RU848789

Updated NWS snowfall maps - they're still calling for 1-3", especially near/along 95. If it's not snowing by about 7 am along 95, it could bust on the low side...looks like rain/snow line by radar is from Allentown to Bedminster to Yonkers - anyone?

Not sure I've ever seen this much model disagreement just hours before a fairly minor event starts in a long time. We could get nada or 5" in the Philly-NYC area...I'll go with 2" at my house, but hope the GFS is right and I get about 3.5".

Fair point, thanks. However, the NAM, itself is showing precip significantly further N/W than its previous run at the same point. There were also plenty of 500 mb changes that looked good on the NAM too - as well as the GFS, as per brooklyn. My point wasn't that this would be a Euro type run, but that it looks like we've made steps closer to a storm that could bring some snow to the 95 corridor and especially the coast as opposed to a complete miss.

To me, the 0Z NAM at 12Z Saturday, looks kind of like the 0Z Euro from last night (the last bomb for DC to Boston) at 06 Saturday, 6 hours earlier, i.e., just 12 hours slower (and with lighter precip). And that's just looking at the outcome at the surface without analyzing the upper air - is it possible the next 18 hours of this NAM run would've progressed similarlly to that Euro run, at least with regard to track, if not intensity? Things are at least interesting again...

Up until about 36 hours before the event. Here's what I wrote to my email list at 2 am on Christmas Day after the 0Z models came out. We were in Charlotte for Christmas visiting my mom and my sister's family. After the 12Z Christmas models confirmed the big change, I decided we were leaving 2 days early to get back to Jersey in time for the storm, so we left around 7 pm after Christmas dinner. Was already snowing heavily in NC, so it was a white knuckle ride for about 3 hours before we outran the storm by the time we got to about Henderson, NC. Got home around 7 am, played soccer at 8 am, napped for a couple of hours and settled in for possibly my favorite storm ever, given the tracking and driving fun, lol (we got 23-24"). Can we get a kind of repeat? In a remarkable turn of events, every major model is now showing a significant (3-6") to major (6-12") snowfall for just about the entire Philly to Boston corridor, with historic snowfall amounts of over a foot possible from about Sunday afternoon into Monday morning. Lesser amounts look likely well N/W of the Delaware River and to the SW of Philly (i.e., Balt/DC); some mixing of rain/sleet is also possible along the South Jersey coast and eastern Long Island, but that would only cut down on snowfall a little bit (in fact, LI may end up being the jackpot with 1-2 feet of snow, if this all pans out). I'm not even going to try to explain any of this, since this is nearly unprecedented and I think a couple of quotes (see the 2nd link from American Weather - around pages 23-28) from some well-known pros will say far more than I can. First, here's what Hurricane Schwartz, a very well known TV met in Philly said on the American Weather board (the one that replaced the Eastern Weather board) just prior to going on air tonight: "I'll be on at 11 with a First Call. I'm still confused, but have to go with something. We just can't ignore this new 00z data." Basically his way of throwing up his hands and saying he really has no clue what to tell people given the model mayhem over the previous day (this was before the results from the UKMET and Euro models had come out late tonight, showing these models now coming into agreement with the GFS, Canadian and NAM models). Second, here's what Craig Allen, another well respected pro on TV/radio in NYC just posted: ** Good data or bad, garbage in/garbage out, wish for what you do or do not want, no matter what has been said before, from feast to famine to feast....the most amazing thing has happened tonight. EVERY SINGLE COMPUTER MODEL IS NOW IN LINE FOR A MAJOR SNOWSTORM/PSBL BLIZZARD CONDITIONS LATE SUN INTO SUN NGT. NEVER IN 35+ YEARS OF DOING THIS HAVE I SEEN SUCH CHAOS LEADING UP TO A SOLUTION LIKE THIS.

12Z NAM...

6Z models showing a 1-3" potential, except for the Euro, which is still <1". NWS-Philly discussion on this event is below. As we go through the Wednesday night into Thursday period, the aformentioned low will continue tracking eastward as it moves into Atlantic Canada and this will drag a cold front through the region from north to south. At the same time, there will be some upper level energy rounding the base of the long wave trough over the east and another system moving northward from the south along the frontal boundary. The upshot of all this is a period of rain will develop by the overnight period Wednesday night but as the colder air moves in behind the front expect this to change over to snow from north to south. This changeover should occur during the overnight hours Wednesday night N/W of the I-95 corridor and by around sunrise across the urban corridor. The snow may continue for a few hours into Thursday before ending as colder, drier air continues to move in on N/NW winds. The total precipitation with this system could be on the order of a quarter to half inch of QPF but expect that a lot of this will occur before the changeover from rain to snow. Experience has shown that often in these cold advection type situations that by the time the colder air moves, heavier precip is just about getting ready to exit. The NAM is a bit more robust with heavier precip back into the colder air but given the setup think this may be overdone. The upshot is that at this time I expect snow amounts to mostly be just a light coating to under an inch. But again, challenging forecast and if this system is a little more robust as indicated by the NAM there could be areas that see a couple inches of snow accumulation.

Always liked the MJ laugh gif...is that Michael Caine from Children of Men in your avatar? Great film.

Might want to edit the title, as funny as it is...

Oh well, that snow only lasted a few minutes. It's now up to 32F and mostly rain with a few flakes. Calling it at 3/4" of snow, bringing me to 6.75" for the season. Let's hope the pattern delivers for 95 in the next week or so...

Oh well, that snow only lasted a few minutes. It's now up to 32F and mostly rain with a few flakes. Calling it at 3/4" of snow, bringing me to 6.75" for the season. Let's hope the pattern delivers for 95 in the next week or so...

As of 8:45 pm, we have 3/4" of snow and it's 31F and it just changed to a mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain a few minutes ago, but as I was typing this post, it changed back to the heaviest snow I've seen so far. No idea if it's just a few more minutes of this or not, but it's pretty wild out there, as it's also getting windy.

As of 8:45 pm, we have 3/4" of snow and it's 31F and it just changed to a mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain a few minutes ago, but as I was typing this post, it changed back to the heaviest snow I've seen so far. No idea if it's just a few more minutes of this or not, but it's pretty wild out there, as it's also getting windy.

We have 1/2" as of 8:00 pm with continuing light to moderate snow, but it's now 31F and the radar shows the mix line almost at the Raritan, about 5-10 miles from me, so maybe another 30-60 minutes of snow? Very slick out there, as all surfaces are covered, given how cold the ground was. I imagine there could be some accidents out there if people weren't expecting any snow at all.

We have 1/2" as of 8:00 pm with continuing light to moderate snow, but it's now 31F and the radar shows the mix line almost at the Raritan, about 5-10 miles from me, so maybe another 30-60 minutes of snow? Very slick out there, as all surfaces are covered, given how cold the ground was. I imagine there could be some accidents out there if people weren't expecting any snow at all.

Up to 3/8" at 7:30 pm, but up to 29F with dual-pol showing the mix line about 20 miles from me, but moving slowly...

As of 7 pm, we have a whole 1/4" of snow and intensity has increased to moderate - may get the 1" of snow before the changeover, as it's still 28F and above freezing temps and sleet still look to be 20 miles SE of me. Anyone know what happened to the old Sacrus tracking images thread? Used to love that thing...

As of 7 pm, we have a whole 1/4" of snow and intensity has increased to moderate - may get the 1" of snow before the changeover, as it's still 28F and above freezing temps and sleet still look to be 20 miles SE of me.

We officially have a whole dusting here in Metuchen! Snow falling almost moderately. Temp up to 28F, but temps above freezing just about 20 miles SE of here.

Light snow started here around 5:55 pm. 27F. Woohoo! I'm going with a prediction of 1", as the storm overperforms hugely for Metuchen, lol. It's still only 30F 15 miles SE of me, but above freezing 20 miles SE of me...

Light snow has commenced! Woohoo! 27F. Guessing the storm overperforms hugely for Metuchen and we get 1" vs. the 1/2" predicted for me, lol...

Amazing how the Euro went from snowmageddon to nosnowatall in one model run, lol

Walt - adding to the avalanche of support for your threads/posts. It's a weather forum and anyone who knows even a smidgen about the weather understands the huge uncertainty inherent in numerical weather predictions, so we all know that 7 days or even 3 days out, a forecast can go awry either providing more or less snow than originally forecast. It's the nature of the beast. But most of us love the tracking as much as the actual snow and your insights on tracking these systems are invaluable, given your incredible expertise. So please keep posting away, thanks!!

Did you play a round of disc golf in the park? Nice course...

That was from Monday evening - looking at something I saw elsewhere, there was a flight tonight which would not have had data going into tonight's 0Z models, which initialize at 7 pm EST.