December 19th-20 Storm Thread II

[ski MRG]

What now?

Bedtime. GN

[ChrisM]

What now?

we wait.

and dendrite, I sent the PM. I really still don't get how this happened...

[dendrite]

Phil is gonna flip

I didn't mean in a RAOB sense. I meant we've still got a couple of days before all of the players come together.

[H2Otown_WX]

Well, the new EURO monthly is out and it looks pretty good:

[TalcottWx]

Well, the new EURO monthly is out and it looks pretty good:

Looks like there was another link on the page,

[40/70 Benchmark]

I'm gonna be physically ill.

Thank God I'm working tmw, so I don't wast a whole day obsessing on this damn machine over something I have absolutely 0 control over.

[ORH_wxman]

I didn't mean in a RAOB sense. I meant we've still got a couple of days before all of the players come together.

Nobody wants to hear it (esp Socks), but almost every model has been giving decent snows on the retrograde for a chunk of New England (whether the initial low is a hit or not)....even the Euro gives most of us advisory snow and even some borderline warning criteria near Ray.

[earthlight]

Found the end solution in all likelihood

since i am not a meteorologist i am wrong though.

[ski MRG]

I'm gonna be physically ill.

Thank God I'm working tmw, so I don't wast a whole day obssessing on this damn machine over something I have absolutely 0 control over.

Have any valium?

[40/70 Benchmark]

Looks like there was another link on the page,

Look at the dude in the middle doing a swan dive.....perfect.

[ski MRG]

Nobody wants to hear it (esp Socks), but almost every model has been giving decent snows on the retrograde for a chunk of New England (whether the initial low is a hit or not)....even the Euro gives most of us advisory snow and even some borderline warning criteria near Ray.

He's the only reason I want to see it snow big. lol

[TalcottWx]

Found the end solution in all likelihood

since i am not a meteorologist i am wrong though.

If this solution verified I would behead myself slowly with a butter knife.

[nzucker]

Nobody wants to hear it (esp Socks), but almost every model has been giving decent snows on the retrograde for a chunk of New England (whether the initial low is a hit or not)....even the Euro gives most of us advisory snow and even some borderline warning criteria near Ray.

I never said you guys would get absolutely nothing but I just think this storm has been hyped a lot relative to the amount of runs that actually showed a big hit for the East Coast. I'm thinking the retro is like a 2-4" type of deal, pretty pedestrian and unimpressive given the winter has yielded nothing so far. Also, the retrograding low tamps out the s/w moving through the Plains at Day 5 and ruins our chances at a redeveloping clipper. I think SNE would be better off if we lost the retrograde and just had the next S/W move in under the block.

[weatherwiz]

We see it every single day on here...even in summer. Some people think they have it all figured out or are smarter than the models...it just doesn't work that way. Usually a skilled forecaster can augment the model solutions into a better forecast (I.E knowing their biases and larger scale pattern)...but that is impossible right now with so many moving parts. The one thing that makes me semi-confident is that we have a neg tilted trough with a "trending stronger" vortmax at the base of it...we'll see. I think that will normally do ok for us...not a HECS unless the whole things closes off south of us...but at least a moderate event.

But every scenario from a HECS to a whiff is still on the table.

I really like the negatively tilted trough as well...this is one thing we always want to see...we just don't want it to occur too far west of us or otherwise we might end up with something like an inland runner. That's not happening here though luckily. One thing I've kind of noticed over the past year or so (mostly in the summer but I've never looked too much into this in the winter) but usually once we get inside of 24-36 hours the models start handling the negatively tilted trough MUCH better...if this trough does go negatively tilted in a similar fashion to what the 0z NAM advertised this will allow the southern stream to hold back some and also allow time to get more northern stream involvement which will allow for a much earlier phase and allow for a more westward solution.

The chances for an HECS might be on the lower side but it's still certainly on the table, not sure how much this means if anything but the past systems we've seen this fall and through this month if for troughs to take on a very nicely negative tilt and this has even been undermodeled to a degree. If we can get the trough to take on an extremely negative tilt early enough this could certainly allow for some rapid cyclogenesis to our south and allow for the system to rapid and close off which gives us the HECS potential.

Just too much uncertainties right now to really discount anything.

[earthlight]

If this solution verified I would behead myself slowly with a butter knife.

Don't worry there's a inverted trough in Maine extending 400 miles northwest from the surface low.

[TalcottWx]

Look at the dude in the middle doing a swan dive.....perfect.

[TalcottWx]

Don't worry there's a inverted trough in Maine extending 400 miles northwest from the surface low.

Fantastic, I'm in BOS.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Have any valium?

I need to go out and drink and get la*d tmw night and distance myself from this.....but I won't, because do you want to know what my sick, helpless azz will be doing; take a wild, wild, out-of-left-field guess

[earthlight]

Nice redeveloper snowstorm on the Euro at 210 hours.

[ORH_wxman]

I never said you guys would get absolutely nothing but I just think this storm has been hyped a lot relative to the amount of runs that actually showed a big hit for the East Coast. I'm thinking the retro is like a 2-4" type of deal, pretty pedestrian and unimpressive given the winter has yielded nothing so far. Also, the retrograding low tamps out the s/w moving through the Plains at Day 5 and ruins our chances at a redeveloping clipper. I think SNE would be better off if we lost the retrograde and just had the next S/W move in under the block.

Didn't you say just earlier today that you thought this was an "all or nothing" event? You couldnt see a middle ground like 4-8" of snow.

You seem to be contradicting yourself quite a bit. I know you really are against a big E New England hit....but I really don't agree with any of your reasoning. We aren't smarter than the models (most of the time)...there about 5 moving parts that you (and me) have absolutely no clue what are going to do. We are pretty much at the mercy of the models right now.

[earthlight]

Christmas snowstorm in the Northern Mid Atlantic, redeveloping off the coast at 216.

[powderfreak]

I know these maps are 12 hours off...96 hours on the 12z and 72hrs on the 00z... but the difference in the ECMWF's last two runs is startling. This coming after a large shift a couple runs ago. This is nuts for a model claimed to be that much superior by the GFS. The GFS has been all over the place too, but it hasn't had the wild swings of "the King." The GFS has seemed to slowly migrate in one direction, then slowly migrate in another direction over the course of several runs; the Euro swings for the fences and whiffs.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Nah, this to quick, painless and time efficient relative to what we have going on here.

[TalcottWx]

Christmas snowstorm in the Northern Mid Atlantic, redeveloping off the coast at 216.

Can't mentally fathom another event right now.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Christmas snowstorm in the Northern Mid Atlantic, redeveloping off the coast at 216.

I have been hoping they could get one.

[powderfreak]

He said "They were both pictures of urinating off the side of a deck."

LOL. Why the hell would I ever post pictures of that? It was me skiing...lol

It was a pretty steezy skiing picture as well haha.

[nzucker]

Didn't you say just earlier today that you thought this was an "all or nothing" event? You couldnt see a middle ground like 4-8" of snow.

You seem to be contradicting yourself quite a bit. I know you really are against a big E New England hit....but I really don't agree with any of your reasoning. We aren't smarter than the models (most of the time)...there about 5 moving parts that you (and me) have absolutely no clue what are going to do. We are pretty much at the mercy of the models right now.

Yeah I think it either hits everybody like 12z showed or goes off the coast and doesn't do much damage at all. I'm not convinced that a Miller A style storm misses most of I-95 and then slams SNE; that's what I meant, it's either all the coast or none of it. That doesn't mean I'd rule out a couple of inches for Cape Cod or something in a retrograding scraper, although the east trend might get more extreme as we go on as the NOGAPS John posted showed.

Well I really don't understand my reasoning completely either, to be honest...I just never felt that this was going to be a MECS/HECS threat for I-95 and particularly my area. I don't know how to explain it but I saw the 12z run at school subbing today and just didn't feel like it could happen for me. I do think the Pacific zonal flow is hurting us and that the lack of a STJ makes this storm much more fragile than it would have been last year where it just would have gone BOOM with a massive southern stream phasing with the elongated PV. I think we're missing some of the classic features for a major event, though I don't claim to understand how exactly the northern stream is going to get injected, what the energy off Florida is doing to the baroclinic zone (where did that even come from?), and how the PV is going to move in. I also tend to use a percentage of model guidance more than other posters; if a very small percentage of the models are showing a hit, I don't get too excited until the trend towards the big system is clear on both the GFS and ECM. In this case the ECM was basically one run of HECS and the GFS never fully bought it, neither did the NAM. This made it less likely in my book.

[weatherwiz]

Even though I know it's still a little too far out...when do the 3z SREF's come out? Another hour or so?

[ORH_wxman]

Yeah I think it either hits everybody like 12z showed or goes off the coast and doesn't do much damage at all. I'm not convinced that a Miller A style storm misses most of I-95 and then slams SNE; that's what I meant, it's either all the coast or none of it. That doesn't mean I'd rule out a couple of inches for Cape Cod or something in a retrograding scraper, although the east trend might get more extreme as we go on as the NOGAPS John posted showed.

Well I really don't understand my reasoning completely either, to be honest...I just never felt that this was going to be a MECS/HECS threat for I-95 and particularly my area. I don't know how to explain it but I saw the 12z run at school subbing today and just didn't feel like it could happen for me. I do think the Pacific zonal flow is hurting us and that the lack of a STJ makes this storm much more fragile than it would have been last year where it just would have gone BOOM with a massive southern stream phasing with the elongated PV. I think we're missing some of the classic features for a major event, though I don't claim to understand how exactly the northern stream is going to get injected, what the energy off Florida is doing to the baroclinic zone (where did that even come from?), and how the PV is going to move in. I also tend to use a percentage of model guidance more than other posters; if a very small percentage of the models are showing a hit, I don't get too excited until the trend towards the big system is clear on both the GFS and ECM. In this case the ECM was basically one run of HECS and the GFS never fully bought it, neither did the NAM. This made it less likely in my book.

But its not a classic Miller A style storm....if you heard the radio show...its almost a pseudo miller B...the main player is the plains s/w diving in and the storm doesn't blossom until late. That is a favorable setup for New England. This might not bury eastern MA, but to say it cant because it doesn't bury Dobbs Ferry is a ridiculous statement.

This can easily be a huge hit for eastern New England. I wouldn't favor a HECS right now....thats foolish in my book, but your "all or nothing" scenario for I-95 including E NE is pure crap IMHO. It just reeks of "if its not going to snow in my BY, it won't snow in Boston"....that is bad meteorology. This system has a lot of problems with it concerning moving parts....I'm leaning toward a moderate event too, but I don't find any reasoning of "all or nothing" very valid.

[weatherwiz]

Well I'll at least be able to see all the 12z models tomorrow, I don't have to work until 3:00 and I'll be getting home from the Whale game (damn you Baldwin) just in time to catch the GFS coming in.