TomAtkins

Quote

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

By the way...take a look at the temperatures at Westminster on either side of that 32" snowstorm!  This is why I scream at people who say we need to have a cold pattern to get a big snowstorm.  This storm was 10"+ in Baltimore and DC also!  

1942-03-17, 71, 38, 0.26, 0.0, M
1942-03-18, 69, 46, T, 0.0, M
1942-03-19, 50, 38, T, 0.0, M
1942-03-20, 61, 29, 0.00, 0.0, M
1942-03-21, 60, 40, 0.00, 0.0, M
1942-03-22, 59, 38, 0.54, 0.0, M
1942-03-23, 53, 35, 0.00, 0.0, M
1942-03-24, 54, 30, T, T, M
1942-03-25, 56, 27, 0.00, 0.0, M
1942-03-26, 58, 26, 0.00, 0.0, M
1942-03-27, 57, 30, 0.00, 0.0, M
1942-03-28, 55, 38, 0.00, 0.0, M
1942-03-29, 39, 29, 1.10, 10.0, 10
1942-03-30, 52, 26, 2.20, 22.0, 32
1942-03-31, 50, 36, 0.05, 0.0, 18
1942-04-01, 52, 35, 0.00, 0.0, 12
1942-04-02, 59, 33, 0.00, 0.0, 3
1942-04-03, 67, 45, 0.00, 0.0, M
1942-04-04, 65, 45, 0.13, 0.0, M
1942-04-05, 80, 46, T, 0.0, M
1942-04-06, 84, 50, 0.00, 0.0, M
1942-04-07, 77, 55, 0.00, 0.0, M
1942-04-08, 72, 53, T, 0.0, M

I actually suspect that by that time of the year youve got to get some wild fluctuations to get the moisture and cold air for big snow. Like a steadily cold pattern just isnt going to do it in January. You need some big waves that come with pretty warm air ahead of the storm and then pulling down unseasonably cold air behind it.

Maybe not so much now - its probably still early enough that just a kind of unseasonably cold pattern would work.

21 minutes ago, SomeguyfromTakomaPark said:

I need a met to explain how the CMC and GFS look so similar at 500mb 90 hours but have such vastly different surface outcomes.  All the people saying "small changes" are right I think.  The position and orientation of the trough at 500 mb are almost the same. 

They aren't that different at the surface though - same with the ICON (and probably the Euro once it comes out). The GFS tucks the low in closer to land (in fact over land) and ramps up earlier. The CMC is 15 mb weaker at 90 hr, and 100 miles SE of the GFS. By hour 102 the CMC is about 5 mb stronger and maybe 75 miles or less apart. Its just the timing that makes the difference. Similar with the ICON. By the time they really ramp up, they are south of Maine. Its just that those differences of 12 hours in when the various parts that will make this system bomb out come together are super meaningful to weather we see a historic blizzard or nothing.

59 minutes ago, Warm Nose said:

If there's 12" on the ground and you dump another 2" of sleet on top, what difference does it make? It's like syrup on an ice cream sundae.

Thats basically what we got in the Storm of the Century in 1993. Obviously a different setup, but similar brutal cold temps the following days too - made sledding quite treacherous and shoveling tedious.