SnowGoose69

The 12/26/93 storm was miserably and I mean miserably handled by NOAA/local mets etc. They completely abandoned ship off a slight shift east in the 12Z guidance that morning despite the fact by noon the radar along the DE/MD coast was clearly west of the 12Z models. I think all warnings outside Suffolk got dropped and by 3-4pm it was obvious the snow was coming straight up the coast. They ended up having to put advisories back up by 7-8pm.

To an extent. If you have a “pig ridge” massive EPO ala 93-94 or 13-14 then in essence it’s nearly impossible to have a -NAO. You can have a -AO though in that setup because the ridge can extend so far north it’s poking more or less near the pole and causing higher heights there. However, an EPO as strong as we saw for long durations of those 2 seasons more or less correlates to lower heights in the area across NE Canada towards Baffin Island. Any semblance of a -NAO would be very east based

That bomb of a storm in the plains that gave Oklahoma City like 2 feet on 12/24/09 pretty much torched the MA and then gave them rain. I thought they had a snow pack still on 12/25 though. I was at Skins/Giants on 12/22 and there was plenty of snow down there still

That was dangerously close to being a catastrophe of a bust. The system started sliding more east than expected and nearly ending up missing a good part of the area. I remember that evening around 6pm sitting at home thinking this is really going to bust isn’t it? It ultimately slid far enough east that most of northern Jersey didn’t see major snows

The 5 boroughs of NYC were never under a winter storm watch one time from March 1996 til 12/29/00. That shows you how pathetic things were in regards to winter storms in that period. January 2000 because the storm snuck up on us at the last second they went straight from nothing to a winter storm warning otherwise the streak would have been 11 months shorter

The next week is a good example of how even when the Pac sucks if the AO and NAO are negative it’s fairly hard to have an all out torch pattern in the East because you can’t set up a long term SE ridge unless your NAO is very east based

That’s such a weak amplitude wave I’m not sure it would have any major impact

No question radar is slightly ahead of models now a tad. Does not mean that'll hold up downstream though.

The 80s was largely a ton of bad luck. It was an abnormally low snow period for the area. NYC should never go 8 years between 8 inch snow events

I think the cold AMO incoming will shut things off significantly in a few years. It may not be 1970s and 80s bad but I'm betting we will start seeing colder winters with less major storms more often

It seems we have returned to the usual N and W winters being better the last few years

That assumes NYC even measures it in time. Remember a few Saturdays ago they likely got 0.5-0.7 or so but never measured in time and reported a trace

The bad forecast is what led to it. DOT thinks it was something else so now they overreact. Anytime a daytime snow forecast is blown it leads to a catastrophic commute. It happened on 2/11/83, 1/22/87, 12/5/03 and last November and always will. Anytime snow is forecast beyond an inch or two many more people work from home or commute via public transport

Ticked about 15-20 miles north with the snow

There simply isn’t enough East gradient with this event to get areas just inland warm enough. We basically have winds going 060-070 tonight at 5-10kts. That works for the coast but might not even work for a place like EWR

Depending how heavy this initial shot comes in it’s possible there could be a surprising 2-3 hour period of snow in the area. If it’s not heavy I’m not sure it’ll overcome the possible mid level warming

Well many here would lock in the 00Z HRRR from 00-06z tomorrow night from NYC north. Unfortunately its never right that far out

The temp issue does not surprise me. The GFS is getting worse over time it seems with low level cold. The evolution of the setup is probably too complicated as well. Models tend to struggle in these setups where you've got a dying wave of WAA precip as we do here then almost an entirely new system taking over. They usually end up massively blowing some aspect of it. This is why the belt from NYC to where you are is so tough tomorrow because they could bust both on the initial WAA area not dying as fast as expected and then the 2nd round being earlier/colder

It is night and day expansive with QPF from 00-06Z vs the 12Z run. the 12Z run had zilch from 00-06Z for HPN. This run looks to have .25-.30. At 850 it was also a shade cooler and not as far north on the warming from 00-06Z. I don't see what is doing at 750-825 though so it could be mostly sleet

18Z Euro tried throwing a bone to the areas from NYC just north tomorrow evening with more snow or sleet.

One thing I am marginally afraid of tomorrow from about NYC-SW CT is that there could be an earlier surge in the 21-00Z window of precipitation that is unforecast by all models right now. If that happened places like HPN/BDR could see a surprise several inches of snow

The scary thing is in 5 years the GFS will be the only US Model with the NAM being discontinued by then

The funky IVT snow event was missed by all the models but the Euro up til the day of the event was the best and probably still did best that day out of all the models

3-4 days ago I could see that because I felt there would be a strong massive WAA push but the system just dampens too much as it exits the Oh Valley leading to that initial slug of moisture dying out. I'm not sure why JB still felt that good yesterday

Yeah honestly the Euro has been great so far. It nailed all 3 events. If you looked at the snow maps then it seems like it has been bad but its by far led the way with this event the entire way.