SnowGoose69

The icon basically finds a way to make the warmest solution overall from DC to NYC given the pattern. You couldn’t duplicate that in real life if you tried with the surface and upper features where they are

The ICON at 18Z moved NW. I still think this is coming west. Maybe not to the degree the Op Euro was though

The difference this year is the -NAO is actually real in that over the next week it will be in place. I wouldn't be so sure the forecast on the EPS at 10-15 days of the -NAO are going to be fantasy as they have been most of the last decade.

the most shocking thing to me here was that Caribou never broke the record of 59F they set in February 1994 for the warmest meteorological winter day. I figured for sure that record had gotten broken in the last 25 years

I've noticed the GFS when we have favorable patterns in the East for cold has always had a serious bias to tend to want to pull the ridge back west and dump cold air masses into the west or Plains Day 8-9 and beyond. Its been showing that the last few days consistently and the EPS wants no part of it.

The last 1-2 days the Op GFS has pretty consistently wanted to torch the east and have a SER. Very bizarre because most runs it’s ensembles have disagreed

There is no cold air in place ahead of it and when the system turns up the coast down by Georgia there’s a low in Quebec, not a high. You wouldn’t get snow with that system unless it was vertically stacked as it passed northeast of the area. In that case there would be an area of snow behind it

The GFS pattern really looks 1980s like with the cold shots that keep ejecting south out of eastern Canada

We are pretty much due for a winter where everyone forecasts wall to wall torch and it ends up like 93-94. I don’t see much reason to assume that happens this year but it’s going to be hard to duplicate last winter. This is sort of the opposite of going cold and snowy in 94-95 or 01-02 after the preceding winters sort of had a ton of things break in a favorable way. It’ll be hard to get the ratter this winter we had last year again

If I remember right in December 88 the positive NAO killed us. There was probably 3-4 decent storms that came out of the Gulf but weren’t able to make the turn up the coast

It was a semi neutral after a La Niña though. Historically those have been terrible and we had a couple of more after that too including 11-12

And NYC will probably get more snow than they got last winter anyway. It’s almost impossible to get that little snow again. By accident we will probably find a 6 inch event somewhere

The 20Z HRRR got that 02-03Z MOB forecast very close. Had 90kts at 925mb with 76kts mixing to the surface

Has there ever been a case of identical US landfall spots occurring with 2 storms in the same year?

My first thought when I read this was 12/4/91 or the 1/16/92 bust but this one I don't remember.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

LOL is that 20 inches in Little Rock?

I definitely see potential in ATL Monday if the 12Z verified as shown (which it likely won't). There is a weak surface reflection off SAV along with the upper low coming across. Often times a weak surface reflection like that is all it takes to crank more moisture in than expected. I regularly saw that burn forecasters in OK often if you got a weak low to form in SE TX.