jayyy

Definitely snowing outside

I mean… totally being a weenie here, but I can definitely see how this overperforms if we can manage to get a decent swath of moderate precip overhead overnight. Won’t take much. Also won’t take much to rip those chances to shreds. Sounds like a wait and see kind of deal. Shit.. if I can squeeze another 1.5” out of this to get me to double digits for the storm, I’ll weenie it out and rest my hopes on a presumed failure.

Some Guidance has precip developing to our SW and heading this direction by 0z. Looks like it’s changing back to snow pretty easily under heavier banding out west. I’m sure something will ruin it, but hey, I’ll root for a quick additional inch or two, why not…

Precip blossoming over KY a bit.

IAD soundings showed a +1c warm layer between 800-825 leading up to that storm. The surface was plenty cold - it hit 20 here last night - but the cold wasn’t deep enough for all layers to get below freezing all the way into the metros. We didn’t have the dynamics in place or mid level lows closing to our south to keep the mid levels at bay. I experienced freezing rain in sub 20-25 degree conditions multiple times up in NY. It sucks man.

Exactly. 3 razor thin marginal events where I got 10”, 10”,’and 8.5” and DC saw under 3” makes the difference between an above avg winter and a lackluster / disappointing winter

Yep. The TPV placement absolutely screwed our area out of getting multiple big snows in the past 10 days - potentially 4 high end advisory and/or warning level events. If it rolled east ahead of that 3 wave storm, instead of getting caught up in the upper Midwest / Plains, we would have seen both epic cold and an epic run of snowfall. Of course, if 0-10 degree temps made it here, we may have been worrying about something entirely different as far as storm track is concerned #PSUFringed

It’s been fairly consistent with this too. Bears watching. My rule of thump regarding storms 3-4 days out in an active pattern is to let the current storm completely exit the area and wait until at least 12z or 0z the following day to see if the threat is still there in general. If so, great. Feel as though models don’t get the best picture of what’s coming in the medium range until then. Screw it, let’s track 3-5” for Monday until it fades away on us

Come on friends. Don’t go begging for the torch yet! Sure, we mainly lose the favorable 500mb/h5 setup next week, but ask feb 2015 if you need a -NAO/-AO to get good snows in a marginal setup. We can all name solid storms that occurred in late feb into March or storms that have threaded the needle during less than ideal setups. IE: an overnight thump, a perfectly timed/placed high and SLP track to our SE, or a nicely placed/timed ridge out west. Strong gulf lows (Miller A potential) begin firing up in the GOM this time of year and we could get lucky with one or two throwing moisture our way with decent cold air in place or overnight. I know things haven’t gone as expected for many closer to the metros, and folks have every right to be pessimistic about a marginal setup after what’s happened all winter, including last night / this morning, but It ain’t over til the fat lady sings. After 40” IMBY STD and a bunch of very near misses in and near the metros, I still think this winter season isn’t over quite yet. Think 95 - especially the immediate suburbs gets a warning level event before all is said and done. Likely occurring at the tail end of a cold shot (transition period) - especially as we begin to see larger temperature gradients in the coming weeks and more dynamic storms making their way through the SJS. I may very well be wrong, but I think one of these storms at the end goes right for a large majority of the area. PS - a NC bullseye this far out is perfect lmao

Round deuce?

Agreed. We definitely did better than anticipated with banding early on, which saved us up here… big time. We verified, but definitely not in the way we expected to. Models showed that insane banding initially setting up near 95 (MoCo - HoCo death band type depiction) which is what gave those areas 3-6” before the flip on some guidance. However, the band setup shop about 25-30 miles north of the general consensus and those areas closer to 95 never quite got the jump start they needed to overcome that stubborn warm layer . Over 3” fell in roughly 90 mins to kick off the storm up our way (sorry you were asleep for that man, I was hoping to see your and @clskinsfan ‘s names pop up in the thread as that crazy band was parked over the area from Winchester to Manchester) This, of course, was a huge help in terms of verifying the warning. We had 6.25” of fluff when I cleared the board as sleet began mixing in more prevalently , then I measured 2.25” of snow / crust when precip finally shut off for a total of 8.5” of frozen. Roughly 7” remain due to compaction. Such a shame for folks closer to 95. It’s just been that type of winter. Yet another storm where a 1 degree bust at the mid levels takes away a 6+” opportunity from the metros and immediate suburbs. It’s never anything big… but there’s seemingly always that ONE thing that hinders that area. Really hope the craziness that is March in terms of dualing air masses brings that area their biggie. They deserve a break.

They definitely did better than those dreadful 10:1’s or snow depth maps for sure.

My brother is reporting 2” of pure sleet west of turf valley near the rt 40/ interstate 70 juncture.

Still in awe at the power of that +1c warm layer between 800-825. With a surface look like this….temps in the low 20s at onset….heavy precip… we still managed to mainly be ice/sleet for the metros. That damn trough (lack thereof) killed us as far as getting an appreciable area wide snowfall.

The northern tier likely came the closest. The Winchester to Manchester area saw very heavy banding for about 8 hours under those bands. My guess is that we are above 0.8” QPF going off of 10:1 ratios. If ratios were lower, then we saw even more than that.

That’s Harlem for ya. Didn’t need the NAM to tell you that was going to happen. I grew up in NW Rockland county where it was typically 5-8-10 degrees colder during storms and snowed twice as much annually despite being only 25-30 miles away from downtown (as the crow flies) That’s just the climo of that area. 287/87 has always been the fall line in the NYC metro. It’s a different world N and NW of the NYS thruway. I can recall at least 7-8 storms where nyc rained and my area saw over a foot. The Bronx always did better than Manhattan which did better than Brooklyn, queens, and the island, etc. 24-36” of pure snow in downtown NYC is extremely rare for a reason. Your point about the NAM’s performance is spot on. Inside of 24-36, the hi res has been cash money. I’m not sure how many storms people need to live through until they grasp the NAMs dominance in the short range and that it is literal garbage outside of 60. I said it to @WinterWxLuvr last night…. If the 3k NAM shows a near identical low track and high positioning to Globals within 24 hours but shows the warm Nose 50 miles further north, you best be paying attention - its probably right. IMO, the NAM shouldn’t even be looked at until within 48. It will save people a ton of confusion about the NAM showing a snowstorm in Ohio / Buffalo 5 days out and the whiplash it does to reality within 48. I understand many are disappointed and rightfully so, but Models overall did quite well with this. Euro, GFS, PARA, EPS, UKMET, etc all pretty did pretty well in regards to the overall pattern evolution and track a few days out, which is what globals are used for - and in the short term, the mesos (RAP, NAM twins, HRW) took it home on the nitty gritty details. That’s why using a mixture of model consensus and local climo is so important when making a forecast and why Mets don’t just choose a “reliable model” and make a forecast off of it verbatim. I know it’s tempting for folks to compare ground truth to kuchera snow maps and see a bust during what’s been a very tough winter for many, but if you analyze models based on their strong suits, they actually did pretty well here once we got within 3-4 days. In a general sense, it is a shame that in the year 2021, models are still so far apart on the details but what can we do.

So glad we decided to close shop up today. It’s fugly out there

Wait.. there’s an ignore list

Definitely. 7-9” will be common in our area. Def. a shame that sleet made its way in so quickly. No doubt we would have flirted with a foot if it hadn’t. 4-730am was some of the best winter weather I’ve ever seen, and I lived in both Buffalo and the Hudson valley in NY for many years. Damn you warm layer. Sorry to the southern crew Just cannot catch a dang break.

I’m… uh… yeah, just looking outside in awe.

Heavy snow 24 degrees

Going to be a serious icer for your area I’m afraid. :/

Holding the line. 22 degrees heavy snow

Lol, I’m only 54 miles north of DC. It’s not that far north. The climo is quite different though. Crazy what no water nearby does for the mid levels.

Going to take an actual measurement around 6 and then clean the board. These rates are pretty surreal.