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10/29 Snowloween -- Thread 1


phlwx

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Here is the Lehigh Valley with the 12z NAM. This is hour 27, or 11am Saturday. Precip starts around 8am when the lowest layers (925mb and below) are above freezing to about 4C at the surface. From 8am to 11am, about 1/4" of precip falls, probably a mix. After 11am, the column cools completely and it's all snow, and total precip is near 2". I think it's waaay overdone, but that's what it's showing.

NAM_218_2011102812_F27_40.5000N_75.5000W.png

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Here is the Lehigh Valley with the 12z NAM. This is hour 27, or 11am Saturday. Precip starts around 8am when the lowest layers (925mb and below) are above freezing to about 4C at the surface. From 8am to 11am, about 1/4" of precip falls, probably a mix. After 11am, the column cools completely and it's all snow, and total precip is near 2". I think it's waaay overdone, but that's what it's showing.

NAM_218_2011102812_F27_40.5000N_75.5000W.png

Thanks, we'll take half that and by extremely happy, worried about power loss though.

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Yeah forward this to hr 30 and the column looks identical for KLOM., and at hr 33 for KPHL.

By hour 33 the majority of the forecast area should be all snow. It just will depend on the precip rate at that point.

Here is the Lehigh Valley with the 12z NAM. This is hour 27, or 11am Saturday. Precip starts around 8am when the lowest layers (925mb and below) are above freezing to about 4C at the surface. From 8am to 11am, about 1/4" of precip falls, probably a mix. After 11am, the column cools completely and it's all snow, and total precip is near 2". I think it's waaay overdone, but that's what it's showing.

NAM_218_2011102812_F27_40.5000N_75.5000W.png

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The city on SE is getting demolished at 33. It does look warm verbatim, but dynamics may have already taken over at that point...0c line along I-95 at 36 and finally crash to the coast at 39...

What city you talking about?

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Chubbs what do you think for our neck of the woods in extreme SE PA/Northern DE? I can't see how we avoid getting at least a few hours of decent snows.

I'm not Chubbs, but I've been following this closely.

Both the 12Z NAM and GFS (especially!) are warmer at 850mb compared to 0Z. If they're right, and that's a big if, I'm afraid we won't see much flakeage. I was holding onto yesterday's and last night's NAM as a snowy potential outcome but the 12Z NAM and GFS have really rained on the parade.

Good luck to you and other fellow Delawareans!

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NAM clown map through 48 (take with a grain of salt)

More like a pitcher of salt... they use a faulty method to generate their maps (notice my thread in the main forum about TwisterData for details).

That map is not accurate. Usually you (roughly) divide by 2 with any snow depth maps other that Earl Barker and InstantWeatherMaps... at any case, those two sites actually use the snow depth parameter of the GRIB files, whereas the other sites do some faulty voodoo with the water equivalent of snow parameter.

Here is snowfall (clown map) with the Modified Kuchera algorithm:

usaasnowipersfc054.gif

REAL snow depth:

usasnodisfc048.gif

By the way, I experiment with GrADS and GRIB files myself on a regular basis, and I must say these maps are easily the closest I've seen to the actual intentions of the model... even Earl Barker's site has a few minor shortcomings (showing too much snow when changing from rain to snow and too little when changing from snow to rain).

Also, for the GFS:

Snow Depth:

usasnodisfc048.gif

Total Snowfall

usaasnowipersfc054n.gif

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I'm not Chubbs, but I've been following this closely.

Both the 12Z NAM and GFS (especially!) are warmer at 850mb compared to 0Z. If they're right, and that's a big if, I'm afraid we won't see much flakeage. I was holding onto yesterday's and last night's NAM as a snowy potential outcome but the 12Z NAM and GFS have really rained on the parade.

Good luck to you and other fellow Delawareans!

Bluehen - Agree that extreme NW DE and Chester County should see at least couple hours of snow at back-end. GFS is much less snowy though than NAM.

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the nam and gfs mslp track is pretty close. The difference comes in the strength. The nam has a sub 994 while the gfs has a sub 1000, which is why the gfs is warmer imho

Yeah, the hi-res of the nam is showing better dynamics at play, hence, heavier precip, and the column cooling... GFs, less dynamics, less qpf, modest BL issues.

GFS seems a bit more climo favored attm, but i'm not ready to discount the NAM

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gfs looks like it goes over to snow after hr 33 looking at soundings for immediate burbs and city

so similar to the NAM in that regard. The 12z GFS drifted very slightly east to near the 12z NAM position. The real difference is that the GFS is slightly warmer at the start until the dynamical cooling brings it in line with the NAM. Since we are in mesoscale time, I'll side with the NAM over the global GFS, although I do believe the NAM is overdoing QPF and thus cold temps. They go hand in hand.

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so similar to the NAM in that regard. The 12z GFS drifted very slightly east to near the 12z NAM position. The real difference is that the GFS is slightly warmer at the start until the dynamical cooling brings it in line with the NAM. Since we are in mesoscale time, I'll side with the NAM over the global GFS, although I do believe the NAM is overdoing QPF and thus cold temps. They go hand in hand.

Yup, overall both the 12Z NAM and GFS advertise snow for the Lehigh Valley and Susq. Valley and give the remainder of SE PA a 6-9 hour window for a changeover to snow before things shut down by 3z on Sunday. For locations near or just southeast of I-95 in DE, PA and NJ that window of oppurtunity appears to be 2-4 hours...or less if the dynamics are lacking.

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Yup, overall both the 12Z NAM and GFS advertise snow for the Lehigh Valley and Susq. Valley and give the remainder of SE PA a 6-9 hour window for a changeover to snow before things shut down by 3z on Sunday. For locations near or just southeast of I-95 in DE, PA and NJ that window of oppurtunity appears to be 2-4 hours...or less if the dynamics are lacking.

I agree. As to the bolded part, considering how these changeover events usually work, 6-9 hours is a good amount of time to accum snow. Normally, you get no more than a couple hours max.

I agree that southeast of I95 will find it hard to get more than an inch of slush considering temps during most of the event.

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Yup, overall both the 12Z NAM and GFS advertise snow for the Lehigh Valley and Susq. Valley and give the remainder of SE PA a 6-9 hour window for a changeover to snow before things shut down by 3z on Sunday. For locations near or just southeast of I-95 in DE, PA and NJ that window of oppurtunity appears to be 2-4 hours...or less if the dynamics are lacking.

Are you thinking we are enough north to get accumulating snow in the Collegeville area? Even 1-3 would be a nice little treat.

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this looks like a classic early season snow on the gfs...the soundings at hr 36 for kphl has the frz level around 940mb... with surface temp around 34-35...seems like a rain snow mix which goes over to snow at the very tail end with a sloppy coating or so...once from the fall line on north and west i believe thats where you start to see some accumulation of an inch or greater, based on the gfs

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The GFS worries me slightly, it almost gets the 850mb 0C line into upper Bucks/Montco. That's the farthest north I've seen it on any major model. It is a good sign, however, that the SREF mean and NAM have remained fairly consistent since yesterday evening. Those are the models we want to use for things like banding and dynamics at this range.

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Are you thinking we are enough north to get accumulating snow in the Collegeville area? Even 1-3 would be a nice little treat.

I think the relatively lower elevations (under 400 ft) in Chester, Montgomery and Bucks should be able to pick up a sloppy 1-3" if precipitation is as intense as depicted on the the models between 18z Sat-03z Sun.

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AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MOUNT HOLLY NJ

1243 PM EDT FRI OCT 28 2011

.SHORT TERM /6 PM THIS EVENING THROUGH 6 AM SATURDAY/...

UPDATE...MIDDAY GRIDS HAVE PUSHED THE SNOW CLOSER TO THE COAST.

WILL LOOK AT 12Z GFS AND HPC WWD GRAPHICS THE NEXT COUPLE OF

HOURS. MIGHT HAVE TO MAKE A BUMP IN ACCUMULATIONS.

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