SnowenOutThere

Hmmm, some boundaries appear to be draped W-E across Reston. Other boundaries are from the Potomac moving west. Could see something interesting things happen. 

Severe warned storms down around Roanoke. Seems more active than forecasted so far. 

1 hour ago, Ji said:

anyone see the cansips for winter lol

Nope, mind posting? 

Just now, SnowenOutThere said:

Went on an adventure to see the cherry blossoms last weekend in DC.

Started by waking up at 3am to get there early enough to get shots of the moon sinking over the horizon, of which, I couldn't be happier with.

By 5am first light started to appear and with it the crowds. Pulses of people streamed onto the walkways. 

I went around the loop for sunrise. Got some shots along the way, and arguably my best ones of the day.

Finally, the sun began to breach the DC skyline. 

At the end I was out of DC by 8am. Great experience, and huge thanks to my Dad for driving me in and finding parking. 

Highly recommend going out and doing this at least once in your life. While I think the cherry blossoms are otherwise overhyped and overdone; if you manage to get there early in the morning to watch deep night fade into morning's glow it is a magical experience. 

Went on an adventure to see the cherry blossoms last weekend in DC.

Started by waking up at 3am to get there early enough to get shots of the moon sinking over the horizon, of which, I couldn't be happier with.

By 5am first light started to appear and with it the crowds. Pulses of people streamed onto the walkways. 

I went around the loop for sunrise. Got some shots along the way, and arguably my best ones of the day.

Finally, the sun began to breach the DC skyline. 

At the end I was out of DC by 8am. Great experience, and huge thanks to my Dad for driving me in and finding parking. 

Start. The. Bus. Up.

Don't know how long its been like this but we hit 1 million posts in our forum! 

Could tomorrow be a possible severe weather day?

We have strong low level lapse rates, good CAPE and some turning of winds with height - though next to no increase with height. Seems like some sort of thunderstorms should be likely along anything that could trigger forcing. 

75 degrees and partly sunny with wind. 

8 hours ago, Jebman said:

Not sure what on earth is happening

Oh I got an idea. So do most climate scientists 

START THE BUS BACK UP BABY. MARCH SNOW ON SNOW IS INBOUND!!!

1 hour ago, Eskimo Joe said:

This is why hand analysis is so vital, especially for potentially significant setuos.

Do you think part of the issue with why we couldn't get any storms to really build was that second area of CIN? Seems like we managed to get storms to begin development but struggle to get past the shower stage so maybe that's the reason why. 

6 hours ago, SnowenOutThere said:

In my Atmo/Weather lab we're analyizing the soundings from this monday and making a scew T chart. 

Yeah, when you see the sounding from Monday without any of the wind profiles it becomes painfully clear that we were cooked with our thermal profile if we wanted severe. Had two different CIN areas and horrific lapse rates with next to no CAPE. Also hope this pen-paper diagram brought back some memories for our mets. 

In my Atmo/Weather lab we're analyizing the soundings from this monday and making a scew T chart. 

1 minute ago, stormy said:

A dull day is spiked with fleeting outrageous denial of expectation.

3 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Unpopular opinion: SPC was correct with the initial forecast. They should have trimmed the tornado risk back but not the wind. We were an hour of partly sunny skies away from having that second line get enough juice to wreck a lot of stuff. 

I worked this event. We rarely get calls in western portions of Montgomery County where it's very rural. Our 911 calls were coming in just minutes after that linenwas racing through, which is an indication to us that bad things are inbound. We got lucky it trended down towards the Potomac River over a largely unpopulated section of the county. 

I think this is a fair take for nova and areas that got the final line. However, I’m in central VA and that second line had nothing to work with so for areas around where I was it really was a slight risk in practice. I do think the core of this issue might be the new system. When the SPC issues a 4/5 risk for wind I think it should call for something more than what occurred Monday. While it was a legitimate severe day for parts of the region, I wonder what happens if we get a storm that fulfills a slightly higher risk? Do we say it’s a 5/5 risk? That seems unfair when I think a true 5/5 risk should be a plains deracho with swaths of 90+ mph winds. These 4/5 and 5/5 events should feel rare and exceptional and are labeled as such to spur the public to action. 

4 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:

 

 

Love the SPC, but wondering how many of those reports occurred with the ending squall line which went through after they dropped percentages. I think they were completely justified in their 4/5 risk (and twitter/public mets retroactively throwing them under the bus suck) but its also fair to say that while justified the forecast failed. A failed forecast is not necessarily a bad one though. You have to warn for the high end in case it happens, hopefully people don't think next time its a boy cry wolf situation.

Anyone else tracking the potential snow showers this afternoon? HRRR seems insistent some make it over the mountains

Don't know if this is the appropriate place but some snow squalls making it over the mountains looks possible tomorrow. Anyways, if someone gets caught in one it might put down a quick coating based on the soundings

Results from my first ever (severe) storm chase! Good learning experience even if I didn't get to see anything warned (tornado or thunderstorm). Was some low level rotation but fell apart quickly and clearly had no momentum to do anything. Though, the flowers were pretty, and VA pediment is beautiful as always. 

All I remember about tornado warnings in schools is that I would try to tell the teachers they were wrong. 

1 hour ago, weatherwiz said:

The dirty warm sector stuff really did a number on the lapse rates...might be difficult to really re-destabilize sufficiently. Also wondering if the better forcing started lagging behind a bit. A lot of this activity really struggled to become mature and develop strong updrafts. Instability didn't appear to be too terrible but maybe was just too weak given the magnitude of the shear so updrafts were being toppled over before they could sufficiently grow vertically.

This probably isn't going to pan out to how it once looked but this is far from over. Window from say 3-8 PM could be interesting from central Virginia into North Carolina. 

We had more than enough spin for a tornado to occur. I mean every single shower showed a couplet of some intensity. Just couldn’t ever get anything to take advantage of it. Wasn’t cape either for a bit. The initial stuff had surface cape of 500+, just never built up into the upper atmosphere. 

Dropped the warning for the line I was setup for. Don’t even know if I’ll get a shelf 

Out in front of the line that passed through Lynchburg. So far nothing standing out to reposition. 

Just now, weatherwiz said:

I think you always have to be careful with the multiple round scenario and more often than not, lean towards the earlier round being more of the show. Especially around these parts, forecast models can really struggle in that regard and its even more of a case when you're dealing with a largely uncapped warm sector. Typically, if you're looking for multiple rounds you want to see a moderate or extremely unstable airmass in place. 

But this is still looking extremely interesting for much of Virginia into Maryland. Given how warm the llvl airmass is, based on satellite showing a large pocket of cloud breaks and approaching high noon, it won't take much to get temperatures to jump another 5-8F. Also noting the sfc winds are more backed in this area and may continued to back even more. You're storm inflow is also pulling in from higher theta-e which resides just off the coast. Going to have some differential boundaries in play too.

Hey, I’m at uva and planning to chase. What would the best location to target be? I’m thinking near Amelia court house but curious to know your thoughts