MN Transplant

The Euro is always too high with gusts, but it is putting out mid-50mph on Saturday.  Shave 10 off of that and it is still a nasty day.

39.9 for my high so far.  You can see the melt around the edges.

Crossed the freezing mark at just past 9am.  It'll be interesting to see what happens to the pack today.

16 minutes ago, dailylurker said:

Wrong board. This board is looking for snow mayhem. 

Sorry for banter

12 minutes ago, TSSN+ said:

We were hoping for 20”+ storm. I don’t think we care about the mess from a 1-2” snow lol

9 minutes ago, winter_warlock said:

 Who cares about the mess bring on the snow 

You are big dog hunting in the wrong place!

The problem with this Wednesday thing is that any new snow is going to throw this area back into a mess, even with some melting on Tuesday.

1 hour ago, WxUSAF said:

Yesterday I was outside in the morning and in full sun, the wind died for a moment and I thought "it's not too bad out!".  It was 12F...

Many people ask how you can live in the north with those cold temperatures.  And you nailed the answer, you kind of just get used to it and dress appropriately.

Low of 10.0 and wind chills in the single digits below zero.  Brisk.

1.80” on my core sample today.  Down about 0.5”, but that’s impressive after nearly a week.
 

Potomac from the pull off on the GW Parkway today

16 minutes ago, WhiteoutMD said:

Looks like snow approaching south of DC any of that reaching the ground?

The closest mPing reports are SW of Richmond

7.2, second coldest of the winter.  Airports were all around 10.  I've been surprised in this stretch that IAD hasn't bottomed out like they normally do.

Wild day in Minnesota sports.  The GMs for the Twins and the Vikings got canned on the same day!

1 hour ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Gulf-effect snow.  Fantastic.  The HRRR has a hint of it too.

Here's a fun one.  At my house (6.8), BWI (9), and DCA (10), the coldest temperatures of this stretch were on Saturday morning, before the storm.

1 hour ago, WxUSAF said:

7, which has been the typical number lately. Clarksville mesonet is the -6 spot!!

The temperature differences across the regions are getting wilder as we get later into the week.

Airports:  DCA 13, IAD 6, BWI 8.  Mine was 9.1 and most of northern VA looks to be in the 6-12 range.  But MD is...cold.

I keep getting an error message.

10.9 for the low.

Snowpack stopped compacting.  Same 6.5” as yesterday.

1 hour ago, WxUSAF said:

I’m out of town. My wife says streets are good but lots of sidewalks are untouched.

The sidewalks are a disaster.  My neighborhood has always been good about clearing them, but this storm was a complete breakdown.  Kids walking to sledding locations have been walking in the streets.  No way was school ever opening.

mPING report of snow and weak radar returns around Chesapeake Beach

Sunday is going to be nasty with temps in the teens for much of the day and wind gusts at least into the 30s.

3 hours ago, pazzo83 said:

is there a good explanation for the big misses from the various model outputs?  Was there a model that was better on our actual realized temps?

The NAM 3km is doing pretty well IMBY, but isn't cold enough in the low-lying areas.  The HRRR is the inverse.  The globals are having all sorts of problems.  The fundamental answer is that the models just have so much trouble handling the very stable winter boundary layer and how much mixing there is.  

38 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

@Terpeast @MN Transplant @WxUSAF

Question... something I've noticed anecdotally over the last 20 years, when 3-5 days out we have models projecting a favorable H5 feature for our area...it trends north a significant majority of the time.  However...when guidance has a cutoff h5 feature projected too far south of us...it does not tend to trend north as often.  

I can think of a logical reason, perhaps if a cutoff is far enough south its far enough removed from the NS flow and not impacted by minor variations the models typically get wrong...and which cause the north bleed in these features when they are around our latitude.  

Just wondering if you have also noticed this and if there is something to it, besides just random chance and us getting really unlucky lately.  

I'm just guessing here, but I would think that we are looking at two things:

1)  Confirmation bias. Unless there is an actual study showing that this is true, it may just be the snow weenie in all of us that remembers these types of changes.

2) But if the anecdotal theory is actually true, it might be that the patterns that result in an H5 feature going through the deep south may simply be more predictable due to the strength of the blocking required to make that pattern happen.

The fundamental problem with the lows is that the airmass is potentially historic in length, but not severity.  So, we are getting very cold in the favored spots, but overall it isn't just enough of a cold airmass to challenge some of the more fun numbers for many of us.

1 minute ago, WxUSAF said:

GGEM is like Boxing Day. But way worse!

Boxing Day was worse because it was hitting up north too. 

Just now, WxUSAF said:

@MN Transplant @Bob Chill @psuhoffman damn ULL keeps digging for gold! We might get a late north trend but this mid-range south trend may still put it out of reach.

I'm not giving this one a lot of my energy.  Glad I'm not forecasting for NC/Richmond/Norfolk!

Even though it is a whiff, you have to admire a 500 low track of Minneapolis to St Louis to Atlanta on the RDPS.  That's a unique one.