Bob Chill

This should answer all your questions. Soundings are ELI5'd all over the web. Lets keep that stuff out of here https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/skewt_samples#:~:text=As snow falls into the,A typical "Sleet" sounding.

HRRR is showing thunder snow and sleet. IR satellite shows the high cloud tops associated with it (I'm kidding but maybe not. Full weenie mode tonight)

I like the insurance policy on frozen precipitation. ZR isnt happening. So even if I only get .10 as snow, I'll get another .6-.8 as sleet. And it's going to pound at times. I have little concern with this storm. Gulf lows are easier on the nerves in general too

Sleet warm layer is higher up. Typically between 700-800mbs. 850s going above 0c often happens after the flip has already happened. Used to piss me off too because I used to use 850 0c line for judging when I would flip and it always happened sooner.

My first and only call for my area is 3-4" of snow and a bunch of sleet. Once it shuts off I'm thinking 5" total of frozen stuff. Sleet will pummel and compact for sure. My plan is to measure snow at the beginning of the flip, clear the table, then measure sleet. Roads will be the worst they've been since Jan 16. Jan 19 was 11" in my yard but iirc the roads were fine. Not to mention snow distribution was all over the place so road impacts varied by the mile. Tomorrow will be a different story.

It may have been feb 2015. Those 2 febs are blended together in my mind like a corrupt hard drive. So similar at times it was uncanny. Even though the pattern in both feb 14&15 was not ideal at all, our area could not have maximized it any better. Prob once in a lifetime pattern/snow. I wont root for a raging +ao/nao ever. But man, some fond fond memories of that stretch. I remember literally getting sick and tired of tracking in mid Mar 2014. First and last for me. Lol

Def could have been 2015. Makes sense coming in a week after the VDay supersquall. We tracked fails all season up until that arctic front. The storm was so unconventional we didnt take it as serious as we usually do iirc

It was a single storm iirc and was on the tail of a snow heater in that wild progressive pattern. None of us really drilled down on it leading in. We were kinda burned out from other storms and this one had literally no high pressure to our north. All return flow from the arctic high sliding off the coast. 99.9% of those storms would be a mix and mess everywhere at best. It was such a legit airmass we capitalized when we really shouldnt have. Thats as much as this old guy can remember

Agree. My yard has been through a number of these dicy ptype storms. Nearly every single on flipped right on time or sooner. I cant remember the specific dates but the only times I've been surprised with more snow and less sleet than expected were a couple heavy dumpers. Of course the greatest reverse sleet bust of all time (imo only) was in Feb 2014 when a west track primary was all snow with a hp out in the atlantic just pumping southerlies in the mids. I think I got like 7" all snow with just a touch of sleet and drizzle on the tail. @WinterWxLuvr loved that storm. So did Ji if you can believe it

I just cut the old gfs' throat. It wont be bothering us anymore

It's a pretty juicy storm as a whole. Also legit frontogen overhead as the heavies move in. Not saying I think reality will be all crazy juiced up. Just that we do have an unusually good combo of plentiful gulf moisture and great atmospheric conditions to wring it out. I think we both agree that all the good stuff happens quickly. Dont care much about the tail. Will be light sleet at best in my yard.

I tossed the euro the second I heard it was drier than other guidance. Just tossed the para euro now too. We good.

If the rgem ever shows up at my house, I will cut that mf'ers throat.

Those widespread 1"+ qpf runs were suspect anyways (imo). When they first started hitting I was thinking if my yard can pull off .75 is would be fine. About right. Ptypes on this one are nutty. Walking lines all over the area at times. 3k nam says this is sleet ptype but this sure looks like a snow sounding to me. There's a lot of that going on under the hood it seems

Just poked around the 18z 3k soundings. The sleet on the sim radar isnt a sure thing. Sounding looks more like snow in areas W of 95. Not really much of a warm nose until the heavies are gone. Def walking the line in my yard. I expect plenty of sleet either way. Figures the euro would drop a dry upper decker into the tank. Time will tell

Havent looked anything 12 or 18z. Can someone save me the time and just give me the broad brush synopsis? If same as 0&6z then tell me to shut up.

It's fairly easy to envision. Freezing rain has a warm layer thick enough not too far off the ground to melt snowflakes. Rain simply falls into shallow sub freezing air layer near the surface. Warmth is too much for the melted flake to re-freeze into a sleet ball but freezes on contact with the ground. Sleet has a lot of cold air in all levels except somewhere around 5-9k'. Snow falls above, melts to rain in the middle, and has plenty of cold to traverse through on the way down to freeze into a sleetball. Hope this helps

I'm just giving the majority what they want. There is clearly no interest in analysis of reality.

Damn, took me like 14 milliseconds to hike my banter leg in the storm thread and let loose. I might be back later. Tracker's call on the band duration

Just take your dog out and let him pee in the same spot for a couple days. Gotta think outside the box to find easy answers to complex problems

Crap, swell angle is wrong. We better hope this isnt right.

Lack of is a prerequisite to participating in the sub. That's why lurkers are 10:1 active posters. Sanity is a base state for normal people. Wonder what it feels like.... hmm... nah, sounds boring AF and dumb. I'm out on sanity.

Yea, but coming back appears to be at the expense of MY sanity (and my soul has fire ants crawling on it now)

It's one of the reasons the board has lost its luster for me. The closing hours used to be an unbiased point/counterpoint discussion of how different parts of the storm could break in different areas (alongside weenie melts). Now it's just weenie therapy romper room and anyone who posts reality makes it worse. No biggie tho. Growing tired is a me problem.

No time to post in storm thread but after a quick scan, even if I had unlimited free time I still wouldnt. Lol. Anyone who didnt expect to lose ground with temps and precip leading in hasnt learned a damn thing from their many mistakes this winter