Cobalt

the NAM and RGEM are.. just a tiny bit different at HR 84. Dunno, RGEM has been pretty good with figuring out the waves running along the boundary. Might've spent all it's energy on that and be out of gas though lol. But yeah it's a good bit colder at all levels and takes a more favorable track

PDII maybe? That's actually kind of sad to think about. I guess it's what we get to be able to have 99% of our storms be 2" of slop to rain events with the other 1% being the big dog HECS storms that melt away after a week. What an area

Agreed. Piece of the TPV is once again stronger and lingers North of us a bit longer as the trend has been, but the sw is stronger and attempts to undo those positive changes. Midlevels look marginally better, except for 700mb temps which stick out like a sore thumb. Still a heavy thump of wintry precip for sure.

^ mid 20s all the way down to Short Pump will definitely do some damage.

Para GFS is a bit more of a thump for the general area. 850s holding on stronger than it's op brother FWIW.

This is.. absurd. The reach of this cold is kind of insane, until it stops just at our doorstep. Paraphrasing from what a great comedian once said, it's a big club, and we ain't in it

Adding to this, I've been keeping track of cumulative totals for the three main airports (mainly because I feel like the three in total are pretty representative of the urban corridor for the majority of the subforum), and we're certainly still in the running for overall futility for two consecutive winters in the IAD snowfall era. Cumulative totals from 19/20 and 20/21 at the three airports: DCA 5.1", BWI 10.8", IAD 13.5" = 29.4" Cumulative total. This would just narrowly beat the consecutive winters of 11/12 and 12/13 where the cumulative total there was just 31.1" total. Honorable mentions would be 2000/01 and 01/02 with a cumulative total of just 37.1", and more recently 2016-17/17-18 where the cumulative total there was 48.8". We're truly entering the period of snowfall booms or horrendous snowfall busts for winters, with not much room in between. On the other side of that coin, the 3 winter stretch of 13/14 through 15/16 was the snowiest three year stretch cumulatively for all 3 airports in the IAD era. In that same era you can group 09/10 with any other winter for all three airports and it will still end up as the snowiest two year stretch for all three airports combined.. so that's fun lol. Edit as of 2/18/21: DCA = 5.9", BWI = 11.8", IAD = 14.7 = 32.4" Cumulative total (over the past two years). This narrowly edges out 11/12 and 12/13's two year cumulative total of 31.1". The past two years are no longer the least snowiest such stretch for the airports combined in the IAD measurement era. As for @KingJWx mentioning IAD's consecutive snow minimum, they have eeked out 0.2" more than that stretch. Fun times we're in!

I personally think it depends on the month. Seems like Februaries are where this is the most prevalent. I need to find where the stat was mentioned but it referenced how there wasn't a single La Nina February in ~40 years that featured anything other than a +NAO. The Atlantic seemed to do the best to buck that trend but not only has this winter not acted like a Nina, but it's also failed in that department given that the NAO has completely relaxed and we still have 15 days in the month to go lol. The February temperature anomalies for those Ninas are pretty torcheriffic on our side of the country too.. but if you also consider the last few Nino Februaries (Feb 2020, 2019, 2016), then yeah maybe it's a bigger problem than just silly ENSO stuff lol. At the very least as others have mentioned, March has stayed pretty neutral in terms of correlating to ENSOs, and in fact regardless of ENSO we're in quite the surplus of snowfall this past decade in terms of March snowfall. Maybe that shows how the hostility of our new base state can also work to line things up better in our favor when that hostility aspect doesn't matter as much? I guess I'm rambling at this point but yeah you do have a point in the relation of ENSO nowadays, maybe more so away from the metros but it's still notable.

Didn't we have a 4-12" event for a good bit of the area for Feb 20 2015? Also several events in the last week of Feb 2014. Feb 20 of 2019 gave 3-5" of heavy snow as well. There's no reason to think that snow climo just drops off a cliff after just a few days and picks back up again right after. It's probably been just a bit of bad luck and the fact that we've had a bunch of terrible Februaries in terms of snow producing patterns. March has actually been surprisingly good for the general subforum. Even with the past 2 Marches being lackluster, I believe that the metros are still running close to if not above average on snowfall departures in March for the 2010s, and that's considering all the hostility that limits significant accumulating snow in those areas.

Canadian also agrees with the RGEM idea. Moderate rain on Tuesday.

RGEM and NAM really havent agreed on much this week.. them being lockstep even at that range seems to be a deadly combo

Seems to be the system PSU mentioned that really hurts our chances of letting the HP funnel some colder air in. I think you can see the response from that system being much weaker on the NAM. Check out hr 84 for the NAM, core of the TPV cold is a fair bit farther west of the GFS yet the 850s are still more favorable.

I do believe we were dealt the worst hand leading up to this winter. November completely torched our cold air source, and while the Nina hasn't fully been in force, it certainly hasn't helped the Pacific. That is, until this past month. The biggest concern here is that we actually got PAC help with a couple pulses of EPO ridges, and we're still looking at the same short end of the stick. I may be going out on a limb here, but regardless of the strength of ENSO forcing, Ninas have certainly responded worse to the new base state we're in. Almost all Ninos in recent memory have had a much better response down in the metro areas, and the snow gradient has not been nearly as extreme as in Ninas. Maybe that's due to the PAC being less hostile and the southern stream lining up a bit more when cold was pushed into our side of the country, but I wouldn't be entirely certain about that.

For the Tuesday event.

That's more of an A/B hybrid I believe. More southern stream interaction than you'd expect from a Miller B.

That warm nose on the Euro is nuts... warmer up at 700mb than it is down at 925mb. Not an airmass we can get a stone cold beatdown with, but still seems wintry.

There's guidelines against not including ice measurements in seasonal totals, right? Might as well tally it up and say I have had 14 inches of "'winter" when those storms are all said and done.

Only if the Euro is wrong, which hasn't happened for a long, long time..

Yes, Feb 20-21 2015. One of my favorite storms as a young weenie. That was near the peak of our arctic blast, and so when precip arrived, temps were still in the mid teens for most across the area. Took a substantial amount of precip until it finally changed over, with 6"+ from IAD west, as well as a glacier on top of it. Pretty sure temps rocketed the day after, but the snowpack was encased pretty well. In fact some areas maintained that snowpack from then until after the March 5-6 snowstorm (another personal favorite).

RAP I'm assuming? At the very least it seems like some areas in our subform will get a shot at substantial precip on both wave 1 and wave 2. Was always thread the needle to get those areas to overlap, but at least most areas are in the game for something, even if minimal.

Wave four

He's put a hex on us for making him quit this board again. That can't be good.

Hm... Canadian remains all snow for NW of DC for this weekend's system. Somewhat light on QPF so that might be why

Canadian is pretty weak sauce wrt wave 2.. it didn't really go south, but it's just not as juiced. At the very least it seems like the jogs south have halted for that. Famous last words.