csnavywx

Wheeeeee METAR KPIT 070251Z 26008KT 2SM -TSSN BKN009 OVC016CB M03/M04 A2970 RMK AO2 TSB50 SLP082 OCNL LTGICCG NW TS NW MOV SE P0000 60000 T10281044 50005

Oh gotcha! Yeah, looking closer -- there's some nice mid-level DPVA superimposed over that surface front with the left exit region of that jet streak nosing in aloft. Good spot for something to happen. Hope it makes it down to at least our northwestern folks. Been a while since we've had a good arctic front driven snow squall.

KHZY reported VCTS earlier and I thought it was spurious too. Then KUCP picked it up and made me double check. Most of the lift and buoyancy is embedded in the -10 to -20C layer, so seems possible.

Seeing a few lightning strikes and ASOS stations reporting VCTS with that band coming into PA right now.

Looking For Group Page 3

Should finally get some flakes this evening/overnight. Not much but we take what we can get around here. Big gale tomorrow. Most of these wind estimates are lowballed, imo. Full sun, very strong CAA and a bombing low offshore should be more than enough to pull down momentum from aloft and make for some very strong gusts (50-55KT inland, approaching 60 at times near/over water). Depends on how deep the mixing layer actually gets.

It's dwindling. We got our adjustment w/nw but it just wants to dig for oil at this point. Needed a bit more time and space to make it work. The suppression out front didn't help either. There are a multitude of reasons to never trust triple phasers and this just adds to it. Better chance of getting some consolation snow if you're out on the beaches ofc, but will take quite a feat to get it back at this point.

The biggest source of spread has been the placement, tilt and shape of the primary max +PV/advection lobe as it comes into the upper Midwest. Most earlier solutions were emphasizing the middle of the axis to develop the primary PV later on, but generally this process favors the far end of the trough axis. Not really shocking to see it trend that way. I have my feelings about the NAM too, but given the sensitivity of the setup, models are still almost certainly still underdispersed wrt the true spread of the probability space, so seeing some notable dprog/dt on that feature is a good thing and shouldn't be tossed out of hand, at the very least.

18Z Euros moved the right way with it. One or two more nudges and it'll be in a great spot. Creeping down to 96hr out now, so mildly bullish.

Don't get too caught up on where exactly the QPF is landing right now. The important thing is getting it close enough. It will have the best baroclinic energy right near the start of the coastal's life, and the explosive deepening (>30mb/18hr) means there's going to be some serious reorientation of the precip shield and banding as it does this. Not really possible to nail that kind of thing down at this distance.

Exactly what we're looking for here, trend wise.

It can be. Just needs to tuck that vort more cleanly when it's over the Midwest. AIGFS and GFS have been doing that. EC OP too, but more erratically.

Highly non-linear cutoff here. Modeling is almost certainly underdispersed atm.

Partially, yes.

Yes, the last frame of that forecast trend loop shows a local vorticity maximum over Southern Michigan that becomes the primary later. The AI models and GFS are mostly favoring the far western portion of the axis instead. Sloppy as it is, the EC has slowly been heading that way since the 00Z run. If it mostly consolidates on the far end (west) of the trough axis then that gives the entire system considerably more room to develop.