RitualOfTheTrout

This whole board is irrational if you think about it lol People rooting for severe thunderstorms, hurricanes, crippling blizzards, epic heatwaves etc. Thing is these weather events will happen whether someone is "rooting" for it or not. The raw power of nature and the struggle to understand it and make sense of a phenomenon that affects me everytime I walk out my front door is I think my motivation. We are all free to find joy in whatever aspect, you want a cold outbreak, some want weeks of snow cover, some want cold powder, some want heavy wet snow.. the list goes on and on. Take it day by day and make the best of what happens. Living and dying every 6 hours taking model output verbatim is a sure guarantee you will have stress and an anxiety from this hobby.

The first chance tonight looks like a solid 2-3 inches, but looks like a smaller stripe where 3-5 inches could be possible. 12z NAM has that right across Allegheny county. Hopefully some more clarity on that as we get in range of the meso models. The event later in the week Wed-Thurs might target areas SE of us but we are still in the game and hopefully worst case we grab a few inches on the northern fringe. Models probably won't nail it down until tonight's system is out of the way.

Assuming the blocking remains intact its going to be hard to see a 100 percent rain event. Not impossible of course but I'd hedge my bets even a wrapped up monster cutting west would deliver at a front end thump, and most likely be forced into a miller A/B type hybrid event.

Just quickly looping through the models this morning it looks very active. Going to be a dance I think keeping the TPV press to lock in "cold enough" but not push the storms SE of us. Given the shear number of chances I'd lean towards being satisfied even with slop / mix storms especially if it all freezes into a glacier and we keep building on it. Those qpf laden packs of ice / zr / snow really have some staying power, seems like it's been awhile since that has happened.

How much is spent specifically on runing / improving the GFS? Personally I think it would be a mistake to just kill the GFS and rely on foreign agencies / governments for our weather models. (Not saying this is what you think should happen). Don't forget the Euro is at least partially privately funded and is allowed to use data from satellites etc the GFS cannot (Russian / Chinese) No doubt it has an edge in the physics department as well as a higher resolution but the GFS still schools it on pattern recognition sometimes and usually in medium to longer range forecasts you see some sort of compromise. Anyways, looks like single digits Monday morning. NWS calling less than an inch for tomorrow.

GFS has a cold bias in the long range. So I'd take any cold it's showing let alone record negative double digits with several grains of salt until closer in time and corroboration from other guidance. That being said, way to far out to know what will happen end of next week in terms of any storm. Can't expect models to lock onto the correct outcome at this point. Looks like we have a shot at a couple lighter snows earlier this week, focus on those for now if you want to save yourself some stress and irritation.

18z NAM ticked NW again with more negatively tilted trough. I think we are out of the game for anything big, just seems to get going to late but should NW more amplified trends continue we might be able to steal a few inches from this. Crazy when you think just a couple days ago the was so far South.

Severe cold rarely leads to big snow, the pattern required for that is usually dry. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind an Arctic blast if we have a solid snow pack or a big overrunning event with snow in the low 20s. The models are waffling with features (mainly the orientation / position of the PV) which in turn have downstream effects such as either pumping or squashing SE Ridge. I'd rather have cold enough and keep the boundary just to the South of us and get a chance to roll the dice as storms ride along it. I still think it's possible we get a blast of Arctic air at some point this month, maybe coldest of the winter. Legit cold air is nearby now so it would only take a brief interlude of cold favorable indices to deliver a shot.

Models are pulling back on the Arctic blast, maybe a delayed but not denied type deal, but what was once looking pretty brutal has moderated due to the trend to pop a ridge in the East in response to splitting the PV rather than one elongated piece of the PV with majority of the energy in the East. Now look at today, PV is split with the stronger piece out west, pumping a ridge that connects all the way up the NAO block. Throw a storm into that 500 map and you can see anything that develops would likely go to the west of us and pump heights even more with SW flow ahead of it. Recipe for a warm up for sure. Going a few days out from here the piece of PV out west rotates eastward and I would think some cold will follow. That of course assuming that progression is correct.

Yeah I'm not saying any one outcome is more likely but I think we have all seen the models lose a storm in the mid range only to bring it back a few days later. Even if it fails looks like several chances to roll the dice coming up.

No guarantees a decent pattern delivers and if it does that any one area will get a big storm. I still think the window for a Sunday timeframe storm is still open, models still have A storm, just most slide it South. Wouldn't shock me to see it pop back up in the next couple days.

Wind really starting to gust out there, snow blowing around like crazy.

Getting a pretty moderate burst of snow right now, on par if not surpassing anything I saw yesterday.

That band is interesting for sure, looks like it has a dual lake connection, originating off ontario the going over erie. I wonder how often central ohio gets LES from lake ontario lol These systems that stall out do some weird things, normally I'd think a storm isn't able to generate a flow like that because it's moving to fast to establish a persistent wind trajectory like that.

NWS talking about the potential already in discussion: Also of note for late in the weekend is a pattern supportive of yet another potential nor`easter as the arctic air advances into the region. There remains variability among the models as to whether a lead wave can phase with the digging nrn-Plains trough to yield a favorable set-up for PA snow or whether the cold low-level air will outpace the upper trough. Stay tuned... It would be great to get another storm followed by a big Arctic blast. Opportunity for snow on snow for sure if that verified.

NAM showing we get some action from the coastal tomorrow. Probably steady light to occasionally moderate snow all day. Thus far the primary hasn't really delivered for my yard, seems the better rates are staying just to the west right now. Will have to see what happens as the progresses.

Feb shaping up to not be a dumpster fire like most of the seasonal forecast said. Probably in part to the SSW and persistent blocking. Maybe also some feedback from weakening La Niña? Saw that Euro run, to Far East meh.. Next! Lol j/k I love when we have multiple current/ short range / long range threats all going at once.

Snow starting to resume now, some of the half inch I had from this morning melted, temp hovering around 32, I’d expect it will cool if we get some heavier bursts.

That’s my feeling too; should have snow in the air during daylight hours for the next 2 days. Having that blockbuster December has made it easy to just sit back and enjoy whatever else we get without fretting if we miss a storm it might be the last chance of the season. At the end of this maybe you can’t go stick a ruler in your yard and measure 6 because it came over a longer period but so long as we stay below freezing at the surface the frozen ground and still low sun angle should aid our efforts. If we miss it would be more likely due to lack of qpf from a quicker transfer or further south track. The NAM did show a bit of a lull / light precip late morning / early afternoon before it picked back up this evening.

A dusting here so far with light snow coming down. We are really into nowcast time, but all the models still look good and NWS still thinks a band will develope with 1-2 inch per hour rates. Still need to give it time to play out before start sweating a bust. We've been good this year meeting or exceeding expectations, hopefully we can continue that theme for this storm.

I think the confusion is stemming from the advisory period vs total storm duration. They have 3-4 inches over a 24 hour period starting at (10pm Saturday - 10pm Sunday) but storm totals ending Tuesday of 6-8 inches.

Just popping in so I can join y'all for a free beer. Really just wanted to say good luck, we've had a solid winter so far in the western part of the state, glad to see a storm that looks to have a little something ( in some cases a lot of something) for everyone.

Agree, nice illustration / explanation. You can literally overlay that in your head with the snow map it spits out and see how the big totals correlate. Ocean water is above average if I remember correctly, that should really help fuel some crazy rates out east and maybe help us s little too if the stars align. I think we all agree let's max out with the primary, then anything from the ccb is dessert.

6z Euro not a bad look, you can really see influences from the coastal pretty far west but not quite enough for here. Either way there seems to be a consensus forming for a narrow swath of decent totals (5-10 inches) somewhere in SWPA.