bristolri_wx

I wouldn't trust some of the snow maps honestly at the moment - not because they are giving us bad news, but because there is some model weirdness going on. The GFS sounding has the temp rising 7 degrees to 35 at the surface as the storm has passed us to the ENE with winds coming out of the NW and thicknesses between 516 and 520 over head. That's just not happening - its not common sense weather. And that type of output is going to affect snowfall map output. It's not going to rain over my house with 850 temps -18C, yet that's what the surface output on the GFS says is happening. All I'm saying is that there's a lot of doom and gloom here, but there's a lot of model spread still and a lot of weirdness going on. 2-4" and 3-6" seems realistic and probably at this point. I guess it sucks that we're not getting a 12", but after last week's garbage I'm surprised we're even getting this...

Ignore the models that are flip-flopping, and stick with the models that are consistent. NAM is wavering back and forth on this one, especially the 12k. Keep it lower on the list of consideration. Not a wish-cast here, just seems like common sense.

Why? The modeling has improved since 00z, not the other way around. The trends have been better...

Not too shabby... seems reasonable...

The GFS and the FV3 Hi-Res were garbage on yesterday's "storm". Yes new storm new analysis, but if it's a pattern related issue, then it may not be as trustworthy as we would like.

A 3-6” event would be great. Not every storm needs to be a 12”+ event. Also, anecdotally, I feel like the mechanics required for 3-6” and 4-8” events are much easier to get widespread across most and/or all of New England, including the South Coast. Often the most amplified solutions have mixing issues or miss a chunk of the region. Even in the “holy grail” season of 2014-2015, my neck of the woods only had about 60” of snow. While most portions other portions of New England were at 100” or more especially eastern areas. Let’s get the ball rolling here and hope for warning level snows and go from there!

It was always going to be close there. Even the HRRR was showing a decent bout of snow there until very recently. Might be a few hours before they decide to abandon them entirely... it was a close call, but going with a warning instead of an advisory was probably the call to make based on the forecasting tools available.

The models are clearly having issues with this overall winter pattern. This is going to be a tough forecasting season. I’m sure there are “improvements” using 500mb “verifications” though lol…

People can’t even figure out which potential storm this thread is for lol…

I'll take the under on he SREF output. Boy what a c**k****e for those S/E of 95 on that map... If I get some flurries/snow showers after this week I call it a win lol...

Just walked the dog and can feel this damp “winter” muck finally moving out. Chilly breeze was refreshing. About time…

We would take flurries down here. It’s been ****ing miserable here since Christmas. The doldrums… anecdotal but can’t remember such a stretch at the beginning of winter.

GFS is kind of on its own on this one. NAM wants none of this and it’s within range of it being relatively accurate. Will be surprised if GFS is right on this one. The positive on this is that even though the storm is a miss, at it at least has a semblance of change in the pattern indicated with a storm actually strengthening into some sort of cyclone to the south of us, rather than shredded mozzarella we’ve been getting last two weeks. Slow progress…

Yup every run that low moves another 50 miles NW on the GFS op… still won’t amount to much but it’s a consistent trend…

True, total miss on the NAM at the moment... but it's at the edge of the 12K range and not in the range of the 3k yet... probably not worth factoring it in for now considering it's not even in agreement with any of the globals on the strength of that low anywhere on the east coast.

That 1/3 storm has been steadily backing north and west towards New England on all the global models. Something to watch, maybe a chance of a scrape?

@Typhoon Tip great write up, even if it doesn’t happen. Also great that there’s no material in here to get cross posted back to off-topic threads

Noted…

Ha sorry missed that. The worst part of this is looking at the CFS for a hopeful outcome lol. Not much of a confidence booster but you take what you get.

FWIW… I know this is going to be weenied into oblivion but the CFS that’s available on Pivotal has been looking better for January… a couple of warm ups on there in the long range but also plenty of cold and at least some potential for not everything to be shredded. Just basing this on the 500mb anomaly maps…

The weather in RI has sucked that last few days. 40’s, cloudy, foggy, drizzly, occasionally rainy… as many others have said not how you want to “torch” in December. I would take cold and dry over this shit weather… can’t wait for this pattern to transition to something else…

It’s hard to get good answers to that question, but my best but very uneducated guess from reading is that more people have been retiring than entering the workforce for several years now. That accelerated during the pandemic. Add in the increase in the death rates the last couple of years for however you wish to attribute it, and the reductions in *legal* immigration, and you have yourself a labor shortage. Most people who worked in service industries have moved on to other jobs. Some people have left the workforce entirely, but I think that’s only a small part of the story, and the extended unemployment benefits have long since ended, so clearly that’s not the cause of the problem either, even though that was the narrative according to many last year. TLDR: a labor shortage has been slowly occurring last few years, pandemic accelerated it and made it worse.

Ate there in mid-November when we did a quick visit to Santa’s Village. I had steak tips and my wife had the prime rib. We thought everythIng was great. Still have good French onion soup as well. It wouldn’t surprise me that there’s more inconsistency at these types of small eateries due to staffing issues and supply chain problems. Unemployment is low so it’s going to be a while before things stabilize…

Wouldn’t surprise me if icing is a little worse than forecasted tomorrow with temps running lower than predicted today. Seems that the atmosphere is a bit colder than was modeled…