Please don't ever leave the board.....
From what little I saw over the weekend, there was enough bouncing around w/ the SLP that "nothing was a lock". Yes, it was being shown, but at varying placements...again that had a big effect on many here. As I'm a fan of the NAM (and yes, it like the GFS saw this inland deal....there was plenty enough wiggle room out there for this to have been a bit further east which would have saved a bunch of yards. As I stated late last week, 50-75 miles either way likely affected 75% of the forum members.
There should be no chest thumping by any one model, as none "nailed it"....they should just be thankful they got lucky, as it is rather rare to see a LP with dense cold established, to retro west and head straight into it. IF that HP would have stayed put just a bit longer...blah blah..., that in itself could have been enough to help nudge this east a bit more...but yeah thats wishcasting.
This storm had tricks for many of us...and showed things that we don't often see (bouncing SLP's etc, and like you said, right close to go time). Many way higher in pay grade from us were challenged as well, and this one defied normal logic.
Now we all clean up our scratches/bruises (LSV'rs mostly) and move onto the next one. Congrats to all that scored enough to keep it OTG. 80% or mine was gone when I left for office. 34 in Akron and 31 by the time I got to Etown. Etown looks way snowier than my casa.
Next.......