RitualOfTheTrout

Light snow starting up again.

Yeah I'm with you, but tracking is what we do so I'll be paying attention anyways lol

Not necessarily stronger in terms of it being lower in pressure, but stronger sooner allows heights to rise out front in response and you get the trough to go nuetral / negative sooner which would lead to further west track. IMHO the ridge axis out west is to far east, move that west and sharpin the trough, and who knows. It's a long shot at this point but stranger things have happened. Maybe another n/s shortwave appears and drops in and pulls it NW like the last storm.

“Cocks Pistol” lol J/K, I agree, going to need to see some inland tracks today if there is any chance.

Right now we get a light snow from the northern piece of energy. Not sure we can see enough changes to get anything from the main storm. Would really need a big change in the ridge out west to get a clean fast phase so the trough can go negative much sooner. It's a big ask but with no blocking and little confluence if it comes together right no reason it can't be further west.

I've been getting an unexpected steady light snow this morning. Picked up a fresh coating of big fluffy flakes.

Ended up with a solid 3 here. I'll echo others sentiments, this was a perfect winter day. Snow on snow, it all fell mostly during daylight hours, no temp issues, a few bouts of heavy snow, forecasts were spot on. Let's see if we can score another win tomorrow.

Wow, briefly heavy snow just blew threw here on that backend band. Almost like a mini squall line. Will go out to measure once that winds down.

Yeah same, just nw of the city looks to be in the steadier stuff. Returns on radar really lighten up as they move east. Almost like there is a wall on my backyard lol

You can't get emotional every time a storm doesn't reach max potential, if that's your low bar you will be disappointed 99% of the time. This has been a 1-3 type deal with maybe a narrow swath of 2-4 from everything I've looked at for a couple days. There looks to have been a slight North move of the heavier stuff which likely puts areas South of the city closer to the lower end of the range but still within expectations. 1-3 doesn't mean you get three, may you only get the 1. NWS may be slow to adjust but they also can't be upgrading / canceling advisories / warnings every 6 hours. Most of the time their consistency pays off but on occasion it does lead to some pretty bad busts. How you react to a storm in terms of preparation isn't really altered if you get 8 instead of 12 or 3 instead of 1. Anyways, steady light snow has been falling for a about an hour here. Picked up a coating so far.

I agree, these little nickel and dimes can get old later in the season but I say bring em on in full force in January and early Feb. I'll gladly take a 1-2 snow globe day. There is a narrow band of slightly higher amounts, maybe we get lucky.

Odds for a bigger storm going up in that time period. I don't see anything on the current runs that would prevent an inland track, that could change but right now it's all timing the phase / interactions.

Tonight should be out best shot to hit 0, we shouldn't have any issue with clouds from what I can see. The Sunday clipper looks less and less impressive as we close in, not unusual for these things to dry up as we close in but I thought maybe a solid 2-3 a few days ago was possible but now looking like maybe an inch.

Its all subjective, but snow cover is less overrated than single digits and bare ground imho. If its going to be cold, and no snow is falling there might as well be some on the ground. WAA is almost always under modeled, hence why during a storm we get the warm nose. It does suck, but there should be enough liquid in the snow / frozen ground underneath / lower sun angle through filtered overcast that we don't lose to much. Its going to compact but whatever refreezes should having some staying power.

Need the front today to hang up a little further NW if we want to see a little snow pack refreshing tonight. Looks like moisture wants to slide just to the SE of Pittsburgh area.

Looks like it's a near perfect phase of 2 potent northern and southern stream short waves by 240, then more energy dumps into the trough and retrogrades the low, similar to this last storm in that regard. By the end trough is very negative and at least 3 contour closed low at 500. Absolute beast.

Wow... That's crazy even for fantasy land, almost obscene to look at.

I agree, but I'd take a clipper especially if the alternative is just cold and dry. The flow looks conducive for clippers to dive down and depending how far they dig give us some snow, and if they time right with something in the southern stream maybe we see something phase and take an inland track again, or if they dig really far some sort of miller B action.

THIS. I was going to post, good news is there a several s/w so plenty of chances for something to pop, bad news, there are several s/w so models will have a hard time figuring out which ones to focus on and they will in some cases interfere with each other. I'd fully expect in this setup something might just blow up in the short / medium term. If a storm is going to miss us, we probably want it to stay weak and progressive and get the hell out of the way so as to not interfere with the next one with spacing issues etc.

GFS has nothing like this, crazy the two are so different in like the 72-96hr range. I fully expect one to take a strong step towards the other. If the Euro is correct though it closes off pretty early, I'd wager in that instance it comes north.

There are some bands evident on radar mixed in with the steady light snow / flurries currently. Looks like a decent one might go over me shortly.

That looks pretty close to NWS forecast. We knew the higher totals where likely to be NW. Last night I thought this might bust, but it didn't, it was maybe on the lower end of the ranges but you don't just look at the biggest number and run with it. You can lament the what ifs / what could have been or just enjoy what we got. I experienced 2 different heavy bands of snow, met the range of snow forecast, it's cold and snowing still after the storm. I'd call that a win

If we are talking somewhere relatively close I'd go to Deep Creek, they do well in upslop and are generally in a good spot for various storm tracks.

Its semantics but it 6 in 12hr or 8 in 24 over 50% of the warned area, based on totals I see coming in that verified. Maybe lower end for immediate Pittsburgh area. https://www.weather.gov/pbz/winterterms

I see what you did there. It's a lock 2-4 more Wednesday night. So the NAM has forecast it, so it shall come to pass.