psuhoffman

@showmethesnow I just ignore him now. Worthless troll. And unlike some others he doesn’t even try to be creative or develop a shtick or vary his act. Ill argue with almost anyone but he isn’t worth it.

You might only need to go up 1000 ft now. Should have put your house on adjustable stilts.

Just think...2000 feet above your head it’s a blizzard right now. Just look up and dream.

It’s a difficult issue because knowing where it’s spread is useful. But the running minute by minute updates to the number is more spreading panic than informing imo. I am seeing it at work and with family who are reacting to every update even if it’s just “2 more people report positive”. That doesn’t really change the equation. Frankly this is likely widespread already we just don’t know it because of a lack of testing. It’s not so much the reporting itself that’s the issue as much as people misinterpreting the information. But I don’t know how you account for “stupid”. I just know I see people over reacting to these constant non stop “updates” that don’t really say anything that changes the equation imo. I will say this...during Super Tuesday coverage I did have the thought that “while this is a legit threat it’s abviouslt not a true emergency YET” because for 24 hours it totally disappeared for non stop political coverage. There was no break away coverage or hourly updates on the emergency...it just disappeared from the news when they had something else to talk about. I really hope the idiots on the other end of the spectrum who aren’t taking this seriously enough and think it’s some kind of contrived thing or conspiracy don’t use what I’m saying because I’m not there either. This is a real issue with the potential to get bad. I’m just seeing a lot of extreme reactions on both sides.

I’m not on the side that this is no big deal or no worse than the flu but I don’t think reporting every case is the best way to inform about the severity. We will know when it is “bad” when we see societal impacts. People actually severely ill. Spikes in hospitalizations and deaths. And that may come. But reporting that a few more people in the whole country tested positive every hour doesn’t tell us much we don’t alreasy know and spreads fear.

I’m not dismissing the possible severity of this but I do think hearing every time one person tests positive in a country of over 300 million isn’t helpful. This could get very bad but we don’t know and right now it’s not. But hearing every hour how one more person tested positive creates the illusion it is. I’m worried about this but some people are freaking out too much over the way it’s being covered.

We probably see flakes but I’m pessimistic on accumulations.

The inv trough looks to set up just to our east today. I’m becoming less optimistic about tonight. The faster phase and bomb off the coast is creating a more consolidated mid and upper level flow that Isn’t good. The subsidence outside the Ccb banding cuts off the moisture transport and the circulation around the bombing low interferes and hastens any banding left over from the dying primary and upper level system before it can rotate back into our area. These things are tricky so I’ll keep an eye on the banding but latest trends aren’t good imo.

Long range gfs has been a tease lately.

I think the coop they used there is right on the bay so it skews low.

I am not so sure we want to root for a quicker phased/bombing coastal. We are pretty close in to expect enough of a shift to benefit at all from that, but that would interfere with the moisture transport into the inverted trough which is our most likely way to score here. Maybe I am wrong and there is another January 2000 level bust incoming but short of that (and I am not sure how possible that kind of bust is anymore, despite Howard's posts guidance is SIGNIFICANTLY better now) our only chance is with the inverted trough and banding. A bombing low with a better closed circulation would cut off the moisture feed to that.

He didn't mention beer... that changes everything. Burn the whole neighborhood down for all I care as long as I have a cold beer in my hand.

Spring time these type setups can sometimes really pop with more moisture generally available. The trough feature is becoming more pronounced with some pretty healthy moisture convergence so it wouldn't shock me at all to see some pretty good banding set up. Problem is surface temps suck and antecedent conditions suck...so this will be a situation where it's all or nothing...places that get under a heavy convective band could see a quick thump of snow and a couple inches while a few miles away is getting light rain.

That sounds like a healthy logical reasonable reaction.

Looks like our tracking season is over Probably...but there is a parade of systems in the long range, and the longwave pattern looks fairly volatile (not uncommon for March) all it would take is to get one to act as a 50/50 and time another one up and maybe. So its not a total no hope pattern, but I certainly wouldn't expect anything.

I am SOOOO shocked the GFS shifted north to look like everything else...(actually its still south just not as crazy stupid south of all other guidance).

One last point...there is likely to be two periods of potential, one Friday as the trough crosses the area and the moisture convergence along the trough from the coastal causes banding to develop along the trough axis (kind of a mini deform zone), and another early Saturday morning as the phasing takes place and the old dying NS feature pinwheels/retrogrades as the upper low passes to our east. The first might have the better chance of heavier precip but the second coming at night and with even colder temps aloft might have the best chance at some light accumulations.

That's kind of where I am. I am not spending nearly as much time analyzing anything now as I would in mid winter. But if we get something...great. I don't think this is high probability for us. These inverted trough setups are incredibly tricky to pin down, but sometimes they can deliver a nice surprise with a relatively narrow but heavy band of snow. While it's not likely to be us...its close enough to mention its a possibility.

@showmethesnow @losetoa6 @mappy I think for lower elevations it would be a struggle due to boundary temps regardless but for our area IF that inverted trough feature ends up over us we could get a surprise. It's now getting close enough to consider it seriously. ATT most guidance suggests it will end up northeast of us...but not by much. The GGEM actually nails us with about .75 qpf from that. It's 1-2 degrees too warm for accumulations but I doubt that...places with some elevation that end up under that band will likely get some accumulation given the very cold temps aloft. All guidance is juicing up that band, and I believe that, there is a pretty strong mid level convergence zone along the trough between the coastal and NS system. I do think it is likely a decent band of heavy precip develops somewhere in that zone, and while I favor northeast of us, we are close enough that it's not out of the question our area gets something. One more slight adjustment west and we are into it.

@RevWarReenactor they might not have "lied" to you, simply fallen to a common misconception. West can help wrt snowfall...but only if you get far enough west to enter another climate zone. The reason west helps is because of the contour of the elevation zones in the mid atlantic. If you go far enough west you get out of the coastal plain and into the Piedmont. Go far enough west and you get out of the Piedmont and into the mountains. With each elevation increase you enter a better climate zone for snowfall. But within each zone...north/south matters more than east/west. You can see that with these snowfall maps here...I continued the approximate contours from the NJ map to help show how once you hit the fall line...snowfall totals turn southwest due to the climate zone change...but within the coastal plain the contours run more west to east. You can see on the Maryland snowfall map how there is a tight gradient along the fall line. Had you moved 15 miles further northwest THEN you would have seen a dramatic change in your snowfall. But moving east and west within the coastal plain won't make much difference. Within each climate zone local meso scale terrain features like ridges and water matter more. So being right along the immediate coast...like on the barrier islands...will get less snow than 10 miles inland. But once inland a little snowfall won't usually change much going another 10 miles east or west. Someone right along the Delaware river will get less snow than someone 250 feet higher up in South Jersey for instance. Look at where you are on that MD map...you had the misfortune of moving into a local snowfall minimum also...a region that is between the Chesapeake bay and Delaware river...at very low elevation. Warmth floods up the bay and river.... you have a downsloping wind from every direction...and a wind off water from many directions. You are in a bad local area also. When I moved from southern NJ to northern VA I did see an increase in snow...but only because I went from the coastal plain to the Piedmont. Had I moved somewhere 15 miles further southeast in VA I would have actually gotten less snow than where I used to live southeast of Philly. Elevation is the reason going west helps...but if you go west and do NOT increase your elevation...you really aren't doing yourself any good. And if you go west and put yourself into a local snow hole due to terrain features you can even get less. I get way more snow than places west of me in the valley there. Hope this helps explain the real phenomenon you are describing.

If they get enough snow in the poconos or deep creek I’ll take the kids up to play and go sledding Saturday so I’m tracking for that reason. But for our area even if we get some banding outside elevation areas boundary temps are ugly. Taking my 5 year old to ski at Liberty Sunday. Should be nice and warm, perfect to learn at his age.

You are 100% right. Just because he is being a clown doesn’t excuse me doing it. I just wanted to make sure people knew my posts to other people were in good faith and not trolling.

No prob. My posts to Ji and Maestro wrt probabilities are legit good faith posts though, just to be clear. It’s just a bonus that it irks Mersky. But the troll replies to him I will confine to banter.

The inv trough has been the only thing worth keeping an eye on for a while with that. But that will be a meso scale feature guidance can’t pin down any more than the details on a line of thunderstorms from range.

Knowing general probabilities is good for setting realistic long term expectations but useless for making shorter term forecasts. For instance we know if we flip a coin 1000 times you will likely get about 500 heads. But within that there can be a run of tails. The long term trends don’t help predict each specific flip. Our snowfall has a lot of randomness. Over the long run it will even out but year to year using those probabilities is dangerous. Once we are in a specific pattern looking at analogs to that pattern is more indicative of expectations than the overall probabilities for all years. Yes it’s rare to get really low snowfall like this overall BUT the analogs to this pattern have some of our worst snowfall years. Plus many of those years what little snow we got cake early before this pattern set in sometime in January. We had a few chances at that but mostly missed. Most of the analogs had very little or no snow the rest of winter once this pattern set in. So that data set is more useful and more pessimistic than the long term general probabilities. I will end on the positive that a couple of the analogs did luck into a snow in March. Not the majority but enough to say it’s possible. History suggests the chances for snow in years like this are early before the dominant winter longwave pattern sets in and very late as short wavelengths creates added chaos.