Bob Chill

Some interesting looks. I'm actually a little confused why snowfall is sparse on both the eps and gefs. Hopefully that picks up soon. I am really liking the d15 height spread. Nearly every one is wintry and has potential. A lot of broad troughs in the mix. Get that going and our odds of snow are well above normal. About half the members have a closed ull of the coast of Socal. Jan 87 redux.

Took a closer look at the 18z gefs. I suppose there's a longshot chance around NYE. Something to watch as we pass time wearing sunscreen.

Eps keeps trending colder d10-15 but looks pretty dry with limited snow chances. Very weak signal around the 4th-6th. Gefs is similar with things turning dry after we transition to cold around NYE. 18z gefs had a bit more of a signal for potential between the 4th-6th. Right now guidance agrees on the big picture in early Jan and also agrees that snow chances are pretty meager and don't expect much before late in the first week of Jan. Of course this is all subject to change every 12 hours or so

Yea, sure seems to be moving in that direction. Quite a bit of spread on how things evolve in early Jan. So much so that I have no idea where this is all going other than some mid winter cold is prob on the way. How long it lasts and whether or not frozen precip is involved won't be known for 7-10 days. With the way this year has gone I'm expecting some brand new ways to worry are in our future. Lol. Cold/dry is on the list. Lol

9 times out of 10, flipping out of a sh!t pattern and into a colder pattern doesn't include snowfall. Feb 2015 was an exception. We typically need the cold pattern to establish itself for a week or so before chances start popping up. Going off history in these parts based on what I'm seeing now... our first real chance prob won't happpen until after 1/5. Just a total guess but it's how we roll.

One important step that all guidance is showing is splitting unmitigated pac flow sometime between the 26th-28th. I would like to think that part is close to locked in and won't get kicked down the road. That's a very important inflection point.

The gfs op and gefs/eps are all signaling a return to a very amplified but still progressive flow. Wild swings on ops run over run will continue for days. Overall guidance (although turning cold) doesn't look promising for snowfall yet. Gotta crawl walk and run here. Crawl phase appears to end sometime around the 30th. Beyond that? Good luck guessing.

There were signs of things improving in Jan but the west coast trough kept getting pushed out in time. What's unusual is the way we get out of the warmish pattern. It's mostly atlantic driven. We appear to be getting lucky with the ridge in canada creating split flow. We're seeing quite a bit of agreement on that now.

This looks freekin good. I'm good with every member height plot on this panel and it's 15 days out in time. Not a bad one in the bunch. The ones that are warm have winter on the heels. Can't predict snow this far out in time but it def looks like we're getting some cold shots in early Jan.

Here's the mslp anomaly for the last 30 days or so. Confirms my thoughts about a persistent low pressure near the maritimes. I'm good with that continuing through the end of March

There's a parade of closed ULLs tracking through the southwest on all ops right now. Get the atlantic right and keep the parade going and one of them is going to hit us flush. One of the most persistent LW features since mid Nov has been 50/50s. I haven't seen the atlantic look this good since Jan 2011. There's nothing more fun than a classic coastal that hits everyone relatively equally. I liked seeing the Jan 87 analogs showing up on cpc. The only thing more fun than a flush hit coastal is a second one shortly after...

I do like seeing guidance lock in to a return to more favorable conditions before the end of the year. Important step #1 is to not have the 850 0c line north of the great lakes. That should be fixed before 2020. But like with all large pattern flips... they generally don't hit the ground running so patience required (as always....)

Very nice shift on the EPS towards a colder regime beginning just after NYE with a much more defined eastern conus trough in place by Jan 2nd. One of the larger run over run jumps (in the good direction) I've seen recently. ETA: h5 pattern looks good but oddly there isn't much going on in the snowfall dept.

I think all guidance looks the same now in general (including the CMC/GEPS). Ridge in the EPac splits flow and the blocking ridge in Canada forces the northern stream underneath as the Atlantic carves out a 50/50. All models are showing a similar progression with just minor differences in speed/placement of features. The most important thing to root for is the altantic carving out confluence as soon as possible. We'll be in the sweet climo window where normal temps are good enough by the time things improve.

Yea, now we have the big 3 globals looking the same at d10 and all ens support the idea of how/when things turn for the better. The GFS/CMC/Euro have a storm approaching from the SW d8. The Atl can make this happen with well placed confluence. Even with a west track we can do our CAD thing.

D9-10 deal on the euro was pretty close to working out. The atlantic is asserting itself nicely and it's within the realm for it to become a legit threat (of some sort). 0z EPS had a cluster of maybe 12 solutions that had at least a trace of snow. Will be interesting to see if 12z EPS ups the ante. It's probably waaay too fast to expect things to get right before Jan but it is something (the only thing) worth watching over the next 10 days.

BWI 11/11 IAD 10/31 DCA 11/17 RIC 11/11 Tie Rainfall 10.10"

My guess is some sort of lift or convection briefly mixed winds. Reminds me of the temporary breeze you feel in front of a shower. Today's precip was upper level and instability driven. Curious what direction the breeze was out of.

I will take the ICON more seriously with future storms. It picked up on the trailng piece first and also did very well with gradients and ptype etc. All models were too dry leading in. Overall the icon was pretty accurate and consistent.

We're close. I'm on the norbeck side of Rockville and have 11.4. Still snowing and sticking. Lol. Silver spring/wheaton/rockville/derwood did very well. We all have about the same. Very memorable storm.

The ironic thing is the reason the snow totals ended up being much higher than we thought is the same reason it wasn't cold smoke. Lol. I'm good with that. The afternoon snow was very high ratio.

The outer band moved around a lot but the 12z run today showed a bullseye out in winchester and wv panhandle. Was too low. Eta: euro missed the leesburg/upper moco/hoco jackpot between 18-0z. Upper level stuff is really hard to nail placement. That type of precip is almost always a nowcast deal

Euro nailed the band out there. Underdid qpf but placement was perfect. Euro well with qpf leading in. Was showing .65 iad/.70 dca/.50 bwi (going off memory). Not bad at all.

6.5 with round 1 and 4.9 with round 2 so 11.4". Winding down tho so a foot prob won't happen. What a disaster.

Prob a transformer if i had to guess. Not seeing any strikes on lightningmaps.