Bob Chill

Colorado dendrites now. Sleet line in NC. Temp down to 16. Legit winter night down here in the southern MA.

Light snow starting to accumulate now. It's a sand like quality and not puffy flakes. I don't have high expectations but maybe things will rip for a few hours with normal dendrites

Just a couple hours but snow has super light/off and on until just now. It's starting to stick but it's more like sand than snow. The DMV will likely have much better snow growth conditions than my yard.

Very light snow and 19. Mountain tops starting to obscure. Slow ramp up

My city days are over until I leave this earth Seeing decent returns streaming into Roanoke. If those actually start accumulating then start time is ahead of schedule down here. Right now it's just light flurries to the east of that.

Metal ruler and this technique works best

19 degrees and first flakes! Extremely light and you have to concentrate to see them but considering how quick I'll probably flip to sleet, every single flake counts lol. NWS forecast for onset of accum precip is 7pm but anything that falls will stick so hopefully I can get some bonus snow

Gefs is building a decent sized camp of near the coast lows. Upper air pattern looks to favor a too far offshore track but this was a pretty good run all things considered. As we just relearned for the millionth time lol.... winter wx tracking is never clear cut and simple even inside of 96 hours. Lead time is double that rn

UTC time takes some getting used to but memorize these #s. Daylight savings moves them forward one hour but during winter it looks like this: 0z = 7pm 6z = 1am 12z = 7am 18z = 1pm

Feb 2015 had a west track with a Bermuda high and was all snow lol. 7" in my yard iirc lol. But other than that freakshow, mix lines slow down or stop for nobody when they are in the forecast area

It's not that binary. Without blocking a nino will be stuffed with cut and rain events. Ninos are generally much less active so storms are far apart. Miss a few good chances and things don't look good in the end. Ninos aren't created equal. East based are not our friends nor are strong ninos. There's a sweet spot with west based/modiki mod ninos but they come along like 3 times in a person's life. Ninos often run warmish and considering how warm has been working against us, I'm not sold that ninos in the future will be as kind as the past . Time will tell there. The highest probability of snow in the MA is most correlated to the AO and that often works in any enso phase. The AO runs in some sort of longer term cycle that is hard to predict but easy to identify. We just came out of a long term +AO cycle. Seems like the cycle flips in 13 year cycles but thats just an oversimplified #. IMHO, last year and this year indicate that the AO cycle has probably flipped. For that reason alone, I'm pretty optimistic about MA snow chances over the balance of the next decade no matter what enso does. There will certainly be duds but overall I think there will be a string of memorable storms heading our way.

Smith Mtn Lake/Penhook

Decent virga on radar down this way keeping me entertained for now lol Forecast start time pushed out to 7-8pm so we'll see how that breaks later. Some areas of TN are overperforming in the snow dept so that's a glimmer of hope but I'm not feeling optimistic about 4" of clean snow anymore. Time will tell. Ice amounts have bumped up in my area as well. I'll keep posting until I lose power and internet lol.

Lol agreed. Global models aren't supposed to be analyzed at the microscopic level. I never thought the gfs and euro were that apart when people were calling it 2 different planets yesterday lol. This is how it always works entering the short range. Global models will never be identical beyond 48 hours. The gfs and euro ticked towards a middle ground pretty much like they always do. A gfs/euro blend at 72 hours is a pretty safe take with the vast majority of our events. Euro is a superior model in the mid range but the gfs does pretty good with the northern stream. A blend with a hedge towards the euro is pretty much what I do with every storm. Tomorrow the mesos will be more important than the globals. I know you know this stuff and we probably agree that some mountains were made out of mole hills the last 24 hours.

My yard will be a good barometer for my northern friends. Time spread for the models with my flip to sleet is as early as 1am or as late as 7am (as it stands right now). Onset right around 6pm or so. Range of snow amounts before the flip is 3-7". If I'm awake lol I'll post my snow totals and flip time. My gut guess is 4-5" of snow, 2-3" of sleet, and .25zr. Anything less than 3" of snow would be a bar buster but 3" or more of sleet would make up for it lol

CFS weeks 4,5,&6 are normal to AN precip and a -AO, -NAO, -EPO, +PNA combo straight through lol. This -AO cycle looks like it wants to follow the classic 45 day cycle. All this happens during our best snow climo. Feeling very confident more snow events are coming. Not chances... events... heh

This is a pretty good video tutorial. Since we focus mainly on winter wx, you dont have to master everything. At the very least, memorize levels, temps, and wind direction. All a sounding is is a vertical visualization of the atmosphere from the surface to the jet stream. Winter wx focuses mainly on 500mb or below or roughly 18k' down to the surface. Learn to locate the 0C (freezing line). It runs diagonal and memorize altitude of key levels like 500mb (approx 18k'), 700mb (approx 10k'), and 850mb (approx 5k'). Levels are related to pressure are not static and altitude varies but the approx levels are the most common. Once you get that and the 0C line yaou can track temperature above your head and easily spot the trouble areas and also predict ptype.

GEFS is picking up on the Miller A idea.

Euro AI a tick colder with a bit more snow down here in the south

It's obviously long range but analogs and teles are screaming big storm potential. AO on the relax after a big dive and a solid analog list. Weenie rule that the big ones are sniffed out early and a big +WDI

Woah....

For whatever reason... analogs are stacked with Ninos so the pattern "appears" to be ripe for a more traditional Miller A. It's been 10 years so I guess we're due lol

Much more complicated than that. Ratios use temps in the entire column, lift, omega, and all kinds of details. Snow growth and ratios are affected by many factors other than surface temps

Once you accept it for what it is, it's a blast... literally... lol I loved 2007. It was wild. Never saw sleet pile up like that before and once I accepted the forecast snow was off the table I embraced and enjoyed it. This storm will be an absolute glacier Tuesday morning down here no matter what happens. If you squint, sleet looks just like snow on the ground too hahaha

Other than the last 15 consecutive storms, I can't remember a time when going with the coldest and snowiest model was a mistake. Agree 100% with euro/3k blend @ 12z tomorrow. If the 3k is quicker to jack the mid-levels go with that. If they are the same it's safe to assume the solution is correct. I wish I could trust the gfs with fine details at close range but someone will have to remind me of the last time that worked out lol