87storms

nah, you did the right thing. the others started the derailing.

nam shows some upper level energy moving through from the northeast later this evening, so maybe that'll enhance another round of snow showers.

respectable finale here. radar still showing some bands rotating through clearly battling some of that drier air to the south. will be interesting to see how long that battle zone/pivot can hold. got a nice little stroll around the park in. sidewalks getting covered again. plenty of ice accretion has turned things crunchy here. snow on ice on snow.

looks like mostly snow here now, albeit light/steady. radar still a bit spotty, but it's gametime for sure.

flakes are mixing in bethesda.

wv loop is showing some of the colder cloud tops moving east. that (should/hopefully) line up with helping to erode the warmer layers.

yea, radarscope is good. i had to switch it to composite at times yesterday just to see some better returns lol. the new lwx radar isn't very inspiring so far. not sure what they're doing with that. someone had asked about finding a radar with a similar storm setup to this one...i feel like feb 10, 2010 isn't all that bad of a comparison at this point: https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/current/mcview.phtml?prod=usrad&java=script&mode=archive&frames=60&interval=60&year=2010&month=2&day=9&hour=0&minute=0

the 850 line starts to sag southeast again around midday per the nam. the soundings show a little warm layer there as well. can also see on radar how it's spotty when normally snow gives better returns. hopefully we can switch back by early afternoon because radar doesn't look that bad, esp further northeast towards the m/d line.

That dry slot today was just brutal. Can see it on water vapor all day and it barely moved. It’s even more pronounced now. I’m assuming too much separation between systems and just not an ideal trough orientation. I don’t think a lot of forecasters saw this coming esp considering we had a pretty legit air mass in place fully supportive of snow. It is what it is and there’s still February.

that drier air from nova through central md hasn't budged all day. actually kind of impressive. in hindsight, the gfs is looking pretty solid. it barely wavered all week and consistently had most of the energy further north. still think we can get a few hours of better rates here as things congeal overhead, but yea...can't have a primary that far north and west. if so, then a redeveloping low over the tn valley might have yielded a better outcome.

nam/gfs/cmc all show better lift moving in around 2-3pm. it can be seen on the 850 fgen maps. hopefully that translates to better rates.

water vapor shows that slither of drier air pretty well, but it's been slowly filling in. that might coincide with better radar returns as we get through midday. nothing really surprising about this storm so far. it was always a bit north for central md, but it's also reasonable to think the ccb could nudge further southwest. there's certainly time for that if the coastal forms further south or deepens quicker than expected.

Gfs is still a notch too far north imo for the 95 corridor (to alleviate dry slot and coastal transfer concerns) and has been essentially all week, but it’s close enough and there’s a snowstorm incoming. Gotta think that by tomorrow there’ll be more of a consensus of where the best banding will appear.

the latest nam is like most of the earlier gfs runs with the primary a nudge too far north. that seems to be the big player. i still think a coastal sidewinder is pretty unlikely given the trough setup (neutral/positive), but if h5 is just a little further south i would think that would result in a better latitude for the coastal to develop. feb 10, 2010 did something similar and the capture occurred just in time. still seems like that option is on the table for the dc/bmore/philly corridor, but maybe not hecs-like without a strong feed from the atlantic (trough going negative and a coastal forming off obx/va beach, for example).

on the flip side, there was a lot of irrational attention paid to the euro hecs/becs as well. it's just simply too early, one way or another. the only thing that's been pretty obvious is that we don't want the ull to be so far west/north that we end up with a dry slot/late transfer. i find 500 to be the best map to look at (as a hobbyist) this far out. surface maps tend to follow a sketch pattern as the event nears. that said, i'd be real content with a 4-6+" snowfall...this region could use it.

at a glance, it does look like gfs/para "ticked" south, but we might need that pac wave to take more of a southerly route. as is, the trough looks a little too far north/east.

yea, i thought the run looked better at 500 until that showed up. it's too early anyway for snowfall maps and what not at 6-7 days out. certainly looked cold enough. how strong is the primary, how much gulf interaction, trough orientation, where will the coastal form, how much confluence...too early. probably best to focus on the ensembles today.

canadian looks a lot more fun so far.

gfs and para both have the primary a bit too far north for my liking at least, but they both show snow...so there's that. i think we'd want the system to take a more southern route for purposes of coastal development. nice high in place, though.

Would be funny if euro is north. This gfs run isn’t impossible and still 5 days out, but can see that there’s only so much lat for this system to gain, assuming the blocking is as legit as advertised. Still trackable.

The thing that’s stood out to me even on the good gfs runs is that the flow aloft is a bit flatter than I think we’d like out ahead of this. It certainly doesn’t have that hecs look with a deep feed into the gom. Doesn’t mean we can’t get a significant snow but I wonder if a lack of separation from the first system is having an effect. As is, I think we can get by (and might even want) this to be a truly west to east system that favors our lat instead of relying on a wound up coastal.

the first storm looks like it would rely on cad holding on, probably favoring the elevated areas. the 2nd one might just need a storm...looks like plenty of cold air in place.

looks like a potentially decent cad setup on the gfs, especially if the track is further south. as is, it would changeover, but it's over a week out. definitely looks worth tracking.

this winter isn't even in the same class as 2014, much less 2010. in 2010, we had a pattern that was bringing nor'easters and increasingly cold weather beginning in fall '09. so far, this winter reminds me of a more favorable version of last winter, but still not enough cold (which can be seen by the upper level pattern for just about every storm we've tracked). this isn't scientific, but it does seem like it's going to take time to get from the warm/wet (record breaking at that) of 2017/18 to a pattern that brings sustained cold/snow which is why i've been buying into the posts that have mentioned late jan/feb. that just makes sense given that we've had practically no arctic air up to this point. i also think for this area it makes more sense to track cold/blocking/-nao/+pna/etc as opposed to storms. we're a precip town...that part is relatively easy for us, but the cities average a high of low 40s during peak, so we need help to get snow here which is why when you take out the outliers (the every 4-6 year blizzard) the stats are more realistic. it would be nice to just get a clipper/manitoba mauler at this point. someone had said those have decreased in frequency and it does seem that way, though that would also line up with just having less cold around as well the last couple of years instead of a digging northern jet.

haven't read every post here, but i'm not done tracking friday's system. it looks like it unravels a bit on approach, i'm assuming due to confluence/dry air, but that's a close call. january 2010 had a northern fringe system as well that surprised.