December 18-20 Talking Points - Part 2

[Ericjcrash]

Seriously, the model inconsistencies with every model is atrocious

You couldn't be more correct. This would be a disaster for anyone who has to put a forecast out.

[A-L-E-X]

Again, it's a huge first step that can be added to in future runs. We just want to see it in the neighborhood at this juncture. If there's a real wave in the southern stream amplifying into the trough, it'll probably be enough to become our storm given the favorability of the northern stream. If not, no storm since there is little or no northern stream component.

I still think it's either a total or mostly whiff out to sea or a substantial snowstorm for at least Philly northeast.

I cant believe how many people were just randomly giving up on this thing even though the shortwave had yet to be properly sampled.  Let's face it-- people hate any kind of uncertainty and have problems dealing with it.  I hope as it continues to get better sampled through tomorrow it trends to a hit for us.  Time will tell.  A little bit of uncertainty is fine for now.

[tombo82685]

sne gets raped prob 1.5-2 qpf

[patrick05]

Significant hit for long island

just when i was about to give up...

when can we see maps??

[tombo82685]

the s/w was the whole story, was a lot stronger that 12z...

[A-L-E-X]

Significant hit for long island

John, not that this matters right now, but do you mean eastern Long Island?  This thing should be better sampled through tomorrow and then we'll see if its a trend.

[tombo82685]

nyc is about .5 e li is about 1.5

[Ericjcrash]

Seriously, the model inconsistencies with every model is atrocious

Off topic, but where in Queens are you located?

[A-L-E-X]

You couldn't be more correct. This would be a disaster for anyone who has to put a forecast out.

Our local mets handled it really well-- they said there was a great deal of uncertainty and the three possibilities on the table were direct hit, near miss/grazing and completely out to sea.  They said any of those could happen and to stay tuned.  I like that kind of honesty-- no sense in making an absolute call when you just dont know.

[tombo82685]

the storm has stalled right over boston...lgt snow wrapping back to north jers and nyc at hr 126

[A-L-E-X]

This is why people shouldn't be jumping ship at this stage in the game. Even the Euro is not infallible at day 4, usually model variance continues and begins converging on a solution by about 24-48 hours from the event. As far as I can remember, this is a huge shift from the 12z run, and we're still nearly 4 days out.

Iso, I was thinking we might not even really know whats going to happen until the storm tomorrow passes by.

[ravensrule]

Off topic, but where in Queens are you located?

If i was a betting man i would say kew garden hills am i right ridingtime?.

[A-L-E-X]

the storm has stalled right over boston...lgt snow wrapping back to north jers and nyc at hr 126

So basically the stall over us it and the GFS had earlier is now a stall over BOS?  Is it so close to them that there are mixing issues?  Hopefully it stalls just a tad further SW in future runs

[ravensrule]

the storm has stalled right over boston...lgt snow wrapping back to north jers and nyc at hr 126

Tombo is there any decent qpf for Baltimore?, thank you.

[bass28]

im at loss of words on what the king just did am i the only one?

[earthlight]

132hr qpf 0.50 to NYC 1.60 east end of long island significant hit for them. Jersey shore near 0.75

[A-L-E-X]

nyc is about .5 e li is about 1.5

WSW criteria for most of us.

[tombo82685]

hr 132 the storm has now moved south to right over the bm stil lgt precip from nyc northern nj on east

[earthlight]

Please excuse me while I go pass out

[Isotherm]

Iso, I was thinking we might not even really know whats going to happen until the storm tomorrow passes by.

Alex -- agree. Often times the models are highly erratic until the evolution of storm #1 is nailed down; that could be the case here. Also, the short wave in question isn't even on the playing field yet, so we've got plenty of time remaining for trends.

[Ericjcrash]

hr 132 the storm has now moved south to right over the bm stil lgt precip from nyc northern nj on east

Bizzare to say the least. Who knows what to think, at least now we have more of a reason to follow closely.

[tombo82685]

boston may have some precip issues with that storm, has them in the upper 30s, and maine is raining lol

[patrick05]

Our local mets handled it really well-- they said there was a great deal of uncertainty and the three possibilities on the table were direct hit, near miss/grazing and completely out to sea. They said any of those could happen and to stay tuned. I like that kind of honesty-- no sense in making an absolute call when you just dont know.

i don't know if you have News 12 (Cabelvision) but Bill Korbel, a seasoned met, did say that he'll wait until tomorrow to get a better handling on things, and he said he had a feeling LI could be brushed by the storm... Lee Goldberg, meanwhile, thinks this is OTS...

[tombo82685]

jeez yikes hr 144 continues to retrograde up in the new fundland area, add another .1-.25 to sne...

[bass28]

John,what does it look like for C LI?close to 1.00" i assume?

[RutgersWx92]

Wow, what a huge turnaround. So much for the Euro being the perfect model..it's suffering from the same inconsistencies that the other models are.

[jm1220]

I cant believe how many people were just randomly giving up on this thing even though the shortwave had yet to be properly sampled. Let's face it-- people hate any kind of uncertainty and have problems dealing with it. I hope as it continues to get better sampled through tomorrow it trends to a hit for us. Time will tell. A little bit of uncertainty is fine for now.

After especially last winter, I'll never give up on a system until all its features are on land and sampled, maybe even then some. Maybe these strong ENSO patterns throw a lot of chaos and volatility into these things, but given how small of a change it takes in the upper air pattern to cause a major shift in our wx in the end, a storm is almost always at least plausible in a decent setup such as this with a S/W in question. 24-48 hours out from some of last year's winter storms we were progged to get nothing or next to nothing but ended up with much more. 2/25 last year was a huge surprise to me, and I had all but given up on 12/19 when every model and ensemble didn't get any snow north of Atlantic City 1-2 days before. 50 miles more and 2/6 would have been another huge thump for NYC. Hopefully this isn't a fluke/fake run and the other models catch on tomorrow.

[bmc10]

hmmm, if models at 12z tomorrow continue the trend I am going to be pretty excited. I hate to jinx it, but its fairly common that our bigger storms tend to be shown only to be lost by models before trending back towards a hit within 84 hours. Lets see if this is the start of that pattern, I will tell you one thing, its also usually the Euro that picks up and others follow suit. Just think at 12z tomorrow we could be looking at a substantial hit.

[tombo82685]

qpf....its an insane cutoff but

nyc is .5-.75

central li 1-1.25

western li 1.25-2

[jm1220]

132hr qpf 0.50 to NYC 1.60 east end of long island significant hit for them. Jersey shore near 0.75

50 miles southwest and it's a MECS areawide. I'll easily take that given how these things often trend right before and blow up faster than progged at this stage over the Atlantic/Gulfstream.