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March 6th Storm Banter Thread

Bob Chill

By Bob Chill,
in Mid Atlantic

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gymengineer

gymengineer

Posted
Posted

Only a few of us today were on WWBB for March 2001 but I saw your WSW's and March 2001 was 10x as bad. Models were spitting out 2-3 feet of snow with a stalled low sub 970 off the Jersey Shore. I still have my flashlight that I got for the storm that ended up being an inch of sleet. Comparing this bust to March 2001 is like comparing the Nats AA team to their MLB team.

I think this one's might be worse for here because 3/01 was slowly falling off the rails before the event, especially in the Mid-Atlantic (read John Nese's account in the Philadelphia Weatherbook-- really fascinating narrative of how the forecast progressed from an extended blizzard to a mess of an event with snow, then mix/rain, then heavy snow backlash a whole day later, but with second wave of snow never materializing)- whereas the incoming runs for this storm were getting better *as* the precip was starting!

 

If you read back, we were actually pretty pessimistic two nights ago when the warm GFS runs showed up and the 06Z NAM went north and warm too. We could have gone to bed last night expecting just a little bit better than what we got today-- what makes this one sting is that our hopes increased right into the last moment based on last-minute improvements in the models. 

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Rib

Rib

Posted
Posted

I'm getting by. With the above poster, no, March 2001 if you were on WWBB, the models were telling us of a storm that would give the snow amounts of 96 with the wind of Ash Wed 62. Sure the models were a bit warm but I still remember the ETA/AVN 2 days before and to this day even with 09-10, I still have never seen a model presentation like I did on March 3 2001. March 2001 is in a class of it's own. Also the area that was supposed to get that foot plus. DC-BOS at one point were lined up for 2-3 feet.

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I-83 BLIZZARD

I-83 BLIZZARD

Posted
Posted

It has been snowing almost all day here and some heavy bands rolled through. If this was not March with the sun angle packing the new snow, this would have been every bit as advertised. The major bust here was the wind direction and temps in the urban areas. We had snow here and a lot of it, but it never amounted to much due to compaction and the urban areas near the water missed out. When I woke up we had 4 inches, later it snowed heavy at times and all day probably another 7 fell but it simply could not accumulate well and kept packing itself. Out of about a foot of snow that fell I have about 5 inches of the heaviest snow you will find on the ground that continues to pack. Still a fun day, interesting storm, and a free day off to complain about it!

 

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32639942@N03/sets/72157632928428745/show/

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real

real

Posted
Posted

I'm getting by. With the above poster, no, March 2001 if you were on WWBB, the models were telling us of a storm that would give the snow amounts of 96 with the wind of Ash Wed 62. Sure the models were a bit warm but I still remember the ETA/AVN 2 days before and to this day even with 09-10, I still have never seen a model presentation like I did on March 3 2001. March 2001 is in a class of it's own. Also the area that was supposed to get that foot plus. DC-BOS at one point were lined up for 2-3 feet.

 

Not sure where you lived in 2001, if it was Philly,  think things were a bit different up there. I was near Baltimore, and think by the time the storm was about to begin, our forecasted amounts had already been trimmed cause the storm was now "moving farther north." I just don't remember another time like this where everything fell apart so quickly right on top of us. I'm sure there are other examples, but this is the most vivid I can recall at the moment.

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J.Mike

J.Mike

Posted
Posted

What gym said. I went to bed with mod snow falling, radar looking sweet, and the latest greatest models still pasting me. I woke up to almost no snow falling and an inch on the ground. I was shocked so I went back to sleep to the same scene 2 hours later. Dagger

I feel your pain buddy. But I must state now: You have been stellar during this crappy winter. Your analysis has been measured and thoughtful for an enthusiast. Also, your sense of humor has been most welcome on a board where most posters take themselves way.too.seriously. Again thx for keeping it real. And your take on Jebman was spot on! :clap:

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needbiggerboat

needbiggerboat

Posted
Posted

IMO March 2001 was worse in terms of the precipitous drop from expectations to nothing.  I distinctly remember driving through Arlington, listening to the talk of blizzard potential on WTOP.

 

This one had issues from the outset, but some in the VA area did fair to OK.  We got about 5 inches here, although I was expecting much more.  Got blue sunny skies in 2001.

 

Plus I've evolved to never think of any possible winter event in March as bust-worthy.  Anything that happens is an anomaly.

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gymengineer

gymengineer

Posted
Posted

Not sure where you lived in 2001, if it was Philly, think things were a bit different up there. I was near Baltimore, and think by the time the storm was about to begin, our forecasted amounts had already been trimmed cause the storm was now "moving farther north." I just don't remember another time like this where everything fell apart so quickly right on top of us. I'm sure there are other examples, but this is the most vivid I can recall at the moment.

Feb 2011 was the same thing except to a smaller degree-- iffy all the way up to the event until last minute improvements as the event was starting prompted last minute WSW's for the suburbs.

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ravensrule

ravensrule

Posted
Posted

Dec 30 2000 was also pretty bad. People in MD and parts of SE PA went to bed expecting 8-12 inches of snow and woke up to sunny skies with a bare ground.

By trimmed down DC was still in the foot plus region on March 4.

Yes that is the storm I am thinking about, I could swear it was supposed to be 12-18" and I woke up and it was completely sunny. I think that was worse than 2001.

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TropicalAnalystwx13

TropicalAnalystwx13

Posted
Posted

Current radar shows a rainy mess across much of the Mid-Atlantic. While some locations across western Virginia have picked up nearly two feet, especially in higher elevations, this has been a very weak storm for the region, especially for DC given the predictions.

 

And no, despite what happened last night (and the fact that I SHOULD for that reason), I am not here to gloat about being right. Winter weather is a hard thing to forecast.

 

Moving on though...

 

Philadelphia, Boston, New York are up for the snows next. Shouldn't be anything major.

What a bust.

But maybe there's hope...GFS ensembles through 16 days don't really indicate any permanent warmup:

 

l9xT7zH.png

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The Dude

The Dude

Posted
Posted

Current radar shows a rainy mess across much of the Mid-Atlantic. While some locations across western Virginia have picked up nearly two feet, especially in higher elevations, this has been a very weak storm for the region, especially for DC given the predictions.

 

And no, despite what happened last night (and the fact that I SHOULD for that reason), I am not here to gloat about being right. Winter weather is a hard thing to forecast.

 

Moving on though...

 

Philadelphia, Boston, New York are up for the snows next. Shouldn't be anything major.

What a bust.

But maybe there's hope...GFS ensembles through 16 days don't really indicate any permanent warmup:

 

1.  Saying that you should be gloating, but claiming you aren't still counts as gloating.

 

2.  You neither SHOULD nor COULD gloat about anything.  Your forecast for DC was 4-6 inches of snow.  That's a complete bust.

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dallen7908

dallen7908

Posted
Posted

One of the possible lessons to me is to be careful about drastically changing the forecast based on one suite of model runs.  The NWS gutsily had PG and AA county in a WWA yesterday afternoon despite some bullish model runs.  They then upped my zone forecast from 2-4 plus possible additional snow this evening to 7-12 for the entire event. They went all-in and got humiliated.

 

They always back away from storms slowly (they were the last to admit this storm was a bust), perhaps they should have continued to weight the past few model suites when putting together their final forecast. 

 

Another lesson is to view forecasts for record events with skepticism.  I mean we all were skeptical (with the exception of TerpEast and a few others) but perhaps we need to give climatology a non-zero weight for even 6-12 hour forecasts. 

 

 

Finally, I'm still impressed that this storm was sniffed out 8 days ago.  We've also had several clippers in the models 7 days out.  I don't remember that happening much 5-10 years ago. The details were wrong but still an impressive feat (yes the devil is in ..)

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