Cobalt

Wild band of snow down there. Quite the insane stretch of winter for a good bit of the Deep South.

It tends to overdo cold past something like 36hrs, but within then it seems pretty grounded. Even the snow depth panel is ~3-5" for DC and points SW, which is pretty bullish for those types of panels. In the Dec 16-17 event, it initially went out of the gate being way too cold during WAA snow timeframe, but within 30hrs it continued to advertise that the initial thump would impact DC and immediate NW areas, while the NAM was still eroding the mid level cold much faster.

That would be one of the radar looks of storms where we're unsure if the yellows/oranges are sleet or blinding snow, but where it would still be an absolute precip blitz. Shades of Feb 20 2015 in that..

This is a pretty fun panel. Quite the area of 1-2"/hr rates with mid levels comfortably below 0 for all of DC and NW.

Seeing what you guys get in snow events where us in the immediate DC area are walking between raindrops (pun totally intended) just to manage a meager snowfall is really encouraging me to look for places out that way once the time comes. Gotta deal with being on the outskirts of UHI hell for a few years though.. although some of my college choices are absolutely beautiful in the winter so outside of the DC area for just a little while might not be such a bad idea.

I think this precip distribution map smooths things out, but it's still a useful tool for overall ptypes.

In range if I'm not mistaken, GFS tends to dry up a bit, so this is nice to see. It's been a while since we've had any sort of system like that stay frozen.

You're in a pretty good spot for this event. Can't imagine you won't crack 30" on the year from this, and I'd imagine three 6" events in any given year is an impressive feat in a Nina, even out there. Enjoy!!

Its not a good run. It has .5-.6" QPF before 850s give way for your area.

Better update your Facebook page of this stunning new turn of events

Seems just really dry since not much sleet It's about on par if not a tiny bit wetter than 18z. I think this illustrates where that precip is going a bit better. Kuchera is being pretty funky, and since it's likely not gonna be 10:1, it's a good compromise to just extrapolate the snow precip side of the panel to ratios slightly lower than 10:1.

Euro would technically be in the NAM camp, but actually it just doesn't really have a wave 2, not much energy left behind. I guess if you split the difference between that and the NAM everyone's happy lol

Since you posted this, the HRRR got snowier, the SREFs got snowier, the 12k NAM got snowier/colder, and the 3k NAM will likely follow. I know you're banking on us to fail. We fail a lot, and probably will still manage to fail. We're good at that, but that's the thing. You can say that we will fail 48 hours before every event and you will likely end up right most of the time, but that's because of the climo we have to deal with! It's kind of what Judah Cohen and JB do, only in reverse and with less analysis/backing. Kind of pure modelology actually.

Here's a fun comparison! I know it's the HRRR at range, but most guidance has wave 2 impacting our area. HRRR at hr 46 Aaaand Euro at the same time. Just a tiny difference.

No Short Pump jackpot on DT's first guess.. not sure if that's something to be concerned about or not

KU 101 also suggests that our KUs storms don't come from a +AO, +EPO, +NAO, and -PNA regime in a mod Nina. The fact that there's even an outside chance of getting close to warning level snows within a vicinity of the metros is pretty impressive here.

Snow showers move through on the trailing end of the system. Would be nice to get an inch on top of the snow/sleet pack.

I wouldn't say that exactly. The wave 2 we were talking about on the 12z run is practically nonexistent on the 18z. Regardless, the axis of heavy precip moved NW some, but 850s and 700s only gave in a little. It's actually wetter for the initial thump for IAD and points NW I believe, it's just that it lost the ~.2-.3" qpf that came from wave 2. 18z has been wonky the past 2 days, not that I'm too certain about anything in regards to off hour runs.

Just my humble opinion, but I don't think any operational model ensures that we're safe. Mesos are clearly trending more positively, but they still blast that warm nose through our region, and they were right to a degree with that feature in previous events. I would say that the past few model suites have cemented the fact that a significant wintry event is going to unfold. 0.5"+ QPF of any frozen is rather significant, and most models put that total at almost twice that precip output.

I remember it being the only model to hold onto the Feb 7th system as well. Pretty nice run it's on.

ICON panels still coming out, but it looks pretty darn juiced. Nice to see models not lose any precip with some actually getting wetter as we get towards 40hrs until onset. Gives us a cushion for when/if they lose a bit of juice as they have so far during this winter in short range.

Some of those 1hr panels have 0.2-0.3" of precip fall, basically all sleet. Not sure I've ever seen sleet accumulate as fast as snow before, but regardless that would be ~0.6-1" of sleet an hour? Can't imagine seeing that happen, but it would be quite the sight.

NAM has 850s at -3 to -5 at hr 45, meanwhile 700mb temps are +3. Need to see the charts on that, it's likely not right, but that would be an unholy sleet bomb for sure.

:/

Thursday's system is outside of the Day 3-7 Hazards Outlook, but this shows the potential for cold following the event. Might be a deep winter look if a majority of the subforum avoids rain or temps shooting up on Friday.