Feb 24th threat part deux

[CT Rain]

IF, huge if....we can overcome the BL it could get pretty snowy in eastern New England.  Another CT Blizz tickle SW in later runs and the intensity will probably be sufficient for snow in Boston.

 

meh... I don't see anything interesting.

 

Maybe 1"-3" if some places are lucky. 

 

I've massaged by 1"-3" down to 1"-2". I mean this storm just sucks. 

[N. OF PIKE]

cape ann 37f  psm,nh 36 pwm 35 and 37 on the shoreline there in maine....torch bit of a cf right along the shore line because low elevation just inland are like 33 or so and they haven't wetbulb'd yet.

[HoarfrostHubb]

yes for ema likely but for you prolly 3-5 inches late tonite and tommorrow

I could also see C-1"... no friggin clue at this point.

[wxjim207]

I mean unless you get stuck under a norlun trough everyone is otherwise just gonna get a nice light coating... heck that's even if the norlun sets up. It has failed to do so multiple times this season.

 

We are down to 32F here in Brunswick Maine with Freezing Drizzle

[OceanStWx]

cape ann 37f  psm,nh 36 pwm 35 and 37 on the shoreline there in maine....torch bit of a cf right along the shore line because low elevation just inland are like 33 or so and they haven't wetbulb'd yet.

 

It was some white rain in Portland, but by the time I got to Yarmouth it was all snow. Didn't take long to get cold enough as you drive just inland.

[N. OF PIKE]

i see a bit of a cf sig showing up in essex county now along 95 up thru SE nh and SW maine.

this will prob tickle down to the Nw peabody area cut just over or west of my fanny reading,ma over to woburn/winchester

lwm went north wind at 5 and now down to 33.8/30.6

e wilmington is right on the line between ene and NNE and keeps bouncing up and down in the 32's

[Clinch Leatherwood]

excellent points. this event is still evolving and any met who had to put it on the line with a forecast has my respect. I have beaten the drum about the near impossibility to get the forecast right in a situation such as this from 3 days out but the era we live in demand this. i would wait til tomorrow to trash Bouchard's forecast. he may have the last laugh.

 

meh... I don't see anything interesting.

 

Maybe 1"-3" if some places are lucky. 

 

I've massaged by 1"-3" down to 1"-2". I mean this storm just sucks. 

 

It's always sucked, people just want to continue to believe.... 

 

I don't think it looks bad in eastern areas Sunday into Sunday night for what it is, a couple of inches with a good burst of snow as the trough/whatever/ULL works on available moisture.  Someone may well get several inches just from that.  If it doesn't set up, it doesn't set up....is what it is.  Like all but the blizzard it's nip and tuck right down to gametime.

[ORH_wxman]

I'm semi optimistic for tomorrow...there's a lot of convergence over this area on the models tomorrow...usually good moisture with convergence and northeasterly flow near the sfc is pretty efficient here on the eastern slopes of the hills. We'll see I guess.

[Clinch Leatherwood]

I'm semi optimistic for tomorrow...there's a lot of convergence over this area on the models tomorrow...usually good moisture with convergence and northeasterly flow near the sfc is pretty efficient here on the eastern slopes of the hills. We'll see I guess.

 

Me too.  Not for here, I'll be up in SNH skiing, but I expect the ride back down 93 to be a total mess later in the day. 

 

We'll see like you said, but this could be pretty impressive Sunday into sunday night.  RGEM and GFS both would indicate a pretty good burst. JMHO

[wxjim207]

All day today along the Route 1 stretch from Brunswick to Portland we have wetbulbed plenty of times to provide wet snow... winds are on shore right now however once they shift to the north we will cool down and prep the atm for snow tomorrow. Albeit a wet snow with temps near freezing.. 

[toller65]

Latest GYX forecast, larger 8-10 area. My wife is not going to like the drive down from the Loaf tomorrow!

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/gyx/StormTotalSnow/StormTotalSnowFcst.png

[CoastalWx]

Wish we had elevation here. Looks like garbage.

[N. OF PIKE]

Wish we had elevation here. Looks like garbage.

mqe hike tommorrow

[N. OF PIKE]

how does rest of 0z suite come in for inv trough stuff

[OceanStWx]

how does rest of 0z suite come in for inv trough stuff

This will look familiar to Ekster.

 

Clockwise from the top left - 00z NAM, GEM, 12z Euro, 00z GFS.

 

The first four panel shows basically what is going on now. Bouts of snow when we can saturate the snow growth zone, but periods of DZ/FZDZ mixed in.

 

By the second four panel valid at 18z tomorrow, you can see how much the RH has increased in the snow growth zone (shaded image values greater than 85% in red). The NAM and GFS really are bullish with omega within the snow growth zone too (has to be inferred on the GEM and Euro). All the models have a similar look and strength to the H7 trough.

 

[N. OF PIKE]

nice graphic ocean st ,thanks for sharing

[nzucker]

Latest GYX forecast, larger 8-10 area. My wife is not going to like the drive down from the Loaf tomorrow!

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/gyx/StormTotalSnow/StormTotalSnowFcst.png

 

I think they're going to bust pretty hard...surface temps are in the mid to upper 30s, much warmer than 850s along the southern Maine coastline right now. 0z GFS has 2-3 frames of .1" QPF, but that's light stuff falling during the day in late February with mild surface temperatures. The 0z NAM looked a lot better for Maine, but the profile is still pretty mild until tomorrow morning, which means some QPF will be wasted, and snow won't stick easily to a wet ground.

 

The area of 8-10" seems overdone. I would have gone a general 1-3" with 2-4" in the foothills, maybe 3-6" if you lean towards wetter guidance like the NAM. There's just not that much liquid left once the mid-levels cool as the coastal cranks, and surface temperatures are mild along the coastline. 

[wxsniss]

This storm has brought out the absolute worst in mets, to the point where I feel almost embarrassed about this field. Honest to God truth.

 

 

mets,  esp.  on-airs scrambling for rx-quality stuff after this disaster

 

 

Well in fairness we're at 112 pages on a storm where as of this moment Boston, Providence and Hartford are all forecast to receive an inch or less, or 1-2".  It's not like the TV mets were the only group that were expecting much more at one point in time.

 

That said, the RGEM would provide a snowy day Sunday for many, and into Sunday night on the coast.

 

Hats off / sympathies to the many professional / TV / NWS Mets who got burned on this one.

I have utmost respect for the on-air Mets and Red-taggers here who went with a forecast and got burned. This is a bizarre system and ALL of the guidance evolved in a relatively turbulent way. On a much smaller scale, I too felt the heat from co-workers asking me for my call daily leading up to this weekend, and no doubt being conservative is always the easiest way to go.

 

People will have much more respect for those who make a reasoned forecast and then admit they're wrong than those who remain agnostic and then throw out AITs and told-you-weenies in hindsight.

[N. OF PIKE]

I think they're going to bust pretty hard...surface temps are in the mid to upper 30s, much warmer than 850s along the southern Maine coastline right now. 0z GFS has 2-3 frames of .1" QPF, but that's light stuff falling during the day in late February with mild surface temperatures. The 0z NAM looked a lot better for Maine, but the profile is still pretty mild until tomorrow morning, which means some QPF will be wasted, and snow won't stick easily to a wet ground.

 

The area of 8-10" seems overdone. I would have gone a general 1-3" with 2-4" in the foothills, maybe 3-6" if you lean towards wetter guidance like the NAM. There's just not that much liquid left once the mid-levels cool as the coastal cranks, and surface temperatures are mild along the coastline. 

nate  i would agree that it is overdone....but who knows where.....it's gonna come down hard somewhere near the coast and they will accumulate IMO and it will come down nicely in the foothills as well.....i would generally cut amounts by 30percent or so........but we'll see .

 

lets see what euro shows wrt inv trough as it is literally printing out now

[N. OF PIKE]

some regeneration going on over my head lets see what its doin out.....looks like more rain fallin then anything else right now

what's the euro doin wrt inv trough anyone know yet....and yes i will be checking wunderground weenie maps in the next 20 mins or so

[OceanStWx]

I think they're going to bust pretty hard...surface temps are in the mid to upper 30s, much warmer than 850s along the southern Maine coastline right now. 0z GFS has 2-3 frames of .1" QPF, but that's light stuff falling during the day in late February with mild surface temperatures. The 0z NAM looked a lot better for Maine, but the profile is still pretty mild until tomorrow morning, which means some QPF will be wasted, and snow won't stick easily to a wet ground.

 

The area of 8-10" seems overdone. I would have gone a general 1-3" with 2-4" in the foothills, maybe 3-6" if you lean towards wetter guidance like the NAM. There's just not that much liquid left once the mid-levels cool as the coastal cranks, and surface temperatures are mild along the coastline. 

 

I figured I would respond here rather than the obs thread too. This is kind of the problem with the inverted trough scenario. You have to trust the forecast, because you won't see blossoming radar echoes like a developing coastal until late in the game tomorrow. Even the more meager GFS has a nice bullseye of omega in the snow growth zone for PWM tomorrow afternoon (and dumps 4-8" of snow in 9 hours). Profiles will be saturated with respect to ice, so even if some models aren't showing it QPF will be generated with lift inside that -12 to -18 C range.

[nzucker]

Hats off / sympathies to the many professional / TV / NWS Mets who got burned on this one.

I have utmost respect for the on-air Mets and Red-taggers here who went with a forecast and got burned. This is a bizarre system and ALL of the guidance evolved in a relatively turbulent way. On a much smaller scale, I too felt the heat from co-workers asking me for my call daily leading up to this weekend, and no doubt being conservative is always the easiest way to go.

 

People will have much more respect for those who make a reasoned forecast and then admit they're wrong than those who remain agnostic and then throw out AITs and told-you-weenies in hindsight.

 

I don't have a lot of sympathy: on-air meteorologists were throwing out snowfall maps 4-5 days before the event, and that's simply a wanton approach to forecasting a storm. This was an event dependent on a complex interaction between a southern stream shortwave catching up to northern stream energy moving towards the Great Lakes to form a coastal low; it was also an event with a stale antecedent airmass, boundary layer winds out of the east and even southeast outside of the heart of winter at a time when climo is starting to lean away from forecasting snow in marginal situations.

 

Yes, the storm was complex and a difficult forecast, but that's even more reason to go conservatively and not put out snowfall maps until 36-48 hours before the event, not 5 days. I've rarely seen maps for snowfall here that far out...you usually don't need to put a map out until the storm is going to occur the next day. Also, the amounts forecast were obscene: a lot of the maps had as much as 14" falling with marginal temperatures and an uncertain phase. That just seems reckless. 

[OceanStWx]

The situation is a lot more precarious as you move south. The lift is weaker through the snow growth zone, so you do waste some QPF in the poorer intensity stuff.

[weatherMA]

I don't have a lot of sympathy: on-air meteorologists were throwing out snowfall maps 4-5 days before the event, and that's simply a wanton approach to forecasting a storm. This was an event dependent on a complex interaction between a southern stream shortwave catching up to northern stream energy moving towards the Great Lakes to form a coastal low; it was also an event with a stale antecedent airmass, boundary layer winds out of the east and even southeast outside of the heart of winter at a time when climo is starting to lean away from forecasting snow in marginal situations.

 

Yes, the storm was complex and a difficult forecast, but that's even more reason to go conservatively and not put out snowfall maps until 36-48 hours before the event, not 5 days. I've rarely seen maps for snowfall here that far out...you usually don't need to put a map out until the storm is going to occur the next day. Also, the amounts forecast were obscene: a lot of the maps had as much as 14" falling with marginal temperatures and an uncertain phase. That just seems reckless. 

I agree Nate. It gives a bad rep to Meteorology in general, one that it is very tough to overcome. "chance of a storm" is all that should be said 4 days out. I do think four days ago things looked a lot better, but that doesn't matter. For example, channel 7 in Boston, for SNH, went from 8-12 Wednesday morning, to 10-16 Wednesday night, down to 5-8 Thursday at some point, then down to 3-6" Friday, back up to 4-8" this morning. Then this afternoon they had 8-12" in parts from the inverted trough. No wonder mets get such a bad rep. And Pete Bruchard tweeted this lol.

Classic, classic Pete right here:

 

 

Haters, do u holler @ the clouds and swing @ the wind? The weather is what it is. #alwayschanging #andiloveit

[wxsniss]

I don't have a lot of sympathy: on-air meteorologists were throwing out snowfall maps 4-5 days before the event, and that's simply a wanton approach to forecasting a storm. This was an event dependent on a complex interaction between a southern stream shortwave catching up to northern stream energy moving towards the Great Lakes to form a coastal low; it was also an event with a stale antecedent airmass, boundary layer winds out of the east and even southeast outside of the heart of winter at a time when climo is starting to lean away from forecasting snow in marginal situations.

 

Yes, the storm was complex and a difficult forecast, but that's even more reason to go conservatively and not put out snowfall maps until 36-48 hours before the event, not 5 days. I've rarely seen maps for snowfall here that far out...you usually don't need to put a map out until the storm is going to occur the next day. Also, the amounts forecast were obscene: a lot of the maps had as much as 14" falling with marginal temperatures and an uncertain phase. That just seems reckless. 

 

On this I'll agree: the maps that came out days in advance were ridiculous and premature. I was scratching my head at some of the forecasts, and wondered if it was a race for ratings. The best TV mets imo (Harvey Leonard, Bouchard, and Matt Noyes) were among these, and Matt Noyes made an explicit admission he was wrong on his blog Friday. The fact that people at work etc. were asking about "another big storm"  as early as Wednesday reflects how hyped this was prematurely.

 

I think part of it was the growing momentum of the NAM Thursday-Friday as we approached the event suggesting a big hit (sorry Tip... NAM was a disaster on this), and lots of mets here and on TV bit the bait.

 

Even the NWS put up a ridiculous map 2/21/13, Thursday. We commented on it here.

 

So yes, the forecasts should have been more hedging and conservative that far out.

 

But, the models were wildly all over the place even Friday (frankly, even how Sunday PM 24 hours from now will unfold is still not clear). If there's an expectation from the public / the broadcast stations to put out a forecast, Mets should be allowed to clearly communicate that confidence in the forecast is low and that significant changes are likely.

[nzucker]

I agree Nate. It gives a bad rep to Meteorology in general, one that it is very tough to overcome. "chance of a storm" is all that should be said 4 days out. I do think four days ago things looked a lot better, but that doesn't matter. For example, channel 7 in Boston, for SNH, went from 8-12 Wednesday morning, to 10-16 Wednesday night, down to 5-8 Thursday at some point, then down to 3-6" Friday, back up to 4-8" this morning. Then this afternoon they had 8-12" in parts from the inverted trough. No wonder mets get such a bad rep. And Pete Bruchard tweeted this lol.

Classic, classic Pete right here:

 

 

Haters, do u holler @ the clouds and swing @ the wind? The weather is what it is. #alwayschanging #andiloveit

 

The storm certainly looked better 3-4 days ago. Some of the models had as much as 2" QPF for BOS as snow, but there's a reason these blizzards don't occur that often: a lot of modeled epic solutions don't come to fruition, or end as mundane. This has been the winter of the disappointment: EVERYTHING has trended more progressive. The 2/14 storm looked like a 4-8" storm here right after the Blizzard, and I only got 1". This storm originally looked like a threat from NYC-BOS, and now only NNE may get 2-4"...

 

It's really been a disappointing winter down here despite having already reached climo snowfall and having some periods of cold..

[eduggs]

The situation is a lot more precarious as you move south. The lift is weaker through the snow growth zone, so you do waste some QPF in the poorer intensity stuff.

It looks pretty warm near the coast and south of the NH border.  I think the elevated interior could pull off a few inches, but I am skeptical about other locales. 

[weatherMA]

The storm certainly looked better 3-4 days ago. Some of the models had as much as 2" QPF for BOS as snow, but there's a reason these blizzards don't occur that often: a lot of modeled epic solutions don't come to fruition, or end as mundane. This has been the winter of the disappointment: EVERYTHING has trended more progressive. The 2/14 storm looked like a 4-8" storm here right after the Blizzard, and I only got 1". This storm originally looked like a threat from NYC-BOS, and now only NNE may get 2-4"...

 

It's really been a disappointing winter down here despite having already reached climo snowfall and having some periods of cold..

I think NNE will get more then 2-4", some places already have 3-4" lol. But the rest of the post I agree with.

[nzucker]

I think NNE will get more then 2-4", some places already have 3-4" lol. But the rest of the post I agree with.

 

Sure, some places will finish higher, but it might be pretty isolated. Definitely not a widespread warning criteria snowfall, and probably a net snowpack loss for the coast with temps in the mid 30s and rain for much of the storm. 

 

This winter shows how important a classic block is for big snows: when we had the classic block in 09-10 and 10-11, it took only three winter months to produce these snowfalls in my area: 26" (2/26/10), 15" (1/12/11), 14" (1/27/11), 13" (12/26/10), 13" (2/10/10), 6" (2/16/10). Even though we've averaged a -AO this winter, the NAO has been rather neutral with most of the higher heights on the Eurasian side of the Arctic, producing the big negative temperature departures in Asia. The cold North America experienced this winter was absolutely nothing compared to the large negative anomalies that Northern China, Siberia, and Mongolia have experienced, as well as much of Japan and Scandinavia. Some of these places are close to 10F below normal for the winter, especially central Siberia and Mongolia where the PV has been stationed. We really missed out because of these two factors.

 

And many storms, like this one, have slipped just a bit too far east. Without that classic block, all of the big CCBs are forming well out into the Atlantic Ocean and then walloping the Canadian Maritimes and far eastern New England, while missing the rest of us. I've never seen so many storms explode just 150 miles too late, frustrating. After the Feb 8th blizzard, it looked as if an epic month was on its way with the 2/14 coastal and 2/16 full-latitude trough. Now this February is basically a one-storm month. 

[OceanStWx]

It looks pretty warm near the coast and south of the NH border.  I think the elevated interior could pull off a few inches, but I am skeptical about other locales. 

 

Well I'm not exactly bullish south of NH (not North Haven) anyway, but if the lift progs are correct the snowfall rates will overcome boundary layer issues. If it snows hard enough it will accumulate. And I do think we get there, but as you say it may only end up being a few inches on the immediate coast because of waste QPF prior to the more intense rates.