psuhoffman

It’s a small sample size so far but early returns are encouraging yes. We have to be realistic. The longer scale slow degradation is likely to continue. But this is a sign that perhaps a much larger % of our woes was pdo related. A realistic expectation of the next positive snowfall cycle might be if we can return to the base state of 2003-2016 with perhaps a 10% reduction in snowfall. I can live with that. Especially considering the alternative.

We remember 2015 fondly with no hecs. I think if we get 2 more significant snow events (say a secs and MECS) this will be remembered as a full win. But your main point is valid. We have to score. And yes we “could” get unlucky and not get anymore snow. But my point was about expectations. For years I’ve seen people trying to find some hope in a totally hopeless situation. Now we have a legit shot and some of those same people are like “meh”.

It’s funny that some seemed more “optimistic” the last several years when we were stuck in absolutely hopeless situations. I’d see these posts trying to polish the turd we’d been handed. I was like “what are you looking at this is crap and we have no hope” and they would say I was being a deb. Now we have a legit good pattern with a real chance to have a good season and many are now more pessimistic than me. WTF is going on?

Shocking

There is no week where DC averages 3-4” of snow. Plus, when was the last time we hit climo? I’d take a freaking climo year every season and be happy.

It’s gonna be a long few weeks if people react to every operational runs depiction of 200+ hour events. None of these waves will be well resolved until inside 72 hours. They tend to shift around a lot. If there is no NS interference they tend to shift north. If a NS wave ends up over the top in front they tend to shift south. But the boundary isn’t at stable as in a blocking regime. No chance guidance nails these at range. Some are overreacting to noise level changes run to run. look at the ensembles and the general long wave pattern. Don’t react to synoptic specifics.

The 6z gefs looks really good day 10-15. Jan 19 Still looks like a rain to snow type wave. Individual runs can’t agree on which wave after but they are shotgunning boundary waves at us with the thermal gradient oriented SW to NE just south of us day 10-15. That’s what we want in this type of pattern.

1.5” total here. Exceeded my expectations and looks nice.

That’s the time period we identified though. Day 10-15. Not saying the day 8-9 thing can’t work but its not the best look.

I made it to 1” Id like to thank my parents for always believing in me and teaching me never to give up. Praise to God, without whom nothing is possible. I can’t forget my children, who are the reason for my hope and why I push through the dark days of dry slots and fringes. Thank you to all those who believed this was possible. Especially the HRRR and RUC. If I forgot anyone I’m sorry but know I appreciate you. oh and Dallas sucks! Goodnight.

Wasn’t expecting this. Legit heavy snow right now. It’s low qpf very high ratio stuff. Huge fluffy flakes.

Nothing here yet. Stuck between bands the whole time. Just not my week lol.

My final call 2-5 cm’s

Something’s falling alright. My patience. 26/12

TT is awesome and it’s free, but it’s got about the lowest resolution and least sophisticated snowfall algorithms of every outlet, except maybe those 1986 Donkey Kong level maps ncep still puts out on their defunct page they still update for some reason. And even if the TT maps were the most accurate using one that round to the nearest whole number in a C-2” event seems like an interesting choice. Again, just look at the raw QPF, apply what you think the ratio should be, and be done with it.

Come on man. It’s a C-2” event. Just look at the raw qpf and piece it together. Do we really need to analyze every type of snowfall clown map for this?

Can someone post a map showing the soil moisture superimposed with a cross section showing DGZ, CAPE and VVs

If it busts slightly high on qpf it will be too high but not necessarily because of ratios

Looking at the hrrr the ratios don’t look that high. It has me at 1.9” off .13 qpf. That’s about 14-15:1 which is honestly close to what I average up here. Down by DC it has 2” off .17 qpf so 11-12:1 which isn’t super high given temps. That won’t verify on the tarmac but 11-1 could be realistic for most places.

Yes. There isn’t that much difference between 1994 and 2014 and 2015 honestly. There was another shorter comp period in Feb 1993 also. Slight changes in the centering of the features lead to different results. 1994 the trough centered further west which is why it lead to more ice v snow. Even though even up here none of the storms were pure snow I’d love to repeat that. According to local coop data it was a string of 3-6” mix events that built a glacier. I remember that winter visiting my cousins in Harper’s ferry WV and they had a solid glacier on the ground all winter! Fairfax ended up slightly too far south and unfortunate most storms were pure freezing rain. 1993 was similar. 70 north got crushed and it was less favorable further south. again a further west trough axis. But it was really close. For now I like the axis of the features better, more like 2014 2015. But that’s something to watch out for. If the cold gets centered too far west it opens up the dreaded SER issue.

On that run we only briefly lose the surface and most of the heavy precip is gone by then. It’s a 4-8” thump snow to ice to a few hours of drizzle before the cold air freezes everything solid. Old school we got those things more often. And they were great.

How did we all miss that. We should have a thread about this.

Pop copy was underrated

.5-.8 qpf falls south to north before we lose the mid levels on that scenario.