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March 13/14th PSU Storm


stormtracker

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5 minutes ago, ohleary said:

It's been saying basically the same thing since last Thursday with only minor variation.  

It's been sorta uncanny. I kept waiting for a big jump or a disaster run but it never happened. It just slow trended colder with more qpf as the lead shortened. I know everyone in this sub is rooting for the gfs solution. No doubt about that. 

Personally I like a blend to spread risk. You know...go with a blend of the coldest and wettest model. Every once in like 50 storms it works perfectly. 

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8 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

If the gfs track and general progression verifies then it will have earned a lot of respect. I haven't seen it this rock steady with a complicated coastal storm basically ever. The euro has been jumpy right up till game time so far. Of course if 0z nails whatever happens it will be loved and praised as the king. But not by me unless the gfs ends up wrong by a good margin.

The GFS and the UK to some extent have been the only two majors that have been consistent.  GGEM gets cred for picking up on this threat first, it even had it on some odd runs going back 10 days.  But from day 6 on the GFS and UKMET have been pretty consistent with only small fluctuation in the track.  The UK has been consistently west of the GFS but thats ok because that plays to both models biases and a decent forecaster can account for that.  but when the models are jumping all over like the euro and ggem were it makes them less useful.  So the GFS/UK are really the only two models that can score a win here if the low takes a track somewhat in between their two camps that would be pretty impressive for both IMO.  If they are both wrong then no one really gets a win here. 

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2 minutes ago, leesburg 04 said:

DTs says GFS has been terribly inconsistent 

Not trying to be mean but who cares? He has fallen so far into his facebook agenda that he lost what made him good. And make no mistake DT knows winter storms. But he is driven by profit now. Which means "how much for my back yard" responses are where the money is.

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We still have the thump but the better coordination between the H5 low and the surface means this has morphed from a 12 hour thump snow to a 24 hour event.  The last 12 hours may not amount to much depending on rates and temps but still...amazing how that changed in the last 24 hours when we had just about given up on the upper low catching up and slowing this down the other day.  Nice to have some things going our way for a change.  Don't be shocked if that deform band during the day has high enough rates to put down decent totals, and then if the wrap around lingers into Tuesday night once the sun goes down we could pick up some light accumulations also. 

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9 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The GFS and the UK to some extent have been the only two majors that have been consistent.  GGEM gets cred for picking up on this threat first, it even had it on some odd runs going back 10 days.  But from day 6 on the GFS and UKMET have been pretty consistent with only small fluctuation in the track.  The UK has been consistently west of the GFS but thats ok because that plays to both models biases and a decent forecaster can account for that.  but when the models are jumping all over like the euro and ggem were it makes them less useful.  So the GFS/UK are really the only two models that can score a win here if the low takes a track somewhat in between their two camps that would be pretty impressive for both IMO.  If they are both wrong then no one really gets a win here. 

Agree on all points. One of the wild cards is complicated storms do unexpected things. Since there are 3 pieces of energy dancing towards a grand finale, lots has to transpire before it all winds down.  Small NWP errors early magnify quickly through time. That part of why I've been ignoring meso's to an extent. Once things get going good and imortant things are included in initialization, meso's should do a good job with small nuances like banding, subsidence, thermals, etc. Starting with 12z tomorrow the meso's should get some heavy weighting in the forecasts. Right now it's hard to just assume the meso's do everything right south of us before onset here and to our north and east. 

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7 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

We still have the thump but the better coordination between the H5 low and the surface means this has morphed from a 12 hour thump snow to a 24 hour event.  The last 12 hours may not amount to much depending on rates and temps but still...amazing how that changed in the last 24 hours when we had just about given up on the upper low catching up and slowing this down the other day.  Nice to have some things going our way for a change.  Don't be shocked if that deform band during the day has high enough rates to put down decent totals, and then if the wrap around lingers into Tuesday night once the sun goes down we could pick up some light accumulations also. 

You sound really bullish on the potential with this one. I didn't realize it had really become a 24 hour event at this point.

One thing I am noticing is ridiculous digging right now on the water vapor. Looks like it wants to dig really far south.

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Just now, yoda said:

A question: Do we want the northern s/w to dig more?  If it does, then will that bring about a colder or wetter solution?

That was kind of what I was wondering myself? Good question Yoda. Will it allow the southern low to blow up quicker and get the axis of heavy precip to get going to the west of the storm?

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2 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

I have really only looked at the nam and gfs, so I may be off here, but seems the sw has kept progressively digging a little deeper each run.  I do wonder if a stronger storm is the trend right up until game time.

And a stronger storm usually leads to more p-type issues for the metro area.

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6 minutes ago, yoda said:

A question: Do we want the northern s/w to dig more?  If it does, then will that bring about a colder or wetter solution?

Mixed emotions on that to be honest. There's no phase capture so I don't care if it digs more or less at this point. However, ever since the vort started digging more on guidance, we have started seeing some guidance split our area west and east with qpf maxes. I'm not a fan of that. I don't want be a dry piece of turkey sandwiched between two juicy pieces of fresh bread. 

Western folks are loving the extra dig because it's bumping their qpf totals run over run. 

Otoh- the extra dig has slowed things down so that helps with the southern storm getting stronger early enough. 

Chips fall mode either way. Guidance isn't going to stray much from what we've already seen. 

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2 minutes ago, yoda said:

A question: Do we want the northern s/w to dig more?  If it does, then will that bring about a colder or wetter solution?

At this point we got the dig we need, the vort gets under us, and the H5 low ends up cutting off under us too.  The bigger issues is with the nuances of exactly where the surface low tracks and how quickly it bombs out.  It might help if the system dug in a tiny bit east so that we get the track more like the GFS and not inside like the UK but the UK is known to over amp a little bit so its not shocking it has an inside track.  Even the NAM isnt that far west with the track its just doing some funky things with the banding and at this range that stuff isnt reliable yet.  If this time tomorrow the NAM and other regionals are still dry slotting us then I would worry a little bit about it.  Not time for that yet.  Were past the point of needing any big trends we simply need the details to break out way.  A quick clean development of the coastal that bombs out quick is what we need.  Get that and a lot of our problems will take care of themselves. 

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It wouldn't surprise me to see one more bump in the totals. (i.e. 8-12 D.C.---12-16 solids FFX and Loudoun).  Historically, when the warnings are expanded in a 3 hour time period like today and totals climb like they have, we tend to have one more huge bump in predictions due to confidence from the models that will run tonight. I predict the totals jump up one more time by 11:00 tonight. Wishful I know. 

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4 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Mixed emotions on that to be honest. There's no phase capture so I don't care if it digs more or less at this point. However, ever since the vort started digging more on guidance, we have started seeing some guidance split our area west and east with qpf maxes. I'm not a fan of that. I don't want be a dry piece of turkey sandwiched between two juicy pieces of fresh bread. 

Western folks are loving the extra dig because it's bumping their qpf totals run over run. 

Otoh- the extra dig has slowed things down so that helps with the southern storm getting stronger early enought. 

The one positive for you guys to east that I have seen with the digging northern vort is the temps have definitely fallen on the models since it started doing that. I dont know enough to say for sure that that is the reason why. But it makes sense to me in that the HP to the north has a chance to push harder because of it. Or is the HP pressing the reason why the vort is digging more?

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5 minutes ago, osfan24 said:

You sound really bullish on the potential with this one. I didn't realize it had really become a 24 hour event at this point.

One thing I am noticing is ridiculous digging right now on the water vapor. Looks like it wants to dig really far south.

At this point I feel this storm has reached its potential, and what I envisioned when myself and several others started to really honk about this threat over a week ago.  The threat of a major amplification was there as the last vort in a series diving in under the blocking was pulling the trough axis back and digging it more and this would be the one with the space to go nuts as the blocking breaks down.  The table was set.  But there is no way to guarantee from 10 days away that the potential will be maximized.  This is a beast and its going to dump on someone. I can't promise its going to be any specific location but if we get the thermals to break out way this area should do pretty darn good, but this is definitely not a disappointment in terms of getting a storm to really take advantage of the setup that was there for it.  This is doing it.  24-36 hours ago it seemed it might be somewhat muted by the fact the upper energy seemed to want to miss the boat and come in behind the party.  Now they are more phased up and so this is trending into a pretty formidable storm.  Its going to be a fun one.  Hopefully for us fun and white. 

My thoughts right now are the usual suspects north and northwest of 95 are in really good shape.  Right along 95 its going to be a battle but I don't think they escape without a fair amount of snow, up front and then back end as heights crash once the low starts to bomb.  But is it 4" or 10" I dont know, and its going to come down to meso scale features that won't be known until gametime.  But were in the game for a big one in mid march so things are going pretty good. 

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9 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

At this point I feel this storm has reached its potential, and what I envisioned when myself and several others started to really honk about this threat over a week ago.  The threat of a major amplification was there as the last vort in a series diving in under the blocking was pulling the trough axis back and digging it more and this would be the one with the space to go nuts as the blocking breaks down.  The table was set.  But there is no way to guarantee from 10 days away that the potential will be maximized.  This is a beast and its going to dump on someone. I can't promise its going to be any specific location but if we get the thermals to break out way this area should do pretty darn good, but this is definitely not a disappointment in terms of getting a storm to really take advantage of the setup that was there for it.  This is doing it.  24-36 hours ago it seemed it might be somewhat muted by the fact the upper energy seemed to want to miss the boat and come in behind the party.  Now they are more phased up and so this is trending into a pretty formidable storm.  Its going to be a fun one.  Hopefully for us fun and white. 

My thoughts right now are the usual suspects north and northwest of 95 are in really good shape.  Right along 95 its going to be a battle but I don't think they escape without a fair amount of snow, up front and then back end as heights crash once the low starts to bomb.  But is it 4" or 10" I dont know, and its going to come down to meso scale features that won't be known until gametime.  But were in the game for a big one in mid march so things are going pretty good. 

I think this says it all.

As usual, excellent analysis. Thank you.

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1 hour ago, Bob Chill said:

Interestingly, the GEFS had the same or more QPF in general than the op. That really isn't that common. Could be noise. Usually smoothing at short ranges show less. Not this time. 

In my opinion only, I think we are better served with QPF maps being posted and not snow maps. 10:1 seems pretty unlikely and very location dependent based on rates, temps, etc. Some folks could easily jack with QPF and be a good bit lower than the highest verified snow total. I'm going with 8:1 for my yard tops. Everyone can figure out there own. 

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The tqo QPF maxes in northern Frederick County and northeast Carroll County into southern York County are probably all snow.  The place to be in this event is a cabin in Thurmont.  They're gonna jackpot at 14-18" of beautiful cornflakes.

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Just now, Eskimo Joe said:

The tqo QPF maxes in northern Frederick County and northeast Carroll County into southern York County are probably all snow.  The place to be in this event is a cabin in Thurmont.  They're gonna jackpot at 14-18" of beautiful cornflakes.

Yep. And you can tell that map is valid because of the D.C. snowhole as well. :D

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