wxmeddler

Sterling Balloon is up already this AM. 31 deg at 7500ft.

Good thump up above helped break through the dry layer:

Ceilometer in NE-DC showing the evolution nicely. Would expect flurries to start appearing in the district shortly.

Guidance was consistent that once the uber-dry layer between 3kft and 5kft got broken through it would begin with -SN fairly quickly. So not surprising we go from nothing for 6 hours then all the sudden a flurry breakout.

Not much so far:

Every single road today that I drove on between MoCo / PG / AA Co's were salted and brine'd to heck. What a waste of tax money, and unfortunate for our small streams.

It is public. I'm not going to share directly because it's a bit of a clunky site and I'm afraid to look at it wrong let alone let the hordes onto it.

Baltimore isn't much better.

Tough Nut so far

We're in for some real sh*t if that's the case. Most guidance gets the fall line and SE at or above +5C as early as 11am tomorrow. Would love to see those studies if you have the links. I don't recall ever having a situation where there is a +7 to -8 swing in a single profile in this area. That is some southern high plains ice storm levels of cold air wedging. We do not see this here.

Good Question. I made an example here of the general concept. In the images below I've "Unskew'd" the Skew-T so that temperature is now vertical line on the X axis. Y axis is height obviously. The only question to ask is which area / shape is bigger? The Red (Above Freezing) or the Blue (Below Freezing). In this profile the blue is bigger, and therefore Sleet would likely be the most dominant precipitation type. So what about this one? Red is bigger, therefore Freezing Rain would be most likely. In the real world of course there is more to consider like dynamic lift in banding, precipitation rate, etc. but it's useful.

Yeah, it will be interesting for you. Redhouse will likely switch over. Good news is that if it does flip over, it will be towards the end and 90% of your precip will have already fallen as Snow.

Trust the Synoptics

Louis was nervous about the inland sfc low tracking to Cleveland. I was never that far-out but I was very much on the "850 Low to the OHV" Train, which... ya know.

I can go lower if u want.. Trend last 12 hours seems fairly clear that the cold front is over-performing a bit. Not too surprising, but even an hour or three of extra CAD really bumps the totals up when you're dealing with up to 2" hr rates.

?? Last time I posted prior to that one was last night. Anyway. I'm still very much concerned about the sleet. I've been fairly adamant / confident that the sleet line would make it to the M/D Line. Still expecting a major sleet fest come Sunday Mid-Morning lasting through evening.

That would be FZRA. A "rule of thumb" is if you integrate the area above 0c vs below 0c and compare the "area". If Above 0C > Below 0C then FZRA.

Cautiously optimistic. If it gets too "drifty" you can get some weird maps. Can't make an accurate snow total with a 2ft x 2ft wide area.

My call before the flip-over: Southern MD & Eastern Shore: 6-10" I-95 Corridor: 8-12" Parr's Ridge and NW: 10-14" Allegany & Garrett: 12-16" (Unlikely to Flip)

It's subtle, the GFS did cave a bit back to the west at 850mb looking at the isohypses. Not as far as other global guidance (Euro, UKMET, CMC, etc.) It's still very aggressive on it's coastal development along the warm front. More so than other models, which in turn slows down the WF advance northward.

Everyone is still getting a front end thump. 4-6-10 (SE-I-95-BlueRidge). My main concern is actually how much WAA we get in the lower levels. Sleet is a pain but can be plowed and shoveled. Freezing Rain? Whole other ball game. Right now I'm leaning "Sleet-Fest Sunday" but it's close for our southern friends.

Yeahhh... The AI's, Euro, and MPAS based cores seem to be leaning that way. In a way the coastal "low" is just pressure falls along the warm front due to the insane isentropic lift occurring.

I was aware that the FV3 based RRFS got absolutely shellacked in testing with offices and centers. It originally also supposed to go to 72hrs only and there was outcry of loosing the extra 12 hrs the NAM provided. They *points vaguely* folded on both thankfully

Such a flawed core (Sorry to all those at EMC, you all do great work), MPAS for the win.

There is. It's the NAM Fire Nest. Not usually shown on modeling sites, but it is out there.