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February Banter 2019


George BM
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1 hour ago, Fozz said:

Sounds pretty incredible. I've read that it was also a complete surprise since forecasters were only expecting a moderate storm.

I was a kid back then(1979), but I was already bitten by the weather bug.  All you could do back then was listen to radio and watch local news.  The storm was somewhat of a surprise in terms of its veracity.  However, AccuWeather was way out in front of this storm.  Radio (led by Joe Bastardi) and Channel 11 (local AccuWeather affiliate) commented on the strong storm prospects at least 24 hours before others jumped on board.  I remember watching the local AccuWeather forecaster draw the map on TV——strong low pressure diving SE through the Ohio Valley would ignite a coastal low along a strong thermal gradient.  Boom!! The heaviest cold smoke I have ever seen——powder pouring from the sky.

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19 minutes ago, leesburg 04 said:

Grew up in Takoma park Maryland I remember waking up to look out the window expecting just a little and the stuff was up over the bottom of the window. Loved it

Was 11 years old and the memory is burned into my brain.  The reason I am a weenie now!  Woke up before the rest of my family and looked out my bedroom window in Baltimore.  White out conditions!!  Walked downstairs and looked out the front door.  Never ever saw snow fall so heavy and nothing has ever compared to it since then.  '83 close with thunder snow, but '79 took the cake.  A sight to see for an 11 year old boy!!

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Here's an interesting Wes quote from CWG's latest article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/02/18/wednesdays-winter-storm-heres-how-much-snow-ice-expect-when/?utm_term=.11cac9f926f8

Quote

 

As of Wednesday morning, the National Weather Service was predicting 6 to 8 inches of snow in the Washington region. We think this is too high by about a factor of two on average.

“I am not a fan of predicting big snow amounts in cases like this that have a low pressure zone tracking to our north and west, drawing north mild air,” says Wes Junker, Capital Weather Gang’s winter weather expert. “Heavy snow forecasts could bust low if the axis of heavy precipitation were to lift north of Washington and the warm layer arrives earlier than forecast. I don’t remember Washington getting more than four or five inches from this type of event.”

However, Junker said the Weather Service’s forecast could verify in a boom scenario in which a localized heavy band of snow develops and/or if precipitation takes longer to transition from snow to sleet than expected.

 

I'm definitely keeping my expectations low. This is a great setup for the NW folks.

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29 minutes ago, BTRWx's Thanks Giving said:

I don't like how precip is modeled to start locally just after the sun rises.

Ehh.  Non factor. Once heavy precip starts the temp will drop to the wet bulb which isn’t that significantly effected yet at ~7am. Then given the intensity of precip expected...somewhere between 1-1.5 qpf through the day, radiation shouldn’t impact temps much. It’s still only mid February not March AND last year we got accumulations easily mid day on March 20th with much lighter rates than expected Wednesday. 

There are times things like sun angle and time of day can matter. If it’s March AND temps are very marginal (like 33-34) AND rates are marginal (like 1/3 to 1/2” hr) then it matters. March 2013 was an example of that. That could have been a 6-10” storm in DC if it was mid winters. But rates were only mediocre and temps were very marginal so that little bit flipped it to a fail. Even up here I got 6” but it would have been 10” easy in winter. Wasn’t accumulating at all after 10am. 

But if the temp is below freezing and rates are better than 1/2” hr then the whole sun angle thing is way over exaggerated. 

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