psuhoffman

Can we just start ignoring the op gfs? Especially at lead times we shouldn’t be looking at any operational frankly.

Charlotte is not getting 46” of snow. And I don’t care what the gfs says for 72 hours let alone 300.

@mitchnick I saw this seasonal snowfall mean map back in the early 2000s and was like “what’s that little max in north central MD just south of PA that gets as much snow as southern CT according to this. That can’t be real”. So I started paying attention to coop reports in the area after every storm. Even drove up from northern VA a couple of times to see for myself. And damn it was real. During “snowy” periods there was this little area on these ridges up here that got dumped on. I remembered that when I ended up in the area and bought a place accordingly.

It’s been a rough few years for our area since 2021. But also, you’re in a bit of a dead zone compared to here. Over the 20 years I’ve been here I’ve done significantly better than Hanover. I got a lot more from that storm in December and the 2 day multiple wave event a couple weeks ago. Over the years I can even do significantly better than @HighStakes who is within walking distance but at the bottom of the ridge I’m on and sometimes that’s meant an extra 1-2” between us. The globals don’t have the resolution to depict it but when close to a storm look at the hrrr or 3k Nam. You’ll see the difference between the higher elevations and the valley Hanover is in. Hanover isn’t a bad spot and does much better than Baltimore obviously. But there is a bit of a regional snow max over the higher elevations area along and just south of the PA line in this area. Combination of location and the orientation of the ridges creates a meso scale snow max. I observed it for years before moving to the area. Snow isn’t the only reason I’m in the area but the exact location on this ridge was chosen when that in mind. I knew this exact spot was the snow max pretty much for this whole area.

I think even Chuck admitted a couple years ago that there is a difference between a full latitude trough causing a -pna and some STJ or mid latitude wave undercutting blocking.

You think it’s an accident I live here?

I’ll buy that one please

Btw I’m always trying to learn. My optimism for this weekend was a mistake because while the wave responsible for the threat did trend west so did the 50/50 and the whole TPV which caused the SW to dig to kingdom come and get stuck under the blocked flow. My mistake was adjusting one part of the equation without properly factoring in the other pieces that were likely to adjust also.

I like this look a lot We’ve had a favorable pna most of winter and it’s doing us no favors with precip. The one good qpf event we got was during a brief -pna. Ya it mixed but it phased super early and the block was kinda north and the 50/50 relaxed and there was a SE ridge am we still got a full region warning event! With the level of blocking we have I think we need some -pna. 2010 was a good example of how a -pna can be good if you had enough blocking.

WHen we are this close now... having the furthest east model come in line with consensus is not an "improvement" if the consensus is a miss. That is simply guidance converging on the solution...but in this case that solution is a miss. When a full run of guidance is over...average everything together...and if the average of all the guidance (and you should weight it, the euro gets more weight than the GFS in this math) but if the mean of the whole suite of runs didn't move closer...it wasn't an improvement just because one or two of the worst solutions got marginally better.

@WeatherGeek2025 This is where the track would need to be for our area to get a big snowstorm

Are you serious? Not a Fkn flake in DC from that unholy piece of excrement, just like not a flake from those storms in January 2017 and 2018. They gave the Delmarva snow...then NJ and NYC and Boston, we are further west, need a further west track. Frankly, the track we would need in DC with a storm starting out this far southeast, and especially anyone west of 95 in our area, we would almost need Boston and NYC to mix. See Jan 2000 for an example.

I am not basing that off what any model is showing...historically a low position that far east of the Outer Banks of that strength would not have significant precip into DC. DC needs the low to be closer to over the outter banks tracking just east of VA beach...for me up here I want the low really tucked into the Delmarva to get a significant snow. A track that far off the coast is good for the Delmarva maybe...that is a similar track to those storms in 2018 and 2017 that gave OC a nice storm.

That initial position off NC is likely too far east for 95 and points west, we need it just off VA beach. Good track for Ocean City though...it takes a northward enough trajectory to clobber NYC to Boston with that track also...yay for them

One big issue is that as the NS wave responsible for all this has trended west so has the 50/50 and this is created a more suppressive flow over the top such that the more west track doesn't really matter...the wave is forced well south of us and cuts off then slides east before lifting because of the flow over the top being more suppressive, offsetting the better trajectory of the wave.

So maybe my point is were are DUE!

@MN Transplant you very well might be right about perception bias. However I’m not sure…I’m not talking about SWFE frontal waves. They most definitely do trend north. And we’ve benefitted from plenty of them including this last one. Yea it flipped to sleet but 6 days out most guidance was missing is completely and giving NC some huge snowstorm. However it’s been since 2000 that guidance showed a cutoff upper low to our south tha trended north significantly. I can think of a few examples where we were on the fringes and it eeked north just enough but I can’t think of a single example like this where it was cutoff down near Atlanta with a snow shown for NC 4-7 days out and it ended up hitting us. Now I know there haven’t been THAT many chances because that’s a pretty rare thing but there have been some. Meanwhile I can think of more than a handful of cutoff h5 lows projected perfectly for us at day 4-7 that ended up trending north and screwing is over to some extent. Now I know there were more opportunities but I can only think of a couple that were projected good at day 4-5 and stayed that way. March 2018 being one. So it seems going through the examples in my head the ones targeting us day 4-7 had a higher rate of trending north than ones targeting NC. It’s not that hard to go through all the examples of ones that stayed good in my head because frankly we’ve not had that many snowstorms lol. And most of the ones we did were SWFE open waves not cut off lows. It did seem NYC has had a lot more luck with storms that were supposed to jack us at day 4-5 than we’ve had with storms that were supposed to jack Raleigh to Richmond day 4-5. ETA: only examples I can think of where a cut off was projected good 100 hours out and ended up good the last 20 years was Feb 2010, Jan 2011, Jan 2016, March 2018 Out other big cutoff low snows didn’t lock in until too close to evaluate and didn’t trend north they were just waves that weren’t supposed to amplify until we got inside 100 hours. I can think of way more examples than 4 of upper lows that looked good 100 hours out and trended north. Hell one was 2 weeks ago. And it trended so far north the snow missed my friend in Vermont to the north! Meanwhile there have been about a dozen examples of a cutoff to our south in that time period and I can’t think of a single one that trended significantly north like that to help us. Actually more often they end up trended even more south and east and the storm even misses NC and ends up some weak wave way OTS

When one snowmobile has way too much to drink and…

Let’s ask AI how to deal with it

That’s not totally true. We’ve got lucky in east based before with one big hit. But an east based Nino with an unfavorable solar/QBO would likely not be a wall to wall good winter like 2003 or 2010 and probably not even one that was mixed but features a very good 4-5 weeks like 1987 and 2015. But there is always the threat of one BIG hit even in a bad Nino because a juiced up STJ is sending waves at us and we just need to time cold up with one.

Let me ask Gemini what it means

And who are these people posting this crap?

OMFG can we stop with the AI Chat BS

The most obvious reason is the lack of STj which is Nina related. But why are there not even some reasonable decent northern stream waves? I don’t know. Honestly the pattern is suppressed so much right now we could even work with some NS only wave at times but even they are weak sauce

Im not throwing in the towel on this year her. The pattern is very good in terms of being right for any amplification to be a snow threat. We just need something to happen. The last wave was a pretty good hit. This next one is so damn close but looks to be a miss. This pattern isn’t breaking down and is reloading actually. We have at least 3 more weeks and maybe more if guidance is right. We juts need 1-2 more hits. It can happen. After this we need a -AO Nino basically. What stacks the deck most would be to time up a west based Nino with a favorable solar and QBO. Problem is next year is likely to have unfavorable solar and QBO and early signs are east based. So…