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Jan 21 event


Ian

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For those getting hopes up for snow, I've lived here long enough to know the snow portion of the storm won't last long at all, if it ever starts. This is a classic sleet/freezing rain event, so the story will more likely be about ice accretion than how many inches of snow. You might get a nice 1/10th of an inch of snow with a 1/4 inch of ice over the top at least in the immediate metro area. But still it's a winter weather event, even when many were saying just plain old rain several days ago.

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Hard not to be confident in the fact that surface temps almost always (if not always) stay colder for longer during these events. Totally diggin' the colder surface trend and there is a heck of alot of cold air nearby.

I'm looking forward to my 1" of glazed concrete.

For the places that do get some snow, does that help keep the surface colder or is it purely the H to the north?

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Well joe, good sign to hear that from you, :) no need for yikes :)

That yikes might be for those of us who will be driving to work between 7:00-8:00 a.m.

Snow; that's easy to move around in, if you know what you're doing. Freezing rain... That's another story. :yikes:

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For those getting hopes up for snow, I've lived here long enough to know the snow portion of the storm won't last long at all, if it ever starts. This is a classic sleet/freezing rain event, so the story will more likely be about ice accretion than how many inches of snow. You might get a nice 1/10th of an inch of snow with a 1/4 inch of ice over the top at least in the immediate metro area. But still it's a winter weather event, even when many were saying just plain old rain several days ago.

Agree... it may take a while to saturate th column as nw baltimore said too...

Zwyts - also agree. NAM has tendency to overdo QPF, so I think using GFS is prudent

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NAM is probably too cold, but who knows?....GFS has been most consistent...I will go with it.....I'm not that worried about the Euro...it is playing catch up at this point....still would definitely want to be north

Have to say, I like the look of the NAM. Maybe it is just because I've seen a number of situations where the p-type didn't change in the middle of the precipitation, but while there was a break. Here, the NAM is really showing two distinct parts of the system, the more broad-scale forcing on the front end which is our snowfall from midnight to 4am or so, and then the more "energetic" part of the system which shows up around 7-10am. In those places still below freezing, we could see some quick moderate freezing rain accumulation.

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For those getting hopes up for snow, I've lived here long enough to know the snow portion of the storm won't last long at all, if it ever starts. This is a classic sleet/freezing rain event, so the story will more likely be about ice accretion than how many inches of snow. You might get a nice 1/10th of an inch of snow with a 1/4 inch of ice over the top at least in the immediate metro area. But still it's a winter weather event, even when many were saying just plain old rain several days ago.

THis has always been a north and west event....we just need to get precip here early.....even an hour of snow on the front end would lay down 1/2" or more.....But yes for me and you it is entirely possible that we go to sleet very quickly after onset....looking at soundings, the NAM is probably all snow for DC at 6z but it still has a warm nose at 750-800 MB that stays just below freezing....9Z is borderline but probably not all snow....GFS which may be more realistic is probably snow at 6z but is about to go to sleet any minute....so yes...I could definitely see a scenario for us and even for the VA burbs where we start as -SN for 30 minutes to 1 hr and then go to sleet or even never get snow....or it may be a case of mixing back and forth for a while....If I were forecasting for MBY, I would probably call for a 1/2" to 3/4" of snow/sleet accumulation....

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I would be alot easier to second guess surface temps if there weren't single digits in western md and pa and even teens and low 20's around the pa/md border. We haven't had any air like this nearby this season with precip approaching.

Too bad the low passes so close to our lat our we could have had our first warning crit snow of the season. Still not going to complain. Some folks near the pa boder can easily end up with 2" of concrete with a solid glaze on top.

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Wby would nam be too cold when you have multiple high pressure areas to the north in canada??

because it has a cold bias...It may be the most correct at the surface...models aren't going to get the surface temps correct...surface temps are always a nowcast situation....but at 850 i would lean toward it being too cold...I doubt I see a 3 hr period of Snow...but I could be wrong...

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I have a hunch that the NAM may be right with temps at 2M, I'm not trying to be weenie but CAD situations seem to almost always underplayed even by mesoscale models, to an extent. January 2011, we didn't go above freezing until maybe 5-7hrs after even the coldest model had forecast. Not a very scientific post but I think this might be the case..

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