psuhoffman

It happens somewhat frequently in marginal events. Especially NYC where being right on the coast can torch their boundary layer with an easterly wind.

Agreed, but the temp right at the surface hours before an event isn’t always a good indicator of the boundary layer during the storm. Due to an inversion it was 32 at my house but 28 a few hundred yards away down the mountain. So does that mean they will be 4 degrees colder during the storm? Actually the opposite.

I see you got your reaper check this morning.

I’ve been noticing that for a couple days. There seems to be a perfectly aligned weak IVT which is enhancing the FGEN and moisture convergence over our area for a time. Could add a little extra pop to the event for some that end up under those bands.

Is it cheating if I bought up all the remaining dip n dots and sprinkle them all over my yard before every storm?

What really matters is the thermal profile just above the surface and the dewpoints. I was lol at the posts obsessing over a couple degree difference in surface temps last night and this morning but didn’t want to spoil the fun in the main thread. Not sure if that wave slowed that much or it ended to the next one but what guidance nailed at impressive leads was that the pattern was loaded and any decent wave within that time period was likely to produce a big mid Atlantic storm.

Only if the fire pits have sharks with laser beams.

My earliest snow memories are waiting for busses in snow or listening to KYW and NJ 101.5. I got mad when they changed their jingle years ago because it reminded me of snow. 2 in particular, one of the 87 storms and one in 88 they waited way too long to let us go. The 88 one was supposed to be 1-3 changing to rain and even though there was already 3” and snowing hard when I got up they brought us in, then decided to send us home an hour later but it was too late. We got about 10” and we waited all day for the busses to get back then the bus ride took an hour to go a few miles. Good times. You’re welcome to stop at my homestead. Don’t know when I’ll be home though, depends on if BCPS closes early.

Depends...if it’s cold enough to build snowcover 4 5s. If not and it’s snow/melt cycle either 2 10s or a 20! Ideally I would split it into 3 storms. A 10”er to lay down some base followed by 2 5” storms. Or 8/6/6.

Depends what you consider “long term”. Most of the top analogs did lock in a long time. But there is no way I could pour through every week of every winter. I did look at every January. But a 10 day period can be masked within the monthly mean. But if the pattern locks in enough to show strongly on the monthly composite then no...all those examples it took blocking. Then there is this...since others have mentioned 1993 There are some significant differences in the pac near Hawaii and the location of the ridge so it didn’t show up as an analog but it’s similar in some ways. That year improved without blocking. But the snowy February was NW of the mid atl cities. And the one March storm was a crazy anomaly. A repeat of that pattern would be better but might not really make DC people happy. But it did get more of a trough in the east without blocking. But it wasn’t as good a match. So there is the issue of degrees. What is better? What is a good enough analog to include in the dataset. But a few things are clear from the analogs. 1. It’s a bad pattern. 2. It can last a long time (not always but it can) 3. If it locks in long enough to dominate a monthly mean it’s very likely to continue. 4. If it does without blocking were toast. That is all true but it leaves escape hatches. Maybe the pattern only lasts 10-15 days. If the pac ridge weakens or shifts into an epo ridge that opens non blocking options that might have not shown up. Or maybe we get blocking later in winter.

Yes but with the caveat that the pac ridge locked in for more than a short period. That feature is really starting to rage now but if the eps is right and it starts to wane in 12 days or so that takes us out of dire straights territory. If the eps long range is correct the January monthly mean won’t look like the bad composites as much. But if the pac ridge stays dominant then yes we would need blocking to offset. There are no good looks with a strong central pac ridge and a +AO/NAO Its still way out there though. And we would be better with blocking. The gradient pattern the cfs and eps is advertising can easily end up with most of the snow to our northwest if we don’t get lucky. Hate to say it but that look isn’t so good for your area. You would likely need more help. But it’s still a way better look than the raging pac ridge western trough combo.

Talk about luck...the western ridge is transient, in place for all of 12 hours basically but it traverses the perfect location at exactly the right time. Along with a good vort track. The whole pattern is junk but if you only look at the conus for that one moment frozen in time it looks close to the pna ridge +AO snow composite.

This part cracks me up “the snow could be heavy at times, daytime accumulation of 35-41” possible” Could be heavy at times??? ya think?

Someone says hi

Yea but after Betelgeuse explodes tomorrow it’s not sun angle we have to worry about, we’re talking nova angle!

By the time the HRRR is in “useful” range you’re better off just using real time observations and radar to make adjustments to more reliable guidance and figure it out.

It has no useful range.

I’m still nervous about being fringed

It was a good run. Ejected the vortex away from AK which was my main gripe with 0z and built ridging into epo. First legit good run in a while. I was just kidding about Ji taking a 4 week hiatus.

Dude it almost worked.

Check back in 4 weeks!

Thanks. I haven’t had a chance to really analyze but yesterday it seemed parts of our area were also being helped some by moisture convergence along an inverted trough type feature. That can sometimes lead to an unexpected surprise

That’s the best look we’ve seen. 12z Gefs is hot garbage. No way to spin it it’s at least 10 days away from good at day 16 and not even heading the right way. The geps is an ok pattern. Problem with the eps last night it had too much trough near AK. With the pac ridge. AK trough and no block it would transition us right back into a pac puke pattern. We would trade a SE ridge for pac puke zonal pattern. No thanks.

This...we have been in a pac puke pattern from an AK vortex. That isn’t good for the pac NW either. It’s also not good for us. Right now we are in a temporary flux between patterns and that’s why we have a shot as a minor snowfall tomorrow. But the coming pattern is good for the west bad for us. But the pac coast needs an anomaly to get snow even in a good pattern.

I know you aren't saying its "good" just better...but my fear with that look is that even if we got a colder shot as the trough slides east...with that look in the PAC, along with the EPO/AO/NAO it would be extremely short lived and unlikely to include much snow. IMO that pattern rolled forward the CONUS is about to get blasted by pacific air again like before xmas. What is left of the western trough would roll through and then we would go zonal. A week after that pot I would suspect we would see a big blue ball up top and a ring or red around it across the mid latitudes. Very 2002 like...that is how that year evolved. We are seeing a singular point in time at day 15 which looks "better" but I don't think that look is heading anywhere positive for snow opportunities. Maybe "better" than the absolutely worst look imaginable we will be in for about a week before that...but if we were in anything close to a decent pattern now looking at that in the long ranges we would be pretty upset about that look. ETA: ironically even though the GFS looks like a hot mess on wheels at day 16, its evolving the pattern in a direction that at least has a fraction more hope/possibility beyond that time period.