George001

That ****ing sucks. Hate to see it, I think it had initialization issues though.

I don’t think it’s weaker, just a little slower to develop. Looks like the shortwave holds back a bit more than last run, and the storm starts bombing out later. This gives it the appearance of being weaker, but it holding back more wouldn’t it be a good thing because of better wave spacing? I think it’s going to recover and end up farther west and stronger than last run.

The guidance looked good for 6-12 with potential for more if things broke right a couple days ago, nothing wrong with 3-6 but when taking into account how good things looked a couple days ago it would be a bit of a let down. For me it’s all about expectations, if I’m expecting 1-2 and get 3-6 I’m very happy with it, if I expect 6-12 and get 3-6 it’s a big disappointment. I am holding out hope that it comes back west.

My forecast: 8–12 in all of eastern mass with an isolated 12-15 in heaviest banding. The higher end will probably be NW up into central and northern Mass, lower end in my area. In my opinion the models are underestimating the strength of the low.

The shortwave is way too powerful and goes negatively tilted too early for the weaker solutions to even be a concern.

What about my area?

The gfs is such a terrible model, it moved like 500 miles NW with the low in 2 cycles less than 100 hours out. The European and Canadian guidance have shifted some but they always were farther west, ranging from between over se mass to just inside the benchmark.

2014-2015 and 2012-2013 were 2 really good winters that started slow. In 2014-2015, we didn’t have anything big until the Miller B blizzard late January that gave eastern mass 2 feet of snow. Then we got a few more severe blizzards in Feb.

Thanks for the explanation, that makes sense. I hope that happens with this storm, a track over the cape which would still keep my area NW of the rain snow line, but the low would strengthen enough that we can get those higher end totals.

I don’t know if this means anything but I noticed on some of the models even the more inland ones, that the rain snow line only got like a few miles NW of the low. In some storms the rain snow line is well NW of the low, why is that?

The gfs had me getting a foot of snow for today’s storm just a few days out. I didn’t get a flake. This one isn’t going out to sea.

Welp, I think it’s safe to admit my forecast the Boston’s getting more snow than DC for this storm is going to be a massive bust. DC is getting hammered, our turn is on Friday.

The benchmark is 75 miles se of Nantucket right? Looks to me like on most guidance the low is well NW of that. If anything it’s going to be rain snow lines that are the issue, not the storm being too weak or far south based on the current guidance.

Miller Bs are known for being tough to forecast. We will know more in a couple of days, but from what we see on the models it’s looking like there will be a big storm threat on Friday.

Nice, that’s a solid hit for my area with a lot more just to the NW too. This storm has a lot of potential.

How does the snow maps look like near my area? I feel like my areas gonna be right on the rain snow line.

Look at what the Canadian has for Friday….

Holy shit I just looked at the snow maps and it gives the Boston area like a foot and areas just to the NW close to 2 feet where it stays all snow.

To my untrained eyes the it looks like the low is going negatively tilted really early, deepening rapidly and closing off on the 500 mb just a little bit too far NW for something really big (it’s still a nice storm regardless). Great run.

Yeah it’s no guarantee but this reminds me of last December where Binghamton NY was forecasted like 2-4 the night before and ended up with 40. It’s a different pattern so it won’t get that far north and even jackpot areas aren’t even getting half that, but I’m still optimistic that it can get far enough north to give my area a plowable snowfall. I do still think Friday will be the bigger storm, and that one looks like it will be the opposite, farther north areas do better with rain snow lines being an issue for coastal areas.

I still think Boston is getting more snow than DC from this one. Im convinced we see another big north shift tomorrow, the trough looks like it’s more neutral than the guidance currently had it. That is a really good sign.

The models at 500 are getting closer and closer to a phase with the northern stream, which would drastically increase the ceiling of this storm if it happens. The extremely powerful southern energy is already producing a big storm farther south on its own, but if the northern stream phases in? That would cause the low to undergo rapid cyclogenesis, and the low would indeed move north and west as it deepens, in my opinion more than any model is projecting. This close in I’m looking at the obs, and it looks like the precip out west is more expansive than the models suggested, which indicates possible initialization errors, with the models underestimating the strength of the southern low. This is why I don’t think even areas as far north as southern NH and Maine are out of the woods just yet (for a couple inches, not a big storm, due to fast flow there would be a limit). The earlier than expected deepening of the southern low and the slightly slower progression of it would give the northern stream a little bit more time to phase in, which would cause the trough to go negative, and cause the precip shield to expand more over all of eastern mass. This would result in many areas expected to get a coating or even nothing getting hammered with heavy snow, possibly over a foot. It is no guarantee, but I do think the probability of an earlier phase is much higher than the models suggest right now based on obs and the pattern in place. All it would take is one 30-40 mile adjustment north, which isn’t much at all.

That’s a good comparison, the euro and Canadian guidance look similar to that one. Also looks similar to the storm the week before the massive blizzard in mid March 2018, I got about 8 inches in both of those.

True, but the upper levels are frigid and the surface temps are mid 20s during the height of the storm. I would think ratios would be more like 15:1 or even 20:1 in some areas, that would increase the range to like 6-12 in areas getting 15:1 and areas getting 20:1 (likely north and west) would be 8-16.

The Canadian and gfs look to have switched places. Canadian whiffed and gfs was a big storm at 12z and now it’s the other way around. In my eyes that is a step in the right direction, I love to see the Canadian on board. One step close to having the entire big 3 (Euro, Canadian, Navy) on board.