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Saint Patrick's Day Snow Event


stormtracker

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same  thing happened last storm. 

Different storm. Some similarities, but different. This air mass coming in is not as cold and its later in March. Precip normally does make it further north in these sharp cutoff situations. I would expect that here even more so than the last event.

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I wouldn't take the QPF and directly tie it to a 10:1 SR... I would go with 7:1. Why? We all assumed high ratios on 3/3 (like 12:1) and when a water core sample was done, it was 8:1 (h/t MN_Transplant who did that I believe)

The ratios with 3/3 may not be the best comparison. Not saying 8-1 isn't realistic but we had a long period of rain with mid levels and bl temps crashing. This time we have a snow sounding from onset with the only problem being the bl. Pretty different airmass overall during the best window. Maybe MN or someone can chime in with sounding analysis.

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I wouldn't take the QPF and directly tie it to a 10:1 SR... I would go with 7:1. Why? We all assumed high ratios on 3/3 (like 12:1) and when a water core sample was done, it was 8:1 (h/t MN_Transplant who did that I believe)

If I am reading soundings correctly looks like highest vertical velocities are below dendritic growth zone.

EDIT: Whoops, poor analysis. Best 500mb vertical velocities are on the m/d line and best 700 mb vertical velocities are south of DC so I would assume 600 MB vertical velocities are right over DC, right in the dendritic growth zone. This would explain the stripe of maximum snow there on the GFS.

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WxBell posted euro individual member maps for last nights ens run. There are some big hits from the ull. I personally don't think we'll get much if anything from it. But some porn solutions in there for giggles.

If you have access, check out #8,19, and 31. LOL

http://models.weatherbell.com/ecmwf/yeps_members.php

I don't have acess......... what do they say?  :lmao:

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The ratios with 3/3 may not be the best comparison. Not saying 8-1 isn't realistic but we had a long period of rain with mid levels and bl temps crashing. This time we have a snow sounding from onset with the only problem being the bl. Pretty different airmass overall during the best window. Maybe MN or someone can chime in with sounding analysis.

Quite true... just with 3/3 we assumed high ratios to get more snow and were burned... though other stuff was in play. Just saying we should check before auto assuming 10:1 SRs

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WxBell posted euro individual member maps for last nights ens run. There are some big hits from the ull. I personally don't think we'll get much if anything from it. But some porn solutions in there for giggles.

If you have access, check out #8,19, and 31. LOL

http://models.weatherbell.com/ecmwf/yeps_members.php

page cannot be found and I,m a member!!!

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I cannot agree with this more. I see the tendency from some to automatically hop onto the snow maps without a deeper analysis. I would include myself in that category until recently. Now I have a checklist of some of the stuff I try to take a deeper look at after the runs come in.

Temps (surface and above)

Rates

Ratios

Convection (someone always talks about the potential but it never really verifies)

The best ratios are going to be in a very thing strip where the best forcing lines up with the -12 to -16 C layer. I'm thinking it will come down to nowcasting /short range models to pinpoint it. This does't really look like a thundersnow scenario at all but I could be wrong. No unstable layer and vertical velocities are kind of meh.
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Quite true... just with 3/3 we assumed high ratios to get more snow and were burned... though other stuff was in play. Just saying we should check before auto assuming 10:1 SRs

It doesn't really matter..  If you get in good banding with dendrites you'll get higher ratios but most other things point to lower than usual even if it's kinda cold for this time of year. 

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The best ratios are going to be in a very thing strip where the best forcing lines up with the -12 to -16 C layer. I'm thinking it will come down to nowcasting /short range models to pinpoint it. This does't really look like a thundersnow scenario at all but I could be wrong. No unstable layer and vertical velocities are kind of meh.

It seems like someone mentions thundersnow in just about every snowstorm we have, but despite it only happening very rarely.

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Warmth is over-performing. 63* here. Not sure what that may mean for the storm over the next 48 hours.

MDstorm

It is?

 

  [top]000

FEUS71 KLWX 151731

EOLLWX

BALTIMORE AND WASHINGTON DC ENHANCED METRO FORECAST/OUTLOOK

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BALTIMORE MD/WASHINGTON DC

131 PM EDT SAT MAR 15 2014

DCZ001-MDZ004-009-013-016-VAZ042-052>054-152100-

WASHINGTON DC GREATER METROPOLITAN AREA FORECAST

.THIS AFTERNOON...MOSTLY SUNNY AND BREEZY. HIGHS IN THE MID 60S.

WEST WINDS 20 TO 25 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 35 MPH.

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