February is upon us - pattern change is in order

[Spanks45]

12 minutes ago, Tom12309 said:

My banter contribution to this:  we're trying to get out of Dodge early Saturday morning on an airplane.  I think I know exactly what the weather is going to be doing!

I will add to this, Wednesday we will be getting rid of our Grand Cherokee in exchange for a wonderful minivan so we can welcome number 3 into the world. One can almost bank on snow for the rest of March...

[40/70 Benchmark]

20 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

It's always good to see a Tolland screw job.

Just yesterday it was shunted down to Baltimore, now it's rain on the coast and an elevation event.

[ORH_wxman]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Just yesterday it was shunted down to Baltimore, now it's rain on the coast.

He'll make sure he has every base covered by gametime. 

[tamarack]

4 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

I did not get the 30-35" SNH got, but it ended on a nice note down in GHG. About 10" there.

North of the best qpf but a nice windy 9.5" storm - Farmington recorded 14.  Got my 35" from the two post-equinox dumps.

[Baroclinic Zone]

25 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

 

3.27" of rain in that.  Not a flake of snow.

[ORH_wxman]

5 minutes ago, dendrite said:

heh...hooralph and zeus

https://web.archive.org/web/20010410194510/http://www.wright-weather.com:80/ubb/Forum11/HTML/002257.html

The sleet in BOS porked them from getting a monster storm. Still had around a foot in the city...prob like 8 to 1 with all the sleet mixed in. But once you got to 128 N&W it was big. Still the only time I can ever remember being somewhat disappointed with a 20"+ storm. Expectations got so high. I was thinking 30" was the floor. So 25-26 inches was kind of disappointing. 

Im a lot wiser now though. I would never "expect" 30"+ unless guidance was giving me 4 feet or more and it was unanimous. 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

7 minutes ago, Spanks45 said:

I will add to this, Wednesday we will be getting rid of our Grand Cherokee in exchange for a wonderful minivan so we can welcome number 3 into the world. One can almost bank on snow for the rest of March...

Congrats....and we are due for a big one in the west. Lets pray your 3rd time is a charm for the local snow weenies.

[Baroclinic Zone]

7 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

I'd rather risk that then trying to do it with a weaker block or no block. Without it this is a 55F cutter. 

Id rather see it a bit squashed at day 6. This will actually prob have a lot of latent heat down south this time of year from convection. So beware the ticks north late. 

No argument to your 1st point.  

The heights ahead of this storm are building so it looks as though we will be solely relying on dynamics to provide the cold air source.   Happens countless times but give how warm this month has been I'm pessimistic of the positives.

[WinterWolf]

41 minutes ago, weathafella said:

Too much focus on that.   If it’s a big stemwinder it will do it’s dirty work.   4/1/97 had antecedent temps near 70.

So did October 2011...

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

1 minute ago, ORH_wxman said:

The sleet in BOS porked them from getting a monster storm. Still had around a foot in the city...prob like 8 to 1 with all the sleet mixed in. But once you got to 128 N&W it was big. Still the only time I can ever remember being somewhat disappointed with a 20"+ storm. Expectations got so high. I was thinking 30" was the floor. So 25-26 inches was kind of disappointing. 

Im a lot wiser now though. I would never "expect" 30"+ unless guidance was giving me 4 feet or more and it was unanimous. 

You beat TFlizz there. 

[CoastalWx]

Just now, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

You beat TFlizz there. 

Brett would have deleted his account.

[ORH_wxman]

1 minute ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

You beat TFlizz there. 

I bought the hype. I was still young and gullible back then. A few years later I would have been more skeptical. 

That storm did leave a lot on the table though. The phase was sloppy. If it had been a cleaner phase, then we're prob talking widespread 30"+ like '78, a colder 4/97, etc. 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

2 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Brett would have deleted his account.

I probably cant tell the difference between 26 and 30 but I dont remember what 18 looks like either.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

Just now, ORH_wxman said:

I bought the hype. I was still young and gullible back then. A few years later I would have been more skeptical. 

That storm did leave a lot on the table though. The phase was sloppy. If it had been a cleaner phase, then we're prob talking widespread 30"+ like '78, a colder 4/97, etc. 

That was a huge bust for me in CNJ but I do recall how it could have been a ‘better’ storm for NewEng had it played out like models had it. Pretty remarkable imo. 

[Typhoon Tip]

Heh, I think I see spring already contaminating the models tho ... which may seem counter-intuitive at this particular juncture of deterministic circumstances (ha) ... But, the entire tapestry after this thing, takes on that "nebularity" that's typical of mid altitudes when winter collapses.

The blend right now may as well be April 3rd...  I discussed this several weeks ago, how every year this happens somewhere between February and mid March, where we start detecting the normalization of the low level thickness gradients ...along with the more chaotic complexion and apparent breakdown of coherency in the planetary wave spaces... all that.  

I almost think the -NAO business is a natural progression off the breakdown of this particular winter's persistence... And an end game that materializes as an atmospheric sloshing event when the gradient slackens a bit and initially, we are left with latent heat surplus in the total circulation budget.  The total evolution of this thing fits perfectly... The flow slows down, encourages heights to rise near Greenland and that propensity drags/encourages the retrograde ...and west she comes across the N Atlantic arc, but when said surplus is exhausted the whole thing breaks down and what are we left with.

I am just not sold that the flow gets discerned and coherently cold once we get on the far side of this and another possible event D10-12... After these, I could see this thing going toward the La Nina-esque early spring look ...more like a continuation of the present deeper vision tapestry ... once nearer term consequential events have transpired.  In other words (and I could be wrong, sure...) but it would not shock me if these two events over the next 10 days are sort of this winter's last hurrah.  

Of course, that could be synoptically true, and then being SNE ...we get a weird 4-6" glop event on March 24th just to get the rabble roused ... but "spring" in New England has those built into it. 

Anyway, every year is different and that sort of seasonal trigger is pulled at different times.  I'm talking about the complexion of the models ... perhaps (admittedly) biased by the fact that it's already been 80 F and we are getting days tinted mild like today anyway.  Plus... we have modeled marginal events now ... granted, that in its self could be a function of what happens when we don't have an antecedent -EPO ..but marginal events that will tend to verify at 31 when the time comes.. that's also spring incarnate. 

Which tips my hat to the next point that ... I have seen this time and time again with these marginal events in the models.  They show these 'pockets' of -1 at 850mb, dappled inside a general area of +1 C at that level, on the NW arc of coastal lows... and it ends up being isothermal -1 or 0 C blue snow.  That's really an under-the-radar warm bias in the lower critical thickness depths where I suspect the models et al don't really properly integrate dynamical cooling back into the on-going maelstrom of the CCB/ comma head regions.  So obviously there's some hypothesis to that.. but, I've grown so accustomed to that sort of correction that when I see this sort of mean, such as the 00z, I'm already thinking about a dense snow type. We'll see...

Of course. we have to get the storm to happen... just assuming it does..

 

[ORH_wxman]

2 minutes ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

That was a huge bust for me in CNJ but I do recall how it could have been a ‘better’ storm for NewEng had it played out like models had it. Pretty remarkable imo. 

Yeah I didn't have any real grounds to complain where I was considering what happened down south in the M.A. They went from 2-3 feet to almost nothing. 

[powderfreak]

2 minutes ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

That was a huge bust for me in CNJ but I do recall how it could have been a ‘better’ storm for NewEng had it played out like models had it. Pretty remarkable imo. 

The north ticks were what dreams are made of up north.

Crazy to see the BTV AFDs with only light accumulations expected in the northern areas on 3/4/2001 and then 48 hours later forecasting 14-28" for BTV.

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BURLINGTON VT
334 AM EST SUN MAR 4 2001

THANKS WFOS BUFFALO AND ALBANY FOR COORDINATION.

WILL ISSUE A SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT HIGHLIGHTING EXPECTED SNOW
AMOUNTS THROUGH MONDAY NIGHT.  ADVISORY-CATEGORY SNOWFALL (PERHAPS
MORE) LIKELY TO BE MET IN SOUTH CENTRAL VERMONT WITH LESSER SNOW
AMOUNTS IN CENTRAL VERMONT AND THE ADIRONDACKS.  CURRENT STORM TRACK
WOULD KEEP ST. LAWRENCE VALLEY AND NORTHERN VERMONT WITH LIGHT
ACCUMULATION.  OUR STATEMENT WILL ENCOMPASS ENTIRE FORECAST AREA TO
KEEP THE USEFUL FORECAST INFORMATION TO A MAXIMUM AND THE PANIC LEVEL
TO A MINIMUM.

 

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BURLINGTON VT
330 AM EST TUE MAR 6 2001

REMARKABLE STM CONTS TO ROTATE BANDS OF HVY SNW WWD ACRS VT/NE NY.
WV/IR LOOP SHWS DEEP MSTR AND COLD TOPS ROTATING WWD ACRS FA IN DEEP
ELY FLOW.  KCXX VAD SHWS ELY FLOW UP TO 28K FT!

SFC LOW SE OF ACK FCST TO ROTATE WWD THIS AM BFR MVG SWD TAFTN TO
CATCH UP WITH UPR LOW.  DEEP ELY FLOW WL CONT THRU ABT 18Z WHICH WL
KEEP OCNL HVY SNW GOING INTO ERLY AFTN THEN AS FLOW BACKS TO MORE NE
DIREC SNW WL LIGHTEN UP.  GUSTY N/NE WIND WL RSLT IN CONSID
BLOWING/DRIFTG.

ETA/NGM IN GOOD AGRMNT WITH POSN OF LOW WHILE AVN FTHR E.  DESPITE
FTHR E POSN...AVN QPF HIR THAN ETA.  ETA HAS PERFORMED THE BEST FOR
THIS STM SO WL LN TWD ETA QPF WHICH SHWS 0.3-0.6" ACRS MCH OF FA AFT
06Z...LESS ST LAW VLY.  GOING WITH 15:1 RATIO WUD YIELD AN ADDITL
5-9".  HAV PRETTY MCH MAINTAINED PREV STORM TOTAL ACCUM BUT
REARRANGED ZNS A BIT.  HAV INCLD N CHMPLN VLY WITH REST OF CVLY AND
CNTRL VT BASED ON ERLYR SNWFALL RPTS AND RDR TRENDS WHICH SHW HVY
SNW CONTG.  AND LUMPED CALEDONIA CNTY WITH NE VT FOR LESSER ACCUM.

GNLY LOOKING AT 8-14" ST LAW VLY...1-2 FT ADRNDCKS...14-28" CHMPLN
VLY AND CNTRL VT...10-20" NE VT...AND 20-36" S VT.  BTV AT 17.5" AS
OF 3 AM AND WL MAKE A RUN AT 2 FT WHICH WUD MAKE IT THE 3RD GREATEST
SNW STORM ON RECORD.

 

[WinterWolf]

Hopefully modeling has improved from 17 years ago so we don’t have a bust like that these days...

keeping expectations in check here...a wintry event is a plus... hoping for that at least.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Nice post, John. Agree.

I feel good about the storm happebing...but it doesn't have to be snow for all of us.

I like where I sit.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

14 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

Hopefully modeling has improved from 17 years ago so we don’t have a bust like that these days...

keeping expectations in check here...a wintry event is a plus... hoping for that at least.

Jan 15, cough...

[Typhoon Tip]

13 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Nice post, John. Agree.

I feel good about the storm happebing...but it doesn't have to be snow for all of us.

I like where I sit.

I had to force my self to take a breath late last evening when I was iPhoning through those 00z GFS surface charts ... Jesus... it was like 30 straight hours of easterly flow anomalies clear to the mid tropospheric depths - that's definitely going to over-produce what actually falls out of the sky and bust the model (very most likelly..) too dry anyway, but then adding in that it was marginal/tint negative in the profile and the snow prospect just from the synoptic patterning alone was breathtaking ... I mean, like others, I'm not grousing over particular modeled parameters at this sort of range.. I just go by the general cinema of what that looks like and gee wiz if any 'snow products' based upon QPF say lay ... heh, good luck with with at 15,000 K deep tube of crysospheric h2o pumping west.

Funny ...I was thinking yesterday it would be more like Monday before even this amount of coherence was given by the modeling but ..heh, okay - I thought for all intents and purposes the 00z operational GFS and ECMWF were not too distractingly different.  I mean ..yar, there's differences there, but in the 50,000 foot look they both have a retrograding -NAO block the forces a closing deep layer vortex under LI...  We can quibble over details as the week progresses -

[WinterWolf]

2 minutes ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Jan 15, cough...

OMG so true...lol.  

[Spanks45]

40 minutes ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Congrats....and we are due for a big one in the west. Lets pray your 3rd time is a charm for the local snow weenies.

Thanks! At least this time of the year the sun angle will help thaw the roads much quicker so we won't have to deal with days of frozen roadways. So in other words, bring it on, I am still waiting on one of the big ones that everyone talks about. I moved up here in December of 2014, so I think my largest storm has been 14 inches?

[dryslot]

1 hour ago, Baroclinic Zone said:

I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of the ULL look on the EPS.  The heights over Greenland are building back west and south as this storm tries to come in.  Suppression or occluded mess are definitely on the table as is a hit.  We need to see that look change some over the next week.

We will want to see something better then this look or we won't have to worry if the air mass is warm or cold.

[Damage In Tolland]

Bless his little heart . It never fails that after Feb 10, Tippy looks for spring. The models could be locked and dead set on a deep , cold wintry pattern thru mid Morch, and he’d still find spring . Nothing wrong with that of course, but he’s always searching for that elusive midwestern spring in New England that never arrives 

[ORH_wxman]

Just now, Damage In Tolland said:

Bless his little heart . It never fails that after Feb 10, Tippy looks for spring. The models could be locked and dead set on a deep , cold wintry pattern thru mid Morch, and he’d still find spring . Nothing wrong with that of course, but he’s always searching for that elusive midwestern spring in New England that never arrives 

We got one in 2012. 

[Damage In Tolland]

Just now, ORH_wxman said:

We got one in 2012. 

That was a Deep South spring with 70’s and 80’s. Most of us would kill for that again 

[CoastalWx]

I'd say overall we have been fortunate recently to have some good Spring's relatively speaking. They'll always be a stretch or two of sh*t weather, but how we forget the 00s. That was the epitome of how not to run a Spring season.

[Hoth]

Really impressive AO flux over the next week. Just goes into the tank and then rebounds sharply after next weekend.

[ORH_wxman]

8 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

I'd say overall we have been fortunate recently to have some good Spring's relatively speaking. They'll always be a stretch or two of sh*t weather, but how we forget the 00s. That was the epitome of how not to run a Spring season.

Tip's favorite spring was 2005.