csnavywx

Copernicus Marine showed a 76 (!) ZJ jump in OHC in '25. It's a much more volatile data series than the others, but even the smoothed IAP, etc showed ~24ZJ. Just for reference, if you plug 76 ZJ into the top 400m of the global ocean, you get +0.13C. That's oversimplified ofc, but gives you an idea of just how much heat we're dumping into the ocean. IAP's ~24ZJ gives you 0.14C if isolated to the mixing layer +1 y of extension via diffusion. And the implied EEI from that is about +1.5 W/m2. So these temp increases we're seeing at least seem plausible. We'd better hope these rates slow down, because we're talking pretty extreme rates of ocean surface warming which ofc will translate to even higher land surface temp rates. The fact that we can print a 1.44 W/m2 figure at these already very high temps is giving me some serious pause.

CERES monthlies have rebounded strongly this year. Much higher than I would have expected. Matches the notable leap in OHC figures. I was thinking this year's potential Nino would have a lesser impact on temperatures, but I am not as sure now: (from Leon Simons on X)

Back to snow grains/pellets. Having issues keeping the snow growth zone saturated it seems.

Prob won't see much til about 6pm. Low is still >1000mb. Dropping fast now, but wind lags the increase in pressure gradient force.

Getting some snow grains mixing in here. Usually means cloud tops are not quite cold enough. Needs more time.

Better diabatic cooling from getting decent precip early on and strong low-to-mid level lift doing its job. Winds flipping north earlier than forecast didn't hurt either.

All snow here. About 3 hours ahead of schedule. Usually a decent sign.

For you, should be cranking into the overnight. Will be occasional breaks/lulls as the precip starts taking on a more convective nature and you do lose some saturation in the DGZ as the low pulls in super close to shore -- but there could be a few rumbles of thunder later this afternoon and evening too.

Flipping from light rain to light snow here already.

That's early! Good news there.

If you're near or within ~50km to the left/west of the developing 700mb front, BL and ground temps are just not going to be an issue. 2"/hr doesn't care.

That 18Z NAM run is an all-timer. Bonus is that it's 18-24hr out. Gonna be cranking up the BUFKIT profiles for this one and posting em for everyone here when it posts to PSU.

We gotta pump that post:snow ratio back up in here.

Better/earlier phase and better tilt with the new Euro. Note how the 500mb low closes off earlier. Delmarva nuke time:

Looks like the real McCoy to me for you folks on the Eastern Shore:

Getting dangerously close to forming a moist absolutely unstable layer (MAUL) in the boundary layer here. Wind is going to be a very serious issue.

If all of that wasn't enough to get excited about, some of these soundings are exhibiting the potential for some thundersnow (this one's from Dover):

Liking the Easton to Dover corridor. I'd throw Salisbury in there too but I think SoMD and mid/southern eastern shore are gonna have to wait for the heavier rates to flip to snow. Got some work to do in the boundary layer first and we'll be attempting to do that during the day initially. Not really an issue after sunset ofc, but the sooner the flip happens, the higher the totals. Where that hellacious banding sets up is going to be pretty key. Intense 850-700mb frontogenesis will be present and the highest rates will probably be where the lift from the fgen circulation crosses the dendritic growth zone: Note where the 700mb front is: Rates are going to be pretty intense just about everywhere but the heaviest will probably be where the max omega crosses the DGZ here (just on the cold side of the 700mb front). So, given the temp profile in this storm, we can use that feature as a quick ruler to see where the best banding/rates will probably set up initially.

Hard to believe, but it can improve on that run. Tighten up the phase a bit more and neg. tilt a bit earlier (or just slower in general). Basically where the GFS has been for some time, lol.

Yep. We're 2 days til game time. Time to be serious. Forecast map I put up at the office had 10-16" over most of the Eastern Shore. Might have to nudge that up. Smelling a death band in there somewhere.

Narrow is right. It's not as simple as simply coastal vs. norlun/inverted trough though. Even a partial tuck will result in a lot stronger convergence into the trough and much better moisture feed. So the "in between" solution is significant rain to snow along and on the north side of the surface trough. Of course, if we're really fortunate enough to get a coastal (still pretty skeptical on a full capture), then we're dealing with another beast entirely. BL temps are pretty poor starting out, so expect to have to waste a considerable amount of liquid getting that fixed. The stronger the lift and/or low, the faster that gets fixed.

UFS mean forecast lowered to just above 2012 levels for upcoming season (down from ~4M in Dec to ~3.5M)

OHC backs this up, with record increases in 2025: Ocean Heat Content Sets Another Record in 2025 | Advances in Atmospheric Sciences | Springer Nature Link The overall increases from IPS are around 20-25 ZJ/yr, but the near real time CORA (Copernicus Marine) dataset is particularly extreme and sitting at almost a 100 ZJ increase from '23 to '25. That alone would be worth another ~0.15C for SSTs, roughly. I was skeptical about this year being able to beat the record, but it appears that this year or next might already be gearing up to do just that.

Wheeeeee METAR KPIT 070251Z 26008KT 2SM -TSSN BKN009 OVC016CB M03/M04 A2970 RMK AO2 TSB50 SLP082 OCNL LTGICCG NW TS NW MOV SE P0000 60000 T10281044 50005

Oh gotcha! Yeah, looking closer -- there's some nice mid-level DPVA superimposed over that surface front with the left exit region of that jet streak nosing in aloft. Good spot for something to happen. Hope it makes it down to at least our northwestern folks. Been a while since we've had a good arctic front driven snow squall.