January 24-26: Miracle or Mirage Thread 2

[300 square feet]

We all know where this is going. As much as we hate to admit it, we can see the trend, which is not our friend. Better to accept it now than hold on to fading hopes.  4” of snow and epic ice is still exciting!

[psuhoffman]

EPS didn’t really move from my early look 

[mappy]

2 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

Welp I’m pulling out, I’ve been down this road before and I’m not going to hit that wall again. I’ll check again tomorrow morning but I’m not holding my breath.

I am not saying it won’t snow, but I’m not holding my breath for a large event at this point.

Byeeeee

[ravensrule]

1 minute ago, CAPE said:

I'm not gloomy. I don't expect the Euro to vary its outcome by much from this point forward. Not generally what it does.

The ingesting new/better sampled data thing- do you know how many desperate weenies have used that one in this forum over the years? Its in the rule book lol

So you’re saying i should be happy with my 11” and quarter inch of ice, i definitely trust you. 

[H2O]

Ok can yall take this IMBY shit to banter please?

[WEATHER53]

What are the merits  of this  -5 to -10 temps afterwards?  Could such a historic extreme produce any odd results during storm and when it ends?

[GreyHat]

2 minutes ago, WEATHER53 said:

I love  when people tell you they don’t have time to but have time to tell you they don’t 

 

3 minutes ago, WEATHER53 said:

I love  when people tell you they don’t have time to but have time to tell you they don’t 

In the picture the low is too close to the coast and is bringing rain into Delaware and southern NJ.

[Weather Will]

WB 18Z EURO AI EPS looks great for everyone.

[WEATHER53]

Just now, GreyHat said:

 

In the picture the low is too close to the coast and is bringing rain into Delaware and southern NJ.

I don’t have time to read this 

 

[Jersey Andrew]

Just now, WEATHER53 said:

What are the merits  of this  -5 to -10 temps afterwards?  Could such a historic extreme produce any odd results during storm and when it ends?

I worry about the twin ice storms of January 1994 repeating history. Our driveway was a skating rink back then.

[IronTy]

1 minute ago, Weather Will said:

WB 18Z EURO AI EPS looks great for everyone.

Bring us back from the edge of the Abyss!  They do look pretty good.

[SnowenOutThere]

23 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

More separation on 18z vs 12 euro. Icon gets tossed. 
 

Blend the whole euro suite until we get within like 36hrs and get 3k NAM profiles.

14 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Agreed. The bleeding needs to stop and quick.

7 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Hopefully they’re just narrowing things down and meet in the middle or even closer to Euro’s side, then we’re fine. Unfortunately it’s a bit of a forum divider in terms of mixing.  

5 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Less phasing, more confluence (TPV up top that wasn’t shown in 12z)

This is what I'm confused about. The 18z Euro from my view of its H5 vort and height should've been an improvement or more southeast yet it went further northwest (not for DC in particular but I went from a foot to six inches and from .3 of ice to .6 and an inch or two of sleet). I'm honestly not sure what happened to cause the warm air intrusion further south. Comparing the 18z Euro to 12z as Terpeast noted we see a good amount less phasing

When looking at the vort maps it becomes even stranger to me that things went the wrong way at the surface as the NS appears almost close to crushing the SW, especially if it was displaced any further east. 

Meanwhile 12z Euro has a whole ass triple phaser

The only negative I can denote is slightly less confluence on the 18z? Maybe? Either way it just shocks me the changes out west had no impact on the surface. Maybe if we got another run that had these exact changes we would see more meaningful consequences? 

[rjvanals]

Once we start getting into range the NAMs especially the 3k have been pretty good at picking up hidden warm layers missed by the globals 

[GreyHat]

5 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

WB 18Z EURO AI EPS looks great for everyone.

Why is the Euro AI such a big difference from the Euro?

[csnavywx]

17 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Agreed. The bleeding needs to stop and quick.

Despite the look at the surface, we got some incremental improvement aloft. The phase was sloppier. Northern vort is not digging in one piece now. Cutter primary was weaker. Incrementally cooler upstairs (above 850). Saw same kind of improvement as the 18Z NAM, GFS and (early on) with the Ukie.

[SnowenOutThere]

1 minute ago, rjvanals said:

Once we start getting into range the NAMs especially the 3k have been pretty good at picking up hidden warm layers missed by the globals 

The warm layers in this case aren't really hidden at all. I mean look at this wind map lmao

If we have 70-80+ kt winds from the gulf we're going to have mixing no matter how much cold air you dump into the CAD. 

[MillvilleWx]

Fall line climo will likely come into play with this one. One things for sure, it’s a QPF bomb. I’m really serious when I say areas that stay all snow will likely see 15-20” and could even get close to 2’. Best spots right now I would put across the M/D with the eastern most area near @mappy and as far north as Harrisburg. Southern edge for that potential is probably the Parrs Ridge zone down Rt27 towards Damascus/Mt Airy and points northwest. 
 

Map below is prelim thoughts and NOT my official forecast. Just an outline of thoughts right now. If you are northwest of the red line, I believe you’ll see 10+”, if you are inside the purple, I believe 12-18” is a good forecast right now. Elevations above 800’ have best chance to see 15-20”. Local maxima of 23” is the initial thought. 
 

Note, this is manly for this subforum and some of PA. I didn’t try too hard for areas outside the sub, but I will for full forecast. 

[NorthArlington101]

Why is the Euro AI such a big difference from the Euro?

AIFS Ens really struggle to show mixing/sleet.

[CAPE]

6 minutes ago, ravensrule said:

So you’re saying i should be happy with my 11” and quarter inch of ice, i definitely trust you. 

Yes. It may waiver back and forth a bit from run to run, but I would be surprised if the outcome ends up much different. Maybe I'm wrong putting more "faith" in the Euro than other guidance, but AI I don't fully trust yet, CMC is almost always crap, and the GFS...well, lol. See what the Mesos look like as we get into their range.

[baltosquid]

4 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

This is what I'm confused about. The 18z Euro from my view of its H5 vort and height should've been an improvement or more southeast yet it went further northwest (not for DC in particular but I went from a foot to six inches and from .3 of ice to .6 and an inch or two of sleet). I'm honestly not sure what happened to cause the warm air intrusion further south. Comparing the 18z Euro to 12z as Terpeast noted we see a good amount less phasing

When looking at the vort maps it becomes even stranger to me that things went the wrong way at the surface as the NS appears almost close to crushing the SW, especially if it was displaced any further east. 

Meanwhile 12z Euro has a whole ass triple phaser

The only negative I can denote is slightly less confluence on the 18z? Maybe? Either way it just shocks me the changes out west had no impact on the surface. Maybe if we got another run that had these exact changes we would see more meaningful consequences? 

Yeah I looked at the run at h5 only first and was very surprised that it turned out the way it did by the end of it at the surface. I think another trend like that out west and things would change noticeably. Not a run to run change that is good for phasing imo so if it does become a trend this could go back south

[Maestrobjwa]

4 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

This is what I'm confused about. The 18z Euro from my view of its H5 vort and height should've been an improvement or more southeast yet it went further northwest (not for DC in particular but I went from a foot to six inches and from .3 of ice to .6 and an inch or two of sleet). I'm honestly not sure what happened to cause the warm air intrusion further south. Comparing the 18z Euro to 12z as Terpeast noted we see a good amount less phasing

When looking at the vort maps it becomes even stranger to me that things went the wrong way at the surface as the NS appears almost close to crushing the SW, especially if it was displaced any further east. 

Meanwhile 12z Euro has a whole ass triple phaser

The only negative I can denote is slightly less confluence on the 18z? Maybe? Either way it just shocks me the changes out west had no impact on the surface. Maybe if we got another run that had these exact changes we would see more meaningful consequences? 

So we have been aiming for less phasing! That is what was confusing me about this run as well...so we got less and yet the end result was...worse? If it turns out that way that means it would've literally invented a way to fail, lol But let's hope not

[Weather Will]

WB 18Z EPS looks good too.

[mappy]

2 minutes ago, MillvilleWx said:

Fall line climo will likely come into play with this one. One things for sure, it’s a QPF bomb. I’m really serious when I say areas that stay all snow will likely see 15-20” and could even get close to 2’. Best spots right now I would put across the M/D with the eastern most area near @mappy and as far north as Harrisburg. Southern edge for that potential is probably the Parrs Ridge zone down Rt27 towards Damascus/Mt Airy and points northwest. 
 

Map below is prelim thoughts and NOT my official forecast. Just an outline of thoughts right now. If you are northwest of the red line, I believe you’ll see 10+”, if you are inside the purple, I believe 12-18” is a good forecast right now. Elevations above 800’ have best chance to see 15-20”. Local maxima of 23” is the initial thought. 
 

Note, this is manly for this subforum and some of PA. I didn’t try too hard for areas outside the sub, but I will for full forecast. 

Thanks for this, friend. I’m expecting sleet at some point, given the map Snowden just shared above. While I have the latitude and elevation, I have found being on the eastern side of Parrs Ridge, I get sleet more often than not. However, I will also get the higher ratio snow in the WAA part, so it balances out. 

[Nomz]

12 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

WB 18Z EURO AI EPS looks great for everyone.

Thats actually... not that bad! I'll take it. 

Is it just American models that get recon data, or do Euro, UK, Canadian, etc., get it?

[IUsedToHateCold]

It's got to be the confluence. If the high is further north and further east that lets the primary come up further north and further west. So, like someone said, I don't know that the Baja low sampling is going to give us much - we really need that energy in Canada to be sampled to figure out what's going to happen. 

[WEATHER53]

51 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

I dunno...but I know that's close or eh

 

A 1025 high on top of us at 93 keeps us good and good for preceding  hours but the 99 you posted has a 1012 on us and that would not be all snow for DC 

[stormtracker]

2 minutes ago, WEATHER53 said:

A 1025 high on top of us at 93 keeps us good and good for preceding  hours but the 99 you posted has a 1012 on us and that would not be all snow for DC 

I'm not going to complain about the Euro, but I wish it would stop with the warm air intrusion.  If this keeps up at 0z, it's going to be a bummer

[Chris78]

10 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

WB 18Z EPS looks good too.

The individual members look better overall Tham 12z. Less northern ones.

[jayyy]

This one getting away from us in a hurry, time to just mentally accept a big cold mixed bag and roll with it I think.  Gonna be fun either way. 

It’s getting away from us? The latest NBM is 12-16”… sorry to be blunt, but what the hell are you talking about?


.

[wxmeddler]

Just want to point out / take a step back that regarding the potential evolution, even though the precipitation and outcomes look similar, we still have a long way to go in order to understand how this is going to unfold dynamically.