Scarlet Pimpernel

Uhhh, weekend/week of the 23rd IS the last week of February! (ETA: See, we even get screwed for winter by the calendar, the shortest season in terms of number of days and includes the shortest month of the year!! )

Thanks. Hard to tell how "heavy" the precip is in that image above, with those green shadings (and what they mean). On a related note, I believe the AI models typically are not the greatest for amounts, but are better for overall coverage. Something like that.

That due to not much precip, or due to temperatures that are too warm and bleah?

"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for us to get a snowstorm!" But seriously, I still kinda have hope for that general period around the 24th. The 12Z GFS looked craptastic for much of its run but even still showed some potential near that time. Earlier runs showed similar hints too.

We need a helmet catch Hail Mary a'la the NY Giants in Super Bowl XLII!!

You know it's bad when the medium range thread has several plots of the 300+ hour deterministic GFS showing warmth, and relative silence about that. If it were a major snowstorm being shown, everyone would be saying "looks great, but it's the GFS and at 300 hours, no way that happens!"

Problem from what I can see in the 00Z GFS around the 24th is that it has a low in southern Canada, which I would guess is kind of messing things up with the main system of interest that would affect us. Maybe not quite the same as a Lakes low, but I'd have to think it isn't ideal.

Oh and BTW, thanks @SnowenOutThere for starting this thread!! Really cool, and some amazing shots in here including yours. Photography is a serious hobby and big interest of mine, I'm curious what camera/lenses you use. The lunar eclipse is actually a bit tricky to get in a way...you need a long enough shutter because it's so much dimmer, and you also have to crank up the ISO a bit. But at least it's not fleeting so one has time to take several shots at various settings and hope a couple or so come out well! I ended up doing some noise reduction in post as well as boosting the red color a bit. Had to crop it too, though I did use a long telephoto for my shot. More recent cameras have gotten better about noise control at higher ISOs, until you get up to the really extreme values (which I have only used on very rare occasion).

Here are some that I got. One is the lunar eclipse from March 2025...if you look closely, those are actually stars to the right in the photo. The normally bright full moon would have totally obscured those, but during a total lunar eclipse, it is very muted. The others include: a double rainbow, an incoming storm near sunset, blood-red clouds near sunset, and mammatus clouds at the edge of a storm (maybe from the same storm that @Bob Chill showed above??). I always like the sunset colors, the sky and any clouds change color constantly.

Not quite sure what to make of that. On the one hand, it looks like the NA is less favorable with lower heights up around Greenland, whereas the other day or so it looked better. On the other hand, the overall heights are not bad, relatively "flat" over much of the US (and no big southeast ridge). Plus, there appear to be lower heights on this side of the pole and a bit of a 50/50 trough. Seems like that could perhaps at least keep some chances for cold incursions from decent high pressures in Canada. ETA: While there were no specific threats that seemed evident in today's deterministic ops runs, some threats have appeared in the guidance on several occasions lately in this time period. For instance, yesterday's 18Z GFS had what looked like a couple or so decent shots. Those were gone today but as long as we can keep seeing those show up it would be nice, and hopefully have one or two really take shape as it gets closer.

Hopefully not a GFS modeling gig!!! But seriously, have a fun time up there!!

I posted a response in the main medium range thread, but even though this is an ops out there in time...this kind of threat has shown up in ops runs (not just the GFS) and even ensembles(?) in that time period, several times lately. So I don't think it's just fantasy land bullshit. Not saying for sure we'll get something, but it catches one's attention.

I know we can all laugh at an ops model at range...but a pretty good event has shown up in the ops (not just the GFS) several times now in that time frame. Not guaranteed obviously, but I don't think it's just fantasy either.

I hear King John remembered that storm well!!