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The March Long Range Discussion Thread, Winter's Last Stand


stormtracker
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18 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Eh, probably shouldn't be sweatin' minor changes, but since this is the last chance...I take it the cities would have to thread the needle with the Monday threat? I see the 0z suite so far is a snow n/w look, but...how much of a chance does corridor have for all/mostly frozen?

GFS only needs about 100 mile shift which is doable at this range.  18z GEFS had a number of good solutions.  

Unfortunately we need more than a small change from the Euro, which at 12z had rain all the way up to northern PA.  I’d feel a lot better about our chances if we could get the Euro to at least come close.  

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17 hours ago, MD Snow said:

The coastal that is beginning to be advertised starting Friday night into Saturday should be monitored for a number of reasons. First, It could surprise some people along the northern tier into southern pa  with some unexpected snow. See the 12k nam and cmc for reference. Second, it’s strength moving up the coast will impact our Sunday/Monday threat. The stronger it gets, the lower the heights and temps behind it and the colder our Monday storm becomes. I believe showme had a post this morning harping on the potential this had. Will be interesting to monitor. One way or the other we have a solid 10 day window with accumulating snow potential. 

Harping? I'll admit I chuckled when I saw that. Been called a lot of things through out my life most of which I can't post for fear of getting banned from this site. But Harping? I have to admit that might be a first for me. I'll try harder in the future to tone down my Harping. :D

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EPS snowfall maps are narrowing the goal posts for the Monday storm as well as juicing up a touch. Seeing a tighter gradient starting to show with areas to the North being favored. Including what we see this Friday and Saturday the snowfall totals through 12Z Tuesday are showing the 3 inch line cutting through DC and the 6" line tickling the PA line. The individual members are now starting to hit hard on a general solution (75%?) which favors the heaviest snows from the northern tier and north. 

As far as other periods of time. We are now seeing a very small bump up (.25" maybe a touch more?) for the possible Friday night/early Sat coastal for roughly Balt and north. The possible Wed storm is on life support as far as the EPS is concerned as we only see a very small bump up through that period of time as well. The full 15 days is not to shabby as it gets 4 1/2"-5 1/2" runs through DC, Balt with 6-7" and the MD/PA line is roughly 9-10". A fair number of sweet members for the cities but especially for N/W of them. 2 members are clocking in with 2' totals in the western burbs with 3' totals roughly western Carroll/Fredrick county and westward.

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Just glancing over the Euro for the coastal for late Friday/early Sat and though the surface doesn't really reflect it well (there was some marginal improvement as it is now more so downplaying a low to our west and strengthening the coastal quicker) we did see what I consider a pretty significant improvement at 500's as the upper levels are now focusing pretty hard on supporting the coastal as opposed to something to our west. We are seeing an even quicker shortwave moving in and the vort maps are more conducive for strengthening the coastal low. With the changes with the shortwave we are also seeing a better response with our temps. Really coming down to whether we can see the coastal ramp up quickly enough to impact portions of our region with meaningful snow as opposed to mood flakes or an inch or so before it moves out. 

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Looking at the latest EPS vs yesterdays 12z run and we can see the improvements we are seeing. Notice with the upper level support now focusing more towards the coastal we are seeing much weaker lower pressures to our west and a stronger and quicker developing coastal compared to previous runs. In response to the improvements with our coastal we are seeing a closer/tucked in coastal that is now moving northward somewhat before exiting stage right. We are also seeing a pretty good response in regards to our temps as well. We really aren't too far from a solution that might have a somewhat meaningful impact for portions of our region especially to the NE (NE MD pummled  :) ).

yesterday 12z

eps12zcoastal.thumb.gif.e4b9d657e54994bddb24b48f2f43167c.gif

00Z

eps00zcoastal.thumb.gif.1de05e1a5b78590f01a3871ddd3d4afd.gif

 

 

 

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Percent of EPS members giving College Park > 1, 3, 6, and 12" of snow/sleet over the period ending at 7 PM on March 6th.  

The most noticeable change is the increase in the chances of > 6" (mentioned by Showmethesnow above).  Pretty solid N-S gradient on the 6" chances:

20% for College Park; 40% for Westminster, MD; 64% for York, PA (hopefully I have the station names correct)

 

Slide1.jpeg.0aca6b9087a600da91c4808b043b6fc1.jpeg

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EPS improved once again in regards to the setup at 500s for our Monday storm. Though this should be a somewhat quick hitting storm and not a lollygagger I would not be surprised if we end up seeing a strip northwest of the boundary, deep enough in the cold where the better ratios setup, that we see 1'  to 1 1/2' of snow. The million dollar question is, where does that boundary setup? Looking at the changes at 500's I saw +'s and -'s for shifting it in either direction. Don't think anyone in our region is out of the picture at this time for seeing at least some snow, but I would say that for any significant snow to the N and W of the cities is probably heavily favored at this time as most models already suggest. That said, we really need to see what the models do with out Sat coastal before I would get heavily invested in any one solution on the models. 

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16 minutes ago, DCTeacherman said:

Interesting how the EPS seems to be improving but the op is not.  6z Euro looks ugly again with the low in WV and the rain/snow line way north. 

Maybe I am just thinking wrong or even pulling a page out of the weenie handbook but hasn't the Euro had a tendency this winter to pull the storm track somewhat south and eastward in the mid and short range vs in the other direction? Feel free to call me out if this is not the case. 

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42 minutes ago, showmethesnow said:

Maybe I am just thinking wrong or even pulling a page out of the weenie handbook but hasn't the Euro had a tendency this winter to pull the storm track somewhat south and eastward in the mid and short range vs in the other direction? Feel free to call me out if this is not the case. 

I don't think you are wrong. It has deviated from its ensembles significantly in the medium range many times this winter with regard to track is my recall also. Not saying it is wrong here, but the EPS being so different makes the OP feel like an outlier at the moment.

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48 minutes ago, showmethesnow said:

Maybe I am just thinking wrong or even pulling a page out of the weenie handbook but hasn't the Euro had a tendency this winter to pull the storm track somewhat south and eastward in the mid and short range vs in the other direction? Feel free to call me out if this is not the case. 

The Euro did the same thing in other years- I remember particularly this specifically in 2015. Had snow often in the long range, took it away in the medium, and brought it back in the short range. 

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1 hour ago, showmethesnow said:

Maybe I am just thinking wrong or even pulling a page out of the weenie handbook but hasn't the Euro had a tendency this winter to pull the storm track somewhat south and eastward in the mid and short range vs in the other direction? Feel free to call me out if this is not the case. 

I don't know about this year but over the past several years since the major resolution upgrade it has over amped systems in the medium range a few times.  It lead to a lot of false alarms during the double nina years.  

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1 hour ago, showmethesnow said:

Definitely getting some weenie runs thrown into the mix the last few days from both the EPS and the GEFS. Also like the fact that they both are now seeing opportunities beyond Wed. Guess we will see. :) 

I think we do have a chance at something with those west to east waves around day 8-12.  It depends on timing with the highs across the north but the setup isn't bad.  After that our window probably starts to close.  

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26 minutes ago, AfewUniversesBelowNormal said:

Record for the year? Seasons like this sneak up on you at the end when the wavelengths change. 

I will say this... there is some history to years with "nina" type pacific jet tendencies suddenly turning cold/snowy in March.  Happened last year, happened to a lesser extent the year before, 2009, 1999.  There is some tendency to the shortening of the wavelengths to suddenly mute the negative impacts of the pacific jet and allow a strong finish to some otherwise bad years.  This year wasn't as bad going into March but there are SOME similarities.  

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13 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I will say this... there is some history to years with "nina" type pacific jet tendencies suddenly turning cold/snowy in March.  Happened last year, happened to a lesser extent the year before, 2009, 1999.  There is some tendency to the shortening of the wavelengths to suddenly mute the negative impacts of the pacific jet and allow a strong finish to some otherwise bad years.  This year wasn't as bad going into March but there are SOME similarities.  

Ah yes, now March 2009 I remember...that storm that came the first week of that month kinda overperformed, didn't it? (Think we got like 5 inches in Baltimore!)

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