psuhoffman

I don’t know. But I know with the marginal thermal situation we need everything else to break near perfectly. 50/50 isn’t perfect rain. SW too amplified rain. Surface track inside at all…rain. I guess you can focus on all those variables but the one simple thing that would change all this in our favor would be if the airmass was maybe 5-10 degrees colder.

I think the biggest problem is the antecedent airmass just isn’t cold enough for a good but somewhat flawed setup to work. We could over analyze whatever little thing causes this or that. But systems will try to find the real thermal boundary. And the boundary with the best gradient is to our north.

The gefs is trending warmer also.

On the positive side if this goes sideways at least we won’t have to hear all the complaining when the snow gets washed away 2 days later by the cutter.

Technically the day 5 and 7 scores say it’s Euro, UKMET, CMC, GFS. Anecdotally the uk seems to struggle with east coast storms though. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong now though.

Omg the copium is out of control. Why do so many gravitate to one extreme or the other. There is either no trend and everything looks awesome because we should ignore anything that looks bad and just look at wherever still shows a good track. Or…it’s over these always trend north and this has no chance. Reality: The trend isn’t good, these do usually trend north, this isn’t where we ideally want to be, but they don’t always trend north. There are things that could reverse the trend. I’d say it’s 30/70 against us but that’s not hopeless and definitely still worth tracking. And obviously places further NW have a better chance than that here. Our best shot to reverse this would be for the 50/50 to trend more amplified and further SW.

You can go hunting for obscure data to support anything. Or you could loop the last 3 runs of the Euro, GFS and CMC and see a clear trend. It could turn around but we all know that’s not the most likely outcome. Why set yourself up for disappointment? If this is one of those 30% that things don’t trend north for some reason (we get lucky and the 50/50 goes ape or the NS phases in a better location) then we can be happy. But denying the clear trend and expecting the least probable outcome seems to just be setting us up for a bad bad meltdown.

CMC looks good NW of 95 but this is heading the wrong way at this range. We’re way too far out to already be fighting the R/S line. The bias isn’t as bad as it once was but in my experience more often things still trend slightly north on these the last 100 hours.

Time to plan my chase

Gfs is going to be a disaster I think. Hope I’m wrong

Because it’s been so cold otherwise lately. Snark aside it was just an observation. It’s Jan 7. We’re 10 days into a better pattern by then. Perfect storm track. Ya the icon thermals are probably a couple degrees too warm, and that would still be marginal for DC and that’s sad with that track on Jan 7.

Those temps are kinda depressing with that track.

Good. I’m more concerned with too amped than south att. Not saying suppressed isn’t possible also, there is a squeeze play going on. But given recent history warm seems the bigger threat than suppressed. FWIW 6z eps at 144 was interesting. More NS interaction and more amped but also more space out west. Not sure how that would have played out.

Remember the days when we complained about getting only 10” before mixing or a dryslot!!!

At least your area did do a little better than most in the first 2 HECS storms that season.

Feb 2006

@Ji Case in point there have been 11 snowstorms of greater than 15” here since 1980. Every one of them was also a big storm for you. We share the same big storms. Jan 96: 36” Feb 11 2010: 30” Jan 2016: 28” Feb 2003: 28” Feb 83: 28” Feb 5 2010: 27” Feb 2014: 23” Dec 2009: 18” Feb 1987: 18” March 93: 17” Feb 2006: 16”

There are flaws in this setup. The antecedent airmass is marginal. The storm crashing into the west is trying to pump. Ridge in the east. There is a -nao but not a true block. The only hope we have to suppress this is the 50/50 and we need some NS interaction. It’s not the typical Nino “easy” setup where a split flow stj wave is coming at us with cold in place and ridging out west and a block. It’s not an awful setup, if the 50/50 trends SW or the NS interaction improves we can win, but I could see this becoming a ski resort storm if those details don’t break our way. As for what I want my best storms are when you get crushed also. The bullseye right over DC to Baltimore is perfect. I get more simply due to better ratios and enhanced precip from upslope orographic effects. If DC and Baltimore are rain I can get a pretty good snow here but it’s not gonna be 12”+. This is further NW than I want it for me here at this range. Sure I could salvage a few inches here if this goes sideways where as DC might be totally screwed but why would I root for that over all of us getting destroyed. .

So several times over the last several years the euro was all by itself showing snow. And of course each failed. And I opined that while it’s still better it’s not so much better anymore than it’s likely to be correct when it’s on an island in opposition to the preponderance of guidance. This is the first time we get to test that but in the opposite way.

with that western trough if the 50/50 relaxes it will.

It’s only out to day 13 for me but from what I can see it doesn’t bother me as much as yesterday’s runs. The block is more west based and there is a trough closer to where we need it in the pac. Adjust the north pac a bit and that goes from meh to great easily.

The N Pac high does bother me. My concern was well documented. Look at the trend the last 3 runs there. It’s developing a trough west of AK which will shift the pac ridge into the epo domain. The trend on the geps is better.

GEPS continues its trend from the last 2 runs. Getting really close to that IT look now

P11 gives you 4-5”

He still wasn’t eligible because of the formation.