March Med/Long Range Disco

[WinterWxLuvr]

Huh? Ian isn't. Nor Zwyts I think. I think you are mixing up the pro forecaster and met tags. Julianne Barbereri that use to do the NFL weather is technically a pro forecaster.Wes is a met.

My God man. Give it a rest. Met or not, they both are good and could teach you plenty. Besides, this is a place to discuss the weather, not your opinion of Matt and Ian.

[clskinsfan]

Right over the head eh?

That cutoff being shown on the models is pretty serious lol. 

 

It is. But the models do sometimes struggle with where the northern extent of the precip will be. I would think it would be slightly north of what is modeled. There is no doubt the cutoff is going to be sharp. But where exactly does that occur?

 

By the way its snowing out here. 

[Ian]

No word on ec ensemble precip?

 

.5" to MD/PA border.. .75" to DC, 1" to RIC (nothing 1.5"+)

West of 95 favored for heaviest accum.

 

tho you may want to verify with yoda if you can trust me

[CoastalWx]

Right over the head eh?

That cutoff being shown on the models is pretty serious lol.

LOL I didn't think it would be taken literally. They are as good or better than many mets down there.

[Ian]

Does the Ensemble mean really look THAT much better? The surface low track is nearly identical to the OP, its just clearly there are members that are more wet. Personally, from Ensembles..I look at just the track of the low, not really QPF amounts

Given the sharp cutoff potential I do wonder if the means are starting to play tricks on the northern edge.

[BaltimoreWxGuy]

Given the sharp cutoff potential I do wonder if the means are starting to play tricks on the northern edge.

Yeah..Clearly, there are ALWAYS members that are more amped and wet..I think P001 is one, along with 2 others...I think looking at the QPF from the ensembles is not anymore useful than the QPF of the OP...if the storm exits off NC then we are probably screwed.

[clueless]

This thing can OTS yeah, stay south and pound RIC.

But once models have firmer data...then. we will be sure. So looking at QPF is kind of a joke.

[DCAlexandria]

Agreed. QPF never verifies at this range, the only think to track now is the track of the lows and where we phase.

[psuhoffman]

This is not going to take a huge jump north at the end because of the block, like hm said, but I do still think the final 72 hours these type things bleed north a bit. Last night all the guidance trended south. That has to stop now. I feel fine if the bullseye now is Richmond but we are in trouble if today guidance starts to show a Carolina hit again.

[BaltimoreWxGuy]

This is not going to take a huge jump north at the end because of the block, like hm said, but I do still think the final 72 hours these type things bleed north a bit. Last night all the guidance trended south. That has to stop now. I feel fine if the bullseye now is Richmond but we are in trouble if today guidance starts to show a Carolina hit again.

I agree with that, the tight precipitation gradient is what is probably going to be tough...1 place is going to be ripping while 100 miles north is saying what storm?

[usedtobe]

Given the sharp cutoff potential I do wonder if the means are starting to play tricks on the northern edge.

 

I think eventually that will be a concern, this far out it probably isn't since the exact track still is uncerrtain.

[psuhoffman]

nope

and where it had 0.75" at 18z it now has 4"......

Huh? 0z gfs was way south of 12z gfs. 0z ec was south of 12z. 0z ggem was south of 12z and uk held but was already furthest south. Navgem went south too. I'm not throwing in the towel at all but I'm also not looking for fake optimism either. The trend last night was bad. More so for me then dc ill admit remember I'm way north of u so maybe were looking at this from different perspectives but how u think the 0z gfs didn't trend south from 12z I'm not sure.

[Huffwx]

Huh? Ian isn't. Nor Zwyts I think. I think you are mixing up the pro forecaster and met tags. Julianne Barbereri that use to do the NFL weather is technically a pro forecaster.Wes is a met.

True..but outside a few all star mets like Wes, matt and ian are as good as any on forecasting.

[AvantHiatus]

Well, after skimming through millions of good posts, there is not one that discusses potential p-type in great detail. Do the thermal profiles really support significant accumulating snow or will this coastal storm be a rain/snow mix fest? I suppose any frozen in March is a bonus. 

 

If you look at the GFS soundings for Richmond and places down south, there is not much snow to be found inside the heavier precip. It appears the GFS and Euro are still worlds apart in regards to the northern stream interaction that will make this a significant snow event. My earlier thinking was that precip rates alone may suffice but we may need some extra help in the atmosphere to get a more significant snow event.

[stormtracker]

No word on ec ensemble precip?

.5" to MD/PA border.. .75" to DC, 1" to RIC (nothing 1.5"+)

West of 95 favored for heaviest accum.

tho you may want to verify with yoda if you can trust me

I'm going with jebman on this one.

[stormtracker]

Well, after skimming through millions of good posts, there is not one that discusses potential p-type in great detail. Do the thermal profiles really support significant accumulating snow or will this coastal storm be a rain/snow mix fest? I suppose any frozen in March is a bonus.

If you look at the GFS soundings for Richmond and places down south, there is not much snow to be found inside the heavier precip. It appears the GFS and Euro are still worlds apart in regards to the northern stream interaction that will make this a significant snow event

its been discussed in several posts with the basic theme that heavy precip will negate warm bl coastalwx had a great post regarding this.

[usedtobe]

Given the sharp cutoff potential I do wonder if the means are starting to play tricks on the northern edge.

 

Ian, if you look at the forecast 500h low positions on the ensembles you can get a feel for some members being really big qpf makers for us and that is much of the reason our QPF is high on the mean.   There still is enough uncertainty about where that feature will end up,

 

http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~fxg1/ENSHGT_6z/f108.html

[stormtracker]

Given the sharp cutoff potential I do wonder if the means are starting to play tricks on the northern edge.

Ian, if you look at the forecast 500h low positions on the ensembles you can get a feel for some members being really big qpf makers for us and that is much of the reason our QPF is high on the mean. There still is enough uncertainty about where that feature will end up,

http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~fxg1/ENSHGT_6z/f108.html

if this doesn't work out, I'm going to the cwg page and starting a mob against you.

[Wonderdog]

This is not going to take a huge jump north at the end because of the block, like hm said, but I do still think the final 72 hours these type things bleed north a bit. Last night all the guidance trended south. That has to stop now. I feel fine if the bullseye now is Richmond but we are in trouble if today guidance starts to show a Carolina hit again.

Didn't 1 of the big storms in 2010 jump to the north pretty significantly in the last few days?

[usedtobe]

if this doesn't work out, I'm going to the cwg page and starting a mob against you.

 

Well you'd just be joining it. There are quite a few who think we are hypsters for even mentioning potential.  Heck even with a good track, this could be rain for you and me bu without a good track we have no hope. 

[BaltimoreWxGuy]

Didn't 1 of the big storms in 2010 jump to the north pretty significantly in the last few days?

I might be wrong but I dont think so....those were pretty well modeled well in advance.....I think there was a hiccup run though where it showed us not getting much just to go back to a monster the next run though. But yeah, I think generally, as I think either Zwyts or Mitchnick said, these typically 'bleed' north...not a big shift, but it wouldnt take a huge shift to get us into 1" QPF.

[mitchnick]

NAM says, fwiw, that bowling ball heads for VA, which ain't a bad thing for DCA/BWI imho

[stormtracker]

NAM says, fwiw, that bowling ball heads for VA, which ain't a bad thing for DCA/BWI imho

Yeah, that's my thought. Maybe Wes can chime in. Is that the h5 look we want?

But usually when nam is the lone wolf, well. You know how that goes.

[PhineasC]

I might be wrong but I dont think so....those were pretty well modeled well in advance.....I think there was a hiccup run though where it showed us not getting much just to go back to a monster the next run though. But yeah, I think generally, as I think either Zwyts or Mitchnick said, these typically 'bleed' north...not a big shift, but it wouldnt take a huge shift to get us into 1" QPF.

36 hours out on the December HECS it showed me getting very little precip. It had held that for a full day before but then suddenly switched to purples.

[usedtobe]

NAM says, fwiw, that bowling ball heads for VA, which ain't a bad thing for DCA/BWI imho

 

I Don't think so.  The trough that extends westward across New england is a problem and would force the low southeast towards NC.  That trough to our northeast is locked in by the block to its north.  That combo is our problem and it needs to weaken to allow the approaching upper low to track farther n.

[stormtracker]

NAM says, fwiw, that bowling ball heads for VA, which ain't a bad thing for DCA/BWI imho

I Don't think so. The trough that extends westward across New england is a problem and would force the low southeast towards NC. That trough to our northeast is locked in by the block to its north. That combo is our problem and it needs to weaken to allow the approaching upper low to track farther n.

Ugh. Still plenty of time to change tho. No worries, 0z nam will have reds over us with sfc temp of 18 degrees.

[Fozz]

I might be wrong but I dont think so....those were pretty well modeled well in advance.....I think there was a hiccup run though where it showed us not getting much just to go back to a monster the next run though. But yeah, I think generally, as I think either Zwyts or Mitchnick said, these typically 'bleed' north...not a big shift, but it wouldnt take a huge shift to get us into 1" QPF.

 

January 30, 2010 had a pretty massive jump north in the last day or so. Went from next to nothing, to a nice 4-8" storm for DC and Baltimore.

[mitchnick]

I Don't think so.  The trough that extends westward across New england is a problem and would force the low southeast towards NC.  That trough to our northeast is locked in by the block to its north.  That combo is our problem and it needs to weaken to allow the approaching upper low to track farther n.

well, if you play the loop, the trough is retreating/weakening which is what I believed would help our bowling ball hook more to the left as it hits SW VA

I know, extrapolating the NAM, but as I said, it does show the trough retreating/weakening w/o the need to extrapolate

[usedtobe]

Ugh. Still plenty of time to change tho. No worries, 0z nam will have reds over us with sfc temp of 18 degrees.

Plus I could be wrong, predicting models is a perilous task

[Bob Chill]

This system is about the worst type the nam can try and guess at in its useless range.

I'm gonna stay quiet on this because it's clear the field of solutions is still wide open and not close to being nailed down.

I will say that now that phasing appears very unlikely we have plenty of temp and track challenges for a big hit.

Also, it can stay or go even further south just as easily as come north. Ive seen enough runs stop it in it's tracks to know the block could be a real beast when it matters.

Since so much has to go right and the latest trends have added little and taken away some.....my expectations are set accordingly.