Hypothetical 240 hour snow

HRRR is a little on the edge of its "range" but it would resolve the higher rates and the possible dynamic cooling offsetting the warm advection aloft better than some of the coarser guidance so it might be on to something.

1 minute ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Totally agree. They are tremendous being able to tell us weather is coming. Amazing actually. And in the scheme of things is there really that much difference between 3” of snow or 6”. No there isn’t.

Yeah I mean look at the soundings for tomorrow morning... most of the profiles have a warm nose that is within about 1 degree (on either side depending on the model) of the 0C line. That will obviously make the difference between sleet and snow, you can't realistically expect any guidance to be good enough to resolve that even a few hours out. much less 24+

I will admit I was wrong about suppression last night... looks like 2-4 inches of snow with another 1-2 inches of sleet tacked on (for my area), I will take it

UKMET looks pretty good with the initial thump from the incomplete thermals I can see with the Pivotal Weather temp fields, and thankfully did not trend south from the pretty dicey 12Z run. If we get 0.5 of water prior to 18Z Thursday we will be good for 3-5 inches, which is my hope for this storm.

Simple is better for us... root for the strong thump, trailing shortwaves that may or not produce is a little dicey. We will do fine with ptypes in that thump, we will go isothermal for long enough to hold on to our snow if we get enough FGEN induced lift/dynamic cooling.

2 minutes ago, Amped said:

SLP is further south and weaker every run.  Sleet snow line trended north likely due to mid level lift only.

The antithesis of you username is what we all fear, and your observation about the SLP trending further south and weaker only supports that. Those of us near or north of 95 are starting to sweat.

To clarify, we have some wiggle room, but we need the south trend to stabilize.

NCEP models with a poor thermal evolution... the NAM is overly aggressive with the 700mb jet/warm advection, while the GFS is for lack of a technical term... just weird with random isothermal layers and phantom regions of ascent and dynamic cooling causing sleet to change back to snow etc.

Suppression is always the fear with this system... look at the RGEM and the UKMET, 2 of the top 5 best performing models and their solutions.

I don't even care about the ptypes on the RGEM, it lost almost half its QPF... and I dont put too much faith in any of the wrap-around stuff, we need to get ours with the initial FGEN thump

RGEM is a step back... hopefully not the start of a trend

This storm has Virginia special written all over it... congrats, to be fair we got our snow last week.

Para looks relatively cold as well... but concerned about suppression now.

Currently Wet Bulb Temps in the Laurel area are 34-35, probably good enough to get snow given that Tw is decreasing with height through the lowest levels... but not going to accumulate much... need to have it go down a few degrees.

2 minutes ago, WEATHER53 said:

NWS new radar is utterly awful. Took a fully functioning entity and made it a muddy mess that won’t load and the national map is auseless mess cluttered with individual radar site buttons that don’t load and delete the previously selected site.

See this is who is in charge of models also. Trying to be too precise and making a potential previously functioning tool almost useless. 

They had to change it for technical reasons, not just because they wanted to... Adobe FLASH (which drove the old interface) is not long supported.

But I agree it is a worse product... RadarScope or GR2 are far superior but do cost money.

I agree with the consensus here, the Euro is not modeling the CAD setup very well for early next week's system, yeah I could see a non-snow event for sure, but the 00z run had like a true warm sector airmass with 50-60 temps over the Mid-Atlantic... ain't happening with that High in place to start the period.

I wouldn't be stunned with warnings with the afternoon packages (there is no way they would go watches with the snowfall literally starting <12 hours from the afternoon update), even if they have "only" like 4-5 inches forecast (btw Philadelphia county's warning criteria is 5 inches in 12 hours, further north it increases to 6), because of commuting impacts.

NAM seems way too amped with that wave, I see no way a warm nose makes it to DC

Nam-Nest seems off with that sfc low location... basically outside the envelope of the entire EPS, probably some weirdness going on at the edge of its useful range.

I wouldn't complain at a quick 2-4, 3-6 inch type of event... nothing to sneeze at for this area really.

35 minutes ago, osfan24 said:

I'm pretty sure Philly ended up with something similar to what Baltimore got. Honestly, NYC got a bit unlucky, if you can call it that. It snowed like crazy there for 6 hours or so, but otherwise all that banding pushed inland and they were basically done.

Philly got "screwed' in a relative sense, but they still picked up 8-10 inches total, their best storm in a few years.

Ended up with just over 5 inches total... snow depth about 3-4 inches due to slight melting and compaction. Maybe about the 25th percentile of the range I was expecting, but can't complain... biggest event in like 2 years lol.

11 minutes ago, bluehens said:

I am in no way faulting forecasters at all here. I think what they put out was reasonable given the almost unanimous agreement amongst the models. My saying it was a bust is just stating a fact for my area. We all know at this point we are not squeaking out much more than an inch for the remainder. Looking at current radar tells me all I need to know at this point. I can’t believe the amount of dryness out there. 

Fair enough, I can certainly understand the frustration, and in some ways when it is only a smaller area of a subforum that busts (while some pick up ridiculous amounts) it makes it more painful than a region-wide bust, like some of the other events the last couple years.

I mean central NJ, and far SE PA/northern Delaware busted, but almost everywhere else in Mount Holly's CWA did within one "snowfall category" of their expected value or overperformed slightly (and there will likely be another 2-4 inches on the backside before it is all said and done tomorrow.  I can see the frustration, but in terms of busts from an area-wide standpoint this is relatively low, and has to do with mesoscale factors you just aren't going to get exactly right in a situation that relies on a deformation band. I think the folks on the SW side (like Delco-New Castle county) could have maybe been forecasted lower amounts with more predictability... but there is no way you are going to actually forecast the central NJ snow hole in this event... I mean you have 12-18 inch totals in Middlesex/monmouth, and likely near 12 inch totals eventually in Bucks, and possibly 8-10 in parts of Burlington... how would you ever guess central NJ gets shafted in between them?

GFS still quite warm per usual... still over an inch of QPF for northern MD (a big bullseye over NJ/Delmarva). The closer to the coast low track would support a bit warmer solution, but I can't see us getting 1 inch of QPF in this storm without getting at least 5 inches of snow (since the ratios will likely be ok initially at least).

6 minutes ago, Imgoinhungry said:

Which models have typically handled our monster storms in the past,once within 24 hours of event?  Hrrr? Nam?  Wasnt there a rap model at one point?

The RAP still exists and actually goes out to 51 hours every 6 hours (3-9-15-21Z)... it is 13km resolution so has a lot of the same spatial problems the NAM has, but does have good temporal resolution and can be useful in close because that lets it assimilate obs better. I actually like the RAP a lot within 24 hours for ptype diagnosis, but it will naturally be smoother than the true CAMs due to its spatial resolution.