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February Medium/Long Range Discussion Thread


North Balti Zen

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2 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Second potential "event" snowmap.

gfs_asnow24_neus_23.png

 

Honestly, these are the kinds of events I love. I think it was two years ago, we got two 2-3"'ers basically back to back in late Feb. Someone might be able to pull off two good events in the next week, that's pretty exciting. :weenie:

GFS seems to be shearing this wave out and then giving a little space to amplify on every other run.  Certainly is worth keeping an eye on.  Not going to be a big event, but a widespread 1-3" would be the storm of the year...

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1 minute ago, MD Snow said:

Looks like the northern piece of energy is either further south this run or gone all together. That should be a good thing, right? 

It's there but it doesn't phase with the southern stream. Actually the GFS really strings out the southern s/w and so it's almost just an overrunning event (warm conveyor belt) rather than a wound up low with a well-developed CCB.  Not that I'm complaining about a solid 3-6" type event.  

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1 minute ago, WxUSAF said:

It's there but it doesn't phase with the southern stream. Actually the GFS really strings out the southern s/w and so it's almost just an overrunning event (warm conveyor belt) rather than a wound up low with a well-developed CCB.  Not that I'm complaining about a solid 3-6" type event.  

It was also slower with the southern stream and the ns outran it.

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17 minutes ago, PennQuakerGirl said:

So ideally, would you want that high pressure at [210] to be out behind the system? Or does that have nothing to do with this scenario?

You need to ask Bob or PSU or WxUSAF.  I just watched the amplitude at h5 and where the sw's were located.

Those guys are your source for expertise.

But, you mentioned the high pressure.  That's a surface feature and it's my understanding that surface features are going to be determined by h5 features.

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2 minutes ago, DCTeacherman said:

Good god yes.  Give me 4-5 inches of snow on Super Bowl Sunday followed by a cold shot and I'll be satisfied and ready to call it a winter. 

4-5 inches is definitely not enough to end winter around here.  Besides the fact that a good snow storm to me is over 10",  I work for Fairfax County Schools and we have 13 snow days to use!  Besides that, we have been spoiled the past few years and I'm getting used to big winters.  So I am going to be optimistic through the end of March and hope we end this winter with a bang. 

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53 minutes ago, PennQuakerGirl said:

So ideally, would you want that high pressure at [210] to be out behind the system? Or does that have nothing to do with this scenario?

Ideally if we want to be greedy the best storms have what we call a banana high.  The trough digs into the east and a system comes at us from the south with cold and higher pressure across the north locked in by confluence usually created by blocking over the top. Then as the storm comes up you get the classic look of the high bending around the system or the "banana" look. The most classic example.

IMG_0391.JPG

But most of our snow doesn't come from 20-30" ideal setups.  If we had to choose between a high in front or behind take in front.  We rarely do well with cold crashing in behind the system.  Sometimes with a good h5 pass we can flip and get thumped but more often it's a losing setup.  Needs perfect timing, a slow moving system, and plus as the cold advection comes in usually the winds turn to a westerly component which is doensloping off the apps and kills us.  We're much better off with a high in front and the system coming into it.  That's why getting lower heights to our northeast is a big deal.  That tends to create a northerly flow out of Quebec around the h5 low to our northeast and combined with the westerly flow as a system approaches creates confluence.  Air streams coming together or merging and that aids in supporting high pressure to our north.  That helps hold the cold in longer as a waa starts when a system approaches.  

Some examples of how we can score with a high out front and a system approaching as ridging comes across the Conus

IMG_0395.JPG

That was a system in feb 2007 that dropped 3-6" across our area despite a low up near Chicago because we had a high in front. Notice there was enough resistance to force the system to develop a triple poimtloe muting the waa surge. 

IMG_0397.JPG

that doesn't look like much but it was 4-8" in january 04 from another somewhat similar setup. No two setups are the same so be careful using analogs but they give us a general guide to how similar setups can work. Notice some similarity with the h5 setup below and this setup next week with the ridge trough placement and especially the flow to our northeast. 

IMG_0396.GIF

 

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24 minutes ago, PennQuakerGirl said:

@psuhoffman, thank you so much! Classical ballet major....not much of a weather girl haha 

@psuhoffmanI have a similar thank you, as I am a classical musician (not far removed from my undergrad degree) who also is learning a lot from your posts and others here as well. (Who says the arts and meteorology can't go together? In fact, weather inspires art and music!) Good to learn how things work in the atmosphere to form my favorite type of precipitation!

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