weatherwiz

If moisture return was much stronger ahead of the trough across the Southeast and mid-Atlantic this would probably be a sizable severe weather event. Could certainly see some low topped convection up this way but I think in the end the dynamics will actually be too strong.

Is it too early to start the Christmas eve severe thread? James may get blown into Santa's sleigh

what's the link to this? I was hoping there would be an updated regional one like this on the right (it's a much more visually attractive map) but it is from 7 AM

I agree with your post and loved how you laid it out, however, the problem is most don't use them for the reasons you mentioned above. What they're doing (IMO) is just leading to lazy forecasts and hype (now of course not everyone does this)...especially the younger crowd. At school when there was a winter storm thereat, the first maps that would be pulled up were snow maps...it was just looking at the snow map output from each model and geeking out. But in reality, if the time is spent assessing all variables and data you're going to outperform those maps and be more accurate. It's just like any type of forecasting...anyone can easily just copy and rip and read MOS and probably be fairly accurate, but actually taking the time to assess everything, use knowledge of climo and historical info, you'll beat MOS just about every time.

how did they do in the 2017 (I think it was 2017) storm? It was the storm where Newtown got like 22'' and Danbury only got like 13''...I thought New Milford pulled off close to 20'' (not jackpot obviously) but I remember being pissed b/c Danbury ended up on the wrong side of the band and I thought the way it was structured it hit New Milford too.

Those things should just be burned from the damn models. They are fooking ridiculous and lead to 99.99999% of the hype with winter weather. When you get a setup in which the snow ratios are likely to only be something like 7:1 everyone goes bonkers with the 10:1 maps b/c they "show a crushing". Then in the scenarios where the ratios will be significantly higher, everyone goes nuts over Kuchera b/c well it adjusts for ratios (I think). Model snow maps are good for the following; 1) Can be useful to sniff out areas which could be impacted by subsidence 2) be a good indicator of what a "jackpot" total amount may be. This is similar to QPF maps during convection season. If there is a convective event and models (although with resolution becoming better this isn't that case as much anymore) are showing a widespread like 4''+ QPF...that doesn't necessarily mean there is going to be widespread inches, it just suggests that locally, someone could get 4'' of rain in a thunderstorm (at least that's how I interpret it) 3) can assist big time with gradients (especially the northern cutoff) 4) structure of totals But all of these too can be derived by assessing all the data, however, with a combination of laziness and I'm sure time, its just easier to just throw up a model snow map and be like "oh look I'm getting 20''.

never a good sign if forecasting or hoping for higher end snow totals.

That was a great call. All in all I think this storm was well forecast so many days out. This really lived up to it's potential...it was a sizable storm from northern New England down into parts of the mid-Atlantic. Sure there will surprises (always will be) but given the news attention this had been getting everything played out beautifully. Moving forward I want to incorporate more cross-sectional analysis like dendrite suggested. I just look at H7 (fronto, VV) and always use that to dictate banding and where it occurs but that's not always the best level (as we know from this event).

The track of H7 low always scared me but I felt that there was enough of a signal to swing the CCB through more of CT and pivot through but that didn't entirely happen. I actually should have stuck with my second update instead of doing 3rd update...I always do that too myself lol

I actually want to slap myself for thinking the band would be farther south

In retrospect when you really think about everything, what transpired is actually not a surprise. All the signals were there for super intense banding and when bufkit was spitting out 60-80+ units of omega into the DGZ that's pretty striking. Obviously there are other wildcard factors such as pivoting and I guess this system maybe didn't really occlude as quickly as models indicated. Also think H7 was a bit more compact and stronger than forecast. Hell...even strong signals for ratios up around 18:1 - 20:1 under the intense stuff.

I'm actually hoping we can turn the Christmas Eve storm into a ow topped convective/severe threat.

I left my back window open. Thank God not much snow got in the car but IT'S FREEZING IN THERE UGHHHHHHHH. Two years ago when we had the major snowstorm the day the Patriots beat the Chiefs in the AFC Championship and it was like -15 outside Sunday night, I left my back windows open and when I went out to work at 5 AM the inside of my car was a popscile.

Is that list up-to-date? I thought CA set a new record a couple winters ago

just sit in the snow

I want thundersnow. not fair

coming down nicely in Branford...actually probably better snowgrowth than most of last night lol

I just saw a mini snow tornado!!!!! dust devil style but with snow hahahahaa awesome

so there was sleet? ahahahaahahahaa

snowing in Branford...already got a dusting...blowing around quite a bit too

18z GFS still with 50-60 units of omega in the DGZ. This pisses me off b/c for the life of me but I can never, ever remember what each of those purple and yellow contours indicate regarding the DGZ on bufkit...I don't know why. I do notice though you don't see a tight clustering of purple and yellow contours. I understand it but I don't enough to like explain it to anyone which really sucks. EDIT: I didn't realized I changed the intervals

H7-H5 fronto starting to strengthen! I still think the best banding may occur a bit southeast of guidance...at least per mesoanalysis that HP seems farther south

Forget model snowfall maps right now (in a perfect world they would be forgotten all together)...focus on mesoanalysis and how the system evolves over the next several hours. You'll be able to tell from this much more clearly what to expect than from a stupid snowfall map.

If I talked about severe wx in here I'd be yelled at

This is something I really need to utilize more.