psuhoffman

It's a pretty thin and high up layer...so at least when it does mix its probably sleet/snow mix. That looks like several inches of snow and a significant sleet mixed in there also...which can be fun. It's better then a couple inches of snow and then dry slot or freezing rain imo. There is also the chance the NAM is being to aggressive with that but just saying I don't think the NAM is a complete disaster for DC but if it can be just 1 degree too warm in the mid layers...youre looking at a great THUMP.

I don't know what to make of it honestly. I was never buying into the idea that this was a 12-18" snowstorm like the euro was indicating 48 hours ago. That seemed off. I said that once or twice but I didn't want to take a crap all over the party so I mostly kept it to myself. But I was expecting it to come back down to earth and show a more reasonable 4-8" type storm. But now it has swung to the other extreme. The GFS has certainly been less jumpy with this but it has been subtly trending south also. I still think what I did several days ago...that this has 4-8" snow written all over it...but where exactly the focal point for that ends up is the catch. I guess I favor the further north guidance but seeing the NAM/Euro so far south with the more significant second wave really is troublesome. Hopefully as I am typing this the NAM trends north a little and that would make me feel better about tossing the euro.

huh? When did I make any prediction? There was a post that the EPS was less suppressive. I made the observation that it trended south with both waves. It did. Someone kind of questioned that so I posted proof. I made no prediction at all.

I have deduced that those stormvista max res EPS snowfall maps are often so much higher then wxbell on the southern edge of snowfall zones is because it counts freezing rain as 10-1 snowfall. People didn't notice but last year the wxbell maps stopped doing that when they updated and that is why the ensemble means on wxbell arent as crazy stupid ridiculous high as they used to be.

That's not as bad as psu made it out to be This is a big reduction for 6 hours. But you really want to cry to back to a run 48 hours ago when it had 1” qpf up to the PA line and ~1.2 qpf for you.

We have had a pretty good winter up here so far...but you have to realize a LOT of people in this forum have been screwed over time after time after time and are sitting way below climo for this date despite the "great" pattern and "fun tracking" and until they get an actual flush hit with good snow on the ground the fun of this is gone. I totally get it. We need a big hit for the DC/Baltimore area STAT because all these threats without any payoff just gets stressful and old after a while. I really hope one of the next few waves becomes a real genuine thump hit for DC/Baltimore so it doesn't get ugly in here.

The 18z EPS still ended up south and weaker with both waves and a significant decrease, again for the 8th straight run, in snow mean from previous run.

Since these are similar boundary waves might be pertinent to consider the NAM just schooled EVERYTHING else on the wave to our north today... it was well north of all other guidance at just 24 hours lead time and scored the coup. Something to consider once this gets inside short range...wave 1 is almost there but wave 2 is still not.

There is a limit to how far south the cold can get given the latitude at which the wave is crossing at. The cold can't penetrate south of the actual wave since that will ride the boundary...and to press the wave south...force it to sink, at that point there is so much suppression you are squashing it and that is what is happening now.

That’s pretty temporary

I was worried I might lose some snowpack today but temps only made it to the mid 30s and had cloud cover and now they are dropping again so...didn't really make a dent.

BTW...would be nice if you ever just once offered some concrete evidence for this slander against everyone who works in NWP including some on this board that you continually puke all over this forum!

I am rooting for you guys with this one. This is your turn I hope.

Yes... you are right the models are programmed not to attempt to produce the most accurate simulation each run, but to intentionally jump all over the place and show every possible outcome so that we can...I dunno your motive here is a little unclear...screw with snow weenies? And...they do this because EVERY weather agency in the world, public and private, even ones that compete with each other, encompassing tens of thousands of people, are all in bed as part of some HUGE conspiracy to...again your motive is kinda weak here...I guess they just recruit a bunch of people who have no morals and want to fool the public and screw with snow weenies and they all come together across dozens of countries and agencies for that goal! I am so glad we have you to shine a light on this.

@stormtracker Yea except this is still our mean snowfall on the GEFS which is actually a slight improvement over the last run. I still think it would take some monumental bad luck to not score at least one flush hit from one of these waves. There are going to be like 5 or 6 (maybe more) opportunities in the next 2-3 weeks. But yea...the luck near DC and Baltimore has been so bad lately I totally get the frustration. I really hope this first wave holds...and gets a flush hit for DC/Baltimore so we can relax some and enjoy the pattern once the ice is broken.

Our window is as the TPV slides across to our north. But we need the western trough to cut UNDER it. Instead the Euro has it hang out and wait for the TPV to exit then it cuts. Unfortunately if the western trough doesn't kick east and hangs out until after the TPV exits there is a gap there for it to amplify to our west and cut before the blocking pattern reloads. It's way too far out though to worry about yet. There will be a lot of cold in the way and my gut says it adjusts south because of that. This is the type of setup we dont need PERFECT to get a result.

do you want arctic air or snow? In this pattern the storms will be riding the boundary so you can't really get both. If we end up deep into the arctic air it will be dry. We want to be along the cold boundary not deep into it. Granted...the fail scenario is if somehow these waves all continue to miss us north or south...that would be epic someone in here did something awful to offend the snow gods kind of stuff...but still the solution to our problems is not to see the arctic air settle in over top of us if we want to get storms.

NOTHING has ended up as far north as it looked at 150-200 hours out this winter...so I am fine with that look right now. Remember the storm that might miss us mostly to the south this week was mostly an ice storm a few days ago.

Where does DT live again?

@Rvarookie What part of this "confuses" you? The euro has shown a distinct decrease in QPF and snowfall for 90% of everyone in this forum the last 5 runs in a row. That is a pretty bad trend when we are this close to the event.

Doesn't this kind of make more sense though for typical "climo" on these kinds of very weak non amplifying WAA waves? I don't remember too many like this that produced a foot of snow around here like the Euro was tossing out for days. Maybe I am forgetting some...but these are more typically light to moderate events.

This is not heading the right way unfortunately...

Naw I think this one belongs to DC. We will get some snow up here but this is not the right kind of system for us to max out. Boundary temps aren't marginal so our advantage there is muted. The dominant surface flow during the precipitation is out of the north, that is not an upslope flow for us and its going to eat away at the moisture feed (which is really weak to begin with) along the northern fringes. This is not the kind of storm where our local meso climo helps very much. Doesn't mean we can't win...again if the whole boundary and WAA moisture feed were to shift north we would...but it wont be because of our local climo advantages this time. This has a lot in common with the WAA waves that can and do often fringe us up here. I am ok with that...and have set my bar accordingly. Expecting 2-4" maybe 3-5" up here probably at this time with more south of us. The second wave gaining just enough amplitude and lifting a bit north is probably our best chance to bust high on that. It's still far enough out in time that an error very within the normal goalposts puts us in play there.

I'm not even part of "all" anymore. sad sad day lol