OceanStWx

I'd give Friday some hope through maybe 12z Wednesday when the storm north of Hawaii starts to hit the West Coast. And the 06z GFS shows you how to get it done for Monday. MAUL in the DGZ with max lift in that layer.

I do like the ensemble signal better for the latter half of the weekend (especially the EPS).

There are humans digging through the hundreds of reports and updating that map as fast as they can. They actually take hours to put together if there are a lot of reports. Since plenty of this fell after CoCoRaHS report times, they have to wait to tomorrow anyway for an event total map.

4.1” final here. Sad panda. Got into some good deformation snow for a bit this morning, but it was transient. I figured 4-6” for PWM because of the shape of the coastline on this one, but still hurts to see the waste water treatment plant pushing a foot.

These events, kind of like December 2020, are hard because you can’t broad-brush 20:1 all over the place, but it’s also hard to go much more than 24 hours lead time on that kind of band placement. I personally think too many local NWS offices try and capture the max totals (mine included) rather than it be a “most correct” forecast. But every once and a while one of these sneaks through where the band really does maximize what was available.

I still think the models do a good job of highlighting the banding and max areas if you know where to look for it. Both weenies and Mets get sucked in by pretty QPF and clown maps. In the days when models were coarse, you would have to paint a general area for heavier snow and caveat “locally higher” but now the resolution tries to pin it to your backyard. So when it gets taken away the next run people get upset. That didn’t happen as much on an 80 km grid. If you find the relevant features aloft, QPF be damned.

I think late 2023 or 2024

Learn to love it, because it’s going FV3 core and running to 60 hours and you’re going to lose the NAM and HRRR.

It’s unstable based on the moist adiabatic lapse rate (6.5 C/km). So if the forecast sounding lapse rate is steeper than that it qualifies.

Way more fun than a 96 hour lock.

It’s pretty self explanatory, just a truly unstable layer, usually thin but in winter events you don’t need much. The lift is enhanced in that unstable zone, and so if it’s collocated with the DGZ can really crank snowfall rates.

There may be, but it would be more deformation than pure WAA driven.

Flow looks pretty favorable for NH. Good moisture, a moderate (3-5”) upslope event seems like a good forecast.

Well the best WAA push will likely shoot through SNE, like inside 95. This becomes a bit of a pivoting band (I would pin it somewhere between 95 and 495), but is moving so quickly that lollis around 10” sounds about right.

That’s the key, where the best snow growth is. And it’s usually just above 700 mb, which is why we want the best fgen forcing there. It all depends on the type of band. A WAA forced laterally translating band will sweep across the region with fairly uniform totals, because screw zones will move with the band. But a lateral quasi stationary band (like the last event) has the potential for subsidence to really screw the cold side of the heaviest lift.

East Bay, West Bay, done. I’ll maybe give you South County.

That screams something about initialization affecting the runs, if it truly is a 00/12z 06/18z tango. Balloon data is the primary difference that I know of.

Clicking around some GFS soundings there are decent lapse rates over the interior just above the DGZ, even absent a MAUL. It would take much to really make the most of that.

We're right on track for another bump or two NW followed by the messenger shuffle late to leave us right about where we are now. I see that poking in from RI.

Well he does look south to the Whites. That would confuse me too.

Taking a look at the forecast soundings the snow growth zone is rather low in the atmosphere. I don't think that changes substantially even with a further north track. So if your above H7 lift is good it's actually not in the heart of the DGZ like it normally is.

We're all friends until go time is just 24 hours away. As for anyone living east of the canal...

It's nice to see what you, Bob, and Dave think. Kind of like forecast consensus. Not going to hurt my waistline any. We legal. To me it seems like the NAM has spaced things out a little better as the lead shortwave exits sooner and the trailing one hangs back just a bit.

I miss them too. But the edibles are more cost effective at the moment.