87storms

it's been diesel lately, though i do approve of the 50 degree temps midweek. i'm sure the deep south does, too. reshuffle the deck and let's see if next friday/first week of march can deliver.

yea, but gotta wonder if the high would stay locked in like that. it's not the best look at 500, but it's a southern wave and we're nearing the end of prime climo, so worth tracking.

euro looks more north and slower with the next friday situation. not a strong low, but we'll see how the next panels play out.

was just out (bc i get antsy) and main roads weren't too bad, but parking lots/intersections were still slick. probably best to not go out if you don't have to. it looks more like it snowed than i thought it would. legitimately looks like 2" of compacted snow.

the concept itself can be tricky, but just think of Z as universal time that doesn't have a spring forward/fall back, so right now greenwich is 5 hrs ahead of us. it's 9pm there (aka sun rises there 5 hrs earlier). when we spring forward, we're moving 1 hour closer to them.

this was a pretty unusual storm. i think most forecasters busted because, let's face it, most storms start as snow and then switch to sleet. having sleet essentially from the onset with ideal surface temps even during quality rates goes against the "precip cooling the column" science. i haven't read every post and haven't really dived into the soundings, but there was obviously a pronounced warm layer that was either thin/warm or marginal/thick. not sure...maybe others know. either way, i don't think the atlantic has helped...it seems to have either caused the trough to be too far west too often or is just a response to other variables. this one was absolutely a bust, but it was pretty understandable why any forecaster would have gone against sleet from start to finish.

Forecasts have definitely improved over the years. There were countless busts in the 90s due to similar setups or just flat out undermodeled downsloping, etc. If anything, it’s impressive that the nam was so intent and correct about the mix line. Globals have improved at 5 day leads but there’s clearly still some areas for improvement in these types of fringe setups.

Mix of sleet and rain here. Major ice storm in progress. Hopefully there won’t be too many power outages.

Definitely concerning to see rain mixed in. This is gonna be one heck of an ice storm if it goes down that route. Feb 94 redux so far.

Snow/sleet mix here. Nam is off to the lead. Let’s see if the column can cool enough once the heavier stuff moves through.

Yep, the 540 line was never in a great spot. Luckily, we have respectable antecedent cold. This always looked like a classic overrunning event. The only thing I haven’t liked is that ns energy. I would have liked to see it dig more or even be a little further in front of the trough axis (which I think is a bit west due to the pronounced se ridge). Instead, it seems to induce phasing too early and prob doesn’t help the mid levels.

what's nice is that the worst case scenario is trending better. feb 94 does come to mind with that plume of moisture depicted on the nam which ended up being a sleet storm here (no hyperbole either...it was indeed 4"+ of sleet), but when you have globals converging towards a colder solution, it's hard to take a short range model too seriously until it gets into its wheelhouse. that said, assuming the warm nose is correct, elevation will play a role...tho it normally does here anyway.

was looking at the earlier runs and it seemed like the nam was trying to phase early with that ns energy. that might have been why there was such a large plume of moisture out ahead of the system and/or just a response to the convection down south. the precip shield looked more like a cutter than even an apps runner. either way, it's not common to have gulf moisture overruning temps in the mid 20s here. that's a pretty good setup and usually happens with clippers (as far as temps are concerned), though as others have said it would be difficult to avoid a mix with a track too far west.

roads seemed fine where i'm at around cabin john. took some time to de-ice my jeep, though. railing/trees have accretion. a little bit on the sidewalks, but nothing on parking lots. slicker conditions will likely arrive tonight especially with less cars on the road.

If it was occurring at night I think a glaze on side roads would be a problem. During the day might be more challenging. Not a fan of power outages, but Sunday morning is prob gonna look pretty cool out there. Looks like this is at least gonna be a tree glazer.

I could see the last of these waves being the one that pushes the boundary east. Whether or not the cold will be cold enough when that happens is another question, but seems like it’s worth tracking.

It has potential. Plenty of cold around to the north. It’s not a weak wave either. Might just need to get the boundary to sag far enough south prior to that wave cutting through to keep mid levels at bay. Not sure we want to go into Monday with remnant energy from the next system too close by.

not quite sure how well this extrapolates, but water vapor imagery still shows quite a moisture fetch into the region. just need that low to trend further north.

well i hope you're wrong lol. but yea, gotta add trends to the equation. i'd be ok with a clean advisory event, though.

makes sense. what's your take on the tuesday system? assuming it trends towards weaker/drier as suggested, it looks like it has the best setup ahead of it. that said, with so many different waves it might be difficult for one wave to amplify/dominate. to my hobbyist eyes, it looks like it will be dependent on where the boundary sets up. further southeast would imply more wiggle room for a wave to jet through and not warm things up too much. too far north and you end up with toasty mids even with healthy surface temps (like saturday).

thing is with temps in the 20s (assuming that holds), then it really wouldn't take much precip to turn things into a skating rink sunday. tuesday does look interesting on the gfs. the latest cmc shows the squashed version. i would think suppression/weaker, but still workable system would make more sense, but we'll see what the 12z's have to say.

could be. hard to tell, but we've never exactly been a ski town even before all the climo talk, so any 1-2 degree difference is pretty huge here and really that played out to a tee the last couple of storms where upstairs was cold, but we had just enough above surface temps/thin layer to turn what could have been a 2-4/3-6" event (not including what was wiped off a snowboard, but what is actually currently on the ground) into a sloppy mess. elevation always mattered, but it might matter more going forward. it's an interesting topic, so not really trying to ruin the mood lol. hopefully one of the next systems can work out. edit: meant to reply to chris lol.

this winter reminds me of some of the 90s storms (aka mixy). it wouldn't surprise me if the generally above average atlantic temps (notably the gulf stream) are playing a role as well. i think there's something to be said about starting the season off cold from canada on down for snowpack and cooler water temps. if it's going to take longer in the season to get those variables to work in our favor, then feb could be even more of a prime climo here than before.

My friend a few miles north of olney has snow. Elevation dependent system rn.

Pretty impressive little ice storm right now. Pingers covering the street here.