87storms

The sailing thru winter solstice boats at Carroll Creek are gonna look pretty cool after this event.

It’ll nudge south and colder. I’d put money on it…but I won’t because I actually really don’t know.

I have no doubt our corridor gets 6–10” before the flip…and probably pretty easily. Every flake will count in this airmass.

Frederick airport obs: https://weather.uwyo.edu/cgi-bin/wyowx.fcgi?TYPE=sflist&DATE=current&HOUR=current&UNITS=A&STATION=FDK

https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/sfcloop/currobs.html

Skiing in this weather takes dedication.

Yea I’m actually dealing with a sinus cold that came on 2 days ago so I periodically crank up, but overall I’m kinda bullish imby on this event. Battling a sleet line in these temps is objectively dumb, but it’s still gonna snow and not just a wimpy one.

Oh the sleet line is incoming lol (damn near every model has it) but I think we dominate the initial round. This airmass is brutal. I’m not playing basketball outside today and that says something.

I need an iced tea tumbler version.

Idk…I think our areas are gonna get off the schneid (the wizards are another story). Good ratios will save us before the pingers arrive.

Those are pretty minor ticks tho lol. I think that mid level warm air punch could still be over modeled. This is a professional airmass it’s up against. We’ll see soon lol

Gfs looks like 0.75” minimum in Frederick before the sleet line encroaches up 270.

For those that haven’t ventured outside yet (eg, you don’t have a dog), it’s a legitimate ice box. I’m gonna say it now…the nam is full of ish. I’m going with the euro.

We’ve reached the armchair psychologists part of the storm tracking game.

Yea but the issue seems to be more about amp instead of de-amp. Regardless, this storm is annoying. Under absolutely no circumstance should we be worried about sleet when it’s 10-15 degrees out at start time. We’re just not that good at this game, but it is nice to at least get a thump before the correlation coefficient posts go ham.

This is just preparation for the miller B on Thursday.

I want to move this panel southeast by 75-100 miles: https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=nam3km&region=us&pkg=z500_vort&runtime=2026012412&fh=30 I’d roll with the euro for the sake of cad, but the problem is clearly the track/strength of this low. Nam just slingshots that residual Baja low into West Virginia. Can see it on the 500 loop. Kinda surprising that we couldn’t have a more entrenched hp in place given today’s Siberia style weather. Guess it’s a nao thing. Still generally like the idea of 4-6” minimum for most, which is enough to cover grass blades (a crucial rubric in grading snowstorms).

Ok after analyzing the 6z euro further it looks like this is approx how much precip falls before the flip… https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=ecmwf&region=neus&pkg=apcpn24&runtime=2026012406&fh=39 If so, then that would actually be a legitimate pre-sleet thump imby. Surface temps in the mid teens as well.

This is looking like PA’s storm. Several hours of snow turning into sleet is definitely not what I signed up for. Hope that’s not the final outcome because it would be stupid after all this tracking lol. All these northern stream systems and hardly anything in the way of clippers that give us those 1-3/2-4” events is a serious hint as to why we’re struggling to get flush hits here. Maybe it really comes down to a lack of downstream blocking/-nao.

Meh lol. I mean I don’t like when we get our skunk winters, but I’d rather it be a normal one. There’s a reason I don’t live in Chicago.

The upcoming forecast is starting to give off winter ‘94 vibes. Brutally cold for week’s at a time. Feb ‘94 gets mentioned because we were supposed to get a snowstorm, but there was a sneaky warm layer that gave us several inches of pure sleet from start to finish.

I can’t say I’m too excited about next week’s temp forecast. Think I’ll be ready for spring soon.

I like when the world’s best model shows up to 10” of snow imby

Yea I noticed that on recent runs…you can basically follow the lobe of energy from the Baja low and that’s the driving force behind the potential changeover. WV loop is gonna blossom on Sunday once that piece gets near…just gotta see whether it’s too much of a good thing.

It's gonna snow and there's nothing we can do about it.