January 2026 regional war/obs/disco thread

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

26 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

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

Thanks friend. Lets get sleet to shatter their cruiser lights. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

5 minutes 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. 

Yea, need more phasing....as is, it's a moderate impact...maybe more if you considier the cold.

[Spanks45]

5 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

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

As long as I can measure before compaction starts...

[CoastalWx]

EPS AI bumped north from 6z too.

[ORH_wxman]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yea, need more phasing....as is, it's a moderate impact...maybe more if you considier the cold.

High stakes too...tons of moisture to work with in this one combined with the frigid cold dome which acts as a force for wringing out all the moisture. We want to get this one to keep inching north....you don't get systems like these very often. 

[Digityman]

9 minutes ago, tamarack said:

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

Heat pumps aren't gonna keep up with the upcoming cold that's for sure.   I am definitely not an expert in any way, but I've watched these types of storms over the past 14 years tickle their way up the coast.  It will be a little harder for you being inland, but I could see the coast's numbers start to tickle up over the next few days.  1-3; 3-6; 4-8...

[Spanks45]

Just now, CoastalWx said:

EPS AI bumped north from 6z too.

So minus a tick flatter/more squashed AI Euro, the GFS is sitting on an island at the moment? Just where you want things at day 5....any word on the CMC para? If anything just to track it and see how it does...

[CCHurricane]

15 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

EPS AI bumped north from 6z too.

did it? Looks to be cut back quite a bit from 6z...

A distinctly separate secondary low days later is what leads to some additional upside.

06Z

 

12z

[eduggs]

This looks like a good candidate for ocean enhancement in the favored spots of EMA and SE NJ. Pretty high potential locally if we can avoid the GFS-type solution.

[Cyclone-68]

Getting my hopes up way too soon starting….NOW

[CoastalWx]

12 minutes ago, CCHurricane said:

did it? Looks to be cut back quite a bit from 6z...

A distinctly separate secondary low days later is what leads to some additional upside.

 

I was comparing 24 hour QPF and it looked a slight bump north to me. I didn’t combine total QPF because there’s some stuff between now and then that could be noise.

[vortex95]

17 hours ago, tomcatct said:

That 83 storm was awesome I was down in Stamford Connecticut at the time .. that was  the most thunder snow that I've have seen in my whole life... and very heavy snowfall rates

That evening when I heard on the wx radio that LGA has TS+, I said, "no way it can be tucked that far NW and not get BOS!!!"

[vortex95]

15 hours ago, UnitedWx said:

I remember that storm well. A couple local mets were adamant that there was no way it would hit. I remember staying up and sneaking a peak at the 11 pm news. Hilton on channel 3 called the high to the north "the rock of Gibraltar" and would miss. What a great surprise the next day 

And it was quick hitter in much of  MA/RI.  I got about 15" in 8 hr in Woburn  Snow began not long after midnight and it was clearing out by 9am!

[CCHurricane]

2 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

I was comparing 24 hour QPF and it looked a slight bump north to me. I didn’t combine total QPF because there’s some stuff between now and then that could be noise.

Ah, understood 

[tamarack]

43 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

75:1 ratios?

Or cornmeal.  Jan 27-28, 2015 dumped 20" at our place, all at single-digit temps, and with 2.17" LE - a nice 9:1 ratio.  Stuff was nasty to walk thru, like deep soft sand.

[wxsniss]

Quick glance and thoughts, sorry if posted earlier:

• GFS / AIGFS alone in terms of timing of stream interactions, too little too late for SNE... can't be certain it's wrong, but I favor this having impact on SNE, and potentially very big impact if we can get northern stream interaction sooner rather than a later infusion of trailing energy at exit

• some similarities to Feb 15-18 2003 aka PD2 at H5... https://www.meteo.psu.edu/ewall/NARR/2003/us0217.php

• interesting that AI-GFS vs. AI-EC very different from each other compared to their strong consensus for Jan 18 event

• lost in the trenches of forecasting an upcoming event... this definitely feels like we're turning a corner in SNE compared to last 4 years

[Wolf]

I know its Tuesday, but ball park start time?  I'll be coming home Sunday afternoon with two coach buses full of 100+ high school kids from Hebron NH headed to Medway MA.  

[Sey-Mour Snow]

8 minutes ago, Wolf said:

I know its Tuesday, but ball park start time?  I'll be coming home Sunday afternoon with two coach buses full of 100+ high school kids from Hebron NH headed to Medway MA.  

Too early to tell, guidance hasn’t figured out which energy to phase yet, that will greatly affect start time.

[Damage In Tolland]

9 minutes ago, Wolf said:

I know it’s Tuesday, but ball park start time?  I'll be coming home Sunday afternoon with two coach buses full of 100+ high school kids from Hebron NH headed to Medway MA.  

Hand out beers to each student 

[Wolf]

2 minutes ago, Sey-Mour Snow said:

Too early to tell, guidance hasn’t figured out which energy to phase yet, that will greatly affect start time.

Figured but had to ask.  Thanks.  Time will tell.

[SJonesWX]

can we get a shift 50-100 miles north? asking for a friend me

[vortex95]

I did not read back on all the posts in the last 18 hr on the upcoming storm, so pardon the repetition or if I state the obvious already said.

First, "hope floats" for CoastalWx seems  to working.  He has consensus on his side at least!.  LOL

Second, wow, what a change from ydy on all global models.  The lagging 500 s/w in the Midwest is *much* stronger now, and complicates things a lot.  Perhaps this is the "English" CoastalWx was relying on for the TICK to the N?

So it may be the initial sfc low off the coast is more of a flat wave, and does not push the baroclinic zone too far offshore, and then rear backup upper-level support pulls things back for a new sfc low.  00z ECMWF was quite aggressive w/ this, but the 12z backed off.  GFS now flatter than a pancake, but GDPS and UKMET both suggest what the ECMWF has been doing.

11 of the 20 12z GEFS members show a hit for SNE.

So it appears it all hinges on what the lagging 500 s/w does in terms of depth and how far S it can dig.  You can clearly see the differences in the 138 hr 500H anomalies I attached from the 12z GFS/ECMWF/GDPS/UKMET.

Looking at the pattern across NAMR.  There are some problems.  First, the wavelengths are too long, and the western ridge much too far W.  Also, there is little in the way of s/w ridging in the NATL.  So the Midwest trough is more or less a straight shooter W to E.  It goes from positive tilt in the Great Lakes to neutral farther E, but then just stays neutral w/ the trough neither weakening or deepening as it moves across the NEUS.

Even so, that does not mean CoastalWx should panic.  You don't always need a classic pattern/setup to get a weenie event (see March 6-8, 2013 and a few others from the mid 2010s).  Slight changes can be huge in this case for sensible wx in a region/area.
 

[vortex95]

24 minutes ago, wxsniss said:

Quick glance and thoughts, sorry if posted earlier:

• GFS / AIGFS alone in terms of timing of stream interactions, too little too late for SNE... can't be certain it's wrong, but I favor this having impact on SNE, and potentially very big impact if we can get northern stream interaction sooner rather than a later infusion of trailing energy at exit

• some similarities to Feb 15-18 2003 aka PD2 at H5... https://www.meteo.psu.edu/ewall/NARR/2003/us0217.php

• interesting that AI-GFS vs. AI-EC very different from each other compared to their strong consensus for Jan 18 event

• lost in the trenches of forecasting an upcoming event... this definitely feels like we're turning a corner in SNE compared to last 4 years

"lost in the trenches of forecasting an upcoming event... this definitely feels like we're turning a corner in SNE compared to last 4 years."

Does CoastalWx agree? 

[mreaves]

1 hour ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Thanks friend. Lets get sleet to shatter their cruiser lights windows up to the VT/MA border. 

 

[mreaves]

12 minutes ago, SJonesWX said:

can we get a shift 50100-100 150 miles north? asking for a friend me

 

[Torch Tiger]

yeah, collectively let's all try our best to bring this one way north.  

[Go Kart Mozart]

1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

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

Question about that...single digits would put you right in the middle of the DGZ.  What does that mean...arctic sand or super-fluff?

[vortex95]

1 minute ago, Go Kart Mozart said:

Question about that...single digits would put you right in the middle of the DGZ.  What does that mean...arctic sand or super-fluff?

-12 to -16 C in the DGZ is key for the big dendrites, but where are the good UVVs and does high RH overlap?  It's tricky. I recall a long-duration event in Jan 1994 w/ sfc temps  in the single numbers at the sfc much of the time in ern MA, and it was largely sand.  I guess it can be *too* cold at times for fluff!

[Damage In Tolland]

https://x.com/ryanmaue/status/2013635515656921200?s=46&t=dhcbvkjmRcyBVQtDxJ3lRg

[40/70 Benchmark]

6 minutes ago, vortex95 said:

-12 to -16 C in the DGZ is key for the big dendrites, but where are the good UVVs and does high RH overlap?  It's tricky. I recall a long-duration event in Jan 1994 w/ sfc temps  in the single numbers at the sfc much of the time in ern MA, and it was largely sand.  I guess it can be *too* cold at times for fluff!

I wonder if CoastalWx agrees? I thought it was -12 to -18?