jm1220

In the teens. I was in State College-started as snow and pounded sleet for hours overnight. Then back to snow in the morning as the coastal got going. In total I think there was 11” but never got near freezing.

It’ll just make the snowpack denser. I don’t mind some sleet at the end. In Feb 2007 I was in that mess in PA and it was like goopy cement and lasted forever.

Looks about the same here. Still maybe a little high for me, but I can see how 12” happens if all goes well and we keep the SE ticks plus higher QPF.

Euro in general looked a little colder to me.

We’ll see, hopefully you’re right. If the sleet line just barely gets here or goes back and forth we have a real shot at 12”.

That stretch from Dallas/Waco to S VA will have devastating ice in some places for sure. And no power for a week or more.

Didn’t 2/1/21 give you guys like 20”? But I agree the last few winters have been lousy and N NJ was unlucky a number of times when my area did well.

Given the stretch coming up I’d be pretty stunned if this is our last significant snow. We probably have 1-2 more in this pattern. Hopefully we can finally get things to slow down enough for a major coastal storm again, would be pretty awesome if we can get another 970mb bomb SE of Montauk.

Don't trust kuchera, ratios are higher in this setup Kuchera is usually inflated. Ratios are determined by snow growth when temps are below freezing. It could be zero, 20 or 30 and ratios could be the same if snow growth is good or putrid.

I wouldn’t worry about random dry holes that show up like these.

Nationwide absolutely it’ll be a crippling storm. Agree-locally it’s something we’ve been getting every 1-2 years until this sucky stretch after Jan 2022 and I’d consider it disruptive but not crippling. Dec 2020-esque in my opinion which IMBY was 8”. At the very high end maybe we approach what we saw on 2/1/21 but that’s if everything works out perfectly. The first juiced clipper in Dec had 8” here but this one will have more impact since there will be more water in the snow/sleet to get to the 8”. I’m hopeful on the north shore we make it to 10” combined snow/sleet. If this major coastal storm happens next weekend that could locally be major or better.

GGEM looked pretty good to me, no weird dry slot/holes. To me a general overrunning system like this isn't as bandy as a major nor'easter would be and shouldn't have these random dry spots.

We have to watch how it plays out on Sun AM. It's going to be a very high impact storm here regardless of how much sleet we get and I'd argue even higher impact with sleet. Sleet is very tough to move and lasts longer. It will also all freeze up into a brick after it's done. The snowpack with 9-10" and sleet or 15-16" all snow has the same water content. Every model has the initial heavy thump of snow-does it stay intact like a wall or start shredding up, if it shreds up we get sleet sooner. That being said the sleet will sooner or later get here in this type of storm, always does.

To me it’s been steady as she goes for the last 2 days. There’ll be a very heavy initial thump of snow then we flip to sleet at least around I-80 and south for a while, looks like around mid to late afternoon. Hopefully by then most of the precip is done. The questions are really what happens on Monday with any coastal development and how fast the dry slot gets here. The stronger primary further north also means faster dry slot. It’s fundamentally a SWFE so the flip to sleet is coming for many. The real question area for sleet to me is around White Plains area to coastal CT and northern NJ.

If the overall storm evolution is shifting in a better direction that’s all I really need at this point.

Yep, weaker and further south primary is definitely what we want. I haven’t looked at the 700/850mb panels but I’d assume those improved as well.

Good to see the NAM get slightly colder and bump the QPF up. With the heavy snow burst to start it should work to hold the warm air back a little at 750-800mb that would flip us over. I don’t think it’s a coincidence the lighter QPF models also flipped us quicker. Becoming a little more confident at least the northern parts of NYC/LI and toward I-80 get the higher end of 8-12”.

Thankfully they have a long time to catch up. I think some of Denver's biggest storms have been in April.

If we have heavy rates we can overcome shallow layers a bit above freezing-we might get rimed flakes etc but it's when the rates are reduced and we get dry holes in the precip that the warm air can become more established. And sometimes there are sneaky warm layers that aren't captured well in the soundings. Seems like the warm layer that can flip us over would be around 750mb from what I've seen. In any case it will still snow a lot and hopefully by the time the sleet gets here we're about to shut it off anyway. That's a potent high pressure dome all that Gulf moisture is slamming into and it will take a while to warm it up. The dryslot will also be a consideration if we have a strong 700mb low tracking into Lake Erie. Dry air will pivot around the SE side of it.

Yep, it will be hard as granite. The snowpack will contain the same water as anywhere else since we aren't transitioning to rain or going above freezing-it will just be denser near the coast.

Good thing I don't have to commute there.

Oh yeah. Sleet has more bang for its buck-doesn't pile up like snow obviously but will thicken up the snowpack and be a huge pain to move. After 3/14/17 the snow/ice piles were crazy. I remember the Feb 2007 storm in central PA with 10-11" of thick snow/sleet that hardened up into cement. A week from now even though we shave a few snow inches off for sleet I doubt people will be complaining if they like snowpack staying around like me.

I’m sure they’ll adjust further today. Hopefully the models are done with the warm shifts but the confluence needs to hold as long as it can.

NAM is usually closer to right than the other models but it can be too aggressive with it. In Dec it had me mixing but I never really did.

It’s doing what just about any SWFE does. If you want all snow from these you want to be on the I-90 corridor. This is a bigger SWFE than usual with better front end snow but it’s behaving typical for them.