TimB

Oh I agree. I wasn’t suggesting that this storm will be similar to that one, I was saying Ron Smiley was one of the few that was right on that one and expressing optimism that he’ll be right on this one.

Smiley hit the nail on the head with, yes, the infamous 2019 storm yet again. (Image below is for the 2019 storm about 48 hours out). I think he lowered a little further in the mix zone the next day.

Rationally speaking, you’re correct. This run also shifted the Thursday storm back into a still not great location for us but at least not running the low through Indianapolis so we get snow instead of ice before the warm air blasts in, so we actually end up with similar snow totals for the week before the thaw Thursday night.

Ah yes, the old adage of the 18z models again. It may or may not be true, but at least it allows us to hold off on disappointment for 6 hours.

True. The NAM ticked about 500 yards to the SE with its 18z run. Even so, we should probably go on the record and issue a Youngstown special warning.

ZL here as well. Speaking of snowpack, depending on how this week plays out, would a large snowpack mute/slow down the effects of the pattern flip that is seemingly becoming more likely at the end of the month?

So the NWS is forecasting 7” of snow in Pittsburgh with a 1% chance of 8” or more? (8” at the airport with a 12% chance of 8” or more.) Something has to give. Essentially they’re issuing a watch saying “Allegheny County will likely receive 6-9 inches of snowfall” but their probabilities say it is very unlikely that most locations in the county will receive 8 inches. At the end of the day, winter storm watch/warning criteria are 8 inches in 24 hours, correct? The question basically boils down to, do you issue a winter storm watch for an area when the chance of that area meeting warning criteria is somewhere from 1-10%? Alternatively, the messaging essentially reads “we don’t believe Allegheny County will meet warning criteria, but quite a few models say it will, so we’re going to issue a watch to cover ourselves in case it does happen.” The stakes are low when issuing a watch because you can always downgrade to an advisory.

NWS now has all of Allegheny County in the 6-8 range.

I would be surprised if it’s happened in the past 30 years. I think the cold snap of late 2017-early 2018 had a massive part of the CONUS under advisories/warnings for snow and cold, but most of that was wind chill warnings and not snow/ice.

NWS’s national watch/warning/advisory map is about as wild as it gets.

Central Ohio’s goes into effect tomorrow evening at 0z, so their afternoon shift issued one approximately 48 hours before. Ours wouldn’t go into effect that early.

Kpit does seem to mail it in when it comes to some of its forecast discussions. I’ve lived in two other CWA’s and both have better forecast discussions than most of PIT’s.

I’m not saying them getting raked over the coals for their forecast was unjustified, but I’ll bet the people raking them over the coals didn’t understand what was happening as well as we did. Obviously I wasn’t on this forum then, but I did go back and read that part of the thread and it brought back painful memories.

I would anticipate that from the afternoon shift if it’s going to happen.

I have my theories here, the biggest one being that it seems they’ve gotten a lot more conservative with issuing winter storm watches since the bust of January 2019. I don’t know if getting raked over the coals on social media made them skittish or what. On another note, that late week storm deepens impressively on the GFS as it moves northward, but the track continues to shift west (through Indiana now) and I don’t think this is a snow event for us. That said, it’s depicting significant ice before the warm air reaches the surface. (But it’s back onto the idea of a significant pattern flip toward the end of the month. 64, anybody?)

Not liking the GFS-Para’s track at all.

0z Euro doesn’t bring us a lot of snow for Thursday but I’ll take even the 4” or so that it gives us over the GFS’s rain and 40+. Mon/Tues looks like a Youngstown special but again, 4-8” would be fine.

Agreed. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t complain about 13.4 when it could have been 17.3, but too close for comfort.

Seems it’s trended the first wave stronger and the second weaker.

GFS seems to be onto the Euro’s idea of two rounds of snow, one earlier Monday and then a larger one Monday night/Tuesday morning. Hopefully it has the right idea with the strength of the second round! Looking ahead, the late week storm still seems to be trending east. Still mostly ice/rain on the GFS, but it’s coming into line with a more favorable path for us.

TWC appears to have lowered amounts for the first system but raised them for the second system, and is predicting all snow in the North Hills for both (12-24 total from both storms). Still lots of time to change.

NWS afternoon forecast discussion still not biting on a significant snow event Mon/Tues.

Euro looks a little better, 6” and some zr. And 4” of all snow on the late week system.

The GFS still looks beautiful, massive snowfall rates and dropping 8+ inches on us overnight Monday night.

If we get two back to back that big, we’ll be within striking distance of the record and will have no choice but to root for it. (But the GFS does seem to be hinting at a pattern shift toward the end of its run, but way too early to think about that.)