ORH_wxman

Little inflow there gets going....maybe we can have a sneaky little critter. Would be fun to get an over achiever finally.

NAM looking juicy.

Agreed....if you have under an inch, it may not survive...esp in lower elevation in the western zones where precip finishes pretty early....but further east, the clouds will be slower to depart and I think anyone who grabs close to 1.5-2" isn't losing it on 3 hours of temps in the upper 30s with a Christmas Eve sun angle. Might fall off the bushes or something, but you aren't melting a couple tenths of frozen QPF in a couple hours of low-dewpoint 35-40 temps with the weakest sun angle of the year. The Euro doesn't even clear out eastern zones until 18-19z...sun is starting to set by 19z....lol. Hopefully it trends a little juicier in the final 24 hours. Could still end up as a dusting.

Seems like most guidance is dropping an inch or two on Xmas Eve for a good chunk of SNE. NAM is furthest north while Euro looks furthest south. Guess we’ll see if there’s any trends today on that. The 25th looks weak on most guidance. Beyond that is still a mess with huge differences.

Yes. I don’t have a ton of experience and I’m a novice when it comes to snowshoe equipment knowledge but the pair I have allows me to walk in 2 feet and sink maybe only 6” or so instead of knee or thigh deep. I don’t have very long snowshoes though so I’m sure a longer pair would limit the sinking a bit more. Utah powder is blower sh*t though…so I’d expect to sink more in that type of snow than a higher water content New England snow. So anything that allows you to float higher is gonna be worth it out there.

GFS does have snow both days. 24th actually looks like a nice little 1-3” fluffer on that run. 25th is kind of crunched so eastern areas don’t really snow much that day but they play catch-up on the 26th.

That was a bust too. Original forecast was for like 1-3/2-4 the 48 hours leading into it. They upped it that morning (like 4 hours before start time) to like 3-6” but it ended up being widespread 6-9”.

@CoastalWxremember this storm? I was just thinking of this one because the pattern kind of reminded me of it.....if oneof these shortwaves works out, it might look like this....you have this zonal -PNA flow running into a NAO block. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/fxg1/NARR/1995/us1214.php

We're bumping this post when you start making optimistic posts at 00z about that system.

If we can keep that Xmas eve shortwave just barely robust enough, the midlevel profile is pretty nice for snow growth....you have like -12C temps at 700mb and the SGZ is also pretty deep.

Yeah you shift everything eastward a little bit and you will get more storm amplification…but even just something nuanced like a little piece or spoke of the 50/50 PV lobe retrograding and phasing can cause a storm to pop. Something like that won’t been seen on guidance though until way closer.

The trough out west has never disappeared on any guidance except maybe clown range on the weeklies a few c HC les ago. It just shifted east slightly….the theme will remain -PNA…maybe we get it closer to neutral deeper in January of the weeklies are right but don’t expect 1977 and 2015 ridges out there.

Check back in after New Years then.

It's amazing how many shortwaves are running into this block between new and New Years...like there could literally be 5 or 6 different chances in a 10 day period.

You might not get out until after New Years in this pattern.

Xmas eve might actually be pretty fluffy if we can even wring out like 0.05-0.10....Xmas day still seems like it could be a bit heavier than shown there, but admittedly a total whiff wouldn't surprise me either. The model guidance has been struggling badly with the NAO block and the PNA firehose out west.

@tamarack and @MaineJayhawk I think both have frequently snowshoed....they should be able to help. Maybe one of our VT peeps I might be forgetting.

PRetty weak sauce...but at least flakes on both Xmas and Xmas eve might be enough to grab an inch or two.

Yes....I know. I think there are some maps out there that try to estimate accretion, but even those are "Wrong" because they focus on flat....when radial is what causes all the damage.

Good ol' Ukie....gives like a solid 2"...maybe 3" in spots for Xmas eve. "2nd best model"

We have models bringing rain into CNE for Xmas and then some that crunch it southwest and give Greenwich CT snow while Ray is smoking cirrus. Basically a clown show on guidance....but we kind of knew this was coming. I posted that map yesterday that showed all those ridiculous shortwaves offshore.

Yes. They are always overdone. In addition, radial ice is what we care about...so even if you actually do get flat surface ice to accrete half an inch, it will be more like 2 tenths radial.

GGEM crunches 12/25 south....does get some light snow into CT and W MA.....it has Xmas eve but pretty weak....maybe an inch or so in some spots amidst widespread coatings.

There;s another one for 12/28-29 too.

I'm really surprised it didn't show 12-18" again on a 5 day prog.