Roger Smith

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

At the end of the day, the weather can let us down, just like politics or life in general, but then we have this: so to the GFS, the Euro, the GEM, NAM and the rest I say Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Schubert and Mendelsohn ... deal with it. Fix up your craft and reach the stars.

One reason for optimism is that the last storm shifted west relative to much of the guidance and NAM had a better handle on that. So if the same thing happens this time, it's a better outcome than many of these recent model runs would have you believe. I still think that very warm Atlantic is going to play a role and that has to be a factor in favor of a coastward shift.

Predict the temperature anomalies (F deg) relative to 1991-2020 normal values for DCA _ NYC _ BOS __ ORD _ ATL _ IAH ___ DEN _ PHX _ SEA Contest deadline before late penalties 06z Tuesday Feb 1st 2022.

There's a 1012 mb low in south central NM. Nothing but E-NE winds ahead of it. That is probably a good sign. And wasn't the NAM the best model for the last storm that ended up going a lot further west than many other models were saying it would? Bet the Euro comes in with another rocking solution tonight. That warm Atlantic water is just sitting there waiting for its time to do battle. It argues for a west solution, tuck, and stall potential. http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s15/sfcmap.pdf

GGEM snow potential is moderate rather than heavy, but better than GFS. Would say 3-6" DCA, 6-8" BWI-PHL on GGEM. 10-15" NYC and 20-30" New England. It is not a blockbuster storm but solid. However if the Euro-NAM blend proves more accurate then I would double most of those numbers (30-40" NE).

GGEM looks better though. Not following the GFS but closer to the NAM.

You would think with all those submarines the Germans would know about the warm water off the coast? This is why I think the storm will ride as far west as possible, the thermocline. I must hide now.

no more hot dogs for me since that run.

Just amazed at the potential from this storm if it follows the GEM evolution, that much rapid deepening with very cold air interacting with anomalously warm ocean temperatures suggests some very high snowfall totals are possible, perhaps March 1888 needs to be considered as part of analogue set (if there is an outcome like these model runs are suggesting). Think also there was a storm March 1-2 1914 that combined very low pressures, strong winds and heavy snow. That one from historical weather maps was a bit closer to NYC than the track of the Blizzard of 1888. My first call on this would be 18-24 inches NYC metro, 24-48 inches Long Island and parts of CT, 12-18 n NJ. Wind gusts 70-90 mph seem possible. This could create emergency situation for much of the region and most of New England. Still time for models to change but I see the nucleus of the storm already over UT, CO and WY.

It snowed at TLH in the formative stages of the Blizzard of 1899 so that Florida snow is not a bad sign. The only other snow I can recall in FL was in Jan 1977 during an epic cold spell. That being said, I could see this evolution changing run to run for quite some time, none of these moving parts look set, but there is plenty of cold air available and a recent history of deep upper lows tracking through the southeast, so given peak climo and the land-ocean gradient likely to exist, why not this sort of result?

Just about 250 years after the Washington-Jefferson storm and 100 years after the Knickerbocker.