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Feb 22nd/23rd "There's no way..." Storm Thread


Maestrobjwa
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6 minutes ago, rjvanals said:

The GFS is now in NAM at 84 hr territory 

GFS is so bad with this kind of setup. The model isn't designed for East coast snowstorms and unfortunately it sucks at them. I'm sure it may be superior in a bunch of areas. Not this. 

 

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NWS snippet 

A high energy but low predictability pattern looms for the back half
of the weekend. The pattern is forecast to be very amplified, but in
flux as a deep upper-level low digs out of the Gulf of Alaska
inducing a downstream ridge-building event over the western U.S.
This pattern amplification in the vicinity of western North America
comes with low predictability due to data sparse regions over the
North Pacific. Meanwhile, a pair of downstream upper lows
interact/merge over Maritime Canada, with inherent low
predictability with two cutoff lows interacting.

If the upstream ridge-building event takes place a bit further west
near 120 W longitude on Saturday, downstream trough amplification
would be favorable for phasing over the mid MS Valley into the OH/TN
Valleys Saturday night. A subsequent low track hugging the coast
would become more likely in this scenario, aided by downstream
blocking and a potential source of cold air given the upper lows
over Maritime Canada and surface high pressure attempting to ridge
into northern New England. There is also an appearance of an
inverted trough signature in a subset of model guidance over the
last couple cycles, given interaction between a more amplified
northern stream wave and a bit more distant offshore southern stream
low. This could factor into precipitation amounts and placement.

After reviewing the 00z model guidance suite, some subtle
consistency has been noted although subtle uncertainty remains. Most
of the models has a low tracking up from GA/AL toward the NC
coast and off the Delmarva coast during the late Saturday night
into late Sunday timeframe. The question remains in the proximity
toward the coast along with cold air availability, and the overall
scope of the precip shield pending the placement/intensity of the
system. 25 to 50 miles could make a huge difference between seeing
little to no wintry precip or impactful precip, especially for those
east of the mountains where the confidence remains low due to
thermal issues especially below elevations of 1500 feet. The 00z
GFS/GEFS solutions have come down a tad, but still produce
measurements on the order of 10+" of snow over a large chunk of the
area. Meanwhile, the 12z EPS ensembles came up some, but at much
more conservative levels which align with deterministic runs of the
NAM, RDPS, GDPS, GEM, CMC, EURO/EURO AIFS, and UKMET. The
latest NBM also came up a bit and aligns with the majority
compared to the GFS/GEFS outliers, especially along and east of
I-95. With that said, the 6/12z model suites should put the
remaining puzzle pieces together as we will sit 60 hours from
the event.

Three scenarios remain:

 1) The phase of all of these upper level features occurs too late,
  with low development offshore and too far southeast.

 2) Similar to scenario 1, but an inverted trough on the back side
of the low brings snow to eastern portions of the region.

 3) Low develops closer to shore and strengthens along Delmarva
Peninsula, resulting in the most snow for our areas.

We still remain in the "wait and see" period with this storm, so
just take precautions now, should the worst case scenario play out.
Having a preparedness kit stocked up is never a bad idea.
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