SnowGoose69

I wonder though if the inevitable flip to a cold AMO in the next few years, even if it’s a bastardized or muted cold AMO might help the Atlantic issue somewhat

Probably not but there also seems to be a tendency for every damn storm to want to amp or phase out of the plains. PSU in the MA forum mentioned this about the fact every darn trof now even with a good EPO wants to dig to Baja and the discussion evolved where many of us think perhaps the reason is some time of impact from the warm Atlantic SSTs and SE ridge being stronger allows greater amplification of a western trof, even in patterns that worked to produce a full latitude US trof in say 1988. The crazy SE ridge has also seemingly resulted in lack of a 50/50 feature making the crazy full latitude ridge with a -NAO happen often recently

It was in mid to late January but February into mid March was very mild and December was near to slightly above I think. As a matter of fact 03-04 was and I think still is only case where NYC had double digit snow in December and January and failed to see even an inch in February

I feel as if the PV is also constantly shrunken and less elongated in Canada the last few years even when it makes any presence. As a result these highs scooting across end up being much further north and these SWFEs end up being New England events. It’s as if you can shift the whole axis of what they were 20-30 years ago 100 miles north

NYC survived for now but still needs a miracle to avoid the 2.9 or more. May even get it with this upcoming event if we even see 90 minutes of sleet or snow to start but probably need suppression city thereafter in March to pull it off even if it doesn’t happen later this week

Just shows you how the snow totals never really tell the story in a winter...03-04 was not overly cold at all from 12/1-1/5 or so but we had like 25 inches of snow...90-91 was another winter with decent snows around the area but we fluked into 2 SWFEs early with horrible patterns...it really just comes down to timing...this year as I am sure you are aware every damn time we had a high sliding across Canada we never could time a storm with it

EWR had 1.7 but the UHI is bigger in these events there, that said they also had a bit more QPF from that burst at 9-10pm and probably got 0.2-0.3 more from that. I think if you factor in colder at NYC with maybe a tad less QPF they might have underdone it by 0.3 or so. I could see it being 2.1-2 but the problem is the compaction is always a factor when it stops snowing 3 hours before the 6 hourly obs

I’d say central part of midtown it’s about a 70-30 snow sleet split. The VIS has largely been 1-2 miles as a result vs the 1/2 to 3/4 we’d normally have under these echoes

NYC needs a miracle now to probably not end up falling to 2nd or 3rd least snowiest tonight

I think you could see up to 4. Not sure i would confidently say that but just not sure how much sleet is a factor

yeah this is a strange case where the air mass got better as you got east closer to the departing high

I still have some concerns the front running system is going to mess this storm up to some degree...it may just take another 24-36 hours til the models begin seeing it

There will almost certainly be front end snows with this, even at the coast with the high where it is located. Winds would probably be NE ahead of it and we'd funnel in fairly dry air but it would flip after 1 inch at best as currently depicted.

Even if they see 0 today they probably see something with the storm in 5 days...I think at this stage even staying top 5 will be tough to pull off, even 4 inches between both storms nearly takes them out of that

Some meso guidance is fairly bullish...the 00z HREF mean which was very good last winter but IMO has not been as good across the Midwest/Lakes/NE this winter has a mean of 5 at LGA and 3 at JFK with maxes of 7 and 6 respectively but a 25 mile shift would be 2/1 and 3/2 respectively. I was still surprised to see how aggressive that mean was though.

The GFS as usual is missing the fact that even if its track is correct we will see snow even to the coast for awhile to start. I am still concerned about the system prior to this flattening things enough that the people in the far north camp might be disappointed in the end but its also not gonna be a DCA event either

The NAM however is probably majorly busting on the start time which could impact things...I highly doubt its not snowing by 01Z and it may even be earlier than that...the NAM does not have the slow bias it once did but it still does tend to be 1-2 hours too slow.

I am just blown away by how insanely cold the Euro soundings are for LGA...even with a 1C error which is standard to assume even today with models with SW-W flow aloft in a WAA event it would still be all snow but I feel the last few years the Euro blows these events almost all the time...the only one it nailed was 11/2018 and that made sense since it was a classic S-N mover with the high over Maine

Yeah we're gonna need one of those rare cases where the 3km NAM severely busts inside of 18 hours which I feel about 1 of every 5 of these sort of events it does...it had 2 events last winter where it respectively showed a torch and a freezer and it was totally wrong both times

The CIPS analogs showed 1/6/89 and 2/21/05 as analogs but both of those setups were better for us than this is. You did not have as strong a primary and air mass in place was better. For somewhere like BDL its possible they are closer to those sort of events

The system from 90-108 is likely going to impact things too...that is likely to be more an issue than many think...we've had issues this winter before where a proceeding system has impacted the ensuing one

I think everyone but probably NYC east is under one, that may be due to fact nothing much has happened this year somewhat. But I think you may see Bronx and all NJ counties from Hudson west issued a WWA

Its a combo of confluence but also the CMC has a much more potent S/W over the Pac NW which might be not allowing the system to amplify as much over the Plains. the GFS is way weaker with that system over the NW

The system that crosses the MA and SNE area 90-108 hours is likely to have an impact on heights and subsequently this event...not sure models are not going to really see that for another 72 hours

The HRRR always misses mid level warmth beyond 12-18 or so. My concern here is the ESE flow, the fact the event comes in at 6pm vs 6am so you get all that solar heating through the clouds. You may be 42/22 at JFK when this begins easily and start as RASN before wet bulbing and going all snow. I think we need a really good shot at moderate snow in the first 2-3 hours otherwise it'll end up with 1-2 at best near the coast.