ORH_wxman

Yeah that is a pretty major storm actually...prob warning snows for a chunk of the area if it ran another 6-12 hours out...esp eastern half of SNE

It's a little bit colder as modeled, which could potentially be a big difference in sensible wx.

It's good enough for interior SE NY and interior SNE.

I've mostly agreed with Scott on this threat....meh for SNE but there was an outside chance that interior spots like ORH to the berks could see something more interesting. Euro has never looked good for this icing threat in SNE....which is why I haven't really posted much on it. We saw some other guidance toy with the idea of a more impactful event, but they have trended toward the Euro (kind of predictably IMHO). Still have to watch for a few hours of glaze over the interior....even a little glaze can be a hazard. But outside of that, I don't see much. You'll have to go much further north to get some accumulating snow that breaches advisory threshold.

Yeah don't count on building sustained pack until the PAC gets better. If 1/4 ends up pretty big, then it might last, but otherwise, we wait.

Yeah if 1/4 doesn't produce, then it's prob shades closed for SNE until at least 1/8-1/10ish....something might pop before that, but it looks like an uphill battle with such a terrible PAC and the NAO blocking isn't really set up yet.

EPS trying to bring it back a little. I know the OP run has toyed with the idea, but you'd like to see some bigger solutions on other guidance. GGEM was showing it a little too.

Scott, here is the last 30 years or so of our garbage winters. The NAO and the AK pig stand out well.

Yeah not sure why he’s implying the PAC looks like those composites. The PAC looks way worse than that over the next 10-12 days...now, it may improve after that, which is reason to get more optimistic assuming west-based blocking develops.

It’s often behind the grinch storm we typically see, lol. But there wasn’t much cold behind this one. Doesn't look like any true arctic air for the foreseeable future. May have to wait until mid-month or later.

EPO never gets great on weeklies but it doesn’t have to if the NAO/AO ends up like it depicts. It goes into a bit more of a neutral state and the PNA ridging pops a little more. It’s not a cold pattern up here but it is a good one for snow events. Definitely a cold pattern down south though. Weeklies could be wrong though. They don’t have a lot of skill beyond week 3.

Weeklies gone wild from mid-January onward....PAC gets better and NAO blocking looks more classic. Let’s hope it is right.

Yeah this makes sense. A strong NAO/AO with a garbage PAC basically lets you barely tread water in the northeast. Though you could prob do a little better if the block is specifically in the Davis Strait area... The PAC hopefully gets less hostile by 1/10...even just a mediocre PAC with a good NAO would do pretty well during peak winter temperature climo.

At least 1/4 has a better airmass than 12/5 so interior would prob be ok but it needs some help aloft with the intensity.

Assuming GEFS is correct. EPS not as enthused though they still do improve somewhat toward the end of the run.

True crippling ice storms are pretty rare. We get a lot of nuisance ice events and even semi-regularly we get moderate ice events in the interior. But they almost always fail to reach half an inch of accretion. (Radial measurement, not flat...big difference which causes confusion on here sometimes) You usually want a mesolow poking NE or NNE off the coast to really lock in the cold/dry dewpoint drain to offset the latent heat release of ZR. When the mesolow is oriented and poking more E or ENE, then it becomes harder to sustain the cold drain. So you’ll get some ZR for sure on that look, but then it ends up slowly going to 33F rain. You also need the QPF. Accretion efficiencies are often in the 0.7 range or even lower on moderate/heavy precipitation, but they will be much higher on light freezing rain. That’s also why many of the bigger ice storms come in waves of lighter precipitation that lasts for a couple days (or even longer like the 1998 ice storm in NNE)

Stop looking at those damned charts and see the pattern. EPO sucks but the NAO is a fraud -NAO. It’s not a west-based Davis Strait or even Hudson Bay block. It’s eastern Greenland to Iceland ridging with a vortex over Baffin Island...in scientific technical lingo, that’s called a dogshit negative NAO. They can be ok when the PAC is mediocre but not when it is hostile. Previously, model guidance showed a true Davis Strait block which was going to offset the shitty PAC.

It was a slow trend toward the icier scenario on the euro but still not enough for big impact...maybe up into W ME. Some front end ice too for interior CNE.

Ukie looks more like the 00z euro keeping the southern energy more consolidated and west so you end up with a cutter anyway albeit with CAD out in front of it...but wouldn’t be that much snow on that setup.

GEM is definitely an icy look over interior even if verbatim the 32F sfc isotherm doesn’t make it much past NH/MA border. Lot of mesolow showing up there. Still a bit skeptical until Euro gets on board but it’s plausible.

GEFS d15 pattern is definitely very good. But obviously not agreeing with EPS. For the first week of January, we will definitely have to hope for good NAO blocking to set up or we’re probably going to struggle with an AK vortex out on the PAC side.

Temporary one eyed pig setting up over AK early month too. We need the NAO to set up then or we’re gonna have a useless first week of January. It does look like the pig retrogrades west so it’s not locking in.

A majority are rainers on the EPS but you can still see quite a few wintry scenarios too mixed in. The spread is large.

Still crap (ensembles...06z operational doesn’t go out far enough)...though it’s slowly trending the right way. Problem on the euro is it keeps the energy pretty consolidated in the southern stream and then phases with another shortwave coming in behind it. It’s slow and consolidated compared to other guidance.

We’ll want to see the northern stream clear pretty far south ahead of the southern stream to have significant winter wx into SNE I think. Need the high to build in a real airmass otherwise it’s probably not enough down here. Having deeper cold push would help NNE get more snow too which they need badly.