SnowGoose69

This is one of those events that ends up pissing people off have better snow climo and see someone south of them get pounded wherever that WAA axis sets up. You can see right now someone will get slammed by a fronto band somewhere in southern PA or central NJ while NYC up to BOS gets 1 inch

It’s not a La Niña so I don’t know why so many forecasts had a doom and gloom winter from NYC-DCA. Considering December was supposed to be the worst month and NYC could still get out of it with above normal snowfall (I think they only need 3 more inches to do that). I think many of the forecasts at least for them might bust. PHL/DCA remains to be seen

The Pac has to be extraordinarily bad for a -NAO/AO combo to not at least give you some chances. Generally as long as there isn’t a death vortex in the GOA a bad Pac can be cancelled out enough by the Atlantic. The Pac basically sucked in 10-11 even in December and January but it didn’t matter with the -NAO. We still did well. I should add also the Pac influence becomes less and less against an NAO/AO the later you get. We saw this in December 96 and I believe December 2012. Bad Pac was able to beat out the good AO, NAO or both but if you have the same thing going on in later January the Pac will lose more frequently

It’ll be a solid event if the system is weak and not too amped. Could see a 3-6 inch event before the turnover in that case

This one has to be weak because the high positioning and area which the storm approaches from aren’t ideal for a significant from end snow here outside of NW areas

The GFS is horrendous with SWFEs beyond 84-90. It sometimes might have the general track idea right but it usually has everyone south of BDL raining for the entire storm or snow for 1 hour. Once inside that range it’ll usually start showing the front end snows

Most of these events involve either a massive wave of low pressure riding up behind the front or they occur a day or two after the front clears like the 98 event or the 2/2/96 storm. The only case I can think of that didn’t involve a strong wave and the snow came right behind the front was December 1993 and that was about a 40 mile wide area of snow

12/24/98 is now the top analog for this event. I think someone mentioned it a couple of days ago here

It’s been ticking SE but it’s now in its range and it’s NW of the Euro and NAM. The RGEM runs sort of like an MLB team’s bullpen. It’s either hot or cold winter by winter and it takes you 2-3 storms to see its tendency. It has performed well so far IMO going back to mid November though it had a few localized busts on the storm last week. It was 100% useless last winter

I’m not sure if that LE was correct though. It is pretty darn accurate today at Central Park but I don’t believe there was an ASOS there yet then they were using some sort of old school home weather system for readings from October 1993 til July 1996 when I think the ASOS was put in so very possible that reading was erroneous

12KM NAM through 15 hours has like triple the QPF across PA and down into MD//WV from prior runs. We will see how that translates over next 12-18 hours

The only question I have is if the whole thing ticks NW. Regardless I think there will be isolated 5-6 inch amounts with this though the majority will only see 1-2 and there will be a screw zone, possibly in between 2 areas that do better

Back after that Euro upgrade in 2014 or so this was an auto shift 50 miles west. It was terrible the first 2 years or so off that upgrade being too dry and flat with anything that wasn’t a heavily amped system but after the latest update it seems to be about as good as it has ever been. I haven’t even been seeing it’s 90-120 overamped tendency the last 6-8 months.

These things always end up west the last few years because of the tendency of any degree of ridging in the western Atlantic to be stronger than modeled, even at 24 hours you usually are good for a tick west

The RGEM was way too far west at 12Z and it tends to have an amped bias beyond 30-36 so I expected a tick SE over the course of the next few runs

You have to be wary here with their technically being a “WAR” right now. Anytime the last couple of years we have a system or boundary that we have concern could push too far off to the east that ridging is stronger than expected and we get a further west or more juiced system

There was some pretty nasty dry slotting from about NYC to Nassau for a time. Quite a few places there saw only 16-22 inches or so. I want to say BDR only reported 17-18. We’ve definitely had some oddball measurements over the years at the airports and NYC. That Newark measurement on 2/11/94 I think most agree was wrong. NYC’s measurement on 1/22/87 I had an NWS Met tell me 18-20 years ago they KNOW was wrong. Recently we obviously have some real awful ones but even before 2000 we saw occasional sloppy reporting

I’m not a big Bastardi “agreeer” but he’s probably right in this case. The Euro in events like this will tend to be too flat or dry. I’m definitely thinking more NAM/RGem is more likely. The NAM May have sucked at 12Z in regards to QPF but that was probably a blip as it still looked okay otherwise

The UKMET has .3-.4 liquid after 12Z Wednesday which would likely be all snow. Not sure how much of what it shows before that is snow

1998. That was more of a vort and weak surface low though as was the 2014 post Super Bowl event. 11/29/95 might be closer

UKMET at quick glance on poor maps seems like it could be significant but may be more for inland locations

Probably will be 6-7 to start and finish at around 10

It was similar. I want to say that one may have had a strong surface reflection develop on the front than we see with this one now. Someone on Twitter was comparing it to 2/2-2/3 1996. There is no comparison to that. That was an entrenched arctic air mass with a boundary that had stalled nearby and had multiple waves move along it

It seems there is rarely an issue with these events as far as getting snow. Either they end up all snow once the FROPA occurs or the wave never develops at all and it’s all rain. There’s always a scare in the few hours preceding it where places like SWF/HPN/FWN are like 34/24 and the city is still 42/34 but inevitably the cold air makes it in. I always find these things to be all similar like most SWFEs are. If they happen it’s generally a good 2-6 inch type event with only a small percentage of them falling below or above that range

I think the window for it to matter though is quickly closing. The analogs mostly suggest the pattern would likely become progressively favorable as we progress into January so if something bad doesn’t happen soon out there I’m not sure we would see more than just a brief 2 week period where the pattern is a shutout