MAG5035

I retract my RGEM comment for now, I was looking at 12z. 18z hasn't ran yet. But still, a tremendous difference. This is why CTP is playing the slow but steady game with this.. although probably should've had the watches expanded more early today.

Yea, the 18z really lacked the organized intense CCB band that's going to be the determining factor for the eastern half of PA of having widespread excessive totals come to fruition or more like what the NWS is putting out with the 7-12" warnings. Still tremendous differences in the short range guidance. Check out the RGEM, the Mid-Atlantic folks probably fainted.

CTP also upgrading to warnings. Added some watches and there's a bunch of counties just got updated straight to warnings with no watches lol. Looks like all the warnings either 7-12 or 8-12".

Lol I went up this past Sunday before we got the freezing rain. I’m surprised they haven’t been making more snow like they could but there’s a decent amount of regular snow up there. They have a lot of their diamond terrain opened with only natural cover, which is probably better than frozen machine made snow but there was some pretty thin cover in spots. I did survive the opened top half of Extrovert lol.

I'm definitely making a Blue Knob trip day after this storm ends.

Euro throttles most of the state. LSV slots briefly but then is ground zero for the eventual intense CCB band.

Lol, I think I'm going to "start a fresh thread" to "kick off the second half of winter".. but probably not until tonight at 0z.

I don't know if I ever saw such a big area of 40"+ on even the Canadian, which can put out some crazy stuff. The ratio isn't crazy either. Harrisburg gets 3.38" of QPF for a pretty reasonable 12:1 average through the event. Is that much QPF reasonable? I dunno about that yet. But still.. you can get to two feet pretty easily with 1.5-2" and good ratios.

@Voyager 4 foot bullseye. He may need to travel to ORD via a snowmobile.

This escalated rapidly. Up until yesterday there weren't very many model runs with the big totals.. with only really the Euro having that run or two with the 30"+ (down in VA/DC). Everything's coming back to slowing/stalling that low closer to the coast right in the zone we need it. Add in that tremendous easterly flow and warmer than average Atlantic and suddenly we're burying folks on all the models.

It's like every time I thought I saw the craziest model runs ever leading up to a big storm in the last decade, the next big storm comes along with something crazier. This storm's starting in 24hrs or less guys.

Euro ensemble with a nod toward the op. Pretty good jump from 18z.

Yea, this hasn't been standard boilerplate Nina though. Not with that dominant -NAO/AO blocking pattern. I don't even know how effective taking an analog approach really is when trying to compare to past Nina's because you really can't find one quite like how this one is shaking out so far...imo anyways. With the storm I actually commented a couple times about the swath, as in how often to you see a Chicago to DC heavy snow swath.. or even a Chicago to NYC one? You don't have the established blocking regime and a system that cracks Chicago with a big snowstorm is probably causing p-type issues at best in the Mid-Atl/NE. Which was why I took pause with yesterday being as far south with the swath as it was.. with last night's 0z Euro being the "low water mark" so to speak. I'm not an expert on Long Island climo but I'd think if that coastal stalls/meanders off the Jersey Shore south enough the damage is probably done before you ever mix. Yea it may come north further, but this has stronger blocking and prime dead of winter climo compared to the December storm. That heavy swath is gonna probably be somewhere south of that one, which should bode well for NYC because they did okay in December.

I think models are finally starting to fill in this precip shield between the transferring lows in realization of that major easterly fetch off the ocean between the system and the blocking pattern. The setup's just too good with that established 850mb primary low tracking just under PA and transferring. Look at the 850mb jet just nosed right through PA. Couldn't ask for much better placement of that 850mb low.

Yup I'm cashing that one out right now, lol.

Well no one's gettin 30-40"+ but it's a straight up butt kicking across the whole state.

Euro's got a more expansive swath of heavier snows in most of the state so far through 57 hrs. Primary low presses right up to western WV with the transfer. Gonna be a pretty big one for everyone.

That part of the disco was updated at 9pm when only the NAM was starting to come out. I quoted it in one of my posts awhile ago.

Wow, a sizeable part of Lancaster County is literally a 4 foot bullseye. Finally relents after about Hr 96.

Yep I just got there lol. Holy death band.

Careful with that TT and its snowmap counting snow/sleet together.. though I'm only at 60 with Weatherbell haha.

Well they can laugh but I'm starting to think that Subforum region is in the position the LSV was with the December storm. I mean that accumulation call I made earlier was a fairly safe preliminary call and I didn't bite on yesterday's model cycle dropping south either so I liked southern PA US-22 and south down to MD's I-70 corridor for the heavy swath. It's definitely looking like this heavy corridor is shifting north but like the LSV in the Dec storm, there was still a good event to be had before any mixing issues and I think the DC and north folks do fine. I said earlier that we def could see higher amounts than the 8-14 but probably less than 20"... and I'm sticking with that for now but I'm definitely watching what guidance is starting to do.. Models are starting to slow that coastal low down again which lengthens the time the deform hangs. They're also starting to solidify the precip shield.. which is something I expected given the anomalous 850mb easterly flow all the way into the Ohio Valley with the 850 low transferring just underneath PA. On CTP issuing watches for just the first tier of counties: Rolling with the ensemble guidance generally by the sounds of it, which is a good start considering op models are still in flux right now. If the Euro and ensembles start reflecting what the early stuff is putting forth tonight, they will likely be adding counties and perhaps more than slightly northward. One thing to consider for that I-80 corridor, if say the ensembles get like UNV and IPT into a 6" mean.. duration. It's likely they will be considering the 8" in 24 hrs over the 6" in 12hr criteria for a WSW. They may roll with an advisory even if the I-80 corridor sees 6" or so by the end. That's if the I-80 corridor doesn't end up in the thick of it too, lol.

Guess he expects a uniform 8" in that zone haha, should either make the 8" a 6 inch line or bump up the low number of the 8-12". Oh well It's just the first guess map, although he had a map out yesterday so I suppose that one was the first guess on the first guess map.

Still a huge run for everyone, the deform does get back into most of the Sus Valley late in the storm. Throwing up both 10:1 and Kuchera:

Considering where the coastal's at off the VA and Delmarva coast, it's really punching the mix into PA pretty far. It has a really intense 850 mb jet that looks like it advects in near to slightly above zero 850 temps in the LSV. 925mb and surface stay well below freezing. Would probably be mostly sleet. This looks like a classic really amped NAM run.