gymengineer

The way I am thinking about Thursday is these snow to sleet to freezing rain (to rain or dryslot) events happen with some regularity in our area. We often do fine on the front end thump for 2-4” for DC metro. Sometimes we get a pleasant overperformer like 12/14/03 or 2/25/07 where it’s more like 4-5”. Maybe the best all-time would be 2/21/15 where I received 7+” in North Bethesda and upper MoCo hit a foot. What the GFS is putting out for the first 12-hrs of QPF is very anomalous... in that all-time category type of way. I hope it verifies for sure, but I would be satisfied with a more typical event.

2.6” at DCA before the changeover to ZR on 2/20/19 and 2.8” at DCA before the changeover on 2/15/16. Those performed more or less as expected and are just within the past 5 years.

Solid ice, not sleet, covering the sides of the paved alley here in N. Bethesda beside my building. Untreated sidewalks are glazed over as well. More ice on an actual street surface than on the trees is a new experience for me.

Good free radar alternative: https://weather.cod.edu/satrad/nexrad/?parms=LWX-N0Q-0-24-100-usa-rad On my phone, I have to tilt it sideways to be able to press the “play” button. But other than that, it works fine.

Anyone else wondering what’s going on with losetoa6? Really off punctuation and syntax for someone who usually posts coherently? Weird grudge? ETA: I’m referring to the exchange with psuhoffman in the long range thread. Although the patterns in this thread are starting to make sense...

Kind of interesting how this one 18Z 12K NAM run set off people in the way it did. Sure it was following the 12Z Euro, but it doesn’t even come close to agreeing with the 3K version of itself for the second wave. However we may end up failing, this one model run isn’t worth the anguish.

You’re the only one talking about blending the model guidance. I agree with you. Considering the precip max in the first wave is certainly not resolved yet, with the GFS, CMC, RGEM, 12Z NAM, even paltry 3K NAM all showing it near or north of DC, I don’t get the “foregone conclusion” feel in here right now.

We subscribe to KevOnStage so have seen his commentary videos on so many off-putting food demos over the years. There was another one recently where a guy makes mashed potatoes from potato chips. He chugs the greasy chip water at some point.

http://www.raymondcmartinjr.com/weather/

This outcome is like a somewhat warmer version of 12/5/09. The MoCo banding even matches pretty well to that event.

Well, and today he happened to be posting a lot during a dead time in the thread, so it was like he was talking to himself.

I totally understand for your area, but for IAD and DCA, the 84/85 snow total was higher than *six* of the last ten seasons. A 10” month is often a climb for DCA, but 1/85 managed to hit that mark. A repeat down here would be subpar but on the upper band of that kind of winter and the extreme cold wave would mark it as memorable.

That’s better than IAD, which only added 0.2”.

12/5-6/03 is an example discussed in these threads the past couple of days of a good WAA surge, then drizzle/mix all day while waiting and waiting for the CCB. The radar progression actually strikingly matches what a couple of models have been showing: http://www.raymondcmartinjr.com/weather/2004/05-Dec-03-RegionalRadarImagery.html I was driving home from DC to Potomac after a night out clubbing and ran into snow covered roads near home around 2 am. That band through predawn dropped another 3.5” after the 4” from the WAA. It wasn’t as much as forecast but still ended up being a decent storm around here. At least DC proper will be colder than that event for the WAA phase.

It was a WWA for part 1 and WSW for part 2. Part 1 overperformed with some of the densest snow I’ve ever shoveled. Part 2 underperformed as you noted but still nicely freshened up the snow cover.

http://www.eas.slu.edu/CIPS/ANALOG/DFHR.php?reg=EC&fhr=F132&rundt=2021012712&map=thbCOOP72 Also displayed in a tweet on the first page of this thread.

For those of you trying to remember how the model runs in the lead up to 1/2016 looked, this forecast review article from the CWG has links to their articles starting from 8 days before the storm. There are quite a few individual model runs referenced throughout: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/01/25/the-forecast-for-snowzilla-was-stellar-in-almost-every-way/

Sidewalk and side street covered here in North Bethesda.

Snow mixed in now in North Bethesda.

I was in Potomac, MD, for the event. It was on 11/11/95, and like you, I lost power. We lost power during the severe thunderstorm part of the event pre front clearance, but power came back during the snow. 2” accumulated where I was. 3/8/05 was another such type of frontal passage where a Severe Thunderstorm Warning preceded a rapid change to snow that covered the grass. 2/14/15 was the ultimate flash freeze frontal passage, but wasn’t preceded by actual severe weather. We do much better with the ENE oriented strong cold front passages with the following wave. Those have been WSW events for us. Just in March, we saw those events 3/8/96, 3/3/14, 3/5/15, etc.

Without going too far back, DC also had notable (WSW criteria) snowstorms 12/31-1/1/71, 1/4-5/80, and 1/8/88. 1/77 had a 3-day sequence early in the month that would total WSW as well but they weren’t all one storm.

Are you sure you meant to go all the way to January 9th?

Top analog was 12” at IAD and the second one was DCA’s highest Christmas Day snow depth of 7”, eventually tied by 12/09.

For those who like looking back at snow maps, 850 and 500 mb analyses, etc from past events, just a reminder that Ray Martin’s winter storm page covers a lot of the events we experienced from 1993-2013. His is NJ centered, but most of our events are there: http://www.raymondcmartinjr.com/weather/

Mobile Regional Airport: another 90+ gust, now well east of the center.