Bob Chill

The older I get, the more I accept unknowns in wx. Even in the very short range. You dont have to know everything in advance to have a good time in life. Sounds easy but hard to stay in that lane, but I spend more time in that lane than anywhere else lately. Only took me 15 years ETA: I'm sure you have a problem with this post but.... IDFC

In any in person social scenes anywhere in your life, a wet blanket or room air letter outter gets abandoned fairly quickly. Social media wet blankets have staying power. Lots of it,

You and I shouldnt sweat too much. Whatever happens *should* treat moco fairly well in comparison region wide. I never had big hopes for totals. Standard 2-4/3-6 thoughts have been stuck in my head all week. I'm in it for the scene more than ground truth. Snow on superbowl sunday is special. 2015 superbowl sunday is the polar opposite if anyone want to think it cant get worse

I dont have a problem with this post but....

Your sense of humor is perfect here. You dropped a couple clever jokes last week and I was like "diatae needs to read less and post more"

After last weekend, RGEM is dead to me. It could show 50 meters or 5mms and I wouldnt flinch. Might be right but I aint no sucker

Can't speak for everyone but I'm sticking with this idea. You most certainly agree me thinks. Tracker same

Agree. Cambridge general area has some gems too. Old Salty's on Hoopers Island is awesome. One of the best bay views to look at while eating anywhere. Hell, the food could suck and I'd still go.

Can't speak for everyone here but you and me would take a good hit off this one

I'm more excited/less nervous with this one than last. I'm not expecting big totals but the potential exists for the lucky folks under meso bands. One could be in an unusual area east of 95. Or cape's hood. Band locations are real time. That makes these storms fun. And fun to watch when it's dumping. I'm guessing 3-6 in my yard. We'll see

With the insane amount of freely available model data... it can be a lot easier said than done. I'm guilty just like everyone else. But you can keep it simple in the mid/long range by just acknowledging the existence of the potential day after day. Crunch time doesnt even start until inside of hr96 the way I look at it. Whenever I see potential I track the rug pull details only. Like losing mid level temps or track too far west etc. We always live on the edge here. It doesnt take much to stomp on our dreams. Focus on macro d4+ and fret on micro d3 on in. Much smoother hobby that way IME

How's all that detailed op long tracking been working out for you this year? Just locked and loaded from a week+ out right?

Typing a novel while you wondered this. I didn't like the massive dry slot over leesburg on all the models so I didnt want to bring it up.

Fastest week ever and my weeks already go by in a blink. Nothing technical to add. Excellent job ITT for me to quick scan and go (or go to sleep) this week. I do want to sincerely thank mets @MillvilleWx @csnavywx @high risk for their outstanding posts about fronto, jet structure, and model guidance considerations when parsing thru suites among other things. I live for this stuff man. It helps build a "concept" versus verbatim surface panel output. That stuff is really important if you want to conceptualize what's going on top to bottom instead of snow map central (not knocking. I like snow maps too!). The only way you can "out think" a model is by understanding the mechanics of what's approaching and drawing your own "painting" in your head. I had a blast last weekend but it reminded me how easy it is to get sucked in to the wrong idea. One thing we're all guilty of is "maybe it's different this time" with a setup. Sometimes it is but using history as a guide for the future is powerful. In tne end, last weekend went just like I was thinking leading in. I'm pretty damn thankful to get the 6" I eeked out. Thru similar storm history it was an overperformer. Dont lose sight of that. Even if it felt blah on Sunday The upcoming event should be a blast. Radar extrapolation will work well this time. No worries about needing all kinds of crazy things to line up. We just want to be in the stripe and so far we are. I remember on mon-tues seeing the gfs keeping us in the dead space median strip while energy passed north and south at the same time. My first thought was "this never happens in reality". Memory of past events and your backyard climo is more accurate than just model output alone.

Why do different people keep saying similar things like this? Did I miss something?

I honestly dont know but I dont know why there wouldnt be other than the US's narrow width and bordered by 2 big oceans. That's the logical potential issue that comes to mind but honestly, I really only have expertise in 17k' square feet of grass and trees NE of rockville town center. Pretty good with Summit County CO. Outside of that I'm only as good as a point and click forecast

Eh, I already had a chance to edit and it's probably too amusing to resist. I crack myself up with it often. Freezing rain to rain is bourbon on the rocks.

Absolutely 100% preferred visual learner. I'm very good with math/numbers and logic. Literally despise literature like Shakespeare. I'd rather stab myself in the eyes repeatedly with a 9" ice pick than be forced to read Macbeth again. I also couldn't write a grammatically correct paragraph if my life depended on it. This should give you a good idea where I stand with strengths and weaknesses The internet has been a more important tool for me than any of my education or work experience. I get to choose what format to acquire knowledge which kicks ass for hobby type interests. I've always been a decent backyard mechanic but chilton manuals and schematics are really crappy at teaching (me) how to do a complicated repair. I'm good with the schematics but that doesnt show you the smart way to disassemble and reassemble and all the tips and tricks to do it without breaking something or taking far longer than it should. Then comes youtube... it took time to build a literal encyclopedia but nowadays every make and model common repair has DIYs. I've taken apart the entire valve train of a motor and put it back together with new parts in 2 days. Had a laptop sitting right there and went step by step. No chance I can pull this stuff off without the internet. I can only imagine how much much of my potential I could have uncovered had I had the net when I was a kid. Of course if I was young nowadays I'd be wasting all my time on IG, tik tok, or twatter. Lol. I hope people read this post and back off on time suck social media and learn something your interested in. Knowledge is only power when you put effort into the right things.

I actually thought about this coming up after I posted and almost went back and edited a bunch of stuff. I know it sounds funny as hell to do because it is but this system is pretty personal. More than a little work went into it. I use tricks like this for all kinds of complex topics I'm either required to learn or just for recreation. I dont want it to become a board thing.

With snow, it usually means upper level energy is moving in and pockets of lift/dynamics are doing what they do. Upper level energy often pummels new weenie's brains because a blank radar = nothing happening at all for many hours. But there's plenty of available moisture in the column for precip. Just no mechanism to wring it out. Then energy moves overhead way up at 15k' or more snow starts seemingly out of nowhere. Like a miracle really. But if you understand 500mb vort and height panels it's not a miracle at all. It's expected. Not saying you should know this in any way shape or form because vast majority here dont. Tonight wont have a lot of that magic. Just remember this post during our next legit upper level system and make fun of weenies on the verge of suicide. If you want a visual, click through the 500mb vort panels on the nam and check out the closed circle over OH as it approaches and starts sending orange and yellow swirly things over our heads. The redder and oranger and swirlier, the more energy to work with. It's not nearly that simple to forecast but its a good way to understand what your seeing on radar.

Still managed to completely cover grass but ratios and dynamics have sucked all day. There's no sugarcoating that. Well, metaphorically there's no sugarcoating but literally.... everything I own outside is sugarcoated. This storm is directly out of the climo playbook at this point. I'm glad af I didnt get a hook set until tues night and only believed I would get 6"+ thurs/fri so quick recovery for me. This storm is a perfect example why tracking anything specific d4+ is a waste of time for me now. No matter how many looks you get in advance, twists and turns leave you scrambling around wondering wtf in the short range. Models did awesome picking this up and locking in I think over a week ago? Longer? I tuned in on tues and expected this then but then got sucked in with promising guidance at close leads. All of the daily deep analysis out in time for over a week+ get overruled and tossed aside literally as the event is happening. Talking specifics and details in the med range+ has totally lost it's luster for me last few years and today is just another friendly reminder to use my free time on more productive things. Lo My wife and teen kids talked about that storm today. It brought back unwanted memories of literally not enjoying christmas with my kids all that much as I couldn't get the stink off. It was too painful how it happened. We were all coming off a ridiculous heater from 09-10. All cocky and confident we would add another Dec crush job to a very short list. Then reality hit. A good analogy would be hitting the blackjack table and doing no wrong for hours. You pick up your newly minted mountain of chips and walk away giddy. Sometime later you go back to the table feeling cocky and lucky AF. Then in a few short hours you lose the ENTIRE STACK of chips and many more. Then get up feeling like your going to puke and hitting the atm to grab your last $20 on earth just so you can take a taxi ride of shame home instead of walking in 33 degree rain with no jacket. Yea, that feeling = boxing day

So far it looks like as long as some idiot doesnt put a piece of american cheese on a pastrami sandwhich, we eatin clubs mang

I worked it backwards mostly. I def had general background knowledge and understood a fair amount in general but not nearly as much as you might think just 15 years ago. I never even used or learned about 500mb ht and vort panels until eastern. I quickly learned far more about what they mean verbatim/reality than what they actually mean scientifically. Basically, I quickly memorized what to get excited about and what to get nervous about even before I knew how/why they existed in the first place. It was nothing more than thinking "oooh, that's what I'm looking for" or "ah crap, this is ugly". But it was mostly visual and nothing savvy. THEN I learned why they exist and did the same thing (slowly) with every other important level. That's straight up backwards really right? I knew panels were good or trending good or bad or whatever simply because I knew what to visually recognize. Absolutely nothing to do with in depth meteorology like physics/dynamics/laws and all the other stuff they teach mets at very expensive colleges for a career that is insulting in the paycheck dept (imo only. Seems unfair and wrong to me but that's another giant can of worms to debate). I did have a massive breakthrough 2011-12 when I started envisioning the atmosphere overhead like a sandwich. Each surface/mid/upper level panel is a piece of bread, cheese, tomato, meat, etc. There's a lot of important things overhead with each and every event but each event has it's own set of important things. That's complicated! Then I organized my thoughts based on complexity and started calling setups things like a grilled cheese (simple overrunning), or ham and cheese (single stream wave), or club (dual stream phase/transfer etc), or imported italian cold cut (complicated multi part phase/transfer etc). Havent had a triple phase 93 redux at close enough range to name a sandwhich after it. Hopefully before I'm dead. All this stuff probably sounds funny AF but dammit it was a breakthrough. So once I classified groups of events into different sandwiches I started honing in on the most important ingredients (levels) to events and that allowed me to systematically pull the proper ingredients based on the event's general characteristics. This made me really fast and efficient at looking at the proper important stuff and not wasting time (or confusing myself) looking at dumb stuff. Like using american cheeze on a pastrami sandwich. Who the hell does that sh!t anyways? Anyways, I think this should help someome somewhere understand it's only as complicated as you want to make it and anyone can learn if they really want to. If I post a 250mb jet panel then you already know I'm thinking club sandwich coastal or better and things like that. I never post a random level. I might be out to lunch with my analysis but there is a very specific reason I'm looking at it based on my filing system. I'm always improving to make it easier too. Damn, super long ass post but it gives some really good insight on one way to tackle this as an enthusiest. Knowledge of physics and calculus etc are absolutely not a barrier to entry for a weenie to take it to the next level. If someone want to climb the weenie ladder, get away from surface panels and start working on 500mb skills. Skilled weenieism begins at 500mbs. No shortcuts there. I really hope this helps someone because dayum I'm a typing fool.

It was earlier this week but imo how it's happening on the ground is an old rerun at this point. That's prob not a coincidence. Deep under the hood might be unusual. Ground truth is not. I think we can agree there. GFS is going to win this one for our yards. Every time I looked at it I envisioned this type of outcome (and it made a lot of sense even if I didnt like it) but I never compared any run over run changes in the upper levels or any fine detail at all really. I just broad brushed looked at runs in isolation when I had time click thru them. Primary is in OH now. That's def not suppressed. Euro had a horizontal brick wall just north of our region earlier this week when it was exciting. Now the firehose is rocking NYC/CNJ/CPA. That's not suppression either. Maybe technically in the fine details it still all is but it's really hard to defend suppression looking at everything in it's entirety as it's happening/going to happen.

Nah, you peeps def flatter me and I appreciate it but honestly, anyone can do what I do. I'm serious too. But I don't recommend it to anyone. The amount of time I've wasted learning fine details and feverishly tracking for minimal returns is REALLY f'n dumb and wasteful. I wouldnt recommend it to anyone. Even people I dont like