Late February/Early March 2026 Mid-Long Range

[cbmclean]

56 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Not sure this is the right thread but...  something to keep in mind for future miller b storms, almost every single one going back to the 80s, tends to trend west up until about 24-36 hours out, and then shifts east and pulls the rug out at the last minute to some extent.  Some didn't do it to us...like Jan 2015 which did that rug pull to NYC, or Feb 89 that rug pulled me in NJ, but they all do it.  Some recent examples for our area are Dec 2000, Boxing day, March 8, 2018, Feb 1 2021, and this week.  Where around 24-48 hours out things were trending west and we got excited and then at the very end reality set in and the storm ended up just a little northeast.  That is the MO.  That happens ALWAYS every single time.  Expect it.  It just is how the models are with these miller b storms.  I don't know why.  I have just observed they tend to be under amplified and too far east around days 4-7 then over correct and get us excited around day 2-3 and then shift back at the last minute and everything shifts 50-75 miles east the final 24 hours.  

That doesn't mean we can't EVERY get a lot of snow from a miller B, but it's super rare and we want it amplifying well west not relying on getting the very back edge of the developing CCB zone because that will almost always end up further east than guidance shows 2-3 days out.  

I have seen some debate if this was a Miller A or B or hybrid or what (which is not unusual).  I'm beginning to wonder if how useful those categories really are, but I was under the impression that one of the hallmarks of a B was a Ohio Valley low that transfers, and I didn't think that there was one of those in this case.  In your perception, what made this storm more "B-ish"?

[cbmclean]

10 minutes ago, wxman said:

You would think that this is the exact type of thing the the AI models would address?  At least where I am the euro AI never really loved the blizzard and while I'm happy with my 16.3" it was not the 2 feet shown on many non-AI models.  In some respects outside the immediate coast up through NYC-BOS the euro AI was closer to reality. 

I had a similar thought about cold chasing moisture, especially east of the Apps and double especially east of the taller Apps down in my neck of the woods.  Every model run in history overestimates how fast the cold gets over the mountains and frequently hallucinates phantom snow as a result.  Since the AIs are trained on historical data one would think that this bias should go poof on an AI model.

[Ji]

Euro has us in 20s monday and tuesday but we need to beef us this POS

[wxman]

6 minutes ago, cbmclean said:

I had a similar thought about cold chasing moisture, especially east of the Apps and double especially east of the taller Apps down in my neck of the woods.  Every model run in history overestimates how fast the cold gets over the mountains and frequently hallucinates phantom snow as a result.  Since the AIs are trained on historical data one would think that this bias should go poof on an AI model.

I guess it depends on the AI training.  In your case the AI models would need to ingest ground truth, which they may or may not.  In PSU's example the AI model should certainly know how the atmospheric features were modeled versus how they evolved in real time.  I don't really know, though.  

[NorthArlington101]

7 minutes ago, Ji said:

Euro has us in 20s monday and tuesday but we need to beef us this POS

Gonna be really funny when this event nobody is paying attention to outdoes Sunday's storm

[blizzardmeiser]

13 minutes ago, Ji said:

Euro has us in 20s monday and tuesday but we need to beef us this POS

What are JB's thoughts?  He nailed the last storm!

[Ji]

1 minute ago, blizzardmeiser said:

What are JB's thoughts?  He nailed the last storm!

not sure but he is calling for a severe winter weather window and a white easter again for the 23rd straight year for late March/early April! @psuhoffman

[blizzardmeiser]

another daffodil destroyer and crocus crusher?  One of these years he will be right.

[stormtracker]

27 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Gonna be really funny when this event nobody is paying attention to outdoes Sunday's storm

I'm def more excited about this one than Sunday's storm.  But for obvious reasons.   What did the clown maps have?

[Eskimo Joe]

Where was this at the end of January

 

 

[NorthArlington101]

10 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

I'm def more excited about this one than Sunday's storm.  But for obvious reasons.   What did the clown maps have?

Big 3 all show something:

[mitchnick]

10 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Big 3 all show something:

Probably the best consensus at this range all season for at least a measurable event+.

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, cbmclean said:

I have seen some debate if this was a Miller A or B or hybrid or what (which is not unusual).  I'm beginning to wonder if how useful those categories really are, but I was under the impression that one of the hallmarks of a B was a Ohio Valley low that transfers, and I didn't think that there was one of those in this case.  In your perception, what made this storm more "B-ish"?

I don't know how to answer this in a simple way so bear with me.  The A/B thing is overly simplistic and becomes complicated when you apply the more messy but real parameters of storms.  Originally Miller only had his two A/B types but they have since added a ton more to try to resolve the complexity.  

Originally type A was a gulf wave that rode up the east coast without any transfer.  B was a west to east system that jumped to the coast and redeveloped.  

However, this gets messy because most gulf waves that impact up here start out with a low up west of the apps and then redevelops to the east.  Is this A/B?  Frankly all storms "jump".  Storms don't move.  The low pressure continually reforms along the path of best height falls.  We say convective feedback error all the time, but convection actually can "pull" a low off its path for a short time due to the meso height falls created.  So yes some storms have a more continual path than others but they all jump to some degree, making these classifications overly simplistic.  

Then you get into phasing.  Was it a pure STJ wave moving west to east that simply jumped to the coast or was there some weaker wave that phased with a northern stream SW?  How does that impact the definition?  

What is important to the DC/Baltimore area is not so much "did the storm redevelop or jump" but where the jump happens and how mature the system is and its moisture source.  

The problem here is the main energy for the storm was a northern stream wave diving southeast that bombed and phased with a very very very weak pacific wave that split off and ejected from the retrograding trough out west.  There was not a good moisture feed with the original pacific mid latitude wave and so the system had very little going on until it was captured and phased with the more energetic northern stream system diving in.  This is not ideal for our area. 

Forget the A/B thing, what we need is a healthier wave with better moisture source coming at us from the west that jumps to the coast south of our latitude.  Feb 2003.  Feb 9 2010.  We can do just fine with a transfer system if the wave has a good moisture source and is developing before it gets to our longitude/latitude.  We will not if we are waiting on some northern stream wave to bomb out and capture and explode a weak wave just as it gets to us.  That almost never works here.  There was one in Feb 1996 that worked out...but that's about it.  I can't think of any other examples where we had some NS system diving in from the NW waiting to bomb a virtually non existent wave just off our coast and we got into the CCB associated flush hit zone.  It always ends up being  NJ northeast thing.  

I called this a miller b because of the transfer and the fact the primary energy was that NS wave.  It definitely was not a miller A and honestly I have not kept up with all the various additional definitions they've since added to try to better resolve this debate and I don't care to because it's silly.  All storms jump.  Ones that have to cross the mountains just have a more pronounced jump because they jump to where the coastal front is located.  But some people have the wrong idea that the screw zone is because of this jump.  It's because the storm went north of them.  The mountains cause the screw zone because of the west wind creates downsloping to the south of the storm track.  The appearance of the jump screwzone is more a function of the impact of the mountains.  IF the track is south of your location you will usually do fine.  But if it is north...yes a west wind once the low gets east of you will cut off the precip, but if the storm had not jumped and kept moving in that trajectory it would have been rain anyways, the mountains and the CAD associated is the only thing that saves places east of there in cases with a west track system...so you can't cherry pick one and ignore the other impact of those mountains.  A storm tracking through the midwest going north of Winchester would have screwed them over regardless of a jump.  The track is what's more important.  Get that low into KY and jump it to off the VA capes and Winchester can do just fine.  It tracks into OH/WV and jumps to off MD or north and...yea no good.  

Sorry I know this was more complicated than you wanted but it's not nearly as simple as the typical A/B debate makes it.  

[stormtracker]

31 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Probably the best consensus at this range all season for at least a measurable event+.

Yeah.....for you

[jayyy]

Probably the best consensus at this range all season for at least a measurable event+.

What could go wrong in 7 days?

Ps - I actually like this setup far better for us. Especially for us folks closer to the M/D. Simpler for sure. If this was late January, I’d be honking loudly. I’ll casually watch this until day 3ish. If it’s still there across guidance, I’ll lock in. I can’t do another 7 days of tracking though. I’m getting old

[psuhoffman]

3 minutes ago, jayyy said:

What could go wrong in 7 days?

Ps - I actually like this setup far better for us. Especially for us folks closer to the M/D. Simpler for sure. If this was late January, I’d be honking loudly. I’ll casually watch this until day 3ish. If it’s still there across guidance, I’ll lock in. I can’t do another 7 days of tracking though. I’m getting old

Our chances of a warning level snowfall event in Baltimore on any given day don't really degrade much until you hit about March 10th when they drop off a cliff quick.  

 

[psuhoffman]

Our temperatures do spike, but that's because the boundary temps are easily warmed in late February and early March by the increased solar input, but this is not necessarily impacting the wet bulb temperature significantly and that is what matters to our snow chances.  I think the fact that it feels warmer, and that any snow we do get will melt real quick, gives the false impression that our chances of snow are going down more than they actually are in late Feb and early March.  

[bncho]

Is this overdone? Probably. But it sure as hell is a solid signal for March.