griteater

I think this mainly comes down to a temperature forecast cause the models are throwing the warm advection precip right at us for the most part. Not sure how the temps will trend between now and Sunday, but they probably aren't going to change too much. Here is the precip swath on the Euro and RGEM

Yeah, always temper the long range...I do think the blocking is going to renew itself (with an assist down the road from the nor'easter going up the coast), but the SE ridge / La Nina tendency could be problematic

That's an amazing looking pattern on the GFS days 10-15. Cold shot, then everything starts moving west from Greenland thru N Canada, then cold air heads south. Make it happen

GFS was terrible 5 days out or so with sending the storm into DC. But within 48 hours, I thought it ended up being one of the better models (to my surprise) in terms of showing the hard temperature crash and good rates in the precip once it switched to snow. It’s likely area dependent though in terms of where it had some struggles. I’ve always kind of liked the GFS once you get inside 2 days. It just has its issues with storms longer out

Coldest air in the N Hemisphere getting deposited into Southern Canada and the Northern Plains in the extended range, probably with another round of high latitude blocking developing....some SE ridging will fight back though

Only the Euro knows how to handle a Miller B transfer to a bombing coastal low in blocked flow with a damming high I kid of course (* but there is a little truth in a lie *)

Yep slight north trend overall since yesterday with temperatures, let’s see what happens going forward. It’s throwing the warm advection precip right at us at the moment

Looks like the UKMet moved north this run on the early maps. CMC has some wintry mix I40 north

Trend loop on the Euro Ensemble Mean for Sunday at 1PM (last 9 runs). Some good things going on here. Trough off the west coast is deepening and slower to move east...western ridge is building...all the while, the confluent flow over PA and NY is holding...forcing our Miss River trough to trend south. This could continue to trend south a little more IMO based on these trends, especially if the confluent flow over PA/NY continues to hold. Also notice the building ridge over the Great Lakes which increases the surface high pressure SE of Hudson Bay.

For this weekend, here are the surface temperatures on the 18z Euro Control as all of this precip (2nd image) rolls thru right at us

Today's vs. Yesterday's 12z Euro run for Sunday morning...let's see if we can keep nudging this south

Euro for Sat night to Sun night

From NOAA Weekly MJO Update

Yeah, that's a setup that you'd think would produce some Miller B style wintry precip as the source region starts off cold, but it weakens pretty quickly. Everything is so marginal temp wise this winter of course....but it could trend colder in time given the blocky nature of the setup downstream

This one just looks a little warmer in the lowest layer compared to that last storm in early Jan that was also marginal. I suspect the models may be spitting out a bit more snow than actually occurs / accumulates across N and NE NC. Still some days left, but need to see this bump a little south / a little stronger aloft / a little colder....probably won't happen, but not out of the question

We haven't reached the finish line, but indeed, the GFS was not dead right (posted the above when DC was getting crushed with snow on the GFS). The GFS has actually performed pretty well over the past 10 years with our winter storm threats (as documented in the model performance thread, wherever the heck it is buried). But what I suspect is going on here is that the Euro and UKMet combo are getting back to their glory days a bit this winter (especially the Euro) given the blocky patterns we've seen at times over the North Atlantic / Greenland / Eastern Canada...just think that the Euro is better equipped to handle those setups.

I don’t think we are going to go traditional La Niña Feb torch this winter, but we shall see

Yeah, that's a good track for your area if it can hold there

Euro bumped south as well...some snow across northern and NE NC

It looks like the GFS and the CMC had a small bump south...GFS Para had more of a bump south...and the UKMet had a substantial bump south

It still being 5 days out at least makes this a bit entertaining to watch how it unfolds in the end. Noticed on the UKMet that the closed low over the Great Lakes is farther south compared to the GFS....so there's a bit of squashing effect there with the height pattern along the east coast. Best bet is to probably just put all the models in a blender right now and take the average.

all that's left is buddy and bornagain talking to each other beside the neon light

A few thoughts here on the reason for the differences between the GFS and ECMWF solutions: https://twitter.com/griteater/status/1352993792870273024

Just to document the diff between the GFS and Euro from the 00z runs