chris21

Just so I’m clear. You are claiming that an undefined conglomerate of meteorologists forecasts were collectively precisely 14 percent wrong over an undefined time period. I’m just trying to follow your scientific logic here...

This post would prob make more sense in April. It’s only January 4th and the “best pattern since 96’” is still at least a week away. Other than 2009, there has almost always been a dearth of snow prior to January in the DC metro (at least in the past thirty years I’ve lived here).

I don’t want to give too much credence to this theory but I’ll say this. I lived in southern Maryland for 6-7 years between 2003 and 2009. I lived in Tall Timber’s, Lexington Park, St. Mary’s City, Ridge and Park Hall. Southern Maryland is muuuch warmer than the DC area in the Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. The climo is terrible and humid and warm. Late fall is often warm and humid and storms that are a cold 4-6 inches in downtown dc are a touch of sleet to rain. We should prob try to be more aware of our climo and the fact that the climo in Martinsburg is drastically different than St. Mary’s City.

I know there is a lot of frustration in southern Maryland over not seeing snow recently. Obviously, the earth is warming... however, pretty sure we don’t transition into a “subtropical climate” in the next ten years. Also not sure we saw a “golden age of snowstorms”... just been the same situation as always... we tend to go on hot streaks and of course... cold streaks.

Think he meant you should post your obs in the January thread!

Not sure where you live in DC, but where I live in NW we had an inch and a half of snow and some ice after that. Actually not bad for a storm in December.

Im going with this guy over psu, HM, and Webb.

It’s ripping now here in Canaan as well! 6 degrees, -9 wind chill. Merry Christmas!

So... I just made it to Canaan valley... quite an entrance... we rented a Chevy traverse and had a beautiful snowy Christmas drive. However, no fewer than three minutes before arriving at our cabin our dog had explosive diarrhea and projectile vomited all over my gf and the car! We’ve since recovered but... 2020 I guess (the dog is doing fine now, gf is a bit slower to recover but she’s coming along). It is 6 degrees and there seems like 8 or 9 inches of snow with plenty of new powder. It’s still coming down pretty good, tiny flakes.

Good point there. I’m in DC and we got up to 35. The CAD holding on until a frontal passage is a much more common way to get a “flash freeze” then this upcoming situation. Have seen a few flash freezes after 60 degree days when I lived near snowshoe but very few in dc.

There was a flash freeze with the last storm.

I doubt the start time of rain will have much impact on the change to snow. We want the low to develop further east on the front or luck out from the upper level energy tomorrow.

The November 1995 cold front is the one that stands out the most for me in Bethesda. I remember high winds, thunder and a dramatic temp drop with 1.5 inches of paste. It was early November (the 8th maybe), I actually lost power for the night.

I’ve thrown some shade... so better make my forecast. Given the wind direction and the depth of the cold, I’m forecasting 8-12 for Snowshoe and Canaan through Saturday. I think upslope will continue into Saturday.

Dave Lesher is a great resource as is “the fearless forecaster” who posts on white grass’ website regularly. When I lived in Pocahontas for a few years the zone forecasts were rough but I feel like Charleston and Sterling had more of a focus on the mountain zones.

Do you find NWS Pitt has issues forecasting for Canaan valley? The current forecast has no precipitation for Friday (almost every time I’ve visited Canaan in the winter, NWS Pitt has underdone the amounts). Charleston seems to do a better job with Snowshoe.

I’m coming in on Xmas day and I have 4 wheel drive (used to live in Pocahontas so am very comfortable driving in the snow). My question is... will Tucker county be plowing on Xmas day?

South winds warm all elevations quickly... In a northwest flow regime, the high elevations will be colder and snowier than surrounding areas, but there isn’t much difference between the high elevations and valley prior to a strong cold front... everyone warms up. As soon as the winds shift the higher elevations will very quickly transition to snow.

That’s a good yikes.

Heading there Xmas

I was pointing out the same thing as Leesburg.

He actually said it’s the best look he’s seen overall since then. He references both 2009-2010 and the blizzard of 96 in the same sentence. He didn’t add any qualifiers.

There are a lot of people jumping to conclusions re: H5 looks that I don’t think are necessarily correct. If you read the extensive research PSU has some on the subject, you will find that more often than not... the pattern does not need to be perfect to get snow. In fact, most of our decent snow events do not have all of the following (+pna, -EPO, -NAO, -AO). The H5 looks being thrown out the GFS and the Euro in the extended are very workable, and with a few minor adjustments could really lead to a special period. I’d highly recommend everyone read PSUs research on the subject.

The ensemble mean is quite high though.

Early March 2014 adjusted south at the last minute right?