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Central PA & The Fringes - March 2014 Pt. I


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Keep an eye on the area of snow developing over Kansas now. We want to see that continue to have a northerly component. It has to at least get north of St. Louis on an ene trajectory for us to have a shot. I kinda like what I'm seeing right now. The lead wave is flattening out which is good and the second wave seems to be pushing north. Stef still south though so I'm not getting any support from guidance right now for a better outcome.

At this point all guidance is going to have to be off by 150 miles.

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Nam back to a ridiculous south solution. After the light stuff mostly rain from the front runner it misses Baltimore and fringes dc to the south. Crushes Richmond. Looking at its 3 hour forecast it doesn't even seem to line up with reality right now. That model is having some serious issues.

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I see 2 issues. First the system ejected a lead wave that ran ahead with some of the energy. Models always had this but the strength of the lead wave increased a bit inside 72h. It's a small change but the flow behind a stronger lead wave will sink the front south more. In a gradient situation that's huge. Plus it leaves less energy for wave two to work with and there isn't much space between for it to amp. Second and prob the bigger issue is a vort in the polar jet rotating around the pv at the worst time. I put the graphic below so u can see it over the lakes. That wasnt there on models 2 days ago. That vort is pressing down on the southern system at the worst possible time and flattening the flow ahead of it. Before there was more ridging ahead up the east coast. It's just crap timing for that to be there and it's very hard to time those fast moving ns vorts so models struggled. If that's not there at that exact time this would crush pa. Of course va thinks this is perfect timing! The handoff of energy to the lead wave is also a delicate thing models will struggle with. The combo made this tricky and thus bad model output. Of course I let myself get excited against my own rule that if it looks perfect 100 hours out it probably won't happen. attachicon.gifimage.jpg

Thanks for the explanation!!

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Keep an eye on the area of snow developing over Kansas now. We want to see that continue to have a northerly component. It has to at least get north of St. Louis on an ene trajectory for us to have a shot. I kinda like what I'm seeing right now. The lead wave is flattening out which is good and the second wave seems to be pushing north. Stef still south though so I'm not getting any support from guidance right now for a better outcome.

 

In addition, the 12z NAM shows a 1044 high in the northern plains. That high is being intialized roughly 4mb too strong via the NAM, and really suppresses the second wave. Also of note, the NAM has initialized the front too far east for what is currently being seen. The foreign models are showing a better handle on the high strength, but not so much the first wave's strength. What that means, I'm not entirely sure, but it might mean a farther north solution that reflects the foreign models closer than the American models

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Snow map as promised. Gave some play room with a broader 1-3" in north central and northeastern Penn but I'm not excited about the prospects of more than an inch or so at best in those areas. Kinda hinging that on this first wave moving into PA but it's not off to a good start with getting past the mountains yet this morning. I'm not really excited about the snow prospects in the central counties either to be honest, but should salvage something in the end. Kept the 6" line pretty low in the southern tier. 

 

post-1507-0-33322600-1393772985_thumb.pn

 

 

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Snow map as promised. Gave some play room with a broader 1-3" in north central and northeastern Penn but I'm not excited about the prospects of more than an inch or so at best in those areas. Kinda hinging that on this first wave moving into PA but it's not off to a good start with getting past the mountains yet this morning. I'm not really excited about the snow prospects in the central counties either to be honest, but should salvage something in the end. Kept the 6" line pretty low in the southern tier. 

 

attachicon.gifSlide1.png

Mag do you think we'll even see 3" in Altoona Bellwood area???

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Snow map as promised. Gave some play room with a broader 1-3" in north central and northeastern Penn but I'm not excited about the prospects of more than an inch or so at best in those areas. Kinda hinging that on this first wave moving into PA but it's not off to a good start with getting past the mountains yet this morning. I'm not really excited about the snow prospects in the central counties either to be honest, but should salvage something in the end. Kept the 6" line pretty low in the southern tier.

Slide1.png

That's a pretty reasonable map. I like it
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FYI I have an occasional snowflake and rain drop here in New Salem. 

Occasional snow flake mixed with hazy sunshine here.

 

Thanks MAG, man those models let everyone down. Let the radar hallucinations begin!!

This setup is so complicated I don't know what my benchmarks are for radar hallucinations.

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I'm calling time of death on this one. It's OVER!!! Rgem went south again, basically nothing at all from wave 2 north of 76. Maybe an inch or two from wave 1. Sref gfs rap all agree. Real time obs don't look promising either. Wave one is being squashed and wave 2 looks like crap honestly. Disorganized and the precip with it is already showing signs of getting shunted south out in the plains. That second wave at h5 looks pathetic now compared to what it was modeled to be 2 days ago. Plus that ns vort pressing and the strung out energy and this is just not happening. I don't know how many agree with me but once into march its go big or go home to me. We're not building snowpack at this point so if its not at least an exciting event, either a short duration heavy snow band or a big total like 10"+ I'd rather it warm up so I can run and golf. This pattern coming up looks like my nightmare. Cold dry nothing exciting and keep my frozen muck snowpack from melting forever. I pray I'm wrong.

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Occasional snow flake mixed with hazy sunshine here.

 

This setup is so complicated I don't know what my benchmarks are for radar hallucinations.

Ha that gave me a laugh :lol:

 

Rick G

Still kind of in shock how the models handled this storm.....The TWC was calling this storm Titan  :stun:

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Does anyone remember the models being so far off? I mean two days ago we were looking at a widespread 1-2 foot snowfall, now some of us may see an inch if we are lucky.

have to imagine models trying to factor in climatological values is part to blame... not used to having this cold of an arctic air mass move in on March 2nd/3rd and with more ice on Great Lakes than we usually see... plus its not every day we have a sub 970 low in the pacific become our main energy for a storm which I think moved in over land further south than what models initially had hence the southern jump... the inability to properly analyze the high over northcentral US and bad snow cover input data has temperatures thrown off for several locations... there could be many many reasons why they were off but I think goes back to the saying garbage in equals garbage out so errors in the short term throw everything off each run

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We won't remember this one next year.

 

We might, but only as a minor footnote in what was an incredible winter. To prove this -- last winter was pretty solid yet I remember the March event that was a total flub where Joe Calhoun and other Harrisburg area meteorologists went to pennlive to discuss their monumental bust.

 

However, I don't remember the exact date.

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The first wave looks like it is even going south of where it was projected. If I were in the southern counties, like zak, I'd be very concerned because that will be his main show. The second waive is going to have a hard time getting anything above Baltimore it seems.

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We might, but only as a minor footnote in what was an incredible winter. To prove this -- last winter was pretty solid yet I remember the March event that was a total flub where Joe Calhoun and other Harrisburg area meteorologists went to pennlive to discuss their monumental bust.

 

However, I don't remember the exact date.

We tend to remember busts that are short term forecasts. This isn't anywhere close to that one (yet).

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