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2/12-13 Snow Showers


snowfan

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I count three "events" in a row where we embarrassed ourselves as a snowtown. We're on a Nats like skid. That, and people praying for the Canadian :lol: to be right tells me it's not looking good for Monday.. 

:) I tried to suggest to you in the last storm that busting off of verbatim-model-outputs is something that DC does well, especially in any situation where temps are marginal. I'm glad to see you've come around to the healthy skepticism of DC snow based on your signature line. 

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I count three "events" in a row where we embarrassed ourselves as a snowtown. We're on a Nats like skid. That, and people praying for the Canadian :lol: to be right tells me it's not looking good for Monday.. 

Strong Nino man.. you need all the things to be right more than normal. Then again these are never easy. Although it sure does look like it's going to snow Monday before the changeover so we'll see if we can get a little half lovin out of something.

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This is a really crude rule-of-thumb I have been using just based on observing these little events over the years: At least one model that's not a short term one--- NAM, GFS, Euro, RGEM-- has to spit out a 0.1" QPF contour somewhere nearby for me to be optimistic of seeing beyond a trace. 

 

There was this tiny bullseye of 0.1" QPF over the DC metro region on the NAM the day of the pre-blizzard inch which made the possibility of an actual accumulation legit in my mind. Over the years, we've had many clipper situations where either the GFS or NAM blinked in the last moment, but as long one of the two still painted 0.1"+ QPF over the area, there ended up being multiple 1" snow totals. 

Not sure if they were painting .1" qpf but it was pretty close late yesterday.

 

That said, the 12K nam didn't have much for this evening at 0z last night and the 4k NAM didn't have a ton. NAM 24 out is usually pretty solid with convective type stuff and timing etc. So, perhaps that 0z signal should have been better analyzed. 4k did very well with timing.. almost exact really. It also showed the activity decaying moving in.

 

If the pre-blizzard event hadn't just happened there probably would have been less notice given, I'll concur with that idea. But I just don't think rush hour was ever all that targeted anyway not to mention a Friday rush hour in DC is usually not as massive since a lot of feds telework on Fridays even if not the rest of the week plus the flow begins earlier etc. 

 

Those surprise events are probably going to happen in big cities off and on for the foreseeable future. There's just no way to capture them all perfectly. On Monday we weren't all that far off from having a sustained ground-whitening snow burst move through at rush hour almost entirely unpredicted. It rolled just south and had some solid echoes all the way to the coast.

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Dale City is getting moderate snow at 20 degrees. Looks like half an inch already!

 

What an incredible surprise!

 

Dendrites are increasing in size. Winds are picking up some. At least 30 dbZ returns directly overhead. Visibilities are dropping.

I realize that this is NOT a cold smoking, but it looks like a cold smoke event.

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The area of snow is moving southeast. Snow is getting lighter. Winds are increasing from the NNW. It's a Currier and Ives scene outside, everything is covered with a half inch to three quarters of an inch of snow, and it is blowing around. Snow is blowing off houses at times.

 

The best snow events are the surprises.

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