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Wednesday 12/11 SNE Snow Threat


The 4 Seasons
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35 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

You can see how good the snow growth was in that pic. This storm had high ratios. Esp elevated terrain where they didn't lose much qpf on the front end of the changeover.

Dendritic growth was excellent and that variable was actually portrayed very consistently on model guidance. One lesson this event should probably drive home is when there is really good snow growth progged, don't get too bearish/pessimistic. Cross hair structure makes up for many different types of sins on an event. 

If the lift had been progged to be maxing out near that layer of dry air, then it would have been different. But in this case, it was above the dry air in a saturated snow growth zone. 

This is what I need to work on....my sounding interpretation. Killed me here...this is why this situation was an exception to the rule. I missed that.

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41 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

You can see how good the snow growth was in that pic. This storm had high ratios. Esp elevated terrain where they didn't lose much qpf on the front end of the changeover.

Dendritic growth was excellent and that variable was actually portrayed very consistently on model guidance. One lesson this event should probably drive home is when there is really good snow growth progged, don't get too bearish/pessimistic. Cross hair structure makes up for many different types of sins on an event. 

If the lift had been progged to be maxing out near that layer of dry air, then it would have been different. But in this case, it was above the dry air in a saturated snow growth zone. 

Yup...good midlevel fronto with big omega crosshaired in the DGZ. Idk why we trust the GFS with its low levels either. It was probably too gung-ho with the H8 dry advection. I think I mentioned yesterday how the mesos had been more moist in that layer.

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46 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

You can see how good the snow growth was in that pic. This storm had high ratios. Esp elevated terrain where they didn't lose much qpf on the front end of the changeover.

Dendritic growth was excellent and that variable was actually portrayed very consistently on model guidance. One lesson this event should probably drive home is when there is really good snow growth progged, don't get too bearish/pessimistic. Cross hair structure makes up for many different types of sins on an event. 

If the lift had been progged to be maxing out near that layer of dry air, then it would have been different. But in this case, it was above the dry air in a saturated snow growth zone. 

Would checking for frontogenesis in mid levels and seeing if it aligns with high RH allow for proper diagnosis?

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6 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Yup...good midlevel fronto with big omega crosshaired in the DGZ. Idk why we trust the GFS with its low levels either. It was probably too gung-ho with the H8 dry advection. I think I mentioned yesterday how the mesos had been more moist in that layer.

Let's say that the dry air did get in here...would you think this plays out differently? 

When you look at the observed soundings from last night just behind the front...that dry air was legit...something prevented the dry air from really creeping in...maybe evap cooling, CAA, and rapid upward motion offset this drying? 

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8 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Would checking for frontogenesis in mid levels and seeing if it aligns with high RH allow for proper diagnosis?

00z 3km NAM from last night...cross sections through that banding. You can see the omega bullseye "crosshaired" through that max DGZ of -12C to -18C. That's pretty damn high up at 500mb, but if you look at the lower image the RH was high enough for deposition with respect to ice. Also, it was just moist enough in the low levels to prevent virga. This suggests a pretty sharp cutoff though with the sinking air just west of the banding and lower RH.

 

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2 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

Let's say that the dry air did get in here...would you think this plays out differently? 

When you look at the observed soundings from last night just behind the front...that dry air was legit...something prevented the dry air from really creeping in...maybe evap cooling, CAA, and rapid upward motion offset this drying? 

Because it SNE and you guys are on like a 15 to 20 year heater? 

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2 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

Let's say that the dry air did get in here...would you think this plays out differently? 

When you look at the observed soundings from last night just behind the front...that dry air was legit...something prevented the dry air from really creeping in...maybe evap cooling, CAA, and rapid upward motion offset this drying? 

I looked out and saw the snowgrowth last night, and knew that I had made a bad call...slow progression of RAD confirmed.

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2 minutes ago, dendrite said:

00z 3km NAM from last night...cross sections through that banding. You can see the omega bullseye "crosshaired" through that max DGZ of -12C to -18C. That's pretty damn high up at 500mb, but if you look at the lower image the RH was high enough for deposition with respect to ice. Also, it was just moist enough in the low levels to prevent virga. This suggests a pretty sharp cutoff though with the sinking air just west of the banding and lower RH.

 

image.png

image.png

Can you diagnose that via charts?

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2 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

Let's say that the dry air did get in here...would you think this plays out differently? 

When you look at the observed soundings from last night just behind the front...that dry air was legit...something prevented the dry air from really creeping in...maybe evap cooling, CAA, and rapid upward motion offset this drying? 

I think the GFS was just overzealous with the dry air. The precip was heavy enough too to keep any slightly drying layer saturated with sublimational wetbulbing. That 3km NAM I just posted was a lot more moist at H8 over C CT than the GFS was.

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1 minute ago, OSUmetstud said:

Because it SNE and you guys are on like a 15 to 20 year heater? 

Not sure I understand :lol: 

Just now, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I looked out and saw the snowgrowth last night, and knew that I had made a bad call...slow progression of RAD confirmed.

I guess that's what my mistake was...there is no question snowgrowth was going to be great...even looking at bufkit soundings all week...there was great omega into the DGZ with sufficient RH...but for some reason I thought the dry air/subsidence in the llvls would win out. At the end of the day I just don't think the dry air worked in like what was modeled...if it did maybe it would have been different. 

But OTOH great omega into the DGZ doesn't only help support great snowgrowth...it also promotes high precip rates.

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1 minute ago, dendrite said:

I think the GFS was just overzealous with the dry air. The precip was heavy enough too to keep any slightly drying layer saturated with sublimational wetbulbing. That 3km NAM I just posted was a lot more moist at H8 over C CT than the GFS was.

Makes a great deal of sense...certainly going to make mental note of this for the future. 

I also need to do more with cross-sectional analysis...a more dedicated analysis of cross-sections could have yielded a different thought/interpretation process from me.

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Just now, weatherwiz said:

Not sure I understand :lol: 

I guess that's what my mistake was...there is no question snowgrowth was going to be great...even looking at bufkit soundings all week...there was great omega into the DGZ with sufficient RH...but for some reason I thought the dry air/subsidence in the llvls would win out. At the end of the day I just don't think the dry air worked in like what was modeled...if it did maybe it would have been different. 

But OTOH great omega into the DGZ doesn't only help support great snowgrowth...it also promotes high precip rates.

I need to incorporate soundings more....I get away with it in big dogs, but there smaller marginal events can burn me.

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2 minutes ago, dendrite said:

I think the GFS was just overzealous with the dry air. The precip was heavy enough too to keep any slightly drying layer saturated with sublimational wetbulbing. That 3km NAM I just posted was a lot more moist at H8 over C CT than the GFS was.

Even the EURO  snow map from 12z yesterday was like 1-2"...

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Just now, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I need to incorporate soundings more....I get away with it in big dogs, but there smaller marginal events can burn me.

It can be tough to incorporate soundings...moreso b/c its more work then just analyzing charts...clicking and generating soundings...ughhh. 

Soundings are a tremendous value though as we get inside 24...even 36 hours. Sometimes what I'll do is pick some "key locations"...so like pick a western location, northern, southern, and eastern...and just see how the structure of the atmosphere compares across these point locations

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Just now, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Even the EURO  snow map from 12z yesterday was like 1-2"...

Yeah but that was 10:1 right? Maybe QPF overperformed a bit, but the banding looked pretty good so that's not too surprising. I didn't see coco obs, but I assume some of the bigger totals were pushing 15-20:1?

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I'll chime in as well. 

Do you have bufkit, Ray? If not coolwx.com has great tools to see what you could with bufkit.

coolwx.com > Hourly forecast models > then you can choose plot, station, and model on the left hand side.

Here is the 0z 3K NAM for BDL:

1. the -12C to -18C range is illustrated...this is where snow growth is most optimized

2. I highlighted by the purple box where the negative values of omega area (negative values of omega indicate rising motion). Notice how you have very negative values of omega right inside the snowgrowth zone...this is referred to as a "cross hair signature". When this occurs and you have sufficient ice and RH in this layer (what's great about bufkit is you can overly RH with this...I'll post an example) you're not only going to maximize snow growth...but you're going to get very intense precip rates

3. I circled area of dry air in the low-levels around 6z or so...that was my flag for all this

image.png.99dab06b96ad02834871581ce87a9663.png

Now let's look at the RH profile. The time of snow was prior to 12z...well the heaviest anyways. Notice something...very moist...the dry air in the lower levels doesn't take over until around 12z...AFTER the precip has fallen. My mistake here was harping that drier air would be in place earlier...but between 0z-12z...you have a very deep moist profile here (noted by the high RH values through the troposphere

 

image.png.19429a6c7da6fbcc310d2498d462ce0d.png

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