psuhoffman

Bob definitely was the first to go big in 96 but to be fair he was only like 15 mins ahead of everyone else...its just he was on the air as the evening guidance came in, back then the ETA and NGM started coming in around 11pm, and I guess that was the run where the models caved and came north...and he broke in before his normal weather timeslot to tell everyone a huge snow was coming, top 5 ever. They didn't have the normal graphics and forecast prepared it was all just on the spot based on what he just saw. Everyone else caught on very soon after. But what made that moment so memorable was that Bob Ryan was by far the most conservative and almost always under predicted snow, so him saying that made it all the more memorable.

It was right up here!

what makes me better than everyone else is how humble I am

Do you mean Feb 2014? We had a lot of minor snows Feb 2015 but no amplified waves most were over running in the epo pattern. The biggest snow we had that month was that cutter that somehow produced 4-8” because it was so cold the day before. I see some similarities to the Feb 2014 storm.

The WAA and associated surface wave runs out ahead of the upper support then a second wave develops with the mid and upper levels. It’s not the most common but I’ve seen it. A March 99 storm I remember having a similar progression. Feb 2014 kinda did that also to some extent.

There was room for that storm to trend west on the Icon looking at the h5. It was more an issue of a weak POS wave than being blocked on this run. It also might have been about to bomb and turn up looking at the flow. There was more ridging. Just needed the upper low to turn negative quicker.

I’d prefer it showed some amped up monster even if it was rain. Not because of any seasonal trend. Because of THIS setup. With this setup even if the storm was over amped we would get a good snow/ice event before any flip to rain. Those runs 2 days ago were about the worst it could get in terms of too amped. That’s the advantage of this kind of blocking. Even a cutter gets turned east and secondaries and you get a thump snow at the least. The total fail option is a weak wave that gets suppressed to our south. So while I’m not worried yet this is the opposite of what is prefer to see right now.

Care to share? lol

EPS 5 day mean. Captures both waves

About 150 hours we want it to be near us... that's about when guidance has started to get a solution at least close in a general sense to the final outcome...so we have another 6 runs or so where I am ok with it being whevever as long as its somewhat close...but once the storm is inside 150 we want the jack to be really close to us...doesn't have to be right over but not way down near NC.

GFS with Norfolk's biggest snowstorm ever lol

was gonna be real close...the trough was amplifying and going negative real quick at the end...and the vortex was moving off...but would it capture and tuck it in time? It was gonna be a close call for an absolute monster if it did.

The fringe is real

1.2" here

When I did my snowfall climo study for BWI there was absolutely no correlation between snowstorms and the EPO. I wonder if I did the same study for the DELMARVA....I bet there might be a different result. @CAPE are there any reliable snowfall reporting stations over there I could use?

no wonder you like this EPO patterns...

One thing I agree with @Stormchaserchuck1 on is most of our big snows, like HECS level have a trough under Alaska. That really amplifies waves in the east. That’s why the next wave around the 25 might have an even better shot as the pacific jet extends. But we have had plenty of lesser snows without that feature. And a few HeCS without it also. But regarding the location of the block… I guess this is a bit north Shame this and this were in the same exact spot or those two periods might have had a chance to be snowy around here. Oh well sometimes it just doesnt come together.

It’s too soon. Regardless of where the block is we’re still in mjo phase 7 right now which is common for when a block forms, and it’s why there is usually a SER as blocks form. It takes a wave or two before the trough is in the east and the storm track is suppressed. Think recent major blocking episodes. Jan 2016, block initiated 10 days before the blizzard and we had 2 major rainstorms before the cold got in. March 2018 major rainstorm to start the month before the cold. Jan 2021 we had a couple rain events before the boundary got consistently south of us. Even back in 2010 when the block started to reload we got a rainstorm in Jan before the cold established. Look what a mess the 2010 Block started with! Took a week to fix that. Blocking doesn’t immediately mean snow. Actually we almost never get snow the first week after the AO or NAO starts to tank. Our snow chances start to increase significant after week one and as the blocking is relaxing.

No that’s fair. Caution with long range is prudent. But it’s not true that under amplified has been the trend for every way. We’ve also been screwed by over amplified. 2 days ago a wave went to our north! The next 2 waves after today will both be over amplified! The storm I got 6” during the eagles rams game was more amplified than models indicated. We’ve had some bad luck with storms missing us on both sides. It’s just bad luck. There hasn’t been a seasonal trend of everything being under amplified.

Ok but the result of that SER was an over amplified wave

Yea you can kinda see where the better moisture is and if that could get up here the mid level forcing could activate banding with high ratios but it won’t if there isn’t enough moisture and it’s iffy.

For northern MD and southern PA, the h7 forcing is actually over us now. But there isn’t enough moisture transport to activate the banding. If we can just get that next wave in WV to get decent deep moisture up here tonight it’s not impossible we get a decent band. But I’m skeptical. The trajectory isn’t good.

Btw this storm was only slightly more amplified at range. For like 24 hours the max snow was across MD and Southern PA. That’s a cows fart away from this end result for that range. That’s a noise level error for 8 days out! The actual failure of this week for our area was actually the second wave. If you dug into the ensembles that showed a “can’t miss” huge snow total it was from multiple waves this week. A lot of them done an initial wave going to our south. But they hit us with a second or third wave. Where they failed was not seeing that we would only be on the cold side of the boundary for one day. They had the boundary stay south of us for 4 days as wave after wave passed. What about the fact the models were under amplified on the next wave Thursday? What about the wave 3 weeks ago that hit PA and screwed DC? It’s selection bias to only count the storms that were under amplified and not the ones that ended up more.

Yea but the pattern wasn’t right for an amplified wave. I don’t care what models show at 200 hours when it doesn’t fit the pattern. That goes both ways. When they show good in a bad pattern or when they show bad in a good one. I’ll take pattern recognition over unicorn range model output.