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February 12-13 Storm, Part II


stormtracker

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How does it compare to the Euro operational run? More or less the same? Good to know the 850-mb track has a good look for us.

SLP track inside of OBX. Basically over eastern NC but west of the sounds. Then up to just off of ACY (50-100 miles) and probably right over cape cod/eastern mass.

The worst 850 temp panel (72 hrs) looks status quo. Freezing line just west of 95 in md. About the same as last night. Overall there is little change between the last 2 ensemble suites except the latest is wetter.

I simply can't imagine the euro and its ensembles busting so horribly at this range and shifting to a gfs solution. Maybe the super wet doesn't verify but even shaving almost 30% give us 1" qpf.

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SLP track inside of OBX. Basically over eastern NC but west of the sounds. Then up to just off of ACY (50-100 miles) and probably right over cape cod/eastern mass.

The worst 850 temp panel (72 hrs) looks status quo. Freezing line just west of 95 in md. About the same as last night. Overall there is little change between the last 2 ensemble suites except the latest is wetter.

I simply can't imagine the euro and its ensembles busting so horribly at this range and shifting to a gfs solution. Maybe the super wet doesn't verify but even shaving almost 30% give us 1" qpf.

The Euro can be too amped a few days out, but I don't recall it backing down too much in terms of precip if it's consistently showing a precip bomb within the 3-day range. 

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The most salient recent post was the one from ion showing the rate of return for 10 inch snows at dca over the last few hundred years. They are very rare. Burden of proof is on the anti-climo solutions....pretty much everything except the gfs.

I think you kind of missed the point of that graphic--- it was in his article to show that while it's been harder to get accumulating snows in DC recently, that's not been the case at all for the 10"+ snows. 

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The most salient recent post was the one from ion showing the rate of return for 10 inch snows at dca over the last few hundred years. They are very rare. Burden of proof is on the anti-climo solutions....pretty much everything except the gfs.

 

31 times in 126 years isn't really "very rare".  And I'm guessing that if you started with times that we've seen the current setup 60 hours out as your denominator, the % likelihood goes up from there.

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The Euro can be too amped a few days out, but I don't recall it backing down too much in terms of precip if it's consistently showing a precip bomb within the 3-day range.

Yes, but isn't it crazy that the ensemble suite virtually unanimously supports it? I know the op can be amped. You would think that 50 members would smooth the bias to a noticeable point with this storm. But I'm not seeing that at all. I see 47 members agreeing almost wholesale with some spread in track of course.

Euro op closes off h5 far before any other model. I see that as a bit suspect but could be right. I'm waiting for the gfs to close h5 somewhere south or southeast of us. I thought it would happen in some fashion @ 18z but it didn't. If it does, the drier solution is going to change in a hurry.

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Thanks Wes.  Will the models have better data for the 0z runs?

 

Like stated, the northern stream piece won't be sampled well by raob and/or aircraft until 12Z tomorrow.  Once it comes onshore, lots of flights out of Seattle-Tacoma to get aircraft soundings in addition to the PacNW raob sites.

 

The southern stream piece should be pretty well sampled already as it's over the desert SW.

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I think you kind of missed the point of that graphic--- it was in his article to show that while it's been harder to get accumulating snows in DC recently, that's not been the case at all for the 10"+ snows.

It's pretty hard to get a 10 inch + snow at dca...this is as likely to whiff or have significant mixing issues as anything.

Gfs could be right, or the warm layer could be underdone on the snowy simulations.

Significant or historic storms are rare by definition.

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Yes, but isn't it crazy that the ensemble suite virtually unanimously supports it? I know the op can be amped. You would think that 50 members would smooth the bias to a noticeable point with this storm. But I'm not seeing that at all. I see 47 members agreeing almost wholesale with some spread in track of course.

Euro op closes off h5 far before any other model. I see that as a bit suspect but could be right. I'm waiting for the gfs to close h5 somewhere south or southeast of us. I thought it would happen in some fashion @ 18z but it didn't. If it does, the drier solution is going to change in a hurry.

There have been recent examples where the Euro insisted on a super-wet solution that the GFS took forever to latch onto-- the great New England blizzard last February, for example. Remember how people in here were kind of happy when the GFS came in way drier for Boston for run after run while the Euro and NAM showed historic liquid amounts?

The track and strength of the low on today's GFS runs are not bad for heavy precip- it's just not showing up verbatim yet. Obviously all the caution applies-- this *could* be a weirdly dry storm. It's happened before-- Miller A on 2/28/05 looked amazing as the precip headed into VA, but then became a disorganized mess by the time it reached the DC area and didn't get going until hours later. That one had a Great Lakes low to muck it up...

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Like stated, the northern stream piece won't be sampled well by raob and/or aircraft until 12Z tomorrow. Once it comes onshore, lots of flights out of Seattle-Tacoma to get aircraft soundings in addition to the PacNW raob sites.

The southern stream piece should be pretty well sampled already as it's over the desert SW.

Thank you. By that time how much would it matter irt current model output? Going from 12 to 2 inches, or whatever the GFS spit out, is quite a turn around.

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Exactly! I remember living through the January 1978 blizzard in northeast Ohio, and that was a triple-phaser. Central pressure as that bomb literally went over KCLE was 957-mb, severe cold and blizzard conditions as the temperature dropped some 30 degrees in less than 2 hours, remaining around 10 or just below the rest of the day. The wind/arctic front literally blasted through. I think that's the last triple phasing storm before the 1993 Superstorm (and the Ohio one was obviously not on the East Coast). A truly rare and spectacular event.

I was 7 yrs old living in Toledo during that storm, totally insane, first time I experienced thundersnow, Nat'l Guard put out the call for people w/ snowmobiles to assist them, 15 ft snow drifts along the roadside for days afterward. Prob what made me a weenie today. Sorry for OT, back to the great analysis. Cheers!

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SLP track inside of OBX. Basically over eastern NC but west of the sounds. Then up to just off of ACY (50-100 miles) and probably right over cape cod/eastern mass.

The worst 850 temp panel (72 hrs) looks status quo. Freezing line just west of 95 in md. About the same as last night. Overall there is little change between the last 2 ensemble suites except the latest is wetter.

I simply can't imagine the euro and its ensembles busting so horribly at this range and shifting to a gfs solution. Maybe the super wet doesn't verify but even shaving almost 30% give us 1" qpf.

Earthlight over in the NY forum said more than 15 ensemble members take the slp west of OC then bend it back NE once past ACY

if that's the case, isn't that skewing the mean west (meaning further east likelihood), or are there just as many members that are farther east like the GFS?

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Earthlight over in the NY forum said more than 15 ensemble members take the slp west of OC then bend it back NE once past ACY

if that's the case, isn't that skewing the mean west (meaning further east likelihood), or are there just as many members that are farther east like the GFS?

 

Here ya go. Most exactly the same as OP or west. Only a few (under 5) east and drier. 

 

 

post-959-0-56337500-1392076948_thumb.png

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I can think of 3 storms since 1960 that gave DCA 8" or more and MRB finished with less than 8." 2/4/96, the second January storm in '87, and Dec 1966. Makes me very suspicious of these GFS solutions that nail DC and leave us out up here.

Well, let me make you even more suspicious by eliminating 2 from your list-- 2/96 was definitely not one storm. There was an 8-12 hour break between the two events. 12/66 didn't reach 8" at DCA. 

But, the GFS isn't really nailing DC either.... 

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thanks, but I was wondering if anyone has seen the ensemble spread of slp tracks?

I don't think any pay sites have individual member surface panels. At least none that I know of. And it would probably be in my best interests to never have access to them. Adding 51 new panels to stare at may send me over the edge.

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Mean at hr 72 and 84. People can draw their own conclusions. Looks pretty tight to me. 

 

 

 

 

Can you explain the ensemble maps on WxBell for the Euro?  When I log into WxBell and look at them, I don't understand the colors on this map. Does it represent the spread of the members, similar to the SREFs?  Thanks.

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Can you explain the ensemble maps on WxBell for the Euro?  When I log into WxBell and look at them, I don't understand the colors on this map. Does it represent the spread of the members, similar to the SREFs?  Thanks.

 

Those are mslp anomaly maps. you can draw conclusions based on op runs. For example, if the op run shows a decent low pressure in lala land, the anomaly maps will look like a big broad area of lp. Basically a swath of blue with no organized contours. 

 

All they are is an average SLP anomaly of all 51 members at a point in time. The more support for single low or high pressure, the more defined it becomes on the means. When you see tight clustering of members it starts to represent a smoothed look of a regular op surface panel. Does this make sense?

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