George001

I get it, sometimes forecasts even ones made by experienced meteorologists bust. Most forecasts had my area getting 3-6/4-8, and my area ended up with a foot. I used to think like you, it seems so easy, meteorologists get paid a lot of money just to be wrong. However, if you look into why and how they end up being wrong, all it takes is one little thing here, there ect and boom the low is 25 miles farther west than expected and the forecast ends up busting. That is within the range of error for model guidance even just a couple days out, and being only that little off in the track of the low is pretty good for 2 days out, but that’s just how the weather works, even 10 miles could be the difference between a few inches and a foot of snow. Im not a met and tried forecasting a few times for fun, and I was way way off. Making forecasts is extremely difficult with almost no room for error, so busts are going to happen. It’s like hitting in baseball, even the best hitters in the league fail 7/10 times! Criticizing meteorologists for busting often and saying they suck, anyone can do it ect is like criticizing the best hitters in the MLB for making an out over half the time. If you do that, you are drastically underestimating how difficult their professions are.

What’s interesting is the extended range is trending better as well despite the strong polar vortex. The CFS has shifted from a blowtorch Feb to showing avg temps. There is also some ridging poking into Alaska which hopefully would counteract the limited North Atlantic blocking. We had blocking the entire December and nothing to show for it due to one of the worst pacific patterns on record. There was a massive trough out west.

The polar vortex is extremely strong and is expected to deepen again, yet the pattern looks great on the models. Looking at this I would think 2011-2012, but that clearly isn’t the case. What’s going on here? I read that although the polar vortex is strong, it isn’t super consolidated, had a minor disruption already, and is expected to have another mid month. Or is it more that the pattern is being driven by other factors like the pacific and MJO? Maybe instead of an extended duration episode of North Atlantic blocking we score via a great pacific and overall positive NAO, but transient periods of blocking?

There has been an increase in strength with the La Niña over the past month, enough to be considered a moderate La Niña at -1.0 Celsius on the ONI trimonthly scale. https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_v5.php

*blizzards

If there is any pattern to deliver multiple blizzards to the area, it’s this one.

Need to see more support from the big 3 (European, Canadian, Navy). The Navy isn’t in range yet, I could extrapolate it though. Canadian I’d like to see jump on board.

The european guidance had a 985 mb low offshore at 216 hours out. Miller B?

It’s not on the OP runs yet but the European and Canadian ensembles show what looks like a Miller B around the 16th. The upcoming pattern is looking great, but I’m rooting for Miller Bs instead of Miller As. Miller As can be nice, but it seems like most of our big storms (12+) are Miller Bs.

Ended up with 13-14 inches here, double what was forecasted last night.

This is a fail, should have stuck to my guns.

Snowiest January since 2018, and the great pattern is just getting started based on the long range guidance. This is why its good to let the winter develop and give it a chance before writing it off. When I made that panic room threat things looked bad, but I jumped the gun there.

Yeah I saw a report in Norwood (in the mega band) and 20:1 ratios with over a foot of snow was reported there. I’m not entirely sure how accurate it is, but I did see several reports saying ratios in that 20:1 range.

Thanks, It sure did! I’ve had a lot of busts (like last Monday) so its nice to be right about one.

Looks like snow ratios were big in this storm, the QPF total was what the higher end of what guidance had (like eduggs said above) but the ratios were like 20:1 instead of 10:1, so those 10:1 snow maps ended up being an epic fail.

I don’t know if it means anything now, but the La Niña trending towards being more and more east based could be really good for later in the winter. The pattern looks to be really good for the rest of Jan on the long range models, could the East based nature of the Nina help us in Feb and March?

I’m eyeballing 12-13 inches, what a storm!

The latest hrrr has about 4-6 more inches of 10:1 ratio snow in eastern mass (in the heavy bands there are reports of 20:1+ ratios) it started running this hour, so that’s on top of what has already fallen. The funny thing is, the QPF output is actually HIGHER now than it was for the entire storm on some of the weaker runs last night.

Thanks lol I’m already at around 10 inches and it’s still puking snow. What a storm!

My forecast might have been too conservative for once

He gonna wake up a very happy weenie like I did.

I’m eyeballing 6-7 inches…. holy shit

The latest hrrr has .6-.7 more QPF for eastern mass, that’s on top of the snow that has already fallen. Ratios have reportedly been as high as 15:1 or 20:1, so extrapolating that for my area we would have 9-14 more inches on top of the 4 or so inches we already had (last I checked). That would result in a 13-18 inch storm total if correct.

Did the strength of the low increase more than expected?

Foxborough area