psuhoffman

We are in the panic room

I said it was precarious because an amplified wave could easily track inside our ideal box. But that’s not what’s happening. What’s happening is if the wave amplifies at all it’s pressing low level warmth way way way NW of the track even with an ideal track. This seems to be a repetitive theme where someone points out the imperfections to excuse why it’s too warm. I don’t get it! Yea I know it’s not perfect. I know we can still get snow when everything is perfect. Yes if we have a 1035 high over Montreal with a 50/50 and a locked in arctic airmass and a 988 low off VA beach we will get a big snowstorm. I know that! But we are almost never going to have that. You know what % of all those warning snows I looked at had a perfect setup? Barely any. The perfect setup ones were the 12”+ snows! We shouldn’t need perfect to get 5-8”. Most of those were flawed. Something wasn’t right. No high. Marginal airmass. No blocking. But the storm took a good track and it worked out. My point is lately a good track isn’t overcoming those flaws anymore.

I’m not out. Still interested. But I don’t like going into the last 100 hours needing a south trend on a NS SW. that’s not usually a good spot. But this is the kind of situation it could happen. We might actually want to root for a more suppressive flow. Yea it will minimize the potential some but if rather had a 3-6” snow than 1-2 and NYC gets 20”! The more amplified solutions might also be the further north ones.

Gfs is more amplified with the SW: good. But it comes across further north. Bad. It doesn’t matter how amplified it is if it tracks to our north. We need more amplified AND south.

Nothing impressive but at least it feels winters now

It’s been nice snow tv the last 15 mins but nothing that rivals the squalls we like to remember. Best squall we got here was actually in Jan 2020. Yes that winter. The only cold few days we had. We got a quick 2.5” from one of these. This one is tame. Just light to moderate snow mostly.

The thing is the people saying “you can’t be sure this one thing is due to warming” are right. All these examples in a vacuum can be dismissed as a fluke. But thats ignoring the preponderance of evidence when you stack them all together and superimpose them on the worst region wide snow draught ever and a snow mean that’s been dropping precipitously if you apply a linear regression to the data.

The NAM has it because it amplifies the coastal some where others don’t. If you can call 1010 amplified lol. So it’s probably wrong. But…and I expounded on this more in the panic room don’t want to derail this thread…but don’t we want a coastal to amplify off the outer banks? That’s why I was disturbed that a weak ass coastal east of the outer banks blasted a low level warm later NW of 95. Book worthy?

Yes but it’s a 1010 low that starts to amplify off the outer banks…so umm…. I have a longer reply in the panic room. It’s just one NAM run so no reason to over react I guess

Let’s not overreact to one NAM run. But well yes it’s that but look where the low is. 1010 east of the outer banks. If a weak low there is enough to destroy the thermals NW of DC even with arctic air around what are we doing? What are we even rooting for? Let me clarify. Yes DC is fine so long as it’s just the weak boundary wave along the arctic boundary activated by the jet crossing the boundary. And that’s great. I’m not complaining about a 1-3” snow. But if the second a wave actually starts to amplify in what’s supposed be our ideal location the weak flow associated with that immediately wrecks our thermals what’s the path to a legit big snow??? You do realize to get heavy snow we need an easterly flow! Other than when we get instability from a strong upper level wave tracking over us most snow requires overrunning and clash along the thermal boundary. But if our thermals can’t withstand even a weak SE flow how do we get a significant snowstorm? If a low off the outer banks pushes an arctic boundary NW of us…tell me exactly what are we rooting for if we want a big snowstorm???

The low levels are torched during the most critical 6 hours when the best precip is in the area. Ugh. That’s not something I expected with an arctic front situation. Another chapter in my book maybe!

Yes front is slightly less positive tilt and this allows the second wave to amplify a bit more and pull the boundary back southeast a bit just in time to save DC. This is a nice little bonus surprise trending. The big storm 3rd wave idea is dead dead. But guidance is bringing back the idea of wave 2 enhancement and along with the lead frontal wave the 1-2 combo could end up a nice event. A HECS by 2020s standards!

My only fear for DC not breaking the 1” streak would be if this continues to amp a little and it pushed the arctic boundary (which is the focus of that band) NW of the city to quickly.

There is a model war going on between the gefs and eps for Feb 1-15. Both end up the same place the second half of Feb but the eps says Feb 1-15 is workable. Not great but decent. Gefs is a shit the blinds look Feb1-15. Another “odd” thing is despite the great looking pattern on the eps the snow means remain low. Below avg even for after this next 10 days! I’ve been looking at the control runs the last 5 days to try to see why. They have matched the mean h5 look so that was helpful. For whatever reason the storm track was just to our northwest every time a significant wave came along despite what was otherwise a great pattern. Aleutian low. Epo ridge. -nao. Lower heights in the Atlantic. Storm track was either suppressed (I don’t mean snow south of us I mean the waves get washed out) or if amplified to our north. This isn’t a one day thing it’s been a consistent theme for a week. I don’t make too much of those long range snow means but I’d prefer they match the pattern. It’s odd with a h5 that says the mid atlantic should be the target the models still are saying it’s the upper Midwest to northern New England. Maybe others have a theory why.

6z euro control improved

Except this one is still way out there considering how volatile it is...this is a NS dominant event not a STJ wave that is likely to be resolved at longer leads. The general pattern is pretty darn good for this one, all the parts are there we just need that SW to be a little more amplified and come in a bit further south and both those trends were evident on this run. I just want to be in the game at this stage. This definitely keeps me invested.

none of the other panels are past day 4, but for some reason the h5 updated out to day 5.5 on wxbell. I can tell its better but not like that 12z GFS run...but its a significant difference from the 12z euro. Much closer to something big but the SW looks like it needed to be slightly more amplified to get it done. But huge move in the right direction from 12z IMO.

The SW in question seems a little stronger and a little south of 12z at 102

These are just teasers. Our two hecs come in Mid Feb and early March.

You aren’t kidding. It’s a slight amplitide Away from capturing the developing coastal. It’s trapped from climbing past our latitude by the flow. If it can get captured by the energy at the tail of the trough….boom

It’s not 12z but it’s good enough to keep my interest.

This is gonna be close…

Hold on…