MDScienceTeacher

22 minutes ago, mappy said:

I’d take it haha 

Regardless of the southern solutions.. I would be shocked if northern md wasn’t once again in the jack pot.   

28 minutes ago, Shad said:

euro improved for for the 11th.....  wouldn't be surprised to see this turn into a real threat over the coming days

It already is a real threat.  The euro at 120 hours is basically in its wheelhouse.

4 hours ago, WEATHER53 said:

Were any of the 2009/10 real coldies 

yes.. both of those storms featured very cold/ high ratio snow.  I am pretty sure it was low-mid 20.

28 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

honestly, even if this amps more and confluence ticks north, there's enough cold in place that I don't see how you guys wouldn't at least get a front end +SN thump to usher in the pattern. the antecedent airmass is very cold

I didnt realize just how cold it was.  Verbatim, during the front end thump it is 23 degrees at the surface at BWI.  When was the last time we saw 23 degrees and +SN?

On 12/28/2024 at 9:25 PM, psuhoffman said:

Please tell me you’re just pretending to be this confused. We still get cold snaps. The planet hasn’t warmed so much that there isn’t still damn cold air in winter somewhere in the arctic and once in a blue moon if something displaces that air into the mid latitudes it will still get cold. But record heat is outnumbering cold 3-1. We are spending way more time above avg than below. But the system is chaotic with short term variance within the long term trend. And yes there is evidence we are getting bigger snowstorms when they happen but they are starting to happen so much more infrequently that it’s still a bad trade off.  

I know psu.  I am just trying to find a silver lining.  

9 hours ago, 87storms said:

Snowy periods are gonna continue to be fewer and farther between as long as the planet continues to warm. Unfortunately, only about 50% of the population understands this rudimentary concept.

9 hours ago, RevWarReenactor said:

Historic cold is not what we want. High heating bills and suppressed storms.

We've had a lot of these historic cold outburst in the last 10 years. None of them have produced snow for our region. 

Which one is it?  Historic cold outbursts of continued warmth?  If we have both, there will be a tendency for greater temp gradients and a more active STJ.  This could lead to snowier outcomes.  

15 hours ago, WVclimo said:

Snowfall in January is a pretty good bet.  IAD has had 1 season in the past 50 years without measurable snow in January (2023). At BWI it has happened twice (2006, 2023).  Even DCA has had some kind of accumulation in 45 of the past 50 years.

Thank you for this.  I think people forget that it does snow around here in the winter. The past several years have been so far below normal that I think it is starting to make people believe that it might not snow anymore.  But if you look at the past 80 years, there are several stretches like the one we are in now, 49-57,  71-77, 89-94 to name a few.   I try to look at it as a positive.  If history is a guide, we are due for an epic run of snow. I refused to even to accept the alternative. It is just too damn depressing,  

28 minutes ago, wasnow215 said:

Circa 1994!

or Feb 2015.

35 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

One of the limiting factors to this winter’s potential imo is there was a uniform characteristic across all my analogs, they started and ended cold. But the “snowiest” part of winter was the warmest in all of them!  It’s really difficult for us to get a snowy winter without timing up a cold period somewhere between Jan 10-Feb 20 and that period was universally warm across all the analogs I identified. That leaves us nibbling on the edges so to speak. 
 

It could be worse. We’ve had several wall to wall torches recently.  And there was some snow across our area in December in all the analogs so I do expect we get some snow soon…but it’s probably something small. This isn’t anything specific to the pattern (other than the fact it is NS dominant) just statistical probabilities. 

Which years are your analogs?

13 minutes ago, CAPE said:

I have accepted that "good" now isn't the same is in the past. The bar is lower. Already factored into my expectations. What good does it do (in the context of this thread) to constantly go on about how our current snow climo sucks compared to a couple decades ago.

I wouldnt give up so fast.  The mid atlantic has had several long periods (7-10 years) of significantly below average snow fall.  We are probably just going through one of those now.  In terms of warming.. I am with @Bob Chill in thinking the net effect is going to be more severe winters storms but who knows.  We are just in one of those long droughts.  

1 hour ago, CAPE said:

There is always some degree of uncertainty beyond a few days and it grows from there. This is a given.

Right.  This is why I have never really understood why someone would trust a 384 hour H5 map any more than they would trust a blizzard being shown during the same time period.  I get it, the higher up you go, the longer the wave and the more skillful the long range models get.  But 10 days is fantasy land on the surface AND at 500 MBs.

when I am looking at the ensembles,  I like to look a the individual members to get an idea about how far out in to the long range I can trust the output that the model is producing.  At some point what you will see is significant divergence of the members.  If you look at the latest GEFS, the point at which the members start to significantly diverge is at about 192 hours.  

Thats tells me that the upper limit of models range is at about 6-8 days.  Anything after that the confidence is pretty low.

1 minute ago, Terpeast said:

Not sure about DCA, but after today IAD has 11.7” on the season. 

Edit: DCA at exactly 8.0”

Okay dca is within reach.  Dulles will be a struggle.  My point is that extended periods of low snowfall totals in our region have occurred before.

here is 1893 to 1898 (Baltimore)

1893-94 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 3.1 1.0 11.7 T 5.0 0.0 0.0 21.0
1894-95 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T 3.0 5.0 9.3 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 17.9
1895-96 0.0 0.0 0.0 T T 0.2 1.0 2.8 13.8 T 0.0 0.0 17.8
1896-97 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 3.0 3.2 4.7 0.7 T 0.0 0.0 0.0 11.6
1897-98 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 T 2.6 5.4 T 2.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 10.5

And there are so many more periods like this. 

1 hour ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

Yeah I’m calling it for the metros, DC busted hard. Above climo is not happening.

How much is dca and Dulles at for the year currently? And how does it compare to average? BWI will likely be over climo.

1 hour ago, Bob Chill said:

The most common place for legit polar/arctic air south of the polar regions has been Russia and China. The wrong side.

This is really important to understand if you are a snow lover here in the ma.  Sure their is warning.. this is an undisputed fact.. but the earth is still plenty cold for snow and I really feel as thought the pendulum will swing back in our direction soon.

A lot of climate scientists say that the overall impact of AGW will be more frequent and stronger storms.  As long as we don’t go completely off the cliff with the warming I feel like this should be a net positive for our snow chances.  

We just need to wait for a pattern shift that gets proper arctic air down in to our region. Looking at year to year snow fall amounts for Baltimore, there were many 3-6 year spans with below average snowfall amounts.  We are probably just in one of those.

Anyway we are gonna score here once or twice more before the end of winter and probably go over for the seasonal average 

7 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

It is still a few inches not winter storm warning criteria if it is correct.

What does the gfs say?

15 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

For the record I’m not cliff jumping. I love to analyze this stuff. I’m curious why the CAMs are off on a tangent so close to game time. But I’ve noted they do this sometimes and the radar looks great. But I’m always open minded to all possibilities. Maybe they’re right. Doubt it but I’ve seen weirder things!  It’s chips fall time. But I like to analyze all these situations. They are learning experiences. We will have another similar wave scenario to this someday in the future and the outcome here along with the performance of these guidance tools will be used to help me make a better forecast in the future. 

Right.  I have lurked on the board for over ten years now and swear you guys see shifts that never materialize based off of pre-storm paranoia.   I can’t tell you how many time I have seen it. It usually happens during the Virga stage.   
 

The flagship gfs model gave us an increase in snowfall totals at 18z.  Stop looking at the rgem and the hrrr and all the other jv models… they are just gonna make you crazy.

Sleep well knowing that tomorrow morning when you wake up it’s gonna be ripping.

4 hours ago, Ji said:

Qpf going wrong way

What about this:

06Z

00Z

2 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

Technically this one isn't a clipper. It a northern stream shortwave from the Pac. We had some of these in 2014 and 2015 when the tpv acted as a block. They can carry much more juice than a clipper diving from the polar regions.  Stripes are narrow but pretty juicy. Should be a fun storm 

yup.. and it seemed like everyone of those storms trended better for us as we got closer to the onset.  A lot of times there was noticeable gulf moisture interaction as the storms tracked in to the midwest.  

33 minutes ago, Ji said:

Can we get a normal storm

In 2014 we nickel and dimed our way to 50 inches with these types of storms.  Most of them over performed by a lot.. one or two giving us a foot.  That winter taught me that you dont need a big wound up coastal to score here.  Sometimes you just need pressure/ temp gradient and vigorous ns energy diving out of the plains to get a nice normal snow storm.

18 minutes ago, T. August said:

Canadian is wetter but not the best precip distribution. 

I will be in Rehoboth Beach Delaware for this one.. any chance that 0.35 comes in as all snow there?

11 hours ago, SnowenOutThere said:

And it is!*
 

 

 

*post 2016 adjusted expectations

This storm would be 2-4 inches in 1900 too.

3 minutes ago, understudyhero said:

Snow is trying to mix in here at haymarket. 

Ugghh.. I thought the comma was all snow..

4 minutes ago, high risk said:

Goddamnit, y'all.     I have literally worked as a RAP/HRRR developer, and I would still use the JMA or NAVGEM before I used the RAP/HRRR system for snow amounts.    

But the GFS just showed more than the HRRR

1 minute ago, Ravens94 said:

GFS south

Yeah another 30 miles too

12 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

apparently maybe is the answer to my rhetorical question above?

also came back this far in the thread to give a shoutout to the AI Euro. Looks pretty good right now.
 

 

What is the AI Euro?