Terpeast

LWX not quite sold yet. .SHORT TERM /SATURDAY NIGHT THROUGH SUNDAY NIGHT/... High pressure ridging aloft expected Saturday night. The next low pressure system will approach Sunday into Sunday night. Most late afternoon and evening model guidance show more of a wintry mix or snow scenario across parts of our region rather than mostly rain. There will still be rain over a large portion but somewhere in the region could get a light accumulation of snow. Icing does appear most likely at or above 2kft AGL across the Blue Ridge, Allegheny, and Potomac Highlands. Still expecting rather minor icing amounts at this juncture. Will continue to monitor future models and trends. Uncertainty remains high given the thermodynamic profiles. We`ll continue to monitor this system and refine our forecast over the next few days.

Good to know. I didn’t even know that there was a potential event yesterday though.

Hah, walked right into that one. I’ll know by Tuesday.

This range is in NAM’s wheelhouse now, no?

I'm starting to like the trends out of both NAM and GFS.

This is why I cut my grass extra short.

Not to get super technical about it, but take the winter season as 1/4 of the year, which is 365 days. That gives us 91.25 days to get snow. But using your 95% figure, we don’t get snow on 95% of those days. That leaves the remaining 5%, and we get roughly 4.6 snow days. Well, if I’m being honest, I’d take my 4.6 snow days and run laughing all the way to the bank.

Note very small shifts in the pacific, but the atlantic is totally different from run to run. It has no idea how to handle the atlantic.

Nearly a 15 degree swing in 850 temps on the Euro compared to 12z yesterday. However this shakes out, we shouldn't expect them to converge onto a solution until Monday, maybe Sunday.

Looks like the Euro and GFS are about to switch places. We all know how that plays out in the end.

Yeah, if it starts to trend colder at least on the onset and it appears we get a front end thump, I'm staying put. But if it basically shows all rain east of the blue ridge, I'm chasing. Just gotta sell the wife on this...

By Tuesday-ish, I'll make a decision whether to chase this in Deep Creek/Canaan (and take my family & our sleds with me)... or stay home.

Has this actually been trending cooler each run?

Damn, that’s kinda heartbreaking. If it were me, I’d have a lot more angst about this too. My wife was just happy to see a brief squall pass through, and my little girl is not even 2 years old yet. For her, ignorance is bliss. I just gotta be careful not to talk too much about snow in our house.

Moving to Watertown or Montreal wouldn't have helped in this storm. I mean, you gotta laugh.

Bob chill already responded and I don’t have much to add to that. I was saying that even before this storm showed up on the models I was most concerned about the lack of cold air to begin with. I also said a couple days ago that there is only a 24-36 hour window for a storm to happen while the (marginal) cold air is in place to keep it snow. That window I was talking about is with regards to the front runner pieces phasing to form a 50/50 low, and they just miss each other even on the euro. So no, I don’t trust the models beyond 5 days, but I do trust the temperature anomaly maps and the trends.

Oh well. Not enough cold air, as that was the issue all along. Next time it’s D5 or shorter only for tracking. Nothing performs well beyond that. Best we can hope at this point is for something to sneak up on us like last year’s January storm.

One takeaway of mine is that if we’re not going to get a solid 50/50 low, we should probably root for a weaker wave that slides under us to retain the little cold air we have. Too strong, and it pumps too much warm air up from the south.

At least with a stronger ridge up top over canada it’s hard to imagine this will cut. But stranger things have happened.

Gefs noticeably weaker at 192

For now it seems like a northern MD special. Hope it trends a little colder over my roof and gives me an inch or more. Not invested in that one, but a nice bonus if it happens.

Definitely a lot of waffling up top with the gfs. Nice to see the canadian back on board. Biggest takeaway is the models definitely don’t have a handle on this at all yet. Couple more days we’ll have a better idea I’m sure.

If the Op and ens go in opposite directions, which one usually caves to the other? (genuine question - I’m not up to date on models/ens skill performance)

NAM shows nothing for 1/9

If this lines up with the MJO 8-1 as depicted for this time frame, we could probably get another wave with the right pieces in place, including cold air. Maybe the first week of February.