Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,609
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    NH8550
    Newest Member
    NH8550
    Joined

V-day snow threat (THE GAINES BOMBER) ( Forecast/ Model/Discussion thread)


Mitchell Gaines

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 400
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Interesting note. Last night where I was in Flemington, I had a icy patches on my driveway at 11pm, despite the air temps across central NJ being in the mid30's. Went to Climate.rutgers and sure enough, soil temps were subzero north of 195. Now after two days of temps in the 40's, I don't expect that to be the case. South and east of the turnpike, some of the precip will be lost to the wretched looking vertical profiles...things don't look good for snow growth until moisture is slinking off to the east. Even after it changes over to snow, it will prob be a couple hours until the forcing overcomes -2 to -4 nearly isothermal temps all the way to 700mb. Further north, lighter precip rates will mean some loss to a warming surface. At least its all falling at night, we get that in our favor. I think 2-4 statewide, with a few jackpots to 5 or 6 in the banded zones. Wouldn't be surprised for the winner to be coastal Monmouth. Won't be much marine influence this go I would think.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Even after it changes over to snow, it will prob be a couple hours until the forcing overcomes -2 to -4 nearly isothermal temps all the way to 700mb.

Dynamic cooling doesn't work so well when temperatures are already below freezing... a big factor is the fact that you are taking heat from the atmosphere to melt the snow, but if its already below freezing then the snow isn't melting. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The GFS takes the southern 1/3 of NJ from rain to a heavy wet snow around 3z (possibly just before). Once 925mb cools to 0°C and below, it should be all snow. Great UVM also down there at 3z too with very nice profiles/snow growth. Could be a quick 3-6 inches after the rain down there. The 700mb trough isn't as organized on the GFS as the NAM but the track of the mid level centers look good for S NJ.

Edit: I should point out that the GFS does not actually show 3-6" this run in southern NJ but I wanted to say the potential was there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dynamic cooling doesn't work so well when temperatures are already below freezing... a big factor is the fact that you are taking heat from the atmosphere to melt the snow, but if its already below freezing then the snow isn't melting. 

Famartin,

I was speaking to the fact that good lift would be temporarily offset by a less than ideal profile for snow growth initially. Things look great when the vortmax swings through and we get the better cold in the preferred snowgrowth zone, but I don't think this its an instant switch to heavy snow. H7 low tracks too far north for this to be the instant switch. Once the cold moves in aloft around 9pm I think things crank. Question is what is left moisturewise at that point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Famartin,

I was speaking to the fact that good lift would be temporarily offset by a less than ideal profile for snow growth initially. Things look great when the vortmax swings through and we get the better cold in the preferred snowgrowth zone, but I don't think this its an instant switch to heavy snow. H7 low tracks too far north for this to be the instant switch. Once the cold moves in aloft around 9pm I think things crank. Question is what is left moisturewise at that point.

And I was alluding to the cooling being more advective than dynamic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Willow Grove had 19" of 10:1 ratio snow.  PHL had 6.8.

 

We won't get the dynamics that we had then but that was a warm day near 50 in the coastal plain and there was plenty of snow even in SJ, De, eastern shore of MD, DC

 

edit: Just to get completely offtrack. That phl measurement was a big mystery at the time surrounded by 12+ - ilg had 14.4

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just ran Wxsim with 12z data for NW Chesco

Has drizzle by noon tomorrow with some light rain during the day transitioning to heavy snow by around 7pm - snow continues till around 2am with 3 to 5" of accumulation

 

Question for you... how realistic has this been for you this Winter?  I saw some storms of the past that seemed pretty realistic with what you had posted.  Never used Wxsim data.  Do you have verification data saved anywhere or a ball park?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...