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Feb 18/19 Disco/Obs


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27 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I’ll have to go back through my records but this might be the greatest disparity between my area and DCA/BWI ever. I’m at 45” now and very likely not done. I don’t think there was ever a 50”+ winter here that DC or BWI was in the single digits.  The thing is the results here match the pattern WAY better then the results along 95.  My opinion on what’s partially at play is well known. 

Dang! Have me beat by 3.5”! That extra 400 feet doe

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Just got back home near Vienna.  Got called into work late morning out by IAD.  The sleet had just about stopped when I left home and the side roads were meahhh... but definitely passable.  The toll road and 28 were mainly just wet with some strips here and there, and still are.  

The issues were ramps to and from the toll road and 28 and side roads.  The ramps were barely cleared in places.  At side intersections the plow drivers just plowed across the intersection creating thick berms of snow that would be difficult to negotiate, especially for smaller vehicles.  

In "normal" areas of the US that routinely get snow they have 2 teams of plows.  One team of larger trucks that does the main plowing and a second team of smaller more maneuverable plows that follow the main teams and clean up the intersections.  Of course that seems to be an absent concept in the WMA.  

Got behind one plow train on 28 and it was obvious many of the plow drivers have not have much training or experience.  Growing up in Ohio the plow drivers got a lot of practice every winter.  Suspect many of the plow drivers around here have not been as fortunate.

On the way home there was another plow train waiting along the side of the road near the main Toll plaza by IAD.  There were more plows than there were vehicles on the toll road.  Just sitting...  waiting...  and getting paid...  to wait...    

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25 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

You beat me by 0.8”! 
 

Actually, that sounding looked exactly as predicted by the models yesterday afternoon. I checked... maybe even better since IAD sounding was actually drier in the warm layer. Figured that would easily wet bulb below freezing for our snow thump. Obviously that didn’t work out.

I honestly think it was more a failure of where that band set up then the warm layer. I mean the fact that weak layer was there hurt of course but we knew it was. Had the band of steady heavy precip that set to from Winchester to me been along 95 like all guidance said I bet they get a couple inches of snow before the mid level warmth got too bad then tank on a couple inches of sleet snow mix later. Instead the banding set up NW and you dry slotted while the warm layer moved in unimpeded then had to try to mix it out when heavier precip did move in.  That didn’t work. 
 

One of the most disappointing aspects though, and more evidence that whole specific discreet details for each event contributed there is definitely a larger factor with its thumb on the scale, is how this storm did get suppressed WAY more then I thought it would and it STILL did DC no good. Maybe I should have been worried about suppression because only about 25 miles north of me in PA their saying “where did all the precip go I got 2” what happened to the 6-12 all guidance showed for the last week” lol. I was 20 miles from being fringed and 10 miles the other way from a fail due to mixing!  That kind of thing seems to be a theme way too often.  This is the 3rd time this season alone I was on the northern fringe of a snowstorm and DC couldn’t cash in.  That’s not normal historically!  

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2 minutes ago, RevWarReenactor said:

i think the DC/Baltimore Corridor boils down to very bad luck.

Monmouth County NJ on the beach, doesn't have substantially any different climo than DC/Baltimore. Mon County are sitting at 40 inches for the year. As an example The NWS called for 6 inches in Monmouth County with today's storm and 6 inches about the same for Baltimore. The result: inch of sleet in Balimore, 9 inches in Monmouth County of Snow. That seems like nothing more than just a really bad luck period?

 

 

Yep. Seasonal averages are just that… averages. I know every storm is different, but there is something to be said about it “snowing where it wants to snow” during a particular season. This season happens to be for the Northern mid Atlantic and southern New England. South/Central PA over to NJ, the greater NYC metro and coastal New England. Aka Miller B city. Up here in Northern MD, as well as extreme N VA and N WV, we got extremely lucky to get in on the southern axis of that jackpot area all season long. I remember plenty of winters in the early 2010’s where all it wanted was to snow along 95 and points east. NYC LI coastal NJ and southern New England (Boston) kept getting hammered while areas 30-50 miles NW of nyc got fringed regularly. 

As for the metros this year… that’s part luck of the draw, part each storm missing something key like a sufficient west coast ridge, a negatively tilted trough, a bad 850 low track, a nice HP in place up north, etc. Because of this, we had no area-wide (coast to the mountains) major snowfalls. Every single storm seemed like a nail biter as far as temps were concerned. As somebody mentioned the other day, it wasn’t a cold or warm winter. Our “cold air” was quite average and it showed when it came to storm time.  We did see a few ideal setups and DC/BAL just happened to end up 30 miles on the wrong side of the tracks.

Not exactly sure if it’s the elephant in the room moving the fall line farther NW, or just a series of seasons where NW areas got lucky. Who knows, perhaps next year ends up being a blockbuster season for the coast and starts a new trend in the opposite direction.  

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Just now, osfan24 said:

Getting some light mist/light rain outside and it's down to 27, so it could get pretty slick out there tonight if that's going to be an all-night thing.

Think you actually could flip to snow if a nice slug of precip makes it way in. That warm layer aloft is weak sauce now that the jet has long exited the area and could easily be overcome if precip doesn’t get torn apart by the apps 

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8 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I honestly think it was more a failure of where that band set up then the warm layer. I mean the fact that weak layer was there hurt of course but we knew it was. Had the band of steady heavy precip that set to from Winchester to me been along 95 like all guidance said I bet they get a couple inches of snow before the mid level warmth got too bad then tank on a couple inches of sleet snow mix later. Instead the banding set up NW and you dry slotted while the warm layer moved in unimpeded then had to try to mix it out when heavier precip did move in.  That didn’t work. 
 

One of the most disappointing aspects though, and more evidence that whole specific discreet details for each event contributed there is definitely a larger factor with its thumb on the scale, is how this storm did get suppressed WAY more then I thought it would and it STILL did DC no good. Maybe I should have been worried about suppression because only about 25 miles north of me in PA their saying “where did all the precip go I got 2” what happened to the 6-12 all guidance showed for the last week” lol. I was 20 miles from being fringed and 10 miles the other way from a fail due to mixing!  That kind of thing seems to be a theme way too often.  This is the 3rd time this season alone I was on the northern fringe of a snowstorm and DC couldn’t cash in.  That’s not normal historically!  

It didn't seem like a banding issue to me. This was all directed straight up I-95, and yes, its sleet, but its pretty juicy.

 

Meanwhile this same band hit up in Mon County, and spots there are reporting 9 inches of fresh snow tonight.

They have the same climo as down here basically. So they have 40 inches on the year, and here we have about 6 inches? That to me is just awful luck. That 40 inches on the season represents to me what DC/Baltimore could have had this year had things "gone a little different".

 

ugh.jpg

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41 minutes ago, Deck Pic said:

If they like snow, they'll never digest your sage lesson. I haven't been able to do it in 48 years.  

Lol.  As long as they get enough to sled, they're happy.  The last burst of sleet saved the storm for them.  That said, my youngest spent most of breakfast whining about what happened to the snow we were supposed to get.  I'm sure they'll both be crapping up threads on here in no time...

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Just now, RevWarReenactor said:

It didn't seem like a banding issue to me. This was all directed straight up I-95, and yes, its sleet, but its pretty juicy.

 

Meanwhile this same band hit up in Mon County, and spots there are reporting 9 inches of fresh snow tonight.

They have the same climo as down here basically. So they have 40 inches on the year, and here we have about 6 inches? That to me is just awful luck. That 40 inches on the season represents to me what DC/Baltimore could have had this year had things "gone a little different".

 

ugh.jpg

Actually if all of the cold air didnt get locked on the other side of the hemisphere for 5 weeks we would have had an incredible winter. We had plenty of storms. Just no cold air. 

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4 minutes ago, jayyy said:

Think you actually could flip to snow if a nice slug of precip makes it way in. That warm layer aloft is weak sauce now that the jet has long exited the area and could easily be overcome if precip doesn’t get torn apart by the apps 

That would be a nice way to touch up the snowpack.

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20 minutes ago, RevWarReenactor said:

i think the DC/Baltimore Corridor boils down to very bad luck.

Monmouth County NJ on the beach, doesn't have substantially any different climo than DC/Baltimore. Mon County are sitting at 40 inches for the year. As an example today The NWS called for 6 inches in Monmouth County with today's storm and 6 inches about the same for Baltimore. The result: inch of sleet in Balimore, 9 inches in Monmouth County of Snow. That seems like nothing more than just a really bad luck period?

 

 

Good to see you back. I dunno about the Monmouth comp.  There is some degree of bad luck here. Not denying that.  So your point isn’t totally wrong. But able averages across that country range from about 24-28” in most places.  I grew up in NJ. I would choose that area over DC or Balt for snow 9/10 times. 

8B7669BD-D921-416C-B3E0-F47A030BF2A2.thumb.png.544a9a3734df6379c2eaedf0f32aad66.png
DCs snow climo is similar to along the pink/orange line and Baltimore’s is closer to somewhere in the northern side of the Orange zone.  Those areas haven’t been doing that good wrt snow recently either.  Same sharp cutoff there too!

 

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55 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

It’s BAD here....freezing mist had coated everything in solid ice. No way I could get back up my 1/4 mile drive if I left. Cant even walk up it had to walk in the snow. Would have been better off leaving the 8” of crud all over it. Honestly. 

This. I cleared the driveway down to bare pavement that subsequently melted enough to get wet. Unlike many winter storms we get there was no big wind immediately after so the surfaces didn't dry. The result? It's now like walking on a solid sheet of black ice. It'll be fine once the sun hits it tomorrow but until then it's downright treacherous.

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2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Good to see you back. I dunno about the Monmouth comp.  There is some degree of bad luck here. Not denying that.  So your point isn’t totally wrong. But able averages across that country range from about 24-28” in most places.  I grew up in NJ. I would choose that area over DC or Balt for snow 9/10 times. 

8B7669BD-D921-416C-B3E0-F47A030BF2A2.thumb.png.544a9a3734df6379c2eaedf0f32aad66.png
DCs snow climo is similar to along the pink/orange line and Baltimore’s is closer to somewhere in the northern side of the Orange zone.  Those areas haven’t been doing that good wrt snow recently either.  Same sharp cutoff there too!

 

Thanks! Good to talk to you. Maybe we've had the snow climo discussion before ;-) So I guess I am just not right about that. I am not sure why I thought it was similar. Maybe living in Mon County in 2010 and watching DC colored my perception.  

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57 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

It’s BAD here....freezing mist had coated everything in solid ice. No way I could get back up my 1/4 mile drive if I left. Cant even walk up it had to walk in the snow. Would have been better off leaving the 8” of crud all over it. Honestly. 

We didn't get much, if any, snow but same situation here. Plows came through the neighborhood and pushed the 2+ inches of sleet off to the sides, but that just means the streets are a sheet of ice now. 

Some of that sleet they plowed ended up piled up 6" deep on my driveway apron, so I shoveled that to prevent a mega glacier, but left my driveway itself alone. So much easier to walk on sleet than straight up ice. 

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4 minutes ago, southmdwatcher said:

So the GFS is completely off it's rocker??? I had 1.5" of sleet after a half inch of snow and a tenth of freezing rain earlier, now we have the freezing mist with 28 degrees.

The GFS sucks but you have to appreciate it's commitment to the bit. It wants LWX to issue ISWs, lol.

1613768400-bOm401i86fY.png

Para is more reasonable but very likely also wrong.

1613757600-405OxiIzZOc.png

 

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4 minutes ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

What?  No de-icing equipment?

I thought about that lol. I wanted to get a low light low flight over the woods. I thought it would look cool. I didn't want to risk damaging the camera once I felt the mist. 

Getting really slippery out there. Jeb walking here soon. 28 degrees with drizzle. 

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