psuhoffman

This is my first hypothesis at a theory that might evolve into a guess of a future forecast. Any resemblance to other forecasts, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

I agree, the cold is going to be at its best as that first wave approaches, but we have no control over it and that is the trend so I am rolling with it.

There is a definite trend towards a weaker initial wave Thursday morning but a stronger second (maybe even 3rd wave) after it. I know that complicates things but there is one factor that makes me confident we can avoid a total disaster. There is a synergy between the waves that makes a total fail unlikely. As wave 1 trends weaker...wave 2 trends better because the mid level boundary doesn't get blasted way to the north and the next wave activates it again. So...if the mid level warm push is stronger like on the NAM we get wave 1 and if its weaker like on the GFS and GGEM then we get some of wave 1 and wave 2...maybe a wave 3. But it seems unlikely the way they are set up that all the waves miss. But this multiple wave scenario adds a level of complexity to this.

why limit ourselves...lets stall this boundary and snow until April.

slightly better scores overall last time I saw a comp

its on pivotal Models: GFSv16 — Pivotal Weather

CMC goes for the full 3 wave solution like the RGEM and PARA almost did...gets some decent snow NW of 95 with wave 2 then a NICE hit for DC with wave 3 Friday Afternoon and Evening!

Para has the two wave idea also... but its NICE with wave 2...gets good snow into DC with that even. This is becoming more complicated, but there is a path to a big win here if we can stick both waves.

para has that wave on Friday evening like the RGEM...hits southeast VA and the southern Delmarva...but its something new to keep an eye on. The trough is still hanging out to our west...the RGEM and Para decide to take a trailing vort and dig and amplify the trough before it kicks through. That is not impossible. LONG shot...the baroclinic zone will be pretty far off the coast by then...but if the h5 trough cam amplify and go negative its not impossible.

@Deck Pic That struck me as one of those "weird" runs the GFS spits out sometimes that you just have to toss. Not even necessarily saying its final results wrt snowfall is all that wrong...just the way it gets there.

@CAPE you got your friend Para back

Last run was almost a mile...Trends!

There was some massive sleet pellets in the March 1994 storm where I was in Northern VA near Dulles.

I dunno.. btw I’m still looking for that Montreal map.

Who has a good street map of Montreal? Trying to figure something out.

It usually doesn’t matter much because when it has that kind of feature it’s typically subsidence induced between banding. The bigger problem being you are in between meso death bands so warm layer or not you weren’t getting heavy snow at that moment anyways. Plus it won’t be correct on the exact placement of it either.

The track is damn near perfect now. Duel low structure with a primary into east TN and coastal tracks from outer banks to about 75 miles off Delmarva and northeast.

That’s actually not a bad map and pretty close to my current thinking in our area. Might be too liberal with the 3-6 area way up north and I might have the axis of the 6-10 more ENE then. NE and make it 6-12 because I think some isolated spots hit close to 12.

On the 3k the high is north of east of Ontario so I have no idea. Yea the location of that blue H may not be hut there is a huge sprawling banana high from the Midwest to New England and a general center is north of Ontario. On the euro the main max is in upstate NY but the pressure is 1034 north of Ontario and 1035 in upstate NY. That is insignificant. The whole high didn’t move the model is just jumping around with where the exact lowest pressure in that huge sprawling high is run to run. I honestly don’t have a clue what you’re on about.

KU no but we often do get decent snow events AFTER a blocking episode breaks down due to the course of events that was already set in motion.

Ok... umm... so...AAAAHHHHHHH Deep breaths, calm calm calm....count to 10....ok ready 1. The high is north of Ontario...it stretches across all of Ontario into southern Quebec and New England. The exact to the fraction of a MB center of the high is irrelevant. 2. Yes there are duel centers and one is a little east of where we might see the avg of all our HECS storms but... not all setups are the same. This is NOT a HECS scenario. We do not currently have any blocking. Yes the extreme blocking we had kicked off the progression that got us to this point so I am not denying blocking had a lot to do with this threat...but at this moment there is none and without a high located in front of it, it would cut. The high is kinda perfect for THIS setup...directly in the way of the axis of where the low wants to track. Creating the resistance to the screaming SW to NE jet and forcing the storm to track further east then it would otherwise given the upper level flow. Not all setups are the same and you cannot apply generic rules to every snow scenario. There are even some rare setups where we don't need a high at all...like in the case of a boundary wave along an arctic front or an inverted trough setup. You have to analyze the physics of each specific synoptic setup individually.

lol ok I see now...problem is the pivoltal maps are a LOT more conservative then those wxbell ones so its not a fair comp. The 12z Pivotal only had you at 6.5" and its about 4.5 on 19z. So yea a trend down...but not as extreme as it seems comparing a liberal 12z map to a conservative 18z one. lol

It took your specific location from 6.5" to 4.5" on the Kuchera so not exactly a HUGE difference...and you are a local minimum between two meso bands which is not likely to be portrayed exactly accurate on a global at 48 hours out. That said yea it was worse and put you in the split zone which given this season I totally get not wanting to see that.

Naw on closer inspection he is right. The center of the high looks to be around the Mt Royal district of Montreal, just west of McGill University. Ideally, using a composite of all snowstorms, we would rather that be in the Old Montreal district along the river...maybe a block southeast of Notre-Dame Basilica.

@CAPE It has the double max thing some guidance shows...the 6" plus area south of DC is from the lead wave Tuesday morning that DC is on the northern fringes of the heavy stuff with...then it runs a second heavy band of precip up in the afternoon and evening but 95 SE is mixy so the heavy snow with that is NW of 95...creating that kinda dead space of 4-6" in between the 6" plus zones. Luckily this time the "dead zone" looks like a local minimum but not the total screw job some recent storms had.