas. Again...I think this is probably not the one for us here in the corridor...but just saying - there is still some data to be sampled by the upper air network that *might* contribute to changes. But as I said above - the ensembles all still look pretty solid into February. If the blocking really does recycle - we will probably get another chance or two to make bank. There are absolutely NO guarantees in this. I'm sure @Maestrobjwa will confirm this at this point. Nobody is "owed" snow. If it happens, it happens...if it doesn't, well it doesn't.

We are probably going to have to wait for the blocking to reload/recycle for our next big dog threat (if there is one). In the interim - we probably need to keep our eyes out for a snow pack refresher that shows up at short leads - like a northern stream system that drops an inch or two. Good news is the ensembles still look pretty solid going into February in terms of the blocking reload.

I think we got it

Got up to a balmy 28.6 before falling back to 27.3 now. Sun is doing some good work on spots that I shoveled. Still a heck of a lot of shoveling to go....

If I'm nitpicking...that WeatherNext model is a bit too offshore. I know it shows digital blue over us - but it is a good ways out to seat on that plot. We'll see how this week of model tracking pans out!

Yeah this airmass is anomalous to say the least!

All I'm hearing is next weekend is the appetizer if we can will it back into place like the 18z Euro showed

I know we all love to say it - but can you imagine if this QPF firehose was entirely snow. Man...it would be snowing cats and dogs...

I only have some limited video with a very bad quality camcorder I took during the Feb 2007 storm. But this is wild the amount of sleet pouring out of the sky. At my high of the day at 22.5 and it's been creeping up. I am NOT expecting to touch/exceed 32 but still worth monitoring. Let's hope this stays IP and doesn't go to ZR... Crazy stuff out there - even if it wasn't a "clean" snowstorm for us - the science nerd in me is fascinated by this type of storm. It's rare! Usually sleet is just a stop in the transition to rain for us. Seldom do we just dump sleet for hours on end like this. Arctic airmass doing arctic airmass things!

The amount of sleet between shoveling sessions is pretty incredible. Good workout if nothing else....

At my high of the day in Colesville (19.9 degrees) - still major sleet falling.

Radar looking a bit more splotchy recently. Definitely a sleet bomb out there for sure.

Plenty of time for it to be in Chicago by later in the week!

Precip hitting the side of the house sounds like pop rocks/rice krispies. We haven't had a sleet bomb in a while so I'm down for this. Hopefully we can avoid it going to ZR. Although...this week is going to be hell at work so I would be totally fine with a full week closure (which is really just WFH).

I eyeballed 5-6 inches around when it flipped. Surprised you only got that much! Maybe compacting? I was up around 5:45 when it looked like 4-5.

Pinging away here in Colesville, MD

Just radar in general. It may very well be sleeting at those locations that show it - but it's just a word of caution that the radar beam is not moving horizontal to the ground across its entire journey. It doesn't *always* reflect ground truth. It's only one of many reasons why radar meteorology is challenging!

Seems people forget that the radar beam rises in elevation as it gets farther away from the radome. Hence the donut appearance in winter weather events - and also subsequently why low level rotation for tornadoes can get missed in radar sparse zones away from the radar. The beam height near Winchester is over 2500ft. Once you get out to Delray, WV it's almost 5000ft!