January 2026 regional war/obs/disco thread

[mob1]

12Z Euro gets the 0.5" line to around Boston and then westward a hair north of the CT/MA border. With ratios that's a solid warnjng event for many. 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

Euro looks more like uk and cmc at h5 through 102, not squashing it like the gfs.

[Typhoon Tip]

3 minutes ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Euro looks more like uk and cmc at h5 through 102, not squashing it like the gfs.

for some reason ... i feel better about this opinion coming from you than the representatives of the NYC law enforcement   lol

[Lucy Pull]

Euro a decent hit for SNE but lost the full phase solution like the AI Euro.

[mob1]

[CoastalWx]

We’ll take it. Different than 00z, more like Canadian and Ukie. 

[MegaMike]

I can't find anything operational for the Clankers (AIGFS, etc...), but here's RMSE (x) versus isobaric surface (y) for some of the major diagnostic modeling systems at forecast hour 120 (day 5), for the northern hemisphere, and for the past 31 days: 

 

The smaller the RMSE value, the better the results... So, if I had to rank them as an aggregate of all isobaric surfaces, it'd go; 1) ECMWF 2) UKMET~=CMC [pretty close] 3) GFS 4) JMA 5) FNMOC 6) CFS.

Let's remember weenies, this is for one forecast hour, for the northern hemisphere, and for the past 31 days. Accuracy changes when you adjust any of those parameters. That said, dabble with that if you'd like > https://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/users/verification/global/gfs/prod/atmos/grid2obs/hgt/ - it takes a while for the website to load on Chrome, unfortunately. 

[ORH_wxman]

Yeah the euro gets N stream involved but not as deeply as some of the other solutions. It’s not quite as slow. It’s still enough for a solid SNE hit but it left some on the table. But it’s more than enough to work with at D5-6

[mob1]

[ORH_wxman]

Bottom line is the OP GFS is on an island and that is a good thing right now. Every other piece of medium range guidance has significant accumulating snow into SNE. 

[mob1]

3 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Bottom line is the OP GFS is on an island and that is a good thing right now. Every other piece of medium range guidance has significant accumulating snow into SNE. 

There has been a bit of a trend on all 12Z models today of trailing some energy behind, but enough gets involved that we get a moderate hit. Still plenty of time for improvements. 

What's weird is that it used to be a very obvious bias of the GFS to eject energy too quickly, and the Euro tended to always bury it in the SW and leave it behind. It seems like lately the opposite has been the case. 

[Damage In Tolland]

Oh boy oh boy oh boy

[Spanks45]

1 minute ago, ORH_wxman said:

Bottom line is the OP GFS is on an island and that is a good thing right now. Every other piece of medium range guidance has significant accumulating snow into SNE. 

If we go back, even 2 years ago before the AI models started....We would be quite happy with today's results so far, assuming the EPS continues to improve. Impressive, Icon/CMC/UK/Euro all have heavy, accumulating snow with temperatures in the single digits, definitely has the PDII vibes

[weatherwiz]

6 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Bottom line is the OP GFS is on an island and that is a good thing right now. Every other piece of medium range guidance has significant accumulating snow into SNE. 

Not speaking for our region necessarily but I've found the GFS to really struggle in these setups. This is going to be like the 5th winter in a row with a major winter storm event across a large part of the deep South...IIRC with these previous years the Euro crushed the GFS, both in lead time and event evolution. Not sure what it means here exactly but when you see how the Euro tries evolving this later in the weekend, I think it bodes more well versus not for us

[ORH_wxman]

3 minutes ago, Spanks45 said:

If we go back, even 2 years ago before the AI models started....We would be quite happy with today's results so far, assuming the EPS continues to improve. Impressive, Icon/CMC/UK/Euro all have heavy, accumulating snow with temperatures in the single digits, definitely has the PDII vibes

The cold on these solutions is pretty insane. Euro has ORH in the single digits almost the entire storm. 

[CCHurricane]

8 minutes ago, mob1 said:

Likely increase these by 50%-100% for all areas in New England. Ratios should be 15-20:1 with temps ~20 or lower. 

[Damage In Tolland]

1 minute ago, ORH_wxman said:

The cold on these solutions is pretty insane. Euro has ORH in the single digits almost the entire storm. 

75:1 ratios?

[ineedsnow]

2 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

The cold on these solutions is pretty insane. Euro has ORH in the single digits almost the entire storm. 

we fluff

[weatherwiz]

12 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah the euro gets N stream involved but not as deeply as some of the other solutions. It’s not quite as slow. It’s still enough for a solid SNE hit but it left some on the table. But it’s more than enough to work with at D5-6

Verbatim I think the Euro has the look of what would result in  significant snow band well into SNE

[ORH_wxman]

Pretty solid bump north on EPS too. 

[JKEisMan]

Good bump north on EPS total QPF when compared to 0z.

[ORH_wxman]

3 minutes ago, ineedsnow said:

we fluff

Or we sand?

Cold doesn't automatically equal awesome ratios. We'll prob get good ratios as long as deeper lift gets into our area, but if we are pseudo-fringed, then it could be arctic sand. 

[tamarack]

43 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

whatever's the culprit aside, that's a major event in and off itself

It's maximizing potential given structure.   Perfect E inflow 850mb, over a 920 mb ENE frigid air mass, with 700-500 mb flow running up SW-->NE over a steep isentropic surface

You could produce a foot of snow out of a 1010 mb low and one closed isobar with that.  geez.  

Biggest snowfall I've experienced, March 14-15, 1984 (26.5") began at about 1030 mb and over its near-24h hour dumping, drifted down to about 1017.  To the north there was a very strong cold HP, don't have its mb but the afternoon high on 3/12 was 1°.  CAR 29.0", BGR 22.2".

From up here we'll be watching at a distance while feeding the woodstove.  -20s Sunday morning?

[Spanks45]

2 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

Verbatim I think the Euro has the look of what would result in  significant snow band well into SNE

hopefully not congrats Powderfreak....I definitely do not want sleet @ 12 degrees

[JKEisMan]

Must be some secondaries on the EPS because duration/qpf goes longer. Nice to see that as well

[weatherwiz]

Just now, Spanks45 said:

hopefully not congrats Powderfreak....I definitely do not want sleet @ 12 degrees

I don't think we would see any scenario where anyone has to worry about sleet. Any concern would be more related to subsidence 

[Fozz]

2 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Well, 5-7" is "significant", but I'm disappointed with that with 20" in VA.

But is 5-7” our ceiling or is there room for MECS totals here in SNE?

I get that the Kuchera ratios on the maps might be inflated, but still…

[ORH_wxman]

1 minute ago, Fozz said:

But is 5-7” our ceiling or is there room for MECS totals here in SNE?

I get that the Kuchera ratios on the maps might be inflated, but still…

There is definitely a lot more upside than low end warning totals in SNE. You phase in a little more energy and try to get that secondary cranking a bit more, and you could make it a pretty prolific storm. 

[Damage In Tolland]

6 minutes ago, Spanks45 said:

hopefully not congrats Powderfreak....I definitely do not want sleet @ 12 degrees

I’d take a few inches of ZR at 12 degrees 

[JKEisMan]

1 minute ago, ORH_wxman said:

There is definitely a lot more upside than low end warning totals in SNE. You phase in a little more energy and try to get that secondary cranking a bit more, and you could make it a pretty prolific storm. 

Yeah, crossing fingers but I think SNE is in a good spot for this one. We have a ways to go though, gonna be a fun one to track regardless.