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Potential for big event looms large March 28-30


earthlight

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I acknowledge that the dynamics are all there. But you can't disregard the time of the year, and I would also add in climo. Besides the weakening and receding souce of arctic air, consider the snowfall statistics for Central Park over the past 140 years. During that period, there were only 4 instances when there were major snowstorms here, 1875, 1915, 1917 and 1982. Yet, I'll bet there were numerous setups similar to what the 18Z GFS has been depicting, where at best, we received maybe at best a mixture to several inches of wet snow because of borderline surface to 850 temps. and the sun angle. If this were merely forecasted to have occurred 2 weeks ago, we would get zonked,

The JP zone looks very similar to Boxing Day if taken verbatim

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Regardless,

Even if we only manage 1"-3" on Wednesday night and then 2"-6" on Friday night,

That would still be considered a huge week of winter for this time of year.

and it would put us well into 2nd place and close to 1st place.

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who is desregarding the time of year? earthlight?! he just said its highly unlikely

enough stating the obvious, we know its april, sun angle and what not ect. We are all hardcore. Earthlight just showed you up that what the 18z gfs has verbatim would be a snowstorm for nyc metro.

Look, I don't think he showed me up and you're bypassing what we're talking about. No one's disputing that its highly unlikely.

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But we're talking about a projection for April 1/2, not boxing day,

Yeah but we have a bombing low, strong dynamics and the time of day seems like it will help us. The notion that it can't happen just because its rare couldn't be any more false, especially when you have a year which has already been highly unusual weather wise. The bottom line is that the 18z gfs would be a HECS FWIW no matter how you slice the cake. We shall see how things end up.

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Yeah but we have a bombing low, strong dynamics and the time of day seems like it will help us. The notion that it can't happen just because its rare couldn't be any more false, especially when you have a year which has already been highly unusual weather wise. The bottom line is that the 18z gfs would be a HECS FWIW no matter how you slice the cake. We shall see how things end up.

That's the bottom line.

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I know, I realize that, but I remember the NAM being pretty darn good with the last storm. Maybe I am wrong though, but that is what I remember.

With the last event the NAM showed us getting crushed before finally backing off at 18z. Either way my comment wasn't meant to be nasty. This storm looks like the real deal.

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Let's take this one event at a time -- the friday storm is 5 days away and could very well end up being an inland bombing low (rendering the argument in this thread useless). Personally I've got more faith in the Wednesday night s/w producing some snow accumulations for the area as the antecedent airmass is still pretty cold. By the time Friday rolls around, 850's are rapidly warming and we've essentially got to hope for the ideal scenario -- H5 close off east of the Delmarva w/ a sub 985mb exploding sfc low to our immediate east. A 990-995mb / moderately strong low probably won't even be sufficient to accumulate sig snows on the coastal plain. Interior Northeast and higher elevations have a much higher probability of receiving significant snows (or accum snow for that matter) with the friday system. Models are just beginning to come into consensus on the D 3 event, and usually in this type of situation w/ one wave right after another, the second storm isn't well modelled into the first passes through.

As far as whether the 18Z GFS is snow or not, that doesn't matter much at this point, considering the track and intensity of the low will change countless times between now and then. With that being said, the 18z GFS both upper air and sfc depicts basically our ideal scenario w/ the fri storm.

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Regardless,

Even if we only manage 1"-3" on Wednesday night and then 2"-6" on Friday night,

That would still be considered a huge week of winter for this time of year.

and it would put us well into 2nd place and close to 1st place.

1-3" and 2-6" events within a week would be great in January too. I'd be happy with 1" or 2" at this time of year, just enough to push me over 60".

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. I'd be happy with 1" or 2" at this time of year, just enough to push me over 60".

couldnt agree more. anything that adds to an already historically significant year, is a plus.

i consider any winter with 50"+ historically significant.... and 60" is a major jump ahead in class, since it almost never happens.

some day we'll look back at 09-10 and 10-11 and think, "holy crap, those were the good ol days."

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I'm not trying to show anybody up, it's just a professional argument.

I'm not agreeing with the argumentative point about climatology. My original post was in regards to the exact model solution taken verbatim, as is. Climo this, climo that, it doesn't mean anything in GFS fantasy land. It could have been 70 degrees on that day for 50 years straight. That doesn't mean squat when youre looking at the model verbatim, which shows a coastal low and closed mid level centers and dynamics conducive to snow. If that came to fruition, it snows. And it accumulates, especially inland.

Is it likely to happen? Absolutely not. Am I forecasting it to happen? Absolutely not. But does the 18z GFS at 132 or whatever hours show a snowstorm? Yes.

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I'm not trying to show anybody up, it's just a professional argument.

I'm not agreeing with the argumentative point about climatology. My original post was in regards to the exact model solution taken verbatim, as is. Climo this, climo that, it doesn't mean anything in GFS fantasy land. It could have been 70 degrees on that day for 50 years straight. That doesn't mean squat when youre looking at the model verbatim, which shows a coastal low and closed mid level centers and dynamics conducive to snow. If that came to fruition, it snows. And it accumulates, especially inland.

Is it likely to happen? Absolutely not. Am I forecasting it to happen? Absolutely not. But does the 18z GFS at 132 or whatever hours show a snowstorm? Yes.

IF....IF the GFS verified, it would accumulate for sure. No question.

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I'm not trying to show anybody up, it's just a professional argument.

I'm not agreeing with the argumentative point about climatology. My original post was in regards to the exact model solution taken verbatim, as is. Climo this, climo that, it doesn't mean anything in GFS fantasy land. It could have been 70 degrees on that day for 50 years straight. That doesn't mean squat when youre looking at the model verbatim, which shows a coastal low and closed mid level centers and dynamics conducive to snow. If that came to fruition, it snows. And it accumulates, especially inland.

Is it likely to happen? Absolutely not. Am I forecasting it to happen? Absolutely not. But does the 18z GFS at 132 or whatever hours show a snowstorm? Yes.

Damn right. Would be snow to the beaches. Probably accumulating at the storm's height. But sea level locations rarely get heavy accumulations in Spring no matter the synoptic setup. Would probably end up something like 4" in Midtown, 6" in Riverdale trending to >12" in elevated NNJ, SENY, and WCT. Surface temperatures are difficult to cool to freezing this time of year when the airmass is stale. But snow will accumulate at 34F or 35F if it is heavy enough, albeit with poor ratios. Intensity always wins over climo, sun angle, ground temperature, and almost any other factor.

The 18z GFS charts are beautiful. But I completely agree though that this kind of perfect evolution and progression is very unlikely.

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Damn right. Would be snow to the beaches. Probably accumulating at the storm's height. But sea level locations rarely get heavy accumulations in Spring no matter the synoptic setup. Would probably end up something like 4" in Midtown, 6" in Riverdale trending to >12" in elevated NNJ, SENY, and WCT. Surface temperatures are difficult to cool to freezing this time of year when the airmass is stale. But snow will accumulate at 34F or 35F if it is heavy enough, albeit with poor ratios. Intensity always wins over climo, sun angle, ground temperature, and almost any other factor.

The 18z GFS charts are beautiful. But I completely agree though that this kind of perfect evolution and progression is very unlikely.

What does the bolded mean?

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Tell that to people who lived through 4/1/97 in Boston...

I lived in Boston for that! Awesome.

I was referring to the NYC tri-state area specifically, although it's generally true regardless of region. I didn't mean that it can never happen.

But interestingly, that 97 storm is actually a good case in point for our area. I recall reading that there was a slushy inch of snow along the Hudson near West Point and 10" near the football stadium at 500 or 600ft.

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In Springtime it's very difficult for locations near sea level to get more than, say, 6" of snow, even if the models show what might otherwise be a blizzard in January.

The way you worded it it sounded like you were saying that even if a model shows a big snowstorm for the coast for April then it still won't verify only because of the calendar date. Sure there are boundary layer issues in the springtime, however if the models shows these issues are overcome then they are no longer are an issue just like any other time of year. If the models show a blizzard during the first week of April, then it is indeed a blizzard no matter what the date on the calendar is. Otherwise it wouldn't be called a blizzard to begin with.

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I lived in Boston for that! Awesome.

I was referring to the NYC tri-state area specifically, although it's generally true regardless of region. I didn't mean that it can never happen.

But interestingly, that 97 storm is actually a good case in point for our area. I recall reading that there was a slushy inch of snow along the Hudson near West Point and 10" near the football stadium at 500 or 600ft.

That was mainly because of the location of precipitation bands. If you recall, Philly saw several inches of snow because they were at the right place for the bands. But of course elevation in marginal setups always helps.

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I lived in Boston for that! Awesome.

I was referring to the NYC tri-state area specifically, although it's generally true regardless of region. I didn't mean that it can never happen.

But interestingly, that 97 storm is actually a good case in point for our area. I recall reading that there was a slushy inch of snow along the Hudson near West Point and 10" near the football stadium at 500 or 600ft.

Near 12" at my folks house around 1000' in Highland Mills which is about 5 miles or so due west of West Point..

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That was mainly because of the location of precipitation bands. If you recall, Philly saw several inches of snow because they were at the right place for the bands.

Yeah, banding and overall progression of features plays an important role. Philly apparently experienced good CAA being on the SW quadrant of the developing storm. But elevation was huge, as it often is in Spring. As I mentioned in the example, the elevational snowfall gradient in NENJ and the Hudson Valley was extreme.

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I lived in Boston for that! Awesome.

I was referring to the NYC tri-state area specifically, although it's generally true regardless of region. I didn't mean that it can never happen.

But interestingly, that 97 storm is actually a good case in point for our area. I recall reading that there was a slushy inch of snow along the Hudson near West Point and 10" near the football stadium at 500 or 600ft.

You were in Boston for April '97? wow, that's gotta be a heck of an experience. :snowman:

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