RitualOfTheTrout

Still snowing here, coating on grassy surfaces. Yeah its too bad it wasn't colder or at least have frozen ground leading into it.

Yeah I wasn't expecting to see this. NWS addresses in the discussion: NEAR TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY/... 1130am update...increased PoP to track a narrow band of precipitation moving east through the region, evidenced by current radar imagery. Wet bulbing plus near sfc CAA has led to most of this precip to fall as snow, with a rain/snow mix more likely in northern WV. Warm grounds and short duration will limit accumulation to a trace on grassy surfaces only. This wave will exit this afternoon, and signal the beginning of the dry period.

Maybe a light front end thump Wednesday into Thursday, better odds North and West. It would be nothing more than stats padding though as another inch or so of rainfall is coming in afterwards. Maybe some landslide watches go up? lol After that Thursday night might be favorable for some decent snow showers. It's going to be cold Friday so it would be nice to have at least an inch or so of snow on the ground. Off Topic, but if your bored go check out the NE thread... talk about a massive meltdown of embarrassing proportions!

That Thursday morning thing is close enough to keep an eye on, but right now GFS is really the only thing giving us mainly snow.

I agree totally, today should shape up to look and feel pretty wintry. It’s not just us, it’s been awful comparable to average in just about every region in the East.

It was nice change of pace to track something in the short range that actually worked out. This year has been almost all spent looking past day 7 hoping to see a window of opportunity. This window showed itself probably 5-6 days ago but it didn’t really look good until 48 hours out then thing’s kept getting better.

I can confirm, just got in from shoveling and averaged just a hair under 4. It’s heavy wet snow so I could easily imagine we lost a half inch to compaction/ melting.

CNY looks to get pummeled, the storm is deepening pretty rapidly now. I don’t know your climo well but when it comes to synoptic storms riding up inland, those rare inland tracks that get us are also good up that way. This winter you can’t complain about getting any snow, but if this thing could have started deepening a little further south given the track we could have easily doubled totals. There’s definitely going to be a stripe of snow that over performs with this one!

Eye balling the deck rail looks like close to 3 inches and still coming down.

That's the nice thing about the HRRR, if you don't like what you see just wait an hour. Really, that band is pretty narrow, and looks like it wants to setup right over or just to the east of Allegheny county. That small of a margin of error is going to be hard for models to nail down.

Good point, the same variable that could give someone's yard the jackpot could also be the dagger through the heart. When I say jackpot I'm thinking 5 would the most anyone would get. My gut says I should set my expectations at 2, with the progressive nature of this and the fact it doesn't really wind up until its North of us keeps the upside in check. But hey, it's going to be seasonable tomorrow and Saturday so if we cover the grass it should stick around for a day or 2, and if it busts low at least we had a legit threat to track in under 48 hours which is a first really for this winter.

Yeah, all guidance is agreeing on a general 3-5 inches. You probably have to cut that to account for initial melting but not bad to see something improve as we get closer. Not saying it will happen, but the storms that are the most likely to bust high are ones that keep getting better as we close in.

The 12z runs are all done, and come in at varying times starting around 9am roughly in this order NAM, GFS, GEM, UKMET, Euro concluding around 2:00pm. For pay services you can get the stuff sooner but that the general gist of timing. 00z runs work the same, just starting around 9pm instead of 9am. There are 18z and 6z runs too of some models.

Interesting, all 12z (GFS/NAM/GEM/UKEMT) models are showing more of a 3-5 inch type deal. Not sure I buy it just yet, maybe just snake bitten but the 6z Euro would seem to agree. I'll be curious to see if it holds on the 12z run.

Looking like 1-3 based on overnight model runs.

I thought the 18z GFS took a step to the NW too. In this pattern the North trend is real, nothing to keep the storm from cutting if it amplifies fast enough. It would suck to miss out on the only real threat to the NW after missing so many to the SE the last couple of years.

It is somewhat refreshing to see something starting to trend better as we get closer in time. I agree, an area wide synoptic 2-4 would be the biggest storm of the year. In this pattern you take what you can get, but if you look just to the North of us we aren't that far away, it's a shame that boundary couldn't have setup a couple hundred mile further south. Just for a visual, Euro snow map through 240:

It's not looking good for much at this point, maybe we get another mushy half inch out of it. GFS has a little something to watch for Saturday night into Sunday morning. In other news, with the inch or so of snow over the weekend our seasonal total is now at 12.7 inches, which moves us out of second and into third for least snowfall in recorded history: 1. 1918-1919 8.8in 2. 1889-1890 11.4 3. 2019-2020 12.7 4. 1920-1921 14.4 5. 1931-1932 14.7 6. 1932-1933 15.7 7. 1973-1974 16.6 8. 1990-1991 17.2 9. 1937-1938 18.7 10. 1930-1931 19.0 Also, playing around with the numbers, when the 30 year average jumps from 1981-2010 (41.9) to 1991-2020 (43.5 as of today) we should see our seasonal snowfall average increase by about an inch an half even if we don't see any more snow this season. It's been a bad year for tracking storms when this is what time typically use for for storm tracking needs to find another outlet lol. I'm still holding out hope for a fluke storm, or maybe we get something bigger in March. At this point I'd be just as happy to see March torch in the mid 60s all month as I would getting a big storm. I just hope we don't get a raging -AO / -NAO and a cold rainy spring. A slightly moderated continuation of the past 50 days we be awful.

We are precariously close to all rain for all 3 waves. The third one remains the best shot we can muster a 2-4 or 3-6 type event. Looks like GFS/CMC still give us a shot but Euro had the low in western Ohio. As you said lots of pieces of energy that will affect the final outcome and I don’t expect any of the models have the exact progression nailed down yet.

Looks like a winter wonderland out there this morning. Probably about an inch but it’s stuck to everything. I decided to sleep in for once and missed it falling but still a nice suprise.

That looks like the next window for something more significant. We are going to need those waves leading up to it to push the gradient SE, so probably less confidence than normal on track / development of that system until those things get resolved.

I don’t buy it yet. Seeing all those perturbations lead to a decent snowfall does raise confidence but I’ll need to see similar outcomes on other models and more importantly see it under 100 hours. I won’t be shocked if the whole thing is gone at 00z.

Heh, here are the GEFs through 384, P14 says we are above average for the season by Feb 9th lol If only!

Yeah, this would go a long way to starting a fourth quarter comeback, 18z GFS: To bad it’s 7 days out.. we know it can only go down hill from here.

It does look active which gives us more roles of the dice to get a storm with a favorable track and cold enough air around. To this point it's been one of the lousiest winters in recent memory , and while we probably can't salvage the season as a whole a good Feb is still possible and statistically the ever so rare big storm is just as likely to happen in Feb 2020 as any other year. No reason to throw in the towel yet.