bluewave

It started this morning with rain and 38° on the South Shore.

Mini version of the Long Beach polar bear plunge today.

Beautiful pink sunset with the snow sticking to all the trees. Finished with 5.0” here in SW Suffolk. Lost about 1” to rain and melting snow at the start.

Very impressive merger of the bands across Suffolk right now.

Approaching 6” on parts of Long Island under these heavy bands.

Heaviest snow of the day right now across much of Long Island.

Heavy snow and 32° in SW Suffolk as the heavy band is right across the area now.

Our first 6”+ event within a week of a 12”+ event for parts of area since March 2018.

33° with snow becoming moderate in SW Suffolk. You can see the band that has been over NJ pushing NE toward Long Island.

Yeah, it gets back to areas of banding often setting up NW of where the raw model QPF output suggests. That’s why this is always discussed in NWS AFDs.

A very special thanks to Walt and others for creating this fantastic product. http://moe.met.fsu.edu/banding/ Bob Hart, FSU David Novak, WPC Walt Drag, NWS PHI Rich Grumm, NWS CTP Last Updated: Sun Feb 7 15:20:02 UTC 2021

The 12z Nam run from yesterday that I posted had the multiple bands.

Snowfall becoming moderate now with giant flakes in SW Suffolk. Temp dropped from 38° to 34°. Snow sticking on all surfaces including paved now.

Temp dropped from 38° to 35° here in SW Suffolk with steady light snow. Giant flakes and an estimated visibility of .75 mile. Also beginning to stick on the cars.

Yeah, I am changing over to light snow now with the temperature down to 37°.

38° and rain here in SW Suffolk before the evap cooling kicks in.

Yeah, these SAL intrusions have become stronger in recent years.

This is a really interesting pattern. It looks like the strongest MJO phase 7 with such intense Greenland blocking. So our area is in the battle zone between the SE Ridge and pressing TPV. The end result will be an unusually high number of winter storm events here.

The MOS did very well with the high temperatures today. The raw 2m Ts really struggle on days like this. Too bad we don’t have ECMWF MOS freely available. KEWR GFS MOS GUIDANCE 2/06/2021 0000 UTC DT /FEB 6 /FEB 7 /FEB 8 / HR 06 09 12 15 18 21 00 03 06 09 12 15 18 21 00 03 06 09 12 18 00 X/N 45 27 36 22 30 TMP 36 34 32 38 42 42 38 33 30 29 29 31 33 33 31 30 28 25 23 27 26 DPT 23 21 20 20 18 16 15 16 17 18 20 25 26 23 20 17 13 10 7 3 7 CLD FW FW FW CL FW FW FW SC BK OV OV OV OV OV BK FW FW CL CL FW SC WDR 27 24 22 25 26 26 26 26 03 03 04 03 02 34 29 31 31 31 31 31 20 WSP 08 03 06 14 15 13 06 03 02 05 07 09 09 07 09 16 13 11 08 07 03

We need a stronger SE Ridge for more winter storm threats to avoid TPV suppression. Notice how the 120 hr forecast on the EPS has corrected to less cold suppression than 240 hrs. That’s why the EPS has so many winter storm threats here now. New run Old run

Yeah, a more extreme version this year of all you mentioned. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/12/18/japan-snow-stranded-motorists/ The episode was caused by “ocean-effect snow,” similar in dynamics to lake-effect precipitation that frequents the shores of the Great Lakes. A frigid air mass blowing from the northwest over much warmer waters, in this case between 55 and 60 degrees (12.8 to 15.6 Celsius), allowed heat and moisture from the Sea of Japan to be transported inland in the form of heavy snow. Japan’s high terrain helped focus moisture, too, concentrating it on the upslope, or windward side, of the mountains. That meant snow could fall for days at a time unimpeded, the wintry blast maintained so long as the wind fetch remained from the northwest. Japan’s climate routinely favors hefty snowfall in the mountains. Arctic wintertime cold fronts from Siberia surge south across northeast China and the Korean Peninsula, arriving in Japan after passing over the adjacent sea. The Sea of Japan is kept mild by the Kuroshio Current, akin to the Gulf Stream; a branch of it, called the Tsushima Current, meanders west of the Japanese island chain.

This is what happens when we get one of the strongest west based blocks for this time of year.