SnowGoose69

This one has to be weak because the high positioning and area which the storm approaches from aren’t ideal for a significant from end snow here outside of NW areas

The GFS is horrendous with SWFEs beyond 84-90. It sometimes might have the general track idea right but it usually has everyone south of BDL raining for the entire storm or snow for 1 hour. Once inside that range it’ll usually start showing the front end snows

Most of these events involve either a massive wave of low pressure riding up behind the front or they occur a day or two after the front clears like the 98 event or the 2/2/96 storm. The only case I can think of that didn’t involve a strong wave and the snow came right behind the front was December 1993 and that was about a 40 mile wide area of snow

12/24/98 is now the top analog for this event. I think someone mentioned it a couple of days ago here

It’s been ticking SE but it’s now in its range and it’s NW of the Euro and NAM. The RGEM runs sort of like an MLB team’s bullpen. It’s either hot or cold winter by winter and it takes you 2-3 storms to see its tendency. It has performed well so far IMO going back to mid November though it had a few localized busts on the storm last week. It was 100% useless last winter

I’m not sure if that LE was correct though. It is pretty darn accurate today at Central Park but I don’t believe there was an ASOS there yet then they were using some sort of old school home weather system for readings from October 1993 til July 1996 when I think the ASOS was put in so very possible that reading was erroneous

12KM NAM through 15 hours has like triple the QPF across PA and down into MD//WV from prior runs. We will see how that translates over next 12-18 hours

The only question I have is if the whole thing ticks NW. Regardless I think there will be isolated 5-6 inch amounts with this though the majority will only see 1-2 and there will be a screw zone, possibly in between 2 areas that do better

Back after that Euro upgrade in 2014 or so this was an auto shift 50 miles west. It was terrible the first 2 years or so off that upgrade being too dry and flat with anything that wasn’t a heavily amped system but after the latest update it seems to be about as good as it has ever been. I haven’t even been seeing it’s 90-120 overamped tendency the last 6-8 months.

These things always end up west the last few years because of the tendency of any degree of ridging in the western Atlantic to be stronger than modeled, even at 24 hours you usually are good for a tick west

The RGEM was way too far west at 12Z and it tends to have an amped bias beyond 30-36 so I expected a tick SE over the course of the next few runs

You have to be wary here with their technically being a “WAR” right now. Anytime the last couple of years we have a system or boundary that we have concern could push too far off to the east that ridging is stronger than expected and we get a further west or more juiced system

There was some pretty nasty dry slotting from about NYC to Nassau for a time. Quite a few places there saw only 16-22 inches or so. I want to say BDR only reported 17-18. We’ve definitely had some oddball measurements over the years at the airports and NYC. That Newark measurement on 2/11/94 I think most agree was wrong. NYC’s measurement on 1/22/87 I had an NWS Met tell me 18-20 years ago they KNOW was wrong. Recently we obviously have some real awful ones but even before 2000 we saw occasional sloppy reporting

I’m not a big Bastardi “agreeer” but he’s probably right in this case. The Euro in events like this will tend to be too flat or dry. I’m definitely thinking more NAM/RGem is more likely. The NAM May have sucked at 12Z in regards to QPF but that was probably a blip as it still looked okay otherwise

The UKMET has .3-.4 liquid after 12Z Wednesday which would likely be all snow. Not sure how much of what it shows before that is snow

1998. That was more of a vort and weak surface low though as was the 2014 post Super Bowl event. 11/29/95 might be closer

UKMET at quick glance on poor maps seems like it could be significant but may be more for inland locations

Probably will be 6-7 to start and finish at around 10

It was similar. I want to say that one may have had a strong surface reflection develop on the front than we see with this one now. Someone on Twitter was comparing it to 2/2-2/3 1996. There is no comparison to that. That was an entrenched arctic air mass with a boundary that had stalled nearby and had multiple waves move along it

It seems there is rarely an issue with these events as far as getting snow. Either they end up all snow once the FROPA occurs or the wave never develops at all and it’s all rain. There’s always a scare in the few hours preceding it where places like SWF/HPN/FWN are like 34/24 and the city is still 42/34 but inevitably the cold air makes it in. I always find these things to be all similar like most SWFEs are. If they happen it’s generally a good 2-6 inch type event with only a small percentage of them falling below or above that range

I think the window for it to matter though is quickly closing. The analogs mostly suggest the pattern would likely become progressively favorable as we progress into January so if something bad doesn’t happen soon out there I’m not sure we would see more than just a brief 2 week period where the pattern is a shutout

The GFS if I remember right was showing big snow behind the low for days but it was mostly disregarded because the AVN/MRF merge had just occurred in recent weeks or months. I had been telling people I was concerned somewhat about a surprise snow that night but was not that confident it would happen.

2002 though NYC saw nothing and 1995 it was like 11/29 or 11/30. I think there’s definitely at least in a small sample size that if NYC sees measurable snow before 11/25 or so it has tended to not work out too well for the ensuing winter but much like the when August averages warmer in July the winter always torches for the area it’s only a sample of about 5-10 years

78 was forecast remarkably well for the time though the amounts weren’t. The LFM was the model which nailed it as it also did the 89 Thanksgiving storm which the other models mostly discounted. 78 was quickly setback though when the models blew the 1983 storm north of Philly. In fairness there wasn’t much computer advancement in those 5 years though. 1983 was somewhat of a benchmark though in that when the 00Z models ran that evening they shifted the entire storm well north and caught onto what was going on. At the time that was one of the first cases of the models ever doing that

The trof and the pattern appear too progressive to me for there to really be any legit chance we see something ride up that boundary but we are still far out