SnowenOutThere

This is most likely an ignorant question but do we know if the seasonal models are advertising a permanent low or transient lows in that area?

Don't have your same skillset but that sounds reasonable. Would need NAO help to get a favorable storm track and to trap in cold air to have a shot. Otherwise I agree that it'll be hard forcing storms to either not cut or to have any cold air in place. Will probably get a lot of warm versions of last January's big sleet storm but with a further west track. Hopefully we get things to line up enough for the mountains to get some major storms with all the precip - but that's a question I don't know the answer to.

It’s snowing! Still on the mountain (some cell service) and it’s alternating between bursts of dendrites and sleety rain. Moss is a bit white. Totally worth the trip.

Believe snowshoe top of mountain has their first flakes of the season https://www.snowshoemtn.com/media-room/skidder-slope-live-cam. Think I'll head out to the mountains and try to catch the jet streak induced precip.

Sun is out in Charlottesville!

Love when we get a wedge like this, makes for some easy and great photography if you're willing to wake with the sun.

Also, went out and drove 30 minutes to the Rockfish Valley Overlook off the blue ridge parkway! Got an amazing sunrise knowing the valley's would be in the cloud deck.

Thank you all. Agree that the 6z run really didn't go the right way... but, the 12z runs are interesting. They manage get a band of precip with lift from a deeper H5 trough and saturate the DGZ. Will need to monitor and if the 18z and 0z runs show it then I think it might be worth it. Wouldn't really be upslope, but just orthographic cooling of a band of precip which feels less risky to chase.

Both HRRR and NAM show first snows for the mountains this Saturday morning. Considering a hike out there but the soundings seem fishy. Would there even be enough of a layer for precipitation to occur? If so, would any snowflakes even form or would I get to hike in cloudy drizzle? Don't know the answers would love some help from our mets @WxUSAF @MillvilleWx @Eskimo Joe I plan to head out and try and hike early Saturday morning at the Cheat Mountain range at 4200-4400 feet and would love to make sure I don't drive 3 hours to hike in a cold, windy, freezing rain fog.

It actually gives us three separate snow storms that run starting October 25th.

Had a nice late sunset with a moon over the South Lawn tonight.

It's an insane meteorological solution. The low I've been discussing in the long range thread somehow cuts off and generates its own cold air. No way its right but was funny to see. I'll miss the NAM.

Currently it has one of the weirdest look's I've seen a hurricane take on.

NAM'ED (might be one of our last ones)

Alright, enough time has passed to throw this solution out the window. So what's figure out what went wrong as an exercise for this winter. So, our setup relied on a branch of the NS detaching and creating an unusually deep trough over the east coast in order to bring both cold air and the correct wind flow (NNW) to catch moisture from the lakes. Now, what initially would cause this NS trough? Turns out it was an interaction with a SW wave helping to pull it down (GFS run from when it was snowy) Compare that to it's current run. Though we still have our two main players it's interesting how different the circumstance is. Firstly, the interaction is occurring further east, which obviously hurts us. However, what is most interesting is that blob of vorticity over central Mexico as its a Hurricane ejecting it's energy eastward and thus pulling the pattern to be progressive. On the old runs the GFS brought it out to sea instead. Look at the knock on effects it has! On the old run you have a near textbook PNA ridge Now, you can see how there is more energy getting held underneath the ridge (the Hurricane's remains are now in there) which causes a flatter, and thus less blocky, ridge. Some other things you can notice is the previously detached low upstream of our trough has now morphed with it, which reduces the blocking pattern, and that the Artic in general is less amplified than before. All in all, pretty much everything went the wrong way for the mountains to pick up a significant snowstorm. Now, the reason I did this is 1. I'm bored and just took a climatology exam 2. To warmup for winter 3. To see how the models did. As mentioned in my first post nearly all models but the operational Euro had a pattern conducive to accumulating snow, and the reason the Euro didn't is because even back over the weekend it was correctly modeling the tropical impact over Mexico. This should be a lesson against trusting the AI models, as even they were wrong. Furthermore, the hurricane change was within 5 days from this weekend, and it was a dramatic miss, which should call into question any forecast beyond day 4 for synoptics (assuming our current funding for NOAA's soundings and data collection stays the same). Frankly, I wonder if our bad miss on the ice/snow line for last January's storm would've happened if we weren't cutting their data intake as it was a huge miss by our modeling for the storm track and impacts even at day 3. The bottom line of this post is we need to be extremely cautious in trusting the models come this winter. They simply are not preforming as well as in years past when it comes to what matters for us. I personally would not even trust the general synoptic pattern outside of day 3. Mets, or anyone else, please let me know how I did or if my reasoning was solid!