aldie 22 Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 lol what were you expecting exactly? Storm is over IL. Heavy snow moving towards Chicago. Radar will be juiced up by evening east of the mountains for the brief sleet-fest before going over to cold rain. Not for us...I'm talking as a whole...I just assumed a wall of water running 40N certainly doesn't look it. Early call....snow totals start busting low from Chicago on east Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scraff Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Yeah not sure why people even use that. Its awful. I only use the NWS NEXRAD doppler, Base reflectivity for winter storms. Yep. I always use the base reflectivity. I use wbug for t-storms mostly. Really wish I had a need for ANY radar today, but I think we have beaten that poor dead horse enough. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAPE Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Not for us...I'm talking as a whole...I just assumed a wall of water running 40N certainly doesn't look it. Early call....snow totals start busting low from Chicago on east There probably will be a rather narrow band of heavy snow...and this thing is pretty fast moving. So I could see accums being on the lower side of predicted range in many places. Looks like generally 5-8" for most areas that are going to get all snow. Higher amounts from NE PA into New England. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jebman Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 My phone forecast claims an 80 percent chance of snow right now, and there are snow returns overhead. I'll take it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scraff Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 My phone forecast claims an 80 percent chance of snow right now, and there are snow returns overhead. I'll take it! Get outside quick and start shoveling your virga. Don't forget an obligatory deck picture first though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aldie 22 Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Accuweather says snow starts in 36 minutes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WVclimo Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Flakes reaching the ground west of Hancock on traffic cameras. Hopefully not long to wait here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aldie 22 Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Accuweather says snow starts in 36 minutes Only 9 more minutes!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterymix Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 The NAM is trying to push the 850 mb low towards the St. Laurence River area. If we are going to get disappoint, may as well pound it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlet Pimpernel Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 My phone forecast claims an 80 percent chance of snow right now, and there are snow returns overhead. I'll take it! Yes...apparently that means 80% of the snow is not hitting the ground! What a frustrating event this turned into. Ah, well, at this point might as well just laugh about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mitchnick Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 nam says BWI is 45 at 1PM tomorrow and 20 at 7PM that's pretty impressive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlet Pimpernel Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 The NAM is trying to push the 850 mb low towards the St. Laurence River area. If we are going to get disappoint, may as well pound it. At this point, yeah. I knew we were cooked after the 00Z Thursday night runs almost unanimously had this going off to our northwest. By Friday afternoon, I pretty much wrote it off. It sucks, but at least it failed for us well in advance, it's not like we lost it a day out or something. It's amazing how far north it's going now, particularly the 850 low as you mention. Heck, they're looking at mixing in KCLE (my home town), and have backed off fairly significantly on the amounts even there. Dare I say they may even have to do the same for SNE...is that even legal?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlet Pimpernel Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 nam says BWI is 45 at 1PM tomorrow and 20 at 7PM that's pretty impressive I've noticed LWX's forecasts have gradually upped the max temps for tomorrow. There's going to be a crash sometime later in the day, after the front goes through. But I didn't realize it would be that quick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowfan Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 When do we ever crash that fast? That seems overdone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herb@MAWS Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 THE BAD NEWS: Couldn't even get a good overcast this morning to keep the sun from doing it's thing and delaying the warming a few hours. 20 degrees at 7am. 30.2 degrees at 9:45am and steadily going up. THE GOOD NEWS: No shoveling snow at 4:30am tomorrow morning before heading out to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowfan Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Tom from Philly was over hear the other night gloating about the 3-6/4-8 he was going to be shoveling. Good luck, tom! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterymix Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 At this point, yeah. I knew we were cooked after the 00Z Thursday night runs almost unanimously had this going off to our northwest. By Friday afternoon, I pretty much wrote it off. It sucks, but at least it failed for us well in advance, it's not like we lost it a day out or something. It's amazing how far north it's going now, particularly the 850 low as you mention. Heck, they're looking at mixing in KCLE (my home town), and have backed off fairly significantly on the amounts even there. Dare I say they may even have to do the same for SNE...is that even legal?? It seems we have a highly effective/efficient +NAO. Sure, we are getting cold shots but no effective blocking. This winter is the poster child for cold + dry vs. warm + 'moist. Only hope for major snow is a lucky set up before the end of the season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlet Pimpernel Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 It seems we have a highly effective/efficient +NAO. Sure, we are getting cold shots but no effective blocking. This winter is the poster child for cold + dry vs. warm + 'moist. Only hope for major snow is a lucky set up before the end of the season. We had a +NAO pretty much all of last winter too, though I guess in some ways we lucked out better (much better!). Maybe we had better "pseudo-blocking" compared to this year. It was also colder last winter to be honest, but that's probably all due to some other factors as well. It hasn't been extremely warm this season, even the above normal December never "felt" all that warm (mostly damp and cool, haha!). You're right though about the blocking. That's perhaps the one element that's fooked us more than anything; this latest event, the confluence just wasn't strong enough (despite how the models looked last week). I don't think we get shut out for February, but don't expect anything big either. Maybe we'll be lucky enough to top January's totals, and not have our biggest event be an over-performing clipper (that one from early January stands as my biggest of the year to this point). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterymix Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Oh my gosh! The high-Rez NAM takes the 850 mb low to just south of Lake Erie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NinjaWarrior2 Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Toasty out again, hitting our forecast high at 10:30am is normal in the sun because the models can't predict 2 seconds ahead. I think I have a better chance of seeing 60 degrees in the next 36 hours then getting a half inch of snow. The Groundhog will not see his shadow, winter is over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhatStorm Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Snowing in Blue Grass Va...28 dgrees...sill have 3 inches on ground from last weeks small events. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fozz Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 We had a +NAO pretty much all of last winter too, though I guess in some ways we lucked out better (much better!). Maybe we had better "pseudo-blocking" compared to this year. It was also colder last winter to be honest, but that's probably all due to some other factors as well. It hasn't been extremely warm this season, even the above normal December never "felt" all that warm (mostly damp and cool, haha!). You're right though about the blocking. That's perhaps the one element that's fooked us more than anything; this latest event, the confluence just wasn't strong enough (despite how the models looked last week). I don't think we get shut out for February, but don't expect anything big either. Maybe we'll be lucky enough to top January's totals, and not have our biggest event be an over-performing clipper (that one from early January stands as my biggest of the year to this point). Ever since 01-02 (when I started following weather), the only winters that didn't have a warning criteria storm IMBY were 01-02 and 11-12. Every other season had a storm with at least ~5". Even 2012-13, with 4.8" in that late March storm This winter may suck, but it's no 01-02. I think something is going to give, eventually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 nam says BWI is 45 at 1PM tomorrow and 20 at 7PM that's pretty impressive should come with lots of wind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nj2va Posted February 1, 2015 Author Share Posted February 1, 2015 VDOT plow/salt truck on the shoulder of 395N near the Pentagon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wonderdog Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 We had a +NAO pretty much all of last winter too, though I guess in some ways we lucked out better (much better!). Maybe we had better "pseudo-blocking" compared to this year. It was also colder last winter to be honest, but that's probably all due to some other factors as well. It hasn't been extremely warm this season, even the above normal December never "felt" all that warm (mostly damp and cool, haha!). You're right though about the blocking. That's perhaps the one element that's fooked us more than anything; this latest event, the confluence just wasn't strong enough (despite how the models looked last week). I don't think we get shut out for February, but don't expect anything big either. Maybe we'll be lucky enough to top January's totals, and not have our biggest event be an over-performing clipper (that one from early January stands as my biggest of the year to this point). You can thank the -AO for last year's winter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wonderdog Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 nam says BWI is 45 at 1PM tomorrow and 20 at 7PM that's pretty impressive Maybe we can score some wrap-around light snow tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huffwx Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 You can thank the -AO for last year's winter. It was the -epo and -wpo that dominated last winter. AO was slightly negative...only Jan was negative for the winter months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Can you give a crash course on how high/low heights affect the track of vorts? Here's an animated GIF with the last good run of the gfs (12z on the 29th) and then the following 6. The last good run had the flat look in front of the vort and good confluence (think compressed lines running flat or downhill) to the north. This was a perfect starting point for a good run. We needed both the flat isobars across our region and the isobars far north of us to not retreat northward at this point in time. The the wheels fell off in subsequent runs. Isobars are no longer flat in front of the vort. They took on a distinct uphill look (making is easy for any storm to track uphill or further north). Plus, the heights over the far north retreated a little bit each run from the last good run meaning we had less of a wall to keep the storm from going north. Take a look at the 546 line during the last good run. Right along the MD line. Except for 1 run where the north trend appeared to stabilize (still too late for us) it kept going north later on and so did the storm. When your rooting for a south trend, you can compare early panels (12-24 hours) to the previous run and see if there is a noticeable tick in any direction. It's an easy and early clue to get a handle on where the run may be going. This is something I do whenever we get into shorter leads (3-4 days). When the bad trend starts early in the run it usually means business. When the 18z nam came out and stabbed us in the heart, I was pretty nervous. You could see the shift in h5 inside of 48 hours. Nam is a decent tool with h5 plots inside of 48 hours. I knew on friday morning it was over. There was zero evidence that we were going back to anything close to the last good run. Heights in every model run kept ticking just a little more north. Considering the short lead by that point, it wasn't for us and it was obvious. At least to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osfan24 Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Someone else please tell me you have seen JB2's recent tweets this morning on the storm. I don't know how this guy was ever a weatherman. It's worse than wishcasting. Every other model/forecast is talking about the storm going even further northwest and further cutting snow amounts/raising temperatures and he is talking about Indy's temp falling 2 degrees and a new low trying to form in Tennessee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nj2va Posted February 1, 2015 Author Share Posted February 1, 2015 (snip) Bob, thanks for this - great explanation and easy to understand. Simplistically, I've learned to look at the 500h map as a highway for our storms. But one thing I have a hard time understanding is when the pros refer to "heights are low", etc when doing PBP of model runs. Low heights equate to flat 500h and high heights refer to non-flat 500h isobars? I just can't wrap my head around that concept for some reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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