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Dec 17-18 Front End Snow/Ice/Rain Event


dmillz25

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12 minutes ago, Snow88 said:

Most of the precip is over when it turns to rain

Well, if the rain doesn't get it, the 50+ temps to follow will, as will the subsequent frontal rains.

The GFS is also hinting at a tenth or so of anafrontal snow - I'm always leery of these scenarios, but bears watching.

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The high positioning sucks, but the main difference is the air mass is colder this time.  Also the lead shortwave responsible for the overrunning is within faster flow and a pattern over the Midwest/Lakes less conducive to amplification.  The trailing low which eventually develops over KS/MO also has an impact there.  So I think the outbreak of snows is much more south this time around and not necessarily a ton of room for this to amplify and end up more north.  The major concern could be the high departs faster.

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We'll see how long the snow lasts in the city and near the coast when we have pretty strong south winds as the snow comes in. Hopefully it comes in like a wall so that the warming is delayed and maybe the precip lulls before really going to rain. It's meaningless in the end with temps surging over 50 but it can at least pad totals. It's hard for me to think more than 1-3" falls near the coast with that setup but stranger things have happened.  Away from the coast is probably more like 3-5".

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6 minutes ago, WEATHERBUFF said:

euro has been really lousy lately, not even worth paying attention to anymore!

It didn't do too badly with the cold that's coming later this week. If the latest guidance is right, it may have been a little overdone. The ensemble signal for cold around mid-month was quite strong. It will be interesting to see if the ensemble signal for a milder than normal Christmas/Hanukkah will be accurate. The signal isn't quite as strong as the one for this week's cold shot was.

As Snowgoose69 noted, it hasn't done all that well with QPF. That seems to have been a continuing theme since its last upgrade prior to the most recent one.

 

 

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18 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

We'll see how long the snow lasts in the city and near the coast when we have pretty strong south winds as the snow comes in. Hopefully it comes in like a wall so that the warming is delayed and maybe the precip lulls before really going to rain. It's meaningless in the end with temps surging over 50 but it can at least pad totals. It's hard for me to think more than 1-3" falls near the coast with that setup but stranger things have happened.  Away from the coast is probably more like 3-5".

Those winds won't be as strong as it looks.  I was fooled by this last event too, the S winds did not really kick up til almost 06Z.  Had we not dry slotted we'd have gotten a pretty good shot of snow.  This one I'd say its 15Z or so before the south wind really cranks up.  My feeling is anything up through 15Z near NYC could be snowing.

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8 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

Those winds won't be as strong as it looks.  I was fooled by this last event too, the S winds did not really kick up til almost 06Z.  Had we not dry slotted we'd have gotten a pretty good shot of snow.  This one I'd say its 15Z or so before the south wind really cranks up.  My feeling is anything up through 15Z near NYC could be snowing.

Yeah, but that's like saying, "If the low undercut us, we'd have stayed all snow." 

A massive dry slot was a given for that storm - this one will also have a dry slot, but stronger storm dynamics, a much colder antecedent airmass, and a steeper sloped isentropic boundary means a more pronounced front end thump of the good stuff.  

If I recall, 96-97 had a lot of these 1-3/3-5" front enders before screaming southerlies, warm sector, and rain... was a junior in HS and recall many mornings with decaying snow cover and fog after an evening/overnight with snow.  That winter was really odd, bookened for me in FFD Cty, CT by two solid Dec storms (both of the rain to snow variety) and the 4/1 monster with 16".

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4 minutes ago, Juliancolton said:

Does any "prolonging" effect of rainfall really outweigh the initial melting though?

Up north yes. Get water into the base and let it freeze. Subsequent snows after that will allow all of the gremlins and snowsnakes to be hidden and it will ride that much better

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1 hour ago, jm1220 said:

We'll see how long the snow lasts in the city and near the coast when we have pretty strong south winds as the snow comes in. Hopefully it comes in like a wall so that the warming is delayed and maybe the precip lulls before really going to rain. It's meaningless in the end with temps surging over 50 but it can at least pad totals. It's hard for me to think more than 1-3" falls near the coast with that setup but stranger things have happened.  Away from the coast is probably more like 3-5".

I honestly don't think the moisture from the initial isentropic stuff Friday night and Saturday morning is going to be all that impressive. I think it's a virga fest initially for quite awhile with the overrunning WAA which eats up probably quite a bit of that snow qpf. The surface arctic air is going to be insanely dry, dewpoints will be crazy low Friday night. The Euro's idea of a general 1-3 inches for the metro area by Saturday afternoon may actually be close to reality. I just don't see a ton of moisture advection and a wall of heavy snow pushing up and thumping ahead of that warm front. I think this is basically a light snow event, ending probably as some sleet and freezing drizzle north and west of the city around noon or so on Saturday as the mid levels warm

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