February 11 -12 Winter Storm Threat

[SnowGoose69]

This should be 3-4 inches easily.  It’s possible if models are too slow advancing the precipitation in which they very well might be given they stall it for ages across EPA and NJ that this could be similar to the November storm in amounts 

[qg_omega]

2 minutes ago, Snowshack said:

You should let upton know, they are forecasting numbers similar to what’s being discussed here.    A couple of inches in the metro actually would be notable given what’s transpired this year.  

 

They are wrong, look at their snow map for the MLK January storm two days before, 4 to 6 inches for a large portion of the area.  How much did we pick up?

[qg_omega]

Just now, SnowGoose69 said:

This should be 3-4 inches easily.  It’s possible if models are too slow advancing the precipitation in which they very well might be given they stall it for ages across EPA and NJ that this could be similar to the November storm in amounts 

I'll bet under on that for NYC all day.  3 to 4 easy.... Not in this setup.  I'll bump this on Wednesday.

[SnowGoose69]

3 minutes ago, qg_omega said:

They are wrong, look at their snow map for the MLK January storm two days before, 4 to 6 inches for a large portion of the area.  How much did we pick up?

The setup was nowhere near as good.  High wasn’t a one piece anchored high.  It was a sprawled our high with the neck positioned too far west across Quebec so you just didn’t get the proper CAD signature.  Also the air mass wasn’t as good in place ahead of the storm

[weatherpruf]

Just now, qg_omega said:

I'll bet under on that for NYC all day.  3 to 4 easy.... Not in this setup.  I'll bump this on Wednesday.

I don't dismiss posters like SnowGoose. And in fact the major forecasters on 1010 and WNYC are talking similar numbers, either 1-3 or 2-4 coastal and 3-6 inland plus possible ZR there. May not be the world's biggest event, but likely to be more significant than a nothingburger, and will probably be a shock to the system for folks who have gotten complacent.

[SnoSki14]

3 minutes ago, qg_omega said:

They are wrong, look at their snow map for the MLK January storm two days before, 4 to 6 inches for a large portion of the area.  How much did we pick up?

This ain't the MLK storm. The high is much stronger and better placed. 

3 minutes ago, qg_omega said:

I'll bet under on that for NYC all day.  3 to 4 easy.... Not in this setup.  I'll bump this on Wednesday.

We shall see then. Also don't dismiss those just inland and away from the city.

[hudsonvalley21]

9 minutes ago, qg_omega said:

They are wrong, look at their snow map for the MLK January storm two days before, 4 to 6 inches for a large portion of the area.  How much did we pick up?

I got 4.4" here in Orange County 

[SnowGoose69]

1 minute ago, SnoSki14 said:

This ain't the MLK storm. The high is much stronger and better placed. 

We shall see then. Also don't dismiss those just inland and away from the city.

The MLK event high position only works when a system tracks from a low latitude. That system originated too far north in the Plains and Midwest for the CAD to properly work 

[495weatherguy]

7 minutes ago, weatherpruf said:

I don't dismiss posters like SnowGoose. And in fact the major forecasters on 1010 and WNYC are talking similar numbers, either 1-3 or 2-4 coastal and 3-6 inland plus possible ZR there. May not be the world's biggest event, but likely to be more significant than a nothingburger, and will probably be a shock to the system for folks who have gotten complacent.

I agree with this is in principal.  On the other hand, I have seen this similar forecast many times before for Long Island.  Inevitably, a “warm nose” of air interferes and alters the outcome.  I know I will be derided for this, without scientific reasoning, this is just my belief

[Stormlover74]

18 minutes ago, qg_omega said:

They are wrong, look at their snow map for the MLK January storm two days before, 4 to 6 inches for a large portion of the area.  How much did we pick up?

Therefore we should ignore all Upton snow maps?

[weatherpruf]

7 minutes ago, 495weatherguy said:

I agree with this is in principal.  On the other hand, I have seen this similar forecast many times before for Long Island.  Inevitably, a “warm nose” of air interferes and alters the outcome.  I know I will be derided for this, without scientific reasoning, this is just my belief

Yes I have seen it too. The forecasts are also for people to be ready, they don't mean with certainty that this will be the exact outcome. Remember, most people will be happy if the snow and ice don't verify. Plus people commute from pretty much everywhere to the city, to Newark, to Trenton, New Brunswick, Princeto etc. Someone is likely to be impacted more than others. At least they can point to the weather when they are 2 hours late. I once worked with a psychologist who  had lived outside Trenton but worked in NYC. There would be days where she would be delayed by snow and people thought she was making it up.

[Brian5671]

12z euro shows moderate to heavy rain later Tuesday eve, so whatever we get is washed away....

[winterwx21]

14 minutes ago, Brian5671 said:

12z euro shows moderate to heavy rain later Tuesday eve, so whatever we get is washed away....

Depends on how much we get. If we get a solid 4 inches of snow with some ice on top of that, I don't think the rain would be able to wash it all away unless it gets really warm. This isn't an event where temps are supposed to spike to the 50s after it changes to rain. What's on the ground will probably become very heavy and tough to shovel due to the higher water content.

[EastonSN+]

18 minutes ago, Brian5671 said:

12z euro shows moderate to heavy rain later Tuesday eve, so whatever we get is washed away....

Still counts in the stats.

[Brian5671]

1 minute ago, EastonSN+ said:

Still counts in the stats.

It does.   My kids want to go sledding, told them maybe as it's falling....guessing schools closed Tue due the timing with the early AM start

[weatherpruf]

1 minute ago, Brian5671 said:

It does.   My kids want to go sledding, told them maybe as it's falling....guessing schools closed Tue due the timing with the early AM start

Man I hope so. 

[tomcatct]

12 minutes ago, Brian5671 said:

It does.   My kids want to go sledding, told them maybe as it's falling....guessing schools closed Tue due the timing with the early AM start

Yep..probably will be closed...if it's anything like here in trumbull, they close the schools when there are dark clouds it seems...way different than years ago for sure

[Ericjcrash]

9 minutes ago, Brian5671 said:

It does.   My kids want to go sledding, told them maybe as it's falling....guessing schools closed Tue due the timing with the early AM start

Really closed for 4"? Man I wish back in the day. 

[Ericjcrash]

1 hour ago, Snowshack said:

 

I've never agreed more with an Upton product before, especially 2 days out. Excellent.

[EastonSN+]

11 minutes ago, Brian5671 said:

It does.   My kids want to go sledding, told them maybe as it's falling....guessing schools closed Tue due the timing with the early AM start

Schools will be closed. 2 to 4 inches of snow followed by few hours of ice plus no cacellations to date means no school Tuesday.

[weatherpruf]

1 minute ago, Ericjcrash said:

I've never agreed more with an Upton product before, especially 2 days out. Excellent.

Any maps from Mt Holly? I'm just this side of it....

[RU848789]

58 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

The setup was nowhere near as good.  High wasn’t a one piece anchored high.  It was a sprawled our high with the neck positioned too far west across Quebec so you just didn’t get the proper CAD signature.  Also the air mass wasn’t as good in place ahead of the storm

Well said.  And, from a modeling perspective, there's not a model right now that's not showing at least 0.6" of LE in frozen form for the 95 corridor, including NYC (and some are showing 0.8" or more).  For 1/20, a couple of models were showing similar amounts for the 95 corridor, but had a much sharper cutoff to the SE of 95 (so no margin for error), while more of the models were showing little to no snow/sleet for the 95 corridor, which ended up verifying (even if the NWS was way too aggressive in forecasting snow, probably as an overreaction to 11/15). 

Whether or not it's sleet or snow is immaterial from a falling frozen mass perspective and the frozen mass is what impacts plowing, shoveling, driving, etc., not the depth of snow/sleet.  Even being very conservative, 2" of snow then 1" of sleet is 0.53" LE/5.3" of "snow equivalent" even if it's only 3" on the ground - huge difference between that and just looking at the 1" of pure snow that falls.  More likely we're talking 2-4" of snow, then 1-2" of sleet for 0.5-1.0" of LE as frozen. 

[Brasiluvsnow]

12 minutes ago, weatherpruf said:

Any maps from Mt Holly? I'm just this side of it....

https://www.weather.gov/phi/winter here is the link the map is on it edit here thats as of 5 a m

 

[BxEngine]

Ok lets try again. If you cant get your ideas across with being an ass, find somewhere else to post. Thanks. 

[Ericjcrash]

6 minutes ago, Brasiluvsnow said:

https://www.weather.gov/phi/winter here is the link the map is on it edit here thats as of 5 a m

 

That's for the tonight/ tomorrow AM event.

[Brasiluvsnow]

2 minutes ago, Ericjcrash said:

That's for the tonight/ tomorrow AM event.

Yep Eric you are correct ,,,SORRY ABOUT THAT weatherproof and others 

[495weatherguy]

21 minutes ago, RU848789 said:

Well said.  And, from a modeling perspective, there's not a model right now that's not showing at least 0.6" of LE in frozen form for the 95 corridor, including NYC (and some are showing 0.8" or more).  For 1/20, a couple of models were showing similar amounts for the 95 corridor, but had a much sharper cutoff to the SE of 95 (so no margin for error), while more of the models were showing little to no snow/sleet for the 95 corridor, which ended up verifying (even if the NWS was way too aggressive in forecasting snow, probably as an overreaction to 11/15). 

Whether or not it's sleet or snow is immaterial from a falling frozen mass perspective and the frozen mass is what impacts plowing, shoveling, driving, etc., not the depth of snow/sleet.  Even being very conservative, 2" of snow then 1" of sleet is 0.53" LE/5.3" of "snow equivalent" even if it's only 3" on the ground - huge difference between that and just looking at the 1" of pure snow that falls.  More likely we're talking 2-4" of snow, then 1-2" of sleet for 0.5-1.0" of LE as frozen. 

Excellent points.   We are within 48 hours of this event.  Time will tell how this unfolds.  

Im sticking with my skepticism for LI-been burned too many times to count when I was a snow hound.  

In most curious to see what remains on the ground Tuesday evening after the rain comes and anything is left 

[ILoveWinter]

9 minutes ago, Ericjcrash said:

That's for the tonight/ tomorrow AM event.

Almost forgot about that one. Smh, is this the 3rd storm with a cutoff around Philly?

[RU848789]

At the risk of being accused of beating and stomping on the neck of a dead horse, this is why I hate those "snow only" maps in a mixed precip events and prefer the TT style sleet+snow (all at 10:1, so I know the LE falling in frozen form) maps.  On the 12Z CMC, the storm doesn't look like much of a big deal for the 95 corridor, including NYC, but that's wrong.  Let's use the 12Z CMC and NYC just to illustrate (same holds true down to at least New Brunswick) what I'm talking about by analyzing what the model says at a deeper level (not a forecast).  

• The sounding for NYC is clearly for snow at 7 am, with the whole column well below 32F down to the surface at 26F
• The sounding for NYC is then just barely sleet at 1 pm with 700-850 mbar, just barely going above 32F, but with all of 850 mbar to the surface being well below 32F and the surface at 29F. 
• The sounding for NYC at 7 pm is still for sleet, with 700-900 mbar above 32F, but with the column below that well below 32F until just at the surface, where it's 33F - sleet will certainly form falling through ~3000 feet of sub-32F column and shouldn't melt from the last 100 feet or so being above 32F to the surface at 33F, IMO.    
• But the snow only map shows only 1/2" of snow falling in NYC (and Edison/NB) from 7 am to 7 pm, implying a change to sleet soon after 7 am (which is questionable, but irrelevant to my point).  But the model then is completely ignoring close to 12 hours of sleet and the precip map shows 0.5" LE falling in NYC between 7 am and 7 pm (and 0.7" in NB), plus it's likely that that sleet signature for NYC lasts another couple of hours to get NYC to maybe 0.7" LE as sleet, like NB. 
• A storm with 1-2" of snow on the map, like the 12Z CMC, looks benign.  A storm with 1-2" of snow, followed by 0.7" of LE as sleet, which is about 2" of sleet (at a 3:1 ratio) is a far different and much more impactful storm, as that's a total of 0.8-0.9" LE in frozen form (8-9" worth of snow, even if it will only be 3-4" on the ground) and that mass is what's critical for shoveling, plowing, driving, etc.  Not as pretty as snow and much less of a visibility issue, but very impactful. 
• Because of this, I think the NWS might issue watches, which are usually reserved for 6" of pure snow, for the 95 corridor and NW of there, since the frozen equivalent will likely be 6" of "snow equivalent" or more. The risk of 0.1" or more of freezing rain might also tip the scales towards watches (and warnings tomorrow morning if the models don't change much). We'll see soon.
• One more thing.  If we get 0.6-1.0" of LE in frozen form for the Trenton-NYC corridor, as almost every model is showing, that amount of frozen precip will likely absorb much of the subsequent 0.5-1.0" of rain that likely falls after the changeover to all rain (especially if it's on the 0.5" side of things as rain), creating a slushy mess holding about 1.5-2.0" of LE - a bit of melting will obviously occur with temps in the mid/upper 30s and rain, but I'd guess <25% melting.  However, if the CMC is right and we hit 50F on Wednesday, lots of melting will occur (other models top out at 35-40F, so big variance there in melting rate/amount).  





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gravitylover]

1 hour ago, tomcatct said:

Yep..probably will be closed...if it's anything like here in trumbull, they close the schools when there are dark clouds it seems...way different than years ago for sure

"...dark clouds..." Haha yeah just the idea that it might snow or sleet later in the day is enough for them to cancel school here. The bus dept. says 'No we're not taking that risk' and the schools have to close. It does get pretty sketchy on some of the hills around the town so it's probably the right call but... geez

 

Nice post  @RU848789