January 24-26: Miracle or Mirage Thread 2

[GreyHat]

7 minutes ago, Solution Man said:

He’s a meteorologist he’s backing up his own work as a professional

Okay, I was not aware and I  was only going off the model runs as they were not showing those totals anymore in the DCA, Baltimore areas. 

If not yet then when new data from the Plane flights etc., samples may show different outcomes of the snow/sleet/freezing rain.

 

[jrodd321]

3 minutes ago, Ephesians2 said:

I genuinely don't understand what Blacksburg is thinking. My point and click adds up to 8-14", more than any model except the GFS 

Where did you find the updated 7pm map versus the 1pm one?

[CoolHandMike]

53 minutes ago, Ellinwood said:

Initial snow+sleet forecast... main issue will obviously be the mixing that comes in on Sunday, mainly along and east of I-95. Very excited as my kid is 6 and has not seen a 6"+ snow event.

You're going to bundle them up like they're in some kind of a puffy spacesuit and send them out into it and they are going to remember it for the rest of their lives.

[CAPE]

16 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

I think the 18Z EURO AI compared to 12Z  tried to transfer to the coast sooner....as a result there there was a tick SE with the snow.  Whether noise or trend TBD.

Ok, but the discussion was about the Euro not the AI. It has been slightly better for multiple runs.

[Bob Chill]

12 minutes ago, csnavywx said:

Best you can reasonably hope for is to get stuck in a melting-enhanced band embedded in some intense frontogenesis and really crank for a couple of hours before changeover.

Yea, I know I'm cooked for the bulk of the precip. If I can get .5qpf as snow I'd be thrilled. Once I flip there is no coming back either. What I really don't want is big ice. It's rural out here and multiple lines down could take far more than a day to get back online. We have plenty of fuel, generator, and propane heater so it won't be brutal but it could be quite disruptive if a half inch of ice acretes. The euro is the only model with big ice and I think a good portion of that is an error. This has the hallmarks of a big sleet storm here.  NC piedmont is a different story... 

Our property has a ton of pines. Some real beauties that have been around far longer than me. I'd hate to see those get wrecked. Would be a little depressing. Praying for a sandstorm lol

[psuhoffman]

3 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

Nina MECS for us are really rare for a reason. Northern stream just so rarely plays nice. This is still going to be a good or great storm though! Still probably top tier for a Nina.

 

3 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

IIRC don Sutherland posted in here in that past that 4 out of the 5 tops five La Nina snowfalls at BWI were in January, and were all under 10" of snow. The lone exception was the Blizzard of 1996.

I think the top 3 are safe. 
Jan 96, Jan 2000, Feb 2006

After that the next tier for DC/Balt are 6-12” storms like 1965 and Jan 2011 which this could fall into or surpass. 

[wxdude64]

18 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Soundings like this give me hope that the snow output in my hood is under done. Not sure how this is anything other than snow 

A snow/sleet mix at worst. 

[wxmeddler]

31 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

18z Euro shows zr on the ptype maps but the sounding looks like this:

 

This is a sleet sounding imo. The euro zr maps are way over done. 

Yes, there seems to be a overzealous tendency for ZR instead of Sleet on the Euro. I expect way more sleet than ZR.

[csnavywx]

8 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Yea, I know I'm cooked for the bulk of the precip. If I can get .5qpf as snow I'd be thrilled. Once I flip there is no coming back either. What I really don't want is big ice. It's rural out here and multiple lines down could take far more than a day to get back online. We have plenty of fuel, generator, and propane heater so it won't be brutal but it could be quite disruptive if a half inch of ice acretes. The euro is the only model with big ice and I think a good portion of that is an error. This has the hallmarks of a big sleet storm here.  NC piedmont is a different story... 

Our property has a ton of pines. Some real beauties that have been around far longer than me. I'd hate to see those get wrecked. Would be a little depressing. Praying for a sandstorm lol

Good thing is, even on a super aggressive warm nose solution like the 18Z NAM, you may not be completely cooked:

Switches over to PL at 2:00am or so at LYH, but it takes until about 1:00pm for it to transition over to ZR. About 0.5" liquid falls as ZR in this run.

 

[wxdude64]

20 minutes ago, csnavywx said:

Careful. Vertical resolution on TT Euro maps is limited to the standard levels.

Devil is in the details:

Well, that location is probably about 40+ miles ESE of his location, which WOULD be a huge difference. That still looks very sleety at worst. 

[TSSN+]

Sitting here awaiting the Baja bowler 

 

[clskinsfan]

Good to see the pro mets stick to climo norms with their prelim forecasts. I still think we see at least a foot out here. Unless a weeks worth of guidance was completely false. But with modern models I highly doubt that. 

[Buddy1987]

22 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Yea, I know I'm cooked for the bulk of the precip. If I can get .5qpf as snow I'd be thrilled. Once I flip there is no coming back either. What I really don't want is big ice. It's rural out here and multiple lines down could take far more than a day to get back online. We have plenty of fuel, generator, and propane heater so it won't be brutal but it could be quite disruptive if a half inch of ice acretes. The euro is the only model with big ice and I think a good portion of that is an error. This has the hallmarks of a big sleet storm here.  NC piedmont is a different story... 

Our property has a ton of pines. Some real beauties that have been around far longer than me. I'd hate to see those get wrecked. Would be a little depressing. Praying for a sandstorm lol

1/2” qpf with those temps and with what I’m sure will be meatballs flowing down from the gods should help to stack up quick before any changeover. RGEM and GFS minimum were bringing it in hot and heavy. 

[Rvarookie]

The ice stuff won’t verify for us. Sleet fest will tho 

[pazzo83]

Just now, Rvarookie said:

The ice stuff won’t verify for us. Sleet fest will tho 

sleet >>>>> frz rain

[87storms]

47 minutes ago, csnavywx said:

Careful. Vertical resolution on TT Euro maps is limited to the standard levels.

Devil is in the details:

Interesting. I’ve questioned similar scenarios too when  looking at soundings. Didn’t realize it was just connecting the dots at the standard levels.

[mappy]

Alright yall, reel the banter in during 00z please. Lot of lurkers, guests and others looking for information. We mods can’t be here all the time keeping things clean, we have jobs and lives too, and honestly we’re all exhausted. Please use storm banter thread and it’s okay to post less.
 

Many thanks! 

[Nomz]

Even though models have started to converge a little, I still can't shake the uncertainty of this forecast. If 700mb temps are off by even 1c, we have massively different outcomes, especially in the DC/South MD area. Literally two degrees C at 700mb stands between 5 and 12 inches. Tough forecast!

[TSSN+]

I now see why 18z cut snow totals for dc to Baltimore and just to the nw. Has a dry patch it’s not cause it’s too warm. 
 

[Amped]

1 minute ago, TSSN+ said:

I now see why 18z cut snow totals for dc to Baltimore and just to the nw. Has a dry patch it’s not cause it’s too warm. 
 

The dry patch is my concern more than the temps. The bust scenario is we get weak sauce before the changeover.

[T. August]

Partially storm related, but the 18z gfs and 12z euro are below freezing for most of the area until the end of the runs. Absolutely insane. Whatever falls will be here when we flip the calendar.

[caviman2201]

2 minutes ago, TSSN+ said:

I now see why 18z cut snow totals for dc to Baltimore and just to the nw. Has a dry patch it’s not cause it’s too warm. 
 

We I-95'ers will find one way or another to fail 

[GreyHat]

1 minute ago, TSSN+ said:

I now see why 18z cut snow totals for dc to Baltimore and just to the nw. Has a dry patch it’s not cause it’s too warm. 
 

I see right through North Delaware. I wander if that coastal has any chance of developing further south, and move further away from the coast. 

[TSSN+]

I’ll weenie over 48hr hrrr lol

 

[balltermen]

1 hour ago, Warm Nose said:

As mentioned previously, those totals do include sleet.

for ex...0.50" sleet at 3:1, almost 2"...Probably sweep, and use force when measuring...no plastic ruler

[bncho]

Whatever the EPS-AI means to you...

[JenkinsJinkies]

1 hour ago, Ellinwood said:

Initial snow+sleet forecast... main issue will obviously be the mixing that comes in on Sunday, mainly along and east of I-95. Very excited as my kid is 6 and has not seen a 6"+ snow event.

This plus the euro makes me think I’ll be close to my ceiling.

[Nomz]

1 minute ago, bncho said:

Whatever the EPS-AI means to you...

Means a lot to me, actually. If I see some semblance of support for this at 00z, I'll put a solid amount of faith in it. 

[NorthArlington101]

Whatever the EPS-AI means to you...

Unfortunately the ens seemingly can’t factor sleet/snow. Still a lot of total wintry precip

[high risk]

I'm sure that this has been hashed out, but I want to emphasize that we're in that time range at which the differences in NAM precip type could simply be driven by synoptic errors, common for a regional model at this range, but they can't be discounted completely due to the NAM being the absolute best at precip types *once it has nailed down the synoptics*.      I also would never fully trust the GFS precip type maps *even when it has nailed down the synoptic*.   It often underplays the coverage of IP/ZR.

Oh, and a friendly reminder that the model cycles all start at the same time every day, and they don't ever "stop".   (They can crash once or twice per year, but it's so rare.)   There can easily be dissemination issues, usually driven by way too many hits to a server during exciting events, which delay the arrival of everyone's favorite online maps.