RitualOfTheTrout

VD 2007, I remember that storm well, we had a solid front end thump then a lot of sleet, ZR overnight then back to moderate snow the next day. We had a beast of a high locked in a good spot too. I wasn't living in NK at the time, but further NE in Apollo area so maybe that skewed my experience, but I recall even Greensburg was in bad shape.

UKMET looks pretty similar:

I think part of the problem is the area of low pressure is an elongated mess, this helps in one way by keeping it from over amplifying and pumping the ridge in the east which would let it cut way west, but hurts because we basically have a circulation stretching from Alabama to West Virginia. For all intents an purposes, we may as well have a weak but consolidated area of low pressure in WV and it would do the same thing. Both the Euro and GFS do this, but the Euro seems to be slightly more consolidated and further South with the lowest pressures, so rather than a a screaming flow out of the South at 850 like the GFS has, Euro is much less so we stay frozen longer. The other thing that hurts is we don't have a strong high in a really good location to help funnel in cold dry air to offset the warming. There is one, but its sliding east as the storm approaches.

Yeah I saw that.. Maybe just noise but every mile counts. Did 18z EPS come out yet?

Yeah they look South of the OP again. With this setup less is more, but wouldn't that be wild if it ended up fringing us to the North? lol I think we have a ways to go on that though. Hopefully GFS starts to look more Euroish.

This is my thought, if its own ens agree with it then you'd typically favor it 60/40 over the other guidance at this point. If it were the other way around and the Euro showed less snow I wouldn't feel as optimistic that is for sure. I would say the UKMET is in decent agreement with it as well. The other guidance has all started biting on a less amped further south solution, and realistically if it weren't for that damned warm wedge due to our geography the track differences wouldn't be making as big a difference as they are. We need some sort of tectonic action to erect another mountain range through central Ohio the meets up with the existing APPs on a SE trajectory around Central VA, then we could pool CAD and that should force miller Bs to jump east at the right time. lol (I'm joking here.. but..)

I agree, UKMET is literally within 30 miles of the 00z run, just noise. I'd still put it in the camp of less \ later phase.

Icon on tropical tidbits is a mess lol, its SE from what I can tell, but shows rain with surface temps in the mid 20s. Also looks like it tries to jump the low to the coast. Probably toss for more proven models for now. EDIT: Think I was off on the 2M temps, not sure what I was looking at or maybe it was an old run.

6z Euro looks to support the 00z at 90 hours, haven't seen the 6z eps yet. If I get a chance it will be interesting to note what they show vs what 12z Euro does. Now we nervously wait for 12z runs. I think we are seeing changes that we need, (faster NS shortwave and slower SS shortwave) which is less phasing, less amped which leads to colder outcome here. Of course this will probably lead to less qpf and lower snow totals, so don't expect to see 30in, but I'd gladly take 6-12 all snow over what was being modeled yesterday. Honestly we could probably take a few more SE ticks from last nights Euro to buy some wiggle room as we know the warm wedge is usually under modeled at range.

Pretty decent 00z suite last night, especially the Euro. I haven't been paying to close attention to the 18z EPS, but this is the second time now that they foreshadowed the direction the OP would trend at 00z. GEFS and EPS are also SE, UKMET came north a bit but it's just more in line with Euro. Good to see improvements as we draw closer. Hopefully we are seeing a narrowing of the goal posts now and no big swings to the SE or NW.

18z EPS, looks like several are SE of 12z op.

Yep, EPS mean is NW, doesn't look like its a case of a couple extreme NW tracks skewing mean either, they all look pretty similar, there are some SE but could mean we see the OP tick NW at 00z too.

Yeah, it's usually pretty deadly accurate by day 3. That said, not sure a 50-75 mile track error is extreme at that range, problem is it could be 50-75 further NW. There was a storm a few year ago that was consistently pegged to hammer the whole state of PA, then the last 2 days a piece of energy started showing up on guidance rotating around the PV that shoved the whole storm into the Mid Atlantic. Can't remember the year, but remember it was around the time everyone in the media started talking about the "Polar Vortex" as if it was something new.

It is very close to 00z, it did make an ever so slight improvement on totals to the SE, now gets almost 12+ into northern Allegheny, not sure how accurate that is though as these snow algorithms are pretty poor handling changeover situations. I know it's just noise but man is it close.

I don't know how many times a storm hit and my parents that live in southern Armstrong get 6+ and I have slush 10 miles south. Growing up I never realized how good it was living there. Typically I don't get to worked up anymore either, but when we are missing 24 inches by 50 miles it's like salt in the wound.

Interesting. Well, sometimes the UKMET is a preview of the Euro or at least a hint at the direction it may move. The Euro "can" be a bit over amped in the medium range (day 4-6) so it's possible we could see it come back SE if its over doing the phase. Meanwhile the GFS is within the envelope so I'm not to worried about it yet. Looks like the CMC jumps the energy, not seeing other guidance do that really but would make sense to some degree.

I agree, baring some crazy dynamic storm I'd rather get fringed to the North and take 2-4 of fluffy snow followed by bitter cold than 2 inches of rain followed by a dusting and bitter cold.

Definitely SE, but also is it slower? GFS at 120 already has the storm on the NY/PA border at that time.

Ugly.... runs it right over top of us. Then we drop from 45-50 degrees to 15 in 6 hours. Enjoy your frozen shut car doors.

Das ist gut! lol

I agree, it won't be until at the earliest 12z tomorrow but likely not until Thursday that we can start to say anything one way or another. At least we have a threat to track, vs where we stood 2 weeks ago wondering if Winter would ever truly make an appearance this season. Odds favor if this one fails though there will probably be another to watch on it's heels. if you are purely results driven in this hobby, then its the wrong hobby or you live in the wrong place lol. Part of the fun is analyzing the runs etc. I'd be lying if I said I don't have some concern we miss this by 50-75 miles NW, then miss the next by the same margin to the SE, but that's how we roll in Pittsburgh for big storms lol.

Well 00z guidance was actually pretty consistent... 2 camps from what I can tell, ICON and UKMET would probably be pretty solid hits. I am wary of the ICON as I remember hearing it doesn't handle ZR / IP on tropical tidbits, its either rain or snow. But you can see the general idea, snow to rain to snow while I-80 north gets pummeled, if the Euro map actually verifies that would be pretty depressing. One thing I have learned though is despite the fact the models look pretty consistent is that I have seen them all be consistently wrong. It's not that large of change to shift us into the better stuff and it's still well within the track error at the time lead. I'll try to leave my optimism hat on until Wednesday 12z, if it still looks bad then I think we all know all this movie ends lol

I don't think this even tells the whole story... Probably a good bit of zr / sleet / rain mixed in... but: I know it's way to early to be analyzing soundings but would like to see how much of each p-type there is for fun. And total qpf:(I'd bet the under but still fun to look at)

That's what I thought too. GFS seems to keep the system more disorganized which helps keep it SE of us. If it amps sooner we will need more confluence to keep it a snow event.

Interesting. Not sure why that would be. I'm mainly curious to keep an eye on 2 things, 1. Models keep the same general idea of the storm. 2. Keep an eye on track and see if we start seeing more going NW vs SE etc. We've been bit by the PV multiple times in the past over flexing and pushing stuff SE, hopefully for once it can help us.