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#PD3Attempt#13since2003 -Tracking the threat of the Presidents day storm Feb 15-16 2016

Ji

By Ji,
in Mid Atlantic

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psuhoffman

psuhoffman

Posted
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Serious question. Has the Nam ever really been useful Bob? Aside from spiritual upliftings or pure comedy, when can it actually be taken seriously...if ever.

I'm not bob but the nam has some usefulness if it's used correctly. Identifying the exact track of a synoptic scale system at 84 hours is not one of them. Even short term that's not really a good idea. The nam can be good at picking up the potential for convective banding and other meso scale features especially in short range but it's often wrong on the location. I've found some use for it if you take it's idea for what the features may look like within a system then adjust qpf down and adjust location to match the usually better placement of features by the globals. The nam sucks if your trying to use it as a cut and paste forecast.
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Scraff

Scraff

Posted
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If I remember correctly, the NAM can be the model of choice for cad signatures every so often.

Cool. Thanks for chiming in. It would seem that's the type of scenario we are talking about? Though the high retreats, maybe we can hold the cold a bit longer.  Fingers crossed anyway. 

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mitchnick

mitchnick

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So what's the over/under on this?

 

20" ?

 

:mapsnow:

I know you're kidding, but we don't want a huge storm because the large scale pattern won't support one

we need an early, fast hitter to get our well deserved 6-8", then muddle through the warm-up in anticipation for a return of the final show of the season

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Scraff

Scraff

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I'm not bob but the nam has some usefulness if it's used correctly. Identifying the exact track of a synoptic scale system at 84 hours is not one of them. Even short term that's not really a good idea. The nam can be good at picking up the potential for convective banding and other meso scale features especially in short range but it's often wrong on the location. I've found some use for it if you take it's idea for what the features may look like within a system then adjust qpf down and adjust location to match the usually better placement of features by the globals. The nam sucks if your trying to use it as a cut and paste forecast.

Thanks PSU.  I get it.  Use it to get the general idea, but never take it at face value.  In other words use it as a mixer, but never drink NAM juice straight up.   ;)

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psuhoffman

psuhoffman

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I don't have my bible/ku book with me, I know major violation in winter, but wasn't the first jan 87 storm a situation where there was a lot of ridging to our northeast and that should have ended badly but there was enough cold ahead of it and the low started out far enough east that we thumped snow and by the time it warmed up the damage was done? I'm going totally off memory here so I could be wrong. I know the forecast was for a change to rain after only some snow where I was in nj at the time and it ended up just dumping snow then dry slot.

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mitchnick

mitchnick

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I don't have my bible/ku book with me, I know major violation in winter, but wasn't the first jan 87 storm a situation where there was a lot of ridging to our northeast and that should have ended badly but there was enough cold ahead of it and the low started out far enough east that we thumped snow and by the time it warmed up the damage was done? I'm going totally off memory here so I could be wrong. I know the forecast was for a change to rain after only some snow where I was in nj at the time and it ended up just dumping snow then dry slot.

yeah, that's pretty close to the way I remember it

I still remember Bob Ryan calling for it to change to rain and then he came on TV in the middle of it and said that it's looking now that it may not

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gymengineer

gymengineer

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I don't have my bible/ku book with me, I know major violation in winter, but wasn't the first jan 87 storm a situation where there was a lot of ridging to our northeast and that should have ended badly but there was enough cold ahead of it and the low started out far enough east that we thumped snow and by the time it warmed up the damage was done? I'm going totally off memory here so I could be wrong. I know the forecast was for a change to rain after only some snow where I was in nj at the time and it ended up just dumping snow then dry slot.

Yes. Wes brings up 1/87 a lot-- the 'no high storm.' It's little cousin was 1/17/08. 

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WinterWxLuvr

WinterWxLuvr

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I know you're kidding, but we don't want a huge storm because the large scale pattern won't support one

we need an early, fast hitter to get our well deserved 6-8", then muddle through the warm-up in anticipation for a return of the final show of the season

There's merit in what you say, but I'll be damned if I want another "possible" 0.25-5" precip storm.  Screw that.  I'll take rain.

 

I think there's a reasonable chance of a general 0.75" - 1.25' with temps cooperating enough to have a winter event, maybe not all snow, but an event.

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BTRWx

BTRWx

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Cool. Thanks for chiming in. It would seem that's the type of scenario we are talking about? Though the high retreats, maybe we can hold the cold a bit longer.  Fingers crossed anyway. 

It's definitely on the table, but not a given yet.

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psuhoffman

psuhoffman

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yeah, that's pretty close to the way I remember it

I still remember Bob Ryan calling for it to change to rain and then he came on TV in the middle of it and said that it's looking now that it may not

just thinking that may be our best case scenario in this setup. But fur that to work have to get the low to track just southeast of us. With nothing to hold the cold in a west track won't really work IMO but all that cold in front combined with some suppressive flow behind the clipper could help get this to start out far enough east befire it starts to cut up the coast. The nam for what it's worth is a good look at 84. That clipper bombs and creates the confluence we need to hold the cold in. It's the nam but at least the key feature that gets us to that look is in the short range now.
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mitchnick

mitchnick

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just thinking that may be our best case scenario in this setup. But fur that to work have to get the low to track just southeast of us. With nothing to hold the cold in a west track won't really work IMO but all that cold in front combined with some suppressive flow behind the clipper could help get this to start out far enough east befire it starts to cut up the coast. The nam for what it's worth is a good look at 84. That clipper bombs and creates the confluence we need to hold the cold in. It's the nam but at least the key feature that gets us to that look is in the short range now.

Agree 100%. Precip is not that far away and we're still -13 or -14C at 850. Of course, the Euro brings precip in when we're -12 - -13C so NAM is not necessarily in la-la land even at 84 hours.

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HighStakes

HighStakes

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yeah, that's pretty close to the way I remember it

I still remember Bob Ryan calling for it to change to rain and then he came on TV in the middle of it and said that it's looking now that it may not

 

 

just thinking that may be our best case scenario in this setup. But fur that to work have to get the low to track just southeast of us. With nothing to hold the cold in a west track won't really work IMO but all that cold in front combined with some suppressive flow behind the clipper could help get this to start out far enough east befire it starts to cut up the coast. The nam for what it's worth is a good look at 84. That clipper bombs and creates the confluence we need to hold the cold in. It's the nam but at least the key feature that gets us to that look is in the short range now.

 

The airmass we are going to have in front of this upcoming is much much colder. In fact the 87 storm was relatively mild leading up to the storm. Most were calling for a change to rain. There really wasn't a dry slot in central and northern MD, i think that was confined to areas to the east. Very cold air followed that storm. There was a storm in early Jan. 1999 that may be a better tool to look at for next week's storm.

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psuhoffman

psuhoffman

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Agree 100%. Precip is not that far away and we're still -13 or -14C at 850. Of course, the Euro brings precip in when we're -12 - -13C so NAM is not necessarily in la-la land even at 84 hours.

Something I've been thinking for a few days now about this type setup, usually where the best waa precip breaks out north of the low will do better then guidance suggests from this far out. The runs of the euro that start the waa west of us are a problem, but for instance last nights ggem that has it starting as snow all the way to Raleigh then blasts the warm later 150 miles north in 6 hours is kinda crazy. If we get the low to start out far enough south that it's snowing good from richmond north we will go well. By the time it changes over we would be happy. If the waa thump is aimed to our nw and were fighting over light qpf and the 850 warm layer is already almost to dca befire it even starts then we know it ends badly. Just have to adjust models at this range fur what history suggests will happen.
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