Boston Bulldog

Flake size increasing markedly in Boston as bands approach from both east and west

Rare fetch of precip for sure. Last time I can rememeber such a continental firehose was in early Feb 2022. Ice across CNE and an epic NNE burial thanks to three distinct overrunning waves along a sharp temperature gradient. Precip was stretching back to Texas. Sure synoptics are much more dynamic today, but I thought I would never see an overrunning event of that size for at least a decade. Totally agree with just how incredible the size is of this storm.

This is cope, many such cases of NAM excelling in these set ups. It’s probably a bit overzealous but this is a legit signal

Awesome, now let us know when the exploding tree temperature threshold is!

I’d lean Ipswich jackpot but it’s up to the direction of the fetch. You know you’re sitting pretty with historic ocean enhancement patterns

Feel like a dynamic hyperbomb is susceptible to ticks, attenuation, or extreme phasing. This event on the other hand is dynamics at its most simple… we snow and we snow hard. Does sleet get in, maybe? But how much QPF does it sacrifice? a couple tenths max when the DGZ sucks anyways due to dry air perhaps these model runs mean nothing to me. We’re pretty locked in

Highest upside SWFE (due to coastal hybrid characteristics) since 2/2/15?

Kinda meh in Boston

Had the privilege to hop around New England this past weekend to sample the Mid-January snowpack in various locations of NNE and CNE. We began with a Saturday morning in Pinkham Notch. Dreams of a high alpine romp along the eastern ravines of Mt. Washington were quashed early Friday morning as MWAC issued a Considerable avalanche risk for the zone, citing highly reactive slabs present across all easterly aspects. This elevated rating persisted into Saturday, and with new snow loading on the slabs it was clear the snowpack would be touchy. Nevertheless we decided to poke around the zone, test the snowpack in safe locations, and make a judgement call from there. Honestly I knew it was unlikely we would successfully push into the alpine, but saw value in dusting off avalanche safety protocols in preparation for future missions. Arriving at the base of Hillman's Highway we were greeted by hollow "whoomphing" beneath our skins, likely emitting from buried crust collapsing onto further buried layers. This was a sign that not only could a slide occur up high, but it could step down and release older weak layers deeper in the snowpack, generating a much larger avalanche. My party dug a pit, found reactivity, and turned around - opting for a scratchy but safe run down the Sherb. Good thing we turned around when we did. Just to the north Tuckerman Ravine came alive at around the same time, ripping a large natural slide under Chute which stepped across multiple weak layers... exactly what we were worried about. Our backup plan was to investigate the Gulf of Slides, hoping that the SE aspect was shielded from slab formation. Unfortunately Main Gully looked spooky and unskied despite several groups in the area. We backed off once again, this time enjoying a much softer ski on the dynamic GoS trail as a consolation prize. Later in the day the Gulf of Slides underwent a small natural Avy cycle, once again reaffirming our decision making. With the high alpine of the Presidentials a no-go, next up was an even more dangerous endeavor: Killington on MLK weekend Sunday. Ropes dropped for the season on the top pitch of Devil's Fiddle, offering boot top powder and pillowy drops through saplings - a welcome reprieve from the human slalom taking place elsewhere at The Beast. Solitude could be found on Monday. A favorite stash of mine, bathed in views of one of NH's most underrated monadnocks, brought some low angle powder turns (and steeper loud powder) just off the Interstate. A moment of bliss before I too had to join the holiday traffic conga line south back into the flatlands.

ALY radar is quite surprising. That burst of moderate to heavy over the capital district into SVT was poorly modeled

It didn’t initialize correct at all with the first batch or upstream radar

Dumping at Killington. This initial batch got a bit farther north than modeled

The aggregate trend over the past 24 hours is still really solid. Needs more work, but fast forward from 6z yesterday I’m sure most would take where we are currently

Man there is going to be an absolutely zonked NAM run within the next 48-72 hours or so

Longitudinal trends on this will be driven by trough dynamics rather than downstream features

Brief burst of snow in Central NH. Flipped back to plain rain in New London. 32.9

If it happens, it will not happen like that

LBSW

The cold trend continues at 0Z tonight for Saturday night. Net gainer for NNE at this point thanks to the emerging front ender. Don’t look at the cracked out NAM coastal run however, that seems like too much to ask for

Snow globe shaken in Boston. Big fluffy flakes floating upwards by the office window

Great to have your obs from the middle of the Upper Valley radar hole! Probably the worst area of radar coverage in a New England region of considerable population

Very dramatic difference

Paul operates on a different level than most. Was lucky enough to lead write a couple papers in collaboration with him... let's be honest the concept and research was fully driven by his vision. Come in with a question, and he'd counter back with ideas bouncing off the walls and 5 PhD disseration level questions

My advisor from graduate school has a fantastic visualizer of the seasonal cycle of the MJO its associated rossby wave patterns. Very easy to see the troughing over the eastern CONUS in Phase 7 out to day 30: https://www.atmos.albany.edu/facstaff/roundy/waves/rmmcyc/index200reg.html

Yeah that failed handoff is really weird and kinda implausible. The atmosphere likes to stray towards efficient energy conservation, the ping ponging of strengthening between the primary and coastal reflection doesn’t really reflect that principle. I would err towards the primary remaining the more cohesive entity given the modeled dynamics, at least for what the 0Z GFS spits out