RU848789

12Z NAM...

6Z models showing a 1-3" potential, except for the Euro, which is still <1". NWS-Philly discussion on this event is below. As we go through the Wednesday night into Thursday period, the aformentioned low will continue tracking eastward as it moves into Atlantic Canada and this will drag a cold front through the region from north to south. At the same time, there will be some upper level energy rounding the base of the long wave trough over the east and another system moving northward from the south along the frontal boundary. The upshot of all this is a period of rain will develop by the overnight period Wednesday night but as the colder air moves in behind the front expect this to change over to snow from north to south. This changeover should occur during the overnight hours Wednesday night N/W of the I-95 corridor and by around sunrise across the urban corridor. The snow may continue for a few hours into Thursday before ending as colder, drier air continues to move in on N/NW winds. The total precipitation with this system could be on the order of a quarter to half inch of QPF but expect that a lot of this will occur before the changeover from rain to snow. Experience has shown that often in these cold advection type situations that by the time the colder air moves, heavier precip is just about getting ready to exit. The NAM is a bit more robust with heavier precip back into the colder air but given the setup think this may be overdone. The upshot is that at this time I expect snow amounts to mostly be just a light coating to under an inch. But again, challenging forecast and if this system is a little more robust as indicated by the NAM there could be areas that see a couple inches of snow accumulation.

Always liked the MJ laugh gif...is that Michael Caine from Children of Men in your avatar? Great film.

Might want to edit the title, as funny as it is...

Oh well, that snow only lasted a few minutes. It's now up to 32F and mostly rain with a few flakes. Calling it at 3/4" of snow, bringing me to 6.75" for the season. Let's hope the pattern delivers for 95 in the next week or so...

Oh well, that snow only lasted a few minutes. It's now up to 32F and mostly rain with a few flakes. Calling it at 3/4" of snow, bringing me to 6.75" for the season. Let's hope the pattern delivers for 95 in the next week or so...

As of 8:45 pm, we have 3/4" of snow and it's 31F and it just changed to a mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain a few minutes ago, but as I was typing this post, it changed back to the heaviest snow I've seen so far. No idea if it's just a few more minutes of this or not, but it's pretty wild out there, as it's also getting windy.

As of 8:45 pm, we have 3/4" of snow and it's 31F and it just changed to a mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain a few minutes ago, but as I was typing this post, it changed back to the heaviest snow I've seen so far. No idea if it's just a few more minutes of this or not, but it's pretty wild out there, as it's also getting windy.

We have 1/2" as of 8:00 pm with continuing light to moderate snow, but it's now 31F and the radar shows the mix line almost at the Raritan, about 5-10 miles from me, so maybe another 30-60 minutes of snow? Very slick out there, as all surfaces are covered, given how cold the ground was. I imagine there could be some accidents out there if people weren't expecting any snow at all.

We have 1/2" as of 8:00 pm with continuing light to moderate snow, but it's now 31F and the radar shows the mix line almost at the Raritan, about 5-10 miles from me, so maybe another 30-60 minutes of snow? Very slick out there, as all surfaces are covered, given how cold the ground was. I imagine there could be some accidents out there if people weren't expecting any snow at all.

Up to 3/8" at 7:30 pm, but up to 29F with dual-pol showing the mix line about 20 miles from me, but moving slowly...

As of 7 pm, we have a whole 1/4" of snow and intensity has increased to moderate - may get the 1" of snow before the changeover, as it's still 28F and above freezing temps and sleet still look to be 20 miles SE of me. Anyone know what happened to the old Sacrus tracking images thread? Used to love that thing...

As of 7 pm, we have a whole 1/4" of snow and intensity has increased to moderate - may get the 1" of snow before the changeover, as it's still 28F and above freezing temps and sleet still look to be 20 miles SE of me.

We officially have a whole dusting here in Metuchen! Snow falling almost moderately. Temp up to 28F, but temps above freezing just about 20 miles SE of here.

Light snow started here around 5:55 pm. 27F. Woohoo! I'm going with a prediction of 1", as the storm overperforms hugely for Metuchen, lol. It's still only 30F 15 miles SE of me, but above freezing 20 miles SE of me...

Light snow has commenced! Woohoo! 27F. Guessing the storm overperforms hugely for Metuchen and we get 1" vs. the 1/2" predicted for me, lol...

Amazing how the Euro went from snowmageddon to nosnowatall in one model run, lol

Walt - adding to the avalanche of support for your threads/posts. It's a weather forum and anyone who knows even a smidgen about the weather understands the huge uncertainty inherent in numerical weather predictions, so we all know that 7 days or even 3 days out, a forecast can go awry either providing more or less snow than originally forecast. It's the nature of the beast. But most of us love the tracking as much as the actual snow and your insights on tracking these systems are invaluable, given your incredible expertise. So please keep posting away, thanks!!

Did you play a round of disc golf in the park? Nice course...

That was from Monday evening - looking at something I saw elsewhere, there was a flight tonight which would not have had data going into tonight's 0Z models, which initialize at 7 pm EST.

The huge variance between Op and ensemble runs is a big red flag at this point, especially since it's certainly enhanced by sparse data on the initial conditions for the shortwave still out in the Pacific, as there are no more important deterministic, non-linear numerical model inputs than initial conditions, so until that baby is well sampled (including the weather flight data tonight and relevant data from being over land early this morning), we're flying partially blind, which is why I don't live and die with model outputs until we have those initial conditions nailed down much better, which will likely be by 12Z today The old modeling adage of "garbage in, garbage out" may sound trite, but it's quite relevant here.

A few snow pics, including nighttime snow, a shot of the pond across the street, our house showing my fine shoveling (and the town already having plowed our street by 7 am), and the snow angel I made.

Thought the NWS and other forecasts did well - I'm sure there were some misses, but no significant busts I've seen. Not worth pasting the full list yet, IMO, as it's very preliminary, but it looks like a fairly uniform 4-6" in most of SNJ/CNJ/NNJ, except for Sussex/Warren/Morris, which were more like 2-4", as expected, and most of E PA was in the 3-5" range, except the Poconos/Lehigh Valley, which were more like 2-3". NYC/LI/CT were more like 5-8" with the winner looking like LGA Airport at 8.4" (still snowing on E LI /CT though). https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/getprod.php?new&prod=XXXPNSPHI&wfo=phi https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&product=PNS&issuedby=OKX

And finally, as of 7:15 am, when the snow had been reduced to flurries, I got a final measurement of 5.75", which outperformed nearly every prediction out there. Just finished shoveling and then a long JebWalk and finally had to make a snow angel - snow was fairly light and fluffy, but with just enough moisture to make decent snowballs. Couldn't have asked for a much better storm out of this setup.

Holy crap it poured snow most of the last hour, so as of 6:00 am, we're up to 5.0" of snow OTG, meaning we got 1.5" of snow in the past hour! Actually exceeded my prediction of 4.75", which I thought was a bit too optimistic, as the NWS had me for 4.2". We just backed off to moderate snow and that might have been the last of the heavy snow bands for us. Still 27F.