Scarlet Pimpernel

I was thinking exactly the same thing. And it was a rather one-sided domestic political answer as well. OK, stepping away from the political waters here, so as not to wade too much into that.

So, would measuring the icicles be the equivalent of slant-sticking for ice accretion?

Wow, that is amazing! Like walking into a Bob Ross type painting.

Have fun, and get some good pix!!!

Thanks! Yeah, it's far from perfect but it's improved over the years based on feedback, etc., from the field and others. I can see how it wouldn't fare as well in the cases you mentioned. Sort of how MOS cannot handle such events, though the NBM isn't really "MOS" (it does use that as one input, though). In some instances we use other techniques for the "blended" forecast. Such as things related to thunderstorms and severe weather from the SPC, or using the FRAM for the ice accretion that you displayed above. Snow-liquid ratio is perhaps about the most tricky parameter, as I'm sure you're aware. You can get some really wacky values at times, which would affect the total snow amounts. I'd be glad to bend your ear some about the Blend sometime. Glad it's proving to be useful at least as a starting point in the forecast process. Though I work on some aspects of it, I would hesitate to say I'm all-knowing by any means. It's got a lot of "tentacles" so to speak. There are many who work on this, of course, and have "taken on" various elements. I also work with the whole implementation process (sometimes, I wish I didn't, but anyhow, LOL!!!) and getting that all organized. Which is a task in itself.

Having worked on aspects of the Blend, this is correct. There are indeed some 30-plus pieces of guidance involved which include various global models, their corresponding ensembles, short-range meso models, etc. Actually a lot more when you consider all the ensemble members, though different weather elements use different things. It's quite complicated, actually. The Blend takes in the newest updated cycles as they become available. Note that the Blend cycle time does not actually include models from that cycle (as they wouldn't be available yet), e.g., the 00Z Blend would include models prior to 00Z. So for example, the 00Z blend might include, say, the 12Z Euro, the 18Z GFS, 12Z Canadian, those respective ensemble members, the 22Z HRRR and RAP, the 18Z NAM, etc. You get the idea. The model fields are bias corrected in many cases and MAE (mean absolute error) weighted...though several weather elements use set, specific weights and some are not always bias corrected for things that cannot be. The URMA (unrestricted real-time mesoscale analysis) is used as the background field for bias correcting. It's quite the mental gymnastics exercise to figure out what cycle of what model comes in when, and matching the correct model forecast hour projections to the Blend cycle time and its forecast hours!

Reminds me of that shot of some weather person standing in front of a screen that said "winter storm Janus"... Except where they were standing covered up the "J"!!

So, how's our next fail shaping up?

Thanks. Yeah that certainly makes those plots pretty dubious on the amounts, though perhaps the areal coverage of that ptype might be somewhat more useful. I mean really, 1.50 inches of QPF is not going to give you 1.50 inches of ice of course, to use an extreme example...and which I have actually seen in the past!

Interesting info, thanks. I always take that with a HUGE grain of salt (or sleet?). So are the images that TT and others generate coming directly from model output of this, or do they use some algorithm of their own based on that?

Hahaha! Another bat signal calling @ravensrule on that one!

Exactly. Would need the NS to get in there more rather than staying back and effectively acting as a cold front that goes through later.

And the temps are really barely marginal even at 12z Sunday when precip starts. The cold air really doesn't get in until after that wave departs unfortunately.

Well from what I see it is definitely farther north with the precip. But it's like nearly 45 and rain.

Looks like temperatures are below freezing through at least 12Z Sunday then go up to low-mid 30s around 18Z-ish to 00Z? Then they tank.

Yeah I've heard of that and experienced it to an extent. I grew up in northeast OH, maybe not the western edge of the eastern time zone, but definitely farther out than here on the East Coast. At the time I was growing up the time changes occurred in April/October as I mentioned above. Of course, "springing ahead" was always more physically difficult (still is!). It was also darker in the morning when going off to school, though lighter at the end of the day. I didn't mind DST when it was actually summer, it was kind of nice having light pretty late into the evening and the sun was higher anyhow at that time of year. But the "edges" of DST did kind of suck. That has been exacerbated by moving the start of DST to early-mid March and ending in early-mid November. I just never saw the point of expanding it that much, especially on the early end going into March. But I'm speaking from my experience in a location around this latitude and not the far northern states. I can understand what @MN Transplant was saying above, that higher latitudes would benefit more with a time change.

That has been pretty clear for some time now. My point about post content stands and I'll leave it at that.

One hundred percent your posts continue to lack so much as an iota of insightful content.

We need to appease Jobu. Wake up the snowstorms. Just don't steal his rum...is very bad!

Pretty evident to me by now that this ice event is going to be a northern/western MD, western VA, and north event. I'm sure we may see a couple of stray model runs that look like the colder air is "farther south this run!" but I honestly don't see the overall picture changing much. Sort of like the big New England storm a few weeks back, where we hung on every slight hint of a "closer to the coast" thread. Still, I would not be surprised to see a bit of sleet or ice in the DC metro area at some point.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if we now stay on one or the other (EST/DST) permanently. I suppose in the past it made some sense to "make the most use of" the extended daylight in summer, but that doesn't seem so much of an urgency now. I particularly dislike jumping ahead an hour, like probably most people. I remember when DST/EST used to be 6 months each: you'd set your clock ahead in April, and go back in October. At this point, EST is barely 4 months long. I might have a slight preference for standard time, if only because I think it's a bit silly to begin it in early March, plus even on standard time the evenings are still long in mid-summer. But the main thing is just remaining on one or the other. Hope they really do tie it to many other states doing the same, at least in the eastern time zone; it would be a nightmare if different places had EST part of the time still while others don't.

More like a Monty Python quest, and you know how that turns out!! ETA: Would that be @WinterWxLuvr as King Arthur leading the quest? And maybe @Ji with the coconuts?

God's sake man! Your posts are about the most childish and most devoid of any useful content in here, I swear!

I was just looking at that. Right now, as depicted, it's just a frontal passage in this area. That energy in the southeast gets pushed out to sea.