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March med-long range disco thread 2


WxUSAF

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The bonus part of this potential storm (as it looks right now anyways) is that any snow is going to fall on frozen ground with very cold temps. 3" in that scenario will look and feel far more significant than 5+ inches that starts as rain and finishes up with temps hovering around 34. Some people like blue paste bombs. I'm always rooting for cold smoke. Probably some sort of holdover from my years in the Rockies. We called normal midwinter  storms out there cold smoke and the wet spring ones mashed potatoes or grits. Cold smoke is where it's at. 

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2 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

The bonus part of this potential storm (as it looks right now anyways) is that any snow is going to fall on frozen ground with very cold temps. 3" in that scenario will look and feel far more significant than 5+ inches that starts as rain and finishes up with temps hovering around 34. Some people like blue paste bombs. I'm always rooting for cold smoke. Probably some sort of holdover from my years in the Rockies. We called normal midwinter  storms out there cold smoke and the wet spring ones mashed potatoes or grits. Cold smoke is where it's at. 

I agree with this.  3-4 inches of powder with a little wind and temps in the low 20s is a great event.  Of course I'd prefer 8-12 but hey. 

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4 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

The bonus part of this potential storm (as it looks right now anyways) is that any snow is going to fall on frozen ground with very cold temps. 3" in that scenario will look and feel far more significant than 5+ inches that starts as rain and finishes up with temps hovering around 34. Some people like blue paste bombs. I'm always rooting for cold smoke. Probably some sort of holdover from my years in the Rockies. We called normal midwinter  storms out there cold smoke and the wet spring ones mashed potatoes or grits. Cold smoke is where it's at. 

If I'm skiing sure. But I have a toddler who wants to build a snowman and have a snowball fight and cold smoke is pretty useless. Plus the wet snow sticks to all my pine trees and is purdy. And with more water content it will melt slower. Finally I'm on top a mountain so dry snow will sometimes blow into the woods and drifts and leave bare spots and I hate that. Snow is snow and I'll take any but love wet snow. The best is a heavy wet snow that has then freezes after. Get to enjoy it then it sticks around. Of course this time of year the sticking around isn't an option.  

I think I actually had more fun in the feb storm last year where I got 8" of heavy wet snow with temps aroumd 32-34 the whole storm then the blizzard. Then it froze that night and I kept snowcover  for almost a week. 

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Those analog maps are best used for potential and not accuracy. All its saying is that past similar setups have produced snow in the regions depicted. You can just look at the h5 map on the gfs and know there is a lot of potential. I'm sure mixed in those analogs are storms we'd rather not discuss though. 

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12 minutes ago, yoda said:

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Borrowing this from the last page on the now locked thread... how good are these?  Are they accurate?

I've used them before usually when we get a little closer. Just coming into range. They can be useful yes. But that's only if there is pretty good agreement on the general pattern. If the models are way off then the analogs are off. But I have found that they have picked up on the way the models will trend in the past. A few times in 2014 when the models were off from the analogs they trended towards them. Sometimes in a good way and sometimes in bad. Does that work every time no. Even within the analogs there is spread.

short version yes it's good they look like that and yes they have some validity. Does it weight over all else no but it's a nice sign. 

4 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Would love to see what those 15 analogs are.

I can probably dig them up give me a min. 

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  • WxUSAF pinned this topic

Only e2, e17 and e18 are good regionwide hits on the 18z GFS ensembles.  The rest are either whiffs or jackpot the climo spots and leave everyone else high and dry.  This isn't the dead of winter either...you need a thread-the-needle setup or else it's going to be 34 and SN- at DCA the whole time.

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17 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Those analog maps are best used for potential and not accuracy. All its saying is that past similar setups have produced snow in the regions depicted. You can just look at the h5 map on the gfs and know there is a lot of potential. I'm sure mixed in those analogs are storms we'd rather not discuss though. 

I agree to use them with caution but that list is wow. It says to me this has room to trend more amplified. Many of the storms on that list were monsters. 1983, 1987, 2003, 1993 all in there. Plus some that were too amped and were interior storms more then here like march 1994. There are a few suppressed options though so that is a threat but that list says this has huge upside. 

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4 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Psu, I see your point but at least your little one won't get soaked to the bone on 30 minutes.  Also, a cold smoke storm in march will turn to mash potatoes and grits within 48 hours so there that. Lol

He has a waterproof suit but if it's too cold he can't stay out. This is all in fun I'll take any snow but I do love a wet snow. 

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3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

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thats a nice list. I'll take the top 4 please lol. 3 HECS and a 5-10" area wide storm in 2004.  1993 sprinkled in cause why not. 

1983 sure has my interest.  Of all the storms we talk about here ('93, '96, '03,' 10, '16), 1983 is one of only 2 (the other being Oct. '79) that I am 100% confident will never happen again in my lifetime.  Received 32" in less than 16 hours.  Temps in the low-teens with thunder-snow.  5"/hour rates for an extended time. No way that much snow falls here again that quickly.

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3 minutes ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

1983 sure has my interest.  Of all the storms we talk about here ('93, '96, '03,' 10, '16), 1983 is one of only 2 (the other being Oct. '79) that I am 100% confident will never happen again in my lifetime.  Received 32" in less than 16 hours.  Temps in the low-teens with thunder-snow.  5"/hour rates for an extended time. No way that much snow falls here again that quickly.

Last years rates had to be close. Some places bout your way picked up almost 40" and the bulk came in 24 hours. 

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