This thing is one bad turn away from having an few outer rainbands scrape portions of the eastern seaboard. At the very least, this will be a decent surf/tidal event. The wording is warranted, IMO.
Notable changes for our coastal folks on the 18z GFS and ICON. Both nudge west and the GFS puts a steady easterly flow on the beaches. Would be rip current city.
Give me a pattern changing 1" - 3" event the week before Christmas. Then a nice 6" - 10" cold powder event on Christmas Day afternoon that sticks around for a week.
Sneaky severe day today:
Surface CAPE 3,000 + across most of the area
LI -6 or better east of US 15
High PWATs w/ some mid level drying to aid propagation of isolated wet microbursts.
Surface lapse rates are decent
Might see a few decent cells fire along some boundary.
Would vastly prefer numerous light to moderate events with good cold that maintain some semblance of a snow pack, versus one big event that melts off in 2 days.
Late breaking news, but we managed to get Sykesville mesonet site in Carroll County online just before the storms arrived:
https://mesonet.umd.edu/station?stid=MDMSNT-29
Big credit to @wxmeddler and it was great to see @wxmvpete again!
Borderline violent thunderstorm dropping south from Martinsburg, WV. Could go bonkers once it hits this dual outflow boundaries. This should have been an ENH risk for wind today IMO.