Winter Wizard

13/-7 in Natick. Visiting the area for AMS and family so this will be my first New England winter storm.

For once l’ll be rooting against the snow since I have a flight back from Boston tomorrow afternoon. Would be pretty fitting for my flight to get canceled or delayed coming back from a weather conference. Only supposed to get a few inches up here though so not worth being a weenie and rooting for a cancellation.

I grew up very close to the high elevation spot and in marginal events, there can be a significant difference between my house and ILG. Best recent example I can think of is 2/3/14 where I received over 4 inches and the airport barely got 1. In the last winter I measured every event in North Wilmington (2014-15), I received about 30% more snow than the airport over the season. That being said, I do understand @RevWarReenactor's frustration about the area because that area is often painstakingly close to bigger events but ends up on the wrong side of the gradient. @psuhoffman outlined this before with Miller Bs, but it's true for mixed events and southern sliders too. Mdecoy's situation is a bit worse than mine was when I lived in DE, but I still missed out on events such as 2/1994, 12/1995, 12/14/13, and 3/4/19 by maybe 20 miles. Meanwhile storms like 1/30/10, both March 2014 storms, 2/16/15, and 1/13/19 were advisory level storms while downstate and the DMV got crushed. Delaware is also pretty susceptible to dry slotting during big Miller As, which was most evident in the Blizzard of 2016 when NCC was a relative minima compared to the surrounding areas.

Annapolis, MD: 11/12: T 12/11: 0.2" 12/16: 0.1” 1/7: 1.0” TOTAL: 1.3”

Final total in Annapolis: 1.0” on the grass, nothing on the pavement. Right in line with expectations.

0.3 inches in Annapolis and ripping. Us Bay folks may cash in after all.

Just flipped to snow here in Annapolis with giant flakes. For the rest of you near the Bay, your time is coming shortly.

I'm just west of Annapolis and it's all rain here.

40/33 here in Annapolis. If i get an inch out of this I'll be ecstatic but I suspect I'll be on the wrong side of the gradient. I think my only hope down here is to get in on the IVT action. I see widespread 1-4 inches along and north and west of 95 with an isolated 5 inch total possible somewhere from, say, Germantown to Westminster.

This one has I'm sure been overshadowed by more recent storms, but 10 years ago today, this was an all timer for Long Island and the mid-Atlantic and MECS for NYC.

Annapolis, MD: 11/12: T 12/11: 0.2" (from coworker) TOTAL: 0.2"

Probably goes down as a T here in Annapolis. Had a very slight coating on top of my car this morning, but nothing on the grass.

All rain in Annapolis.

I don't buy the NAM verbatim (probably too dry), but it does show you how limited the window of opportunity there is for snow. Once that front moves through, dry air will rush in and shut off the precip pretty quickly from west to east. At this point, I think T-1 is a solid call for I-95 south and east. 1-3 possible in the climo favored areas with isolated higher depending on how strong the rates are.

Frontogenetic forcing on the GFS continues to look impressive. The 250 mb Jet steak is also sharper and puts us right in the right entrance region. I suspect we’ll see some pretty intense banding with this system, likely N and W of the cities.

I think what's important is both the GFS and the Euro (as well as ensemble guidance) have a strong antecedent cold air mass, west coast ridging and a shortwave tracking along and up the coast. The issue here is timing - if the system can arrive earlier and/or the high takes longer to retreat, then I suspect you could be seeing more favorable solutions. Lots to work out over the coming days, but for mid-December there are far worse looks we could be seeing.

Woke up to a wet ground. I'm guessing that band in NoVa died out before reaching Annapolis and/or temps didn't cooperate. Edit: yup, NAK and BWI both reported light rain. IAD recorded light snow.

Definitely the most unforgettable storm for me. It happened to occur on the day of my Bar Mitzvah and we always joked that it was a sign that meteorology was my destiny. I was probably the only kid not upset his party got canceled because he was so excited about the 18 inches of snow that day.

Last night's GFS was all in on the December '09 redux exactly 10 years later.

Nice little band of snow rotating into Cecil and Harford counties.

The surface depiction is just noise at this point, especially the GFS which had a totally goofy evolution. The features aloft have largely trended in our favor today in terms of seeing some front end frozen precip. The 500 mb vort depicted in today's ensemble guidance is close to being in a favorable spot for DCA, but would still need to be considerably farther south in order to get anything from the coastal. Otherwise, the best dynamics would take place farther north and it's a congrats SNE.

I wasn't alive for it, but 89-90 had one of the most dramatic pattern flips I've seen. Second coldest December on record in DC (-12.2 departure) to blowtorch January (+7.6) and February (+6.2). December 22-24 1989 was the biggest snowstorm on record for ILM and OBX (15 and 13 inches respectively) while our area was mostly shut out. We did have above average snow for the month but most posters would have been frustrated.

Vontaze Burfict got suspended for the season and Garrett's hit was undoubtedly worse. He should be suspended the rest of the season at least and probably the start of 2020 too.

We have flakes in Parole (west side of Annapolis)!

45 with rain in Annapolis. It'll be a pretty close call here for snow.