Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,586
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    23Yankee
    Newest Member
    23Yankee
    Joined

December 29-30 storm.


stormtracker

Recommended Posts

you guys north and west were never a big concern--i told winterwxluvr to go to bed.. it was really just the 'transition zone'. it's nice to see snow but the sfc temps still suck considering the outcome.

Well, accum is one thing, but several folks were talking about rain-snow mix or a change to rain. I think it was right in the end to dismiss those concerns. The soundings were marginal, but this is pretty near peak seasonal time to make it work and the airmass was decent with minimal winds. I think people over-think soundings or extrapolate based on reports from folks next to large bodies of water. It also doesn't help that our main forecasters here live next to the DC airport or on the Bay. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 1.7k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Precip type is fine, but surface temps are killing us. It is nice to see big fat flakes in the air, but they are melting as fast as they are accumulating. I won't be able to go above 0.2" with a straight face despite a couple of hours of decent rates.

i was worried more about the former...perhaps more than i should have been...if we had started when we were "supposed" to surface would have been fine imo.....starting at 10am with mixed precip and fat wet light/mod flakes with <0.10" at 33-35 was an issue...

I would have been more concerned about 33-34 at the surface if I knew we were getting a 90 minute event with no QPF

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There wasn't enough moisture available that it would have made much, if any, difference.

Well, yeah, that's the point. Had the snow hole not opened up over area we would have started as snow at 5 AM and this would all be gravy on top of 1-2 inches (less in the cities). Just goes to show we focused on the wrong bust factor for the past few days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

you guys north and west were never a big concern--i told winterwxluvr to go to bed.. it was really just the 'transition zone'. it's nice to see snow but the sfc temps still suck considering the outcome.

Yup. We've had a couple hours of pretty snow to watch, but zero accumulation to speak of (the best I've found is a bit of slush right above the windshield wipers).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, accum is one thing, but several folks were talking about rain-snow mix or a change to rain. I think it was right in the end to dismiss those concerns. The soundings were marginal, but this is pretty near peak seasonal time to make it work and the airmass was decent with minimal winds. I think people over-think soundings or extrapolate based on reports from folks next to large bodies of water. It also doesn't help that our main forecasters here live next to the DC airport or on the Bay. ;)

I've been mixed all day. not pure snow so again it depends on where you live. Most of us thought you'd see snow and so would guys out towards Leesburg. Except for the timing, I think the storm was pretty well handled except for the 2-4 over Ian's house that someone forecast.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been mixed all day. not pure snow so again it depends on where you live. Most of us thought you'd see snow and so would guys out towards Leesburg. Except for the timing, I think the storm was pretty well handled except for the 2-4 over Ian's house that someone forecast.

All snow here in northeast Md.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, yeah, that's the point. Had the snow hole not opened up over area we would have started as snow at 5 AM and this would all be gravy on top of 1-2 inches (less in the cities). Just goes to show we focused on the wrong bust factor for the past few days.

These are tricky "lessons" to carry forward though. It all depends on the handoff IMO. I was never really that worried about the column all that much even IMBY for some reason. If it's really close, as you note, this time of year will do it more often than not I think. I didn't see many models starting anything good before 12z here.. Even that might have been more marginal than we think given the potential bottom of temps based on the DP combo etc. It might have still started as rain before heavier came in so we would have still had wet ground to deal with. Maybe if it started at 4 it would have been better.. who knows.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Back end kind of just collapsed on you. Bummer.

I'm going to go back on what I said earlier, and record 0.4". I guess I was biased by looking out my back window instead of where I normally measure.

I don't think I can really count anything other than a T. There was maybe 0.1" on cartops but that's a bit sketchy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, we spent a long time talking about temps but they have been mostly a non-issue. It wasn't like we were 60 before the storm like sometimes happens. It has been cold enough for the past week with a good sun angle situation. We probably should have been paying more attention to the dual-low structure sapping our precip. Some were talking about that, certainly (Bob Chill for one).

It bugged me the entire time. I wanted to be wrong but having 2 relatively equal strength lows that close together and there is no way to avoid a "lift neutral zone" and that stupid zone set up right overhead to rob us the pre-dawn snow. That was the dagger of sorts.

And weakening of one and strengthening of the other doesn't mean the coastal sucks all the energy and moisture from the dying low across our area either. They weaken and strengthen in their own space. I know you know this but many try to extrapolate radar in these scenarios and that's dangerous analysis. The weak spot in the middle (us) gets hosed no matter which way you slice it.

I was bearish yesterday at least. It never looked like things would go our way. It is what it is though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

These are tricky "lessons" to carry forward though. It all depends on the handoff IMO. I was never really that worried about the column all that much even IMBY for some reason. If it's really close, as you note, this time of year will do it more often than not I think. I didn't see many models starting anything good before 12z here.. Even that might have been more marginal than we think given the potential bottom of temps based on the DP combo etc. It might have still started as rain before heavier came in so we would have still had wet ground to deal with. Maybe if it started at 4 it would have been better.. who knows.

you can't start at 38 degrees for a 90 minute event during the day with rate dependent precip type....a longer event (6-8 hr) with an evolution, and peak and banding, 32-34 would have been servicable once you got through that 1st 60-90 minutes and got a coating down and got the temps down for a bit....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

you can't start at 38 degrees for a 90 minute event during the day with rate dependent precip type....a longer event (6-8 hr) with an evolution, and peak and banding, 32-34 would have been servicable once you got through that 1st 60-90 minutes and got a coating down and got the temps down for a bit....

Right. I'm just not sure we would have gotten much lower than we did regardless. Who knows. I don't think anyone particularly nailed it even if outcomes match some thoughts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

These are tricky "lessons" to carry forward though. It all depends on the handoff IMO. I was never really that worried about the column all that much even IMBY for some reason. If it's really close, as you note, this time of year will do it more often than not I think. I didn't see many models starting anything good before 12z here.. Even that might have been more marginal than we think given the potential bottom of temps based on the DP combo etc. It might have still started as rain before heavier came in so we would have still had wet ground to deal with. Maybe if it started at 4 it would have been better.. who knows.

I don't think the models ever forecast the column to be warm just the layer from the surface to around 950mbs and for this event, they were pretty clsoe to being right. Heck at 7Am, my temp was 37 so I would certainly have started as rain or sleet before any changeover no unless the precipitation came in at 4Am or so as I was 32.4 at 11PM but was 37 by 7Am and 38 by 8. The lack of CAD made this a different animal than the last one though if we had gotten .30" maybe temps would have been cooler because of the lifting, but then they may have been warmer because of the stronger warm advection.

I'm getting my last little snow burst.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It bugged me the entire time. I wanted to be wrong but having 2 relatively equal strength lows that close together and there is no way to avoid a "lift neutral zone" and that stupid zone set up right overhead to rob us the pre-dawn snow. That was the dagger of sorts.

And weakening of one and strengthening of the other doesn't mean the coastal sucks all the energy and moisture from the dying low across our area either. They weaken and strengthen in their own space. I know you know this but many try to extrapolate radar in these scenarios and that's dangerous analysis. The weak spot in the middle (us) gets hosed no matter which way you slice it.

I was bearish yesterday at least. It never looked like things would go our way. It is what it is though.

This was always a precip issue, for all but maybe those near sea level. That split line us up perfectly. If that ended up 50 miles further south, we'd have had precip much of the night.

We ended up better than I thought we would here. Seems like anything gives us a decent snow right now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think the models ever forecast the column to be warm just the layer from the surface to around 950mbs and for this event, they were pretty clsoe to being right. Heck at 7Am, my temp was 37 so I would certainly have started as rain or sleet before any changeover no unless the precipitation came in at 4Am or so as I was 32.4 at 11PM but was 37 by 7Am and 38 by 8. The lack of CAD made this a different animal than the last one though if we had gotten .30" maybe temps would have been cooler because of the lifting, but then they may have been warmer because of the stronger warm advection.

I'm getting my last little snow burst.

a wet 8 hr event temps would have been fine in my opinion...we all would have woken up to accumulating snow...DCA got to 34/32 after being 40 at 9am....that doesn't work for a 2 hour daytime event...though I did get accumulation here

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think the models ever forecast the column to be warm just the layer from the surface to around 950mbs and for this event, they were pretty clsoe to being right. Heck at 7Am, my temp was 37 so I would certainly have started as rain or sleet before any changeover no unless the precipitation came in at 4Am or so as I was 32.4 at 11PM but was 37 by 7Am and 38 by 8. The lack of CAD made this a different animal than the last one though if we had gotten .30" maybe temps would have been cooler because of the lifting, but then they may have been warmer because of the stronger warm advection.

I'm getting my last little snow burst.

Yeah, I was sort of thinking about the lower levels though again I didn't seriously start looking till yesterday. And yeah I agree on the more precip angle.. may have ended up the same. As usual you rise among most of the pack for accum verification. But, these are good learning experiences for those with less knowledge.. Of course folks like Doug K are back patting but he was sort of wrong with how it came together it just ended up matching his forecast map.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This was always a precip issue, for all but maybe those near sea level. That split line us up perfectly. If that ended up 50 miles further south, we'd have had precip much of the night.

We ended up better than I thought we would here. Seems like anything gives us a decent snow right now.

Yea no doubt. The slot set up perfectly bad for dc metro on particular.

That's why I was impressed with the rap and hrrr. Nam sniffed it well @ 0z and those others showed it well on various forms. I tossed the towel a bit around 2am. It became painfully obvious. You scored with the fringe of the primary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...