SnowGoose69

I think someone sees a nice period of snow with this because the initial surge is coming from a pretty strung out disturbance. I would be more worried at this point that we see QPF drop off then a warming trend because some of the guidance really shows this as a sheared mess.

All it really can do is prevent a massive SER from developing so you probably won’t see a 570dm ridge with a high of 75 as you might see if the AO and NAO were strongly positive

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

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

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

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

The GFS if I remember right was showing big snow behind the low for days but it was mostly disregarded because the AVN/MRF merge had just occurred in recent weeks or months. I had been telling people I was concerned somewhat about a surprise snow that night but was not that confident it would happen.

2002 though NYC saw nothing and 1995 it was like 11/29 or 11/30. I think there’s definitely at least in a small sample size that if NYC sees measurable snow before 11/25 or so it has tended to not work out too well for the ensuing winter but much like the when August averages warmer in July the winter always torches for the area it’s only a sample of about 5-10 years

78 was forecast remarkably well for the time though the amounts weren’t. The LFM was the model which nailed it as it also did the 89 Thanksgiving storm which the other models mostly discounted. 78 was quickly setback though when the models blew the 1983 storm north of Philly. In fairness there wasn’t much computer advancement in those 5 years though. 1983 was somewhat of a benchmark though in that when the 00Z models ran that evening they shifted the entire storm well north and caught onto what was going on. At the time that was one of the first cases of the models ever doing that

The trof and the pattern appear too progressive to me for there to really be any legit chance we see something ride up that boundary but we are still far out

There were actually a decent number of months with a -NAO in the 80s and two full winters where it averaged negative in 83-84 and 84-85 but the tendency with the cold AMO was just for there not to be a large number of east coast storms

Hey these days that’s a blizzard for early December

At the time it was the first case ever of a major storm being modeled that far in advance. Once we got to 96-120 every model had it including the UKMET. Forecasting was still pretty bad in 1993. It improved significantly in the ensuing 3-5 years as a result of the Euro being more widely used as well as the ETA being worlds better than the LFM/NGM.

Unfortunately not a great pattern for big storms (in general) January 87 had a pattern like that but it’s not likely to see an all snow event there with that setup

Similar bust on part 1 to the December 2003 storm. Difference was part 1 of the 12/03 storm busted on temps while the first part of the January 2011 storm busted on QPF that no models saw. The 2nd part of that December 2003 storm though majorly disappointed. The mid levels sort of torched between part 1 and part 2 and the coastal wasn’t deep enough so snow growth was lousy and the CCB was spotty leading to two mega bands over ERN NJ near EWR and another near central LI. In between most places saw 3-5 inches, if that. The CCB in part 2 of January 2011 rivaled April 82/February 83. It was just insane snow rates and a gravity wave may have played a part too much like it did in February 83 and January 04