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Pittsburgh, PA/Western PA Fall/Winter Discussion 2022-23


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1 minute ago, Ahoff said:

Looks like Wednesday trended back a little colder.  The news this morning reintroduced snow, instead of yesterday's plain rain.

Euro is still holding onto a scenario where it isn’t complete garbage and we get decent snow on the front end, but we all know the warm air always comes in way faster than modeled.

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1 hour ago, TimB said:

3k NAM is probably the ceiling for the Sunday event. Drops a clean 3” of all snow, but of course that’s still in the end of its range.

 

NWS is carrying next to nothing and mostly rain. Is it over?

NWS always seems to be the slowest to update.  They don't really react to every model run.  Seems they tweak by day instead.  Maybe we wait to see from them.

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There are numerous factors now going against the midweek system.  Unfortunately, it is basically compound interest of the issues we've had this winter.

First, you have a +PNA spike and -EPO ridging all the way up the west coast.  Normally that's a good thing for us, but this is too much of a good thing and it creates a massive slope on the downside of the ridge.  That forces the low pressure down in the southwest to start strengthening too soon.  Normally, that low pressure would gain longitude before amplifying (think of a wave pattern that looks slightly more symmetrical).  Moving west to east instead of north to south.  Instead, it rolls up over the four corners which allows it to pull west as it typical in an amplifying system like this.  Second, we also have a pumping southeast ridge which is raising the boundary out ahead of that low.

If it wasn't for that initial Sunday system, I'm pretty sure this would be a big old Nebraska blizzard.  It would be possible to win in this scenario with a well-time TPV pass or an impressive -NAO block, but we don't have either of those coming along.  The results are, unfortunately, another cutter.  I suppose this can still change, it just seems incredibly unlikely given that the downstream affects can't overcome the pacific and other factors.  The Sunday system can't stall out over the 50/50 region and work as a crude block because - again - there's no -NAO to lock it in place.  Everything blows right on through.  That Sunday system also trending weaker hurts us, although that does give us a better potential on Sunday.

I thought the midweek system had better overall potential, though, and that's why I was somewhat rooting against the Sunday wave.  The Sunday system has a much lower snow ceiling, but I guess we'll take a 1-3" event given how the season has gone.

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2 minutes ago, jwilson said:

There are numerous factors now going against the midweek system.  Unfortunately, it is basically compound interest of the issues we've had this winter.

First, you have a +PNA spike and -EPO ridging all the way up the west coast.  Normally that's a good thing for us, but this is too much of a good thing and it creates a massive slope on the downside of the ridge.  That forces the low pressure down in the southwest to start strengthening too soon.  Normally, that low pressure would gain longitude before amplifying (think of a wave pattern that looks slightly more symmetrical).  Moving west to east instead of north to south.  Instead, it rolls up over the four corners which allows it to pull west as it typical in an amplifying system like this.  Second, we also have a pumping southeast ridge which is raising the boundary out ahead of that low.

If it wasn't for that initial Sunday system, I'm pretty sure this would be a big old Nebraska blizzard.  It would be possible to win in this scenario with a well-time TPV pass or an impressive -NAO block, but we don't have either of those coming along.  The results are, unfortunately, another cutter.  I suppose this can still change, it just seems incredibly unlikely given that the downstream affects can't overcome the pacific and other factors.  The Sunday system can't stall out over the 50/50 region and work as a crude block because - again - there's no -NAO to lock it in place.  Everything blows right on through.  That Sunday system also trending weaker hurts us, although that does give us a better potential on Sunday.

I thought the midweek system had better overall potential, though, and that's why I was somewhat rooting against the Sunday wave.  The Sunday system has a much lower snow ceiling, but I guess we'll take a 1-3" event given how the season has gone.

I agree, Sunday looks like 1-3 best case scenario when you factor in the very marginal surface temperatures, its likely to get above freezing so some will certainly be lost to melting. I'd feel a bit better about it if we could get a little colder for this one because it's awfully close to going the wrong way.

Everything with this upcoming window is about perfect timing of various features without a legit -NAO block or better placement of the ridge out west like you said. The Wednesday storm is still worth tracking though as small changes in the strength / timing of that northern stream energy ahead and the high behind that and even the ultimate evolution of the Sunday storm could be the difference between a driving rain storm and a front end thump to dry slot type setup.

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2 hours ago, TimB said:

Really starting to look like the window closes quickly again if the upcoming week fails us. Euro and EPS are already saying warm next weekend.

Whole thing is evolving similar to end of December, marginally favorable period followed by a stronger cold shot that's in and out. Gotta hope time of year helps change the equation to get a little more out of it.

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3 minutes ago, Rd9108 said:

I need some positivity from you! We good use our positivity to will this thing better.

The 18z GFS is fantastic! A nice little borderline advisory level event Sunday and a nice thump of very heavy snow at daybreak Wednesday! What’s not to love!
 

Better?

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32 minutes ago, Rd9108 said:

So this trended better for front end. Gotta see what happens with this one. High pressure helped this run funnel cold air and keep it in place. 

R5l3Xmi.png

 

It’s not a bad snow to rain to snow setup. Ukie looks even better for what it’s worth. Drops warning level snow in 6 hours before the changeover.

GEFS ensemble mean deteriorated from 18z tho. I’m ready to be hurt.

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58 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

6z to save the day, lol.gfs-deterministic-nystate-total_snow_kuchera-5663200.png.d014275e76ca3153844b3a255fed5a5d.png

GFS seems completely lost. It’s way out of phase with the Euro even a week out, and same goes for the ensembles. It’s been consistent with pushing an Arctic front through here about a week from now, and all other guidance seems to be warm for that period.

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19 minutes ago, TimB said:

GFS seems completely lost. It’s way out of phase with the Euro even a week out, and same goes for the ensembles. It’s been consistent with pushing an Arctic front through here about a week from now, and all other guidance seems to be warm for that period.

I guess we'll see.  Seems other places I've seen this cool period lasts until around 2/5, but I've literally seen everything.  Seems nobody knows.  GFS has been terrible, so I think we can safely assume 3 feet isn't happening through the 6th.  Nice to look at though.

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I have too much time at work lol

Tomorrow looks like 1-2 unfortunately and NWS has us at a 25% chance of greater than an inch.

Euro looks good for a front end thump for the second wave. Looks like it would be a 3-5 type deal. In this winter we would take that. Gotta see how this trends in the 2 days. 

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29 minutes ago, Rd9108 said:

Nws has us at .3 inches. Lol Tim you can be negative again this winter is garbage.

But there’s still Wednesday to hold out what little hope we have for this week and winter. Lord knows the GFS solution where it’s cold next weekend after a little clipper is being tossed on sight in favor of the euro torch by anyone doing any degree of forecasting, and it’s shown it for like 7 runs in a row now.

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1 hour ago, Ahoff said:

Ready for summer and constant disappointment of falling just short of 90 degrees 15 times in the season, lol.

Summer is easier to appreciate after a real winter and when there isn’t a 75% chance it extends deep into October as recent climo would indicate.

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