January 2026 Medium/Long Range Discussion

[mitchnick]

6 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

I like that moisture near the TV associated with the closed ull. That would probably be a capture on the next frame and slp either stalling on the coast or drifting NNE.

Hard to believe it wouldn't bring it due north with this 500mb anomaly. Probably the closest match to 1/25/00 that I've seen modeled since.

[stormtracker]

37 minutes ago, winter_warlock said:

Man it's a shame 18z euro don't go past 144 hrs. Would like to see where this goes

 

It would have been a shellacking

[ravensrule]

8 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Euro got everything right except for mby as usual. 12-14" of snow was it's forecast the last day. Nope. I hate the Euro because it always effs my forecast with too much snow.

You need to move back to the BWI area. 

[Snowciopathic Snow Bro]

24 minutes ago, snowfan said:

The GFS is whack on Tuesday morning. 

 

I was laughing this off as some delusional one-off model run, but I just checked and the GFS has been remarkably consistent on out of band low temps for Tuesday morning.  You can go back to runs initialized from Jan 21st and the warmest low temps in its depicted cold pocket just southwest of DC metro is -8!!!

[87storms]

43 minutes ago, jayyy said:

Is it though? Got thermals right but QPF very wrong. GFS totals across dc & Maryland likely verified better than the NAM. Gfs got the thermals wrong but NAM missed in an equally huge way on the front end. Euro got this most right IMO.

I’m obviously kidding. But off in qpf in what way? I unofficially measured 5” of high ratio snow in multiple places and it wasn’t really pouring sleet here…more like moderate for hours. I have no idea what the melted qpf is but it didn’t seem that far off. Maybe it was, idk.

[mitchnick]

1 minute ago, ravensrule said:

You need to move back to the BWI area. 

Meh, the traffic. That west side of the beltway is a nightmare.  I drove down 23 times between June and December for an estate I was PR. I loathe that drive.

[snowmagnet]

Models were all about this blizzard for around the 29th-1st before today’s SNAFU got in the way. As usual, it disappeared, but it looks like we may be back. It would be nice if we could get an easy to track foot + storm.  Last week was exhausting.  

[AlexD1990]

1 hour ago, Paleocene said:

Mid levels torched and screaming easterlies

"I'd rather be in Chicago" 

53 minutes ago, osfan24 said:

I believe my whining brought it back so

Fight ya for it

[AlexD1990]

1 minute ago, snowmagnet said:

Models were all about this blizzard for around the 29th-1st before today’s SNAFU got in the way. As usual, it disappeared, but it looks like we may be back. It would be nice if we could get an easy to track foot + storm.  Last week was exhausting.  

This x1000. Would really like to not deal with another slushfest(yes, I know it's climo and all, but with this artic air you'd think we could do better)

[Yeoman]

11 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Hard to believe it wouldn't bring it due north with this 500mb anomaly. Probably the closest match to 1/25/00 that I've seen modeled since.

The GFS showed essentially the same thing for a few straight runs on Fri and then lost it.

[csnavywx]

The NAM's ability to get thermals right is very useful. As was the fact that CAMs were useful today with the embedded heavy rain showers. Can always use other guidance for precip amounts.

[winter_warlock]

15 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

It would have been a shellacking

Yes it would have!!!  And   we wouldn't have  thermal issues

 

[bncho]

Right where we want it. 

[winter_warlock]

7 minutes ago, bncho said:

Right where we want it. 

I agree after the way todays storm trended NW over time. I like it exactly where that storm is !!

[mitchnick]

9 minutes ago, Yeoman said:

The GFS showed essentially the same thing for a few straight runs on Fri and then lost it.

The Gfs lost? No way.

[jayyy]

Snowing all the way down to South Carolina, color me skeptical 

Why? Have you checked the temps for this upcoming week? Also, it snowed a foot in New Orleans last year - which averages 0.0” of snow annually. South Carolina snow is rare, but not impossible, especially on the heels of this airmass with a ton of snow / ice cover to the north / west. Not saying it’ll snow there, but I wouldn’t brush off the possibility entirely

[SnowenOutThere]

I looked under the hood at the H5 vorticity maps and man this one will be hard to get right. Its a bunch of energy that retrogrades under the block in the NS that dives south while a piece of NS energy out of Canada dives south and picks up moisture. Personally, I think the odds of all of this happening is pretty low. I'll check out of this till Wednesday at least

[bncho]

Just now, SnowenOutThere said:

I looked under the hood at the H5 vorticity maps and man this one will be hard to get right. Its a bunch of energy that retrogrades under the block in the NS that dives south while a piece of NS energy out of Canada dives south and picks up moisture. Personally, I think the odds of all of this happening is pretty low. I'll check out of this till Wednesday at least

You sound like Chuck. 

[SnowenOutThere]

Just now, bncho said:

You sound like Chuck. 

Dude look at the H5 vort map on the 18z Euro and see how perfect it all went. It's not impossible but I wouldn't call it likely. As a side note after this storm instead of seeing how storms might succeed my analysis is based on how they could fail as that grounds it better considering our reality.

[87storms]

12 minutes ago, csnavywx said:

The NAM's ability to get thermals right is very useful. As was the fact that CAMs were useful today with the embedded heavy rain showers. Can always use other guidance for precip amounts.

I was checking the nam from yesterday and it looked like it was forecasting gaudy qpf amounts but maybe less than the euro. I didn’t check too closely though. I’m going to assume officially there was closer to 6” snow near downtown Frederick and a few inches of sleet. Seems like further south may have done better overall with qpf but still healthy regardless.

[TowsonWeather]

1 hour ago, 87storms said:

The Nam is the new sheriff in town 

LOL wut??

The NAM was garbage with everything except for mid levels, which is really the only thing it’s useful for in winter storms.

[mitchnick]

2 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

I looked under the hood at the H5 vorticity maps and man this one will be hard to get right. Its a bunch of energy that retrogrades under the block in the NS that dives south while a piece of NS energy out of Canada dives south and picks up moisture. Personally, I think the odds of all of this happening is pretty low. I'll check out of this till Wednesday at least

Today's wasn't easy. None of them are easy around here and that's why everything seems so damn complicated...because it is! Lol 

We keep our fingers crossed and hope complicated works. But that ain't saying the odds are good or bad, especially in light of other current modeling. Even the Euro's 12z run was completely different other than a trough in the SE.

[Ji]

Um, fuck yeah it is.   Ok..I take back what I said.  Maybe it isn't dead

Another chance to walk under the umbrella!

[midatlanticweather]

16 minutes ago, winter_warlock said:

Yes it would have!!!  And   we wouldn't have  thermal issues

 

Never tempt the ability to have a storm go messy! Get it too amped, and it can change! Have to be just right for all snow around here! I think we would have been fine though, especially folks to the west. 

 

[gopper]

5 hours ago, H2O said:

Gonna start a thread for it

Not so fast Betty!  Let's wait for your tits to recover some.

And maybe for some more support.  Let's will this Blizzard to us. We need it!

[87storms]

6 minutes ago, TowsonWeather said:

LOL wut??

The NAM was garbage with everything except for mid levels, which is really the only thing it’s useful for in winter storms.

It’s the thermal sheriff 

[87storms]

15 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

The Gfs lost? No way.

Every model lost in some way. Canadian was the first I think to show that we could get screwed upstairs. Euro/Nam is typically the best combo…we just had hope because it was so damn cold leading in. Long story short, models have gotten significantly better overall and hoping they’re wrong is getting to be irrational.

[TowsonWeather]

12 minutes ago, 87storms said:

It’s the thermal sheriff 

DC got literally 100% more precip than the 3K NAM said it would get in a run quite literally the day the storm started, lol 

It had us dry slotting and the main vector of precip well to our north throughout much of today. 

If anyone’s takeaway from this storm is that we should pay more attention to the NAM because the non-crappy models got the changeover to sleet wrong by 2-3 hours, well….lol

[Maestrobjwa]

Shared in the old thread but I'll put it here as well. Not sure who this is (not up on which mets are which) but a good breakdown of something about the PNA ridge he saw earlier in the week that influenced the outcome:

 

 

[nj2va]

10 minutes ago, TowsonWeather said:

DC got literally 100% more precip than the 3K NAM said it would get in a run quite literally the day the storm started, lol 

It had us dry slotting and the main vector of precip well to our north throughout much of today. 

If anyone’s takeaway from this storm is that we should pay more attention to the NAM because the non-crappy models got the changeover to sleet wrong by 2-3 hours, well….lol

This. Sure NAM thermals were good (had the changeover too aggressive by a bit) but it failed miserably elsewhere. It was a joke.