Roger Smith

That is pretty much the equal of the Cleveland superbomb of Jan 26 1978 in terms of continuous deepening and considerable brief rotation of surface features. I was actually in a weather office that day in Ontario and plotted up a map with a 955 mb center. The rotation was so strong that cold south winds were creating squalls on the north shore of Lake Erie and winds there were gusting to 100 mph. Of course that's on the ocean side of this storm but the west side would be like the Ohio-Indiana-Michigan blizzard side. That's all I can really compare this to, other than maybe extratropical Irene hitting Ireland in 2017. Question is, real or imaginary? On to the GFS to see what Sleepy has to say about it.

This is a real day after tomorrow solution. It is the NAM so maybe there is hope for the survival of the species.

NAM 06z is creating a superstorm that will obliterate much of New England and Long Island. What else can you say? Looks to be rotating enough to bring icing to the Maine coast but have to think that S+ will prevail any distance inland. Extreme circulation depicted at 36h near 40N 69W -- it's probably heading for a graze past the cape at 955 mbs.

I think I'm a bit too far west.

Can't wait for the 945 mb low on the 06z NAM, and its three victory laps around the Gulf of Maine.

That's why I'm here too.

I always thought it meant Let's Buy Sex Widgets and the upside is, I have a lot of those.

Well you know I would predict snow if I thought it was coming, but at this point, 1-3" DCA, 3-5" BWI, 8-12" Delmarva and parts of se VA is all I can find. Storm of the century material for LI and New England though. Could be some nasty wind chill values there by late Saturday evening.

That looks like a walrus getting fed at the zoo.

I wonder if those two camps of lows (south of LI and east of Cape Cod) might represent the same complex low with a western tucked center and an eastern secondary where the triple point is at that time? But I guess it's more likely to represent two different tracks for one low (or most of them do, some could be explained by my first idea, or even by different timing scenarios). After what happened in 2016 I am very reluctant to say this misses NYC or almost misses.

I just looked at some historical weather maps for the Blizzard of (March 12-13) 1888. The track of that looked pretty similar to what the NAM was showing around 06z today and the eventual map for the blizzard near ACK looks similar to the Euro 57-60h maps. Looks to me like those very high snowfall amounts were partly due to a rather slow forward speed of the storm. However I bet the ocean SST values in March 1888 were a good 5-10 F deg lower than what this storm is working with. My forecast would be like a few others I have seen here in map form although I would almost double some of the numbers in some cases. Think there will be places just inland from the east coast of MA with 35-42 inch outcomes. ORH won't be far off that either. An axis of heaviest snow will then extend southwest through RI into se CT and across LI Sound into Suffolk County LI. Amounts in that zone will probably be in the 20-30 inch range. There may be a secondary band further west that allows a few places in w/c MA into far w CT and possibly over towards LGA-JFK (with LI Sound squalls) to reach 18" with a bit of a lull in between bands 14-18. Seeing Albany near zero on some guidance that seems a bit pessimistic to me, maybe 2-4" there. Eventually there is going to be some Lake Ontario snow squall bands drawn into this departing circulation. When I see max snowfall over the Cape, I have to wonder, how realistic is that, wouldn't various factors such as low ratios and mixing lead to a cap of perhaps 24" out there? So that could be the max in a GFS east-track scenario I suppose, but if the Euro verifies then I would think the max would be places like (*hauls out atlas*) Lowell, Marlborough, Milford, even as far west as Worcester. But BOS could be close with 36" not out of reach.

Geez, 12" or even more in e MA? That is a brave call (try 30). Never knew there were that many counties in KY did you?

The Great Lakes blizzard of Jan 25-26 1978 reached a central pressure of 955 mbs at Sarnia ON (south end of L Huron lat 43N) around 12z 26th. I know of some storms that have hit eastern Canada into the low 940s but that is further north of course. You could also look up data for a storm on Mar 1-2 1914 near NYC that had very low central pressures (and gave NYC 14" snow, don't know what happened in New England, the low was south of Islip).

Liking most of what I'm seeing since 06z runs, holding on to the idea that models are just approximations of a larger paradigm which is rapid development over an anomalously warm Atlantic, the details may not be in focus yet, but any track similar to this 12z NAM track will obliterate much of New England and Long Island, banding of course will determine who gets 20" and who gets 30-40, but for NYC would remain optimistic that at least Queens-Brooklyn could get into heavy bands also thanks to LI Sound and 15" seems possible there, would expect maybe 10-12 at NYC and 5-8 at EWR but there's still time for this to take an even better track closer to the 50-55F thermocline out in the ocean, in which case a more equable outcome would occur, without reducing any of the higher forecast amounts. Earlier I said 24-48 for CT and parts of LI, with very strong winds creating large drifts. Would maybe scale that back slightly but potential still exists for 20-40 inch totals and some gusts to near 70 mph across LI, it looks like the best forcing will be along an ORH-BDR-ISP axis which usually means 3-4 parallel death bands with the best one along that axis, two more to east and one or possibly two more to west. A secondary max from w CT to LGA-JFK possible, the lower amounts between bands will only be slight reductions but possibly up to 10-20 per cent. Hope the GFS eliminates the uncertainty and shifts west into this otherwise general consensus zone which may still prove to be a touch too far east when the storm gets a sniff of that warm Atlantic. My subjective track would be something like 50 miles west of 12z NAM and without the two-low solution, the leading low would be the triple point of a rapidly occluding bomb cyclone. Min pressure 958 mbs near ACK.

Time to play weekend storm bingo, here's your card. You may need to reduce mag setting to see this without line wraps. PROMINENT ________ GFS TRACK ____ YOUR LOCATION ____ JMA-RGEM ____ VIRGA POSTER SAYS ______ EAST OF _______ GOES FROM 20" _____ YOUR ONLY ___ RADAR I'M OUT SEE YA ____ ANYTHING _____ TO TR SNOW _________ HOPE__________ RETURNS ================================================================= NWS REDUCE ____ STORM CHASE ____ GFS SHIFTS _________ ONLY S+______ DT SCALES AMOUNTS BY ____ LAST MINUTE _____ WEST BUT NOT _____ REPORT IS ____ BACK TO 50% OR MORE ____ DASH to BANGOR _ QUITE ENOUGH _____ HSE __________ 10/15/10/-2/0 ================================================================== YOU READ _________ JMA BOMB ______________________________GFS FINALLY ____ POSTER__ 100th TWEET ______ VERY CLOSE ______ B I N G O____________GETS IT AS_____ DELIGHTED_ FROM ??? __________ TO TOMS R ______________________________JFK CLOSES _____WITH INCH ================================================================== JEBMAN ___________ NAM TRIPLE ______ NC TROLL ________ KICKER ___________ OCE PULLS OFFERS ____________ CYCLONE ________ REACHES 50 _______ SPOTTED ________ AHEAD OF SUPPORT___________ SURPRISE ________ USERNAMES ______ NEAR MKE ________ MVY, ACK ================================================================== PANIC ROOM _______ BLIZZARD ________ INTEREST _________ THOUSANDS _____ TWC GUY OVERCROWDED ____ OF FIVE- _________ SURGES IN ________ STRANDED _______ NEARLY OUT OF BEER _______ POSTS ___________ MID-FEB RISK _____ SOMEWHERE _____ DINGED

Quite a few models have depicted heavy snow out over the Atlantic between southern NJ and Long Island, where water temps are near 50F and not too far from where they are 60-70 F. Makes me think that when the storm actually comes together it will try to tuck and form a double centered structure with fronts pressing closer to the coast, whether that pushes the snow very far inland or not, I don't expect that 15" of snow would fall 50-100 miles out into the ocean, it would be 37-40F and raining hard out there with the arctic front about 50 miles off the coast. This might also argue for an even deeper low and stronger winds. At least one of ACY, OCE and ORF will get a heavy snowfall out of this, maybe two or all three will. Potential is 15-25 inches. Obviously Long Island and New England will get blitzed. Local 20-30" amounts there. My hunch is DCA gets about 3" and BWI about 5".

Structural differences, the 1978 storm was trapped below a much stronger high and was not progressive, the 1980 storm that I mentioned followed a track similar to what the NAM was showing earlier. There might end up being similar snow totals in some places even so. The Mar 1 to 3 1980 storm dropped a tremendous amount of snow around Virginia Beach if I remember correctly there were reports of 24-28 inches and five to ten foot drifts. DC had about 8-10" and there was no snow at all in NYC.

It's an 850 mb chart, the units are heights, 135.2 would be 1352 metres. (guessing you knew this but just in case ...)

The Arpege has a fairly good reputation in Europe and often tips what the later EURO (ECM) will do, so if it's looking good at this point that's a good sign. I have the feeling that the GFS is out on a limb and the interaction of the significant upper trough with anomalous warm water will seal the deal. Think the odds are 3:1 for a big storm for most of NE.

GEM looks fairly similar to NAM, a big hit for the coastal regions, some snow back to west of DC, probably in the 3-6" range for DC, 6-8" BAL, 10-20" DMV. Can't see all this energy interacting with the warm water to produce a GFS result, seems to ignore the development at 500 mb. If there were extra upper air obs they weren't plotted on the 00z CMC maps by the way. In the past when I've heard about these extra obs, they show up in the investigation zone on the maps. I think if the ECM is not a clone of the GFS then the GFS will have to be taken as dubious guidance, if ECM looks like GFS then we wait for a decision tomorrow.

It's creating a March 1980 seVA blizzard scenario. Not sure if I buy it, but verbatim this gives most of the Delmarva 2-3 feet of snow, rapid decrease west of the Bay. Small changes in this would mean large changes in snow, but this run is just a stall and deepen special. Imagine it wanders off towards Cape Cod eventually.

Light to moderate snow in parts of OK, close to the developing 500 mb trough. Some energy is trying to get going, just an inverted trough feature for now. No sign of warm advection anywhere west of FL.

What is snow?

My theory is that it snowed in 1888 because they didn't have weather models. Change my mind.

Beyond that line I am in charge, don't go there. I think he left out F Here be Dragons