bristolri_wx

Great weather for first little league practice of the season this evening. It was like watching a live version of the Bad News Bears but all the kids had fun. Looks like the local little league org doesn’t provide as much equipment these days as when I played 35 years ago. Is that the case all over?

Oh come on man. I love winter as much as the next person but 80’s with 50 degree dews is just about perfect weather. It’s those f-ing upper 60’s and 70’s dews that make summer (and sometimes spring) miserable at times. This is nice considering the shit winter we had on the coastal plain. I’ll take it.

The long range heat forecast in clown range is as hopeful and accurate as long range snow forecast in clown range.

I think the fast flow pattern that we have had setup the last few winters at our latitude really messes with the models for our area when it comes to cyclogenesis. It’s not like any one model sticks out as being better than the other last few seasons they have all had their hits and misses, but what’s been lacking is accurate modeling of mid-level and surface low tracks, and the ability to provide more fine tuned snowfall in the short range; and when I say accurate, we are talking about the usual threading the needle required to figure out where snow will fall in our varied geography in New England. Hopefully the pattern is different next winter and we have both a better outcome winter with forecasts and the actual weather that accompanies them.

Yup...

2023-2024 winter forecast research already underway.

If you're getting snow enjoy it! Snowed here for an hour. Back to rain. What stuck is gone. 0.0"

And 5 hours makes a big difference. HRRR now has the low about 100 miles east of where it was previously modeled when I posted over the next few hours, out east of Chatham rather than crossing the canal. Probably means less snow for my location, maybe an inch if we're lucky...

Yeah, just feels like someone is going to get a surprise 4"-8" out of this where 1-3" or 2-4" is being forecasted....

The HRRR still makes the finale for this storm interesting for the coastal plain. Pinwheeling the phasing lows south through Mass. Bay and the Cape. Just to the west of that things will be quite "violent" for a few hours... We are in the HRRR wheelhouse now inside of 12 hrs so lets see how well it forecasts this...

Just curious, did this run of the NAM have the recon data?

Usually it's the next model runs after all the data is ingested.

They probably have just as much interest as we do as to why the models can't figure this one out in a more agreeable way. Perhaps extra data can assist... The storm is going to be affecting several million people in some way.

Forecasting weather is not my day job, so with that caveat, it's definitely interesting to see a storm that's actually starting where the models can't come to a consensus on a 12-36 hour snowfall forecast. Amazing.

It's looking like the coastal plain is kinda cooked on this one. My expectation will be for a surprise if we get some snow as the storm moves east rather than disappointment in not getting the snow others are receiving. Not surprising considering it's mid-March and there's really not much arctic air around.

It's in 24 hour increments. They don't have total snowfall maps for HREF, at least not for the price I want to pay ($0). First map is 12z Mon to 12x Tue, the second is 12z Tue to 12Z Wed.

You can see why the bust potential in both directions exists. It's warmth vs rates. Probably anywhere in the coastal plain that's close to freezing and gets under a heavy band risks switching over to very heavy wet snow as it brings the cold down to the surface. And at the same time, the warmth could win out and that's just all heavy rain. Challenging forecast!

Juicy...

HREF's... don't think we need the final pane...

As said many times in this forum, no one lives at 500mb.

https://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/users/verification/headlines/acc_31days/

Could be but if you switch the maps back two days it's been consistently on the low side for snow for most of eastern new england. Had more in western parts a day or two ago but has scaled that back.

I think it's the thermal profiles. 2m and 925mb is warm for most of the storm, so its seeing rain.