psuhoffman

Putting this here so it doesn’t derail the storm thread. I’m also worried about surface temps. But I’m also frustrated because this SHOULD work. This exact setup has worked many times and yes this early in the season or even earlier! This isn’t like next weekend when the cold is scoured by the pac vortex. There is reasonable cold to work with. At least as much cold as were ever going to have in a string nino. The 540 line ends up south of us during the event. Not like next week when the 540 is up near Hudson Bay. That next storm doesn’t bother me if it’s a perfect track rain so much. But if we get this wave to develop like the euro and gfs are showing and it’s just a 37 degree white rain despite sub 540 thicknesses that bothers me a lot. We already had 2 events up here that I’m pretty confident would have been 1-3” in the past but ended up too warm to accumulate at all even here. Good news is if true it renders my 1” by whatever date data kinda irrelevant. Bad news is you have to subtract all those lost marginal events from your expectations for the season. But if this goes that way too it’s just another sign we are definitely losing snow on the margins. And frankly our snow climo sucked to begin with so we don’t have a lot of margins to afford to give. ETA; the boundary layer is warming faster. So seeing so many events over the last 5 years where everything went right except the boundary layer was just a couple degrees too warm is a horrible sign. I keep coming back to that storm on Super Bowl Sunday in 2021. That should have been 3-6” in DC and Baltimore. Everything went right, perfect teach in prime climo with a modified continental airmass not pac puke and it was barely even cold enough to snow here and 95 was just cold rain. That was eye opening to me. Seeing more examples like that would not be good. For my own sanity I want to see this end as some accumulating snow even outside high elevations. Maybe not in the cities but places like IAD should get 1” from something like this.

Another reason the 3knam lost the snowier solution from 0z was at 6z it was significantly less amplified with the wave. Less precip behind the front so less cooling.

I remember getting a couple minor snows in December in northern VA. Nothing major, just a couple 1-3” type events.

It’s not a legit winter storm thread until we get some SREF. You’re welcome.

True. I think there is a symbiotic relationship there though.

There is so much bad information floating around now thanks to social media. Granted there is good also but you have to be able to tell the difference.

https://x.com/psuhoffman/status/1733297807652422089?s=46&t=JDI46BeqOMUGnLaA2k6MTw

I’ll let Pittsburgh know

That was about to be a beat down here. Already 2” otg with quite a bit of precip left according to sim radar.

@brooklynwx99 frankly one of the reasons I tilted towards a huge snow season was simply how due we are…and that I’m not ready to concede our snow climo is THAT much worse. The fact is if Baltimore were to only get like 20-25” this year facing another -pdo Nina cycle after where more single digit dud seasons are likely…we could come out the other side looking at a reality where our long term avg could drop some ridiculous amount (on top of the recent drops at the end of the last two decades) that I can’t and don’t want to imagine we’re there yet.

I see both sides. Yes it’s a high bar. But…our climo here is to have 5-6 bad low snow winters then hit a couple decent and a couple huge years every decade. It’s now been 13 years since the last truly epic season and now 7 years of total utter dreg. Literally our least snowy long period on record! We are way way way past due for a HUGE winter. Frankly we could get a 40” winter this season and Baltimore would still be way below avg on snowfall over the last 8 years. And this is a nino! With all long range guidance indicating we go Nina again next year with a continuing -pdo when is that epic winter coming if not this year? During -pdo Nina’s are typically multi year. Are we waiting 3 more years? So while I’m not going to jump off a bridge if this winter ends up just ok or above avg but not great…the truth is we are due for an epic huge snow year and anything other than that will be catastrophic to our snow climo!

there is an ignore feature

He is flirting with becoming a clown in the opposite way as JB

Yea I wasn't going to bother to respond but that is no torch... with an active STJ tracking under the high pressure dome in Canada...it's more like a Seattle winter type temp profile, not cold enough for snow but definitely not something we would remember as a torch. Once the vortex gets to the Aleutians the temp profile over the CONUS will start to cool. Still wont have arctic air...but once the pac puke firehose is directed well west of us it will allow some continental air to get mixed into the equation and we should be able to get a cold enough profile domestically to work with. At least that's my plan and I'm sticking too it.

base builder for snowshow WV

There was another similar notable storm in April of 2000. Same setup, wave developed long a strong cold front after a lot of rain. I think that one dropped 2-3" in this area...was like 6-12" up in northeast PA up through NY State.

If my memory is correct it was on a Saturday, I think around the 10th or something... I had a soccer game earlier that day and it was like 65 degrees...then we had some heavy rain in the afternoon which turned to snow in the evening. I got about an inch in Herndon VA. Places NW got a bit more. It was a wave along a cold front. There was another storm a few days later around Veterans Day that was a more typical coastal but simply too warm for snow. It was a miserable cold rain that mixed with snow at times in Northern VA, I think places like where I am now got some accumulation and were snow/ice from that storm also.

The synoptic setup here reminds me a little of a storm in November 1995.

NO it gives me a half inch more... it matters. IT Fing MATTERS!!!!

It's too early to freak out about that...you're not wrong about what I said but that was when we were seeing this in January/February. It's hard to overcome pac puke in December. You're not wrong but I do think if that projection is correct wrt not even seeing snow at like 3-4k feet in the Apps that indicative of a warmer climate. I can remember some December high elevation snows in the Apps in pac puke crap airmasses...but this is a margins thing and in no way indicates we can't get snow here later in winter...but it is somewhat indicative of how much harder its becoming to get snow early in the season, even at higher elevations.

I know we want to rush the progression because Xmas is right there…but that’s just too early on the pattern evolution probably. It’s not impossible we get some snow around Xmas if we get lucky but that’s really early for this process. Step 1 is getting the vortex in Canada to retrograde west. Once it gets off the coast we will start to see cold press in the US. But step two is to get that Atlantic ridge to retrograde and lift into the nao domain. That’s going to take some wave breaking probably and that usually means some rainstorms along the way. That’s probably a few days away from the start of a really good pattern.

Soil temps sun angle the barometer in Pittsburgh now we have to worry about the temp 1500 miles away. it’s always gonna be something.

Thanks. But I swear we had this conversation earlier today…

And the op gfs was a very good look at the end headed into the holiday week!