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The March 6 Storm- The (last) Great White Hope, Part II


stormtracker

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The NWS is just starting to update their grids. Using Centreville, VA as a reference point (some mentioned it earlier as a good place), they are calling for 3-5 inches Tuesday night alone. Which syncs with the above map of 8-10 for that area by 1pm. Looks like even that area will flip back/forth between snow/sleet/rain during the event. So they seem to be riding these higher GFS/NAM-like QPF totals.

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I just took a look at the model soundings for DCA. Outside of a mix of RASN at the start and maybe a mix of snow and sleet for an hour or less at 9z Wed. It is in fact all snow. It may mix at the very tail end with lower rates too. All in all 85-95% of the precip from the NAM is snow. As always.. it's the NAM.

 

Perhaps this isn't the time or place for this question, but how could the NAM soundings be >85% snow on 2"+ QPF but spit out that clown map that shows maybe 3" of snow for DC?  Wouldn't the clown map take the soundings into account? 

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Perhaps this isn't the time or place for this question, but how could the NAM soundings be >85% snow on 2"+ QPF but spit out that clown map that shows maybe 3" of snow for DC?  Wouldn't the clown map take the soundings into account? 

There are two types of clown maps---snowfall and snow depth.The snow depth ones are the much lower ones. For example, compare instantweathermaps' snowfall vs. snow depth map. 

 

Edited to add: I'm sure the snow depth ones have some melting algorithm based on the surface temperature (35 F at DCA verbatim from the NAM at 18Z).

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Look at the time.. Ending 1:00 PM... Wed... that is only half of the period.

kind dumb to have a map out for part of the storm

 

but then again that map has always been kinda dumb

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Perhaps this isn't the time or place for this question, but how could the NAM soundings be >85% snow on 2"+ QPF but spit out that clown map that shows maybe 3" of snow for DC?  Wouldn't the clown map take the soundings into account? 

 

I don't think the clown maps are that complex - don't they just take QPF at 2m temps and run with it?

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Perhaps this isn't the time or place for this question, but how could the NAM soundings be >85% snow on 2"+ QPF but spit out that clown map that shows maybe 3" of snow for DC?  Wouldn't the clown map take the soundings into account? 

Yes, but they do a very poor job at it. Often times they take surface temps way too seriously or on the flip side they put the rates too high. They also put out just the true snowfall. Which is not the case in the real world because of compaction; which with very wet snow can be quite significant. The only way to truly tell is with interval rates and looking at soundings.

Edit: Also it doesn't consider the depth of the cloud and at what height and temperature your seeder feeders are. 1" precip of small plated snow from shallow clouds with tops of -7°C is way different from 1" of precip from 25kft tops with temps at -30°C and a tall dendritic growth layer.

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Yes, but they do a very poor job at it. Often times they take surface temps way too seriously or on the flip side they put the rates too high. They also put out just the true snowfall. Which is not the case in the real world because of compaction; which with very wet snow can be quite significant. The only way to truly tell is with interval rates and looking at soundings.

I believe that poster was just looking at snow depth maps. What you say about the snowfall ones is true, of course.

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It spells out they aren't highly confident on full totals

 

think it might be more that the timeframe is too far out for their zone products to have numbers but still stupid and confusing

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