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January 22nd-25th Winter Storm Potential


Thundersnow12
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13 minutes ago, snowstormcanuck said:

Well, if it does transpire, can't argue with back-to-back snowstorms on Saturdays.  At least no commuting problems for us working stiffs.

Interesting that this could potentially be the third Saturday in a row with a storm.

 

I'm rooting for the Euro - 8" sounds pretty good, although it would likely be wet snow, and thus brutal to shovel.

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1 hour ago, snowstormcanuck said:

Well, if it does transpire, can't argue with back-to-back snowstorms on Saturdays.  At least no commuting problems for us working stiffs.

Euro ensembles looked pretty good for our area. A lot of members had >6" for us. Let's see tonight's runs. 

No expectations right now. This could go either way. 

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Hopefully 00z runs don't throw a curveball (or it's a good one if they do) but am currently leaning toward a total of 4-6" around here.  I'm not sure why since everything has seemingly underachieved imby and this storm is going to be plagued with temp issues.  But to be clear, I don't expect to actually see 6" on the ground and maybe not even 4".  Other than the slop aspect, it should be a pretty picturesque snow on the trees.

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GFS continues to be a torch with most snow confined to Great Lakes. Either it's going to hit a home run being the only model sniffing out warmer temps or going to look really stupid next to the rest of guidance. I do believe there will be transitions between rain and snow especially preceding the main upper low closing off. However I think once that upper low deepens and closes off that things will certainly be more snowier than gfs is depicting 

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Definitely very marginal temps for any accumulation. However with a relatively strong closed low and the fact it will be strengthening as it passes over us, makes me think dynamics could compensate for lack of colder air. I remember this clipper a few years ago came through with very marginal temps but it was very compact and wound up. We ended up dynamically cooling to around 32-31 and efficiently accumulated snow with moderate to sometimes heavy rates. I know this isn't a clipper but made me think of how wrapped up this system is aloft
Agree that better dynamics could be at play later on in the event. Also it's late January and not late March or April, that helps. I was thinking about the daytime vs nighttime issue and even though it's not worry about sun angle season yet, would think with such marginal BL temps, daytime might hurt if rates are too low vs same conditions at night.

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11 minutes ago, RCNYILWX said:

Agree that better dynamics could be at play later on in the event. Also it's late January and not late March or April, that helps. I was thinking about the daytime vs nighttime issue and even though it's not worry about sun angle season yet, would think with such marginal BL temps, daytime might hurt if rates are too low vs same conditions at night.

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Totally agree with this. With an already high water content snow with low ratios marginal daytime temps will definitely favor more slush over accumulations and white rain like you said. I think best shot here will be overnight Thurs into Fri when wind direction shifts more northerly as upper low pulls east

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There really isn't a compelling reason to believe the GFS thermal profiles.  Always have to be skeptical of outliers... maybe a little less so if it's the ECMWF as the outlier but that is not the case this time.  What kind of track record does this upgraded GFS have to put a lot of faith in it?  Like you said, it doesn't mean the snowier models are going to nail amounts either because we are still dealing with questionable 2m temps.  This discrepancy with the temps aloft has been interesting to watch.  I have never been more curious to look at actual observed 925 mb temps in the coming days lol
100% agree. I was looking more closely at the various model depictions and the GFS doesn't make much physical sense. Particularly Thursday night into Friday, there's barely any thermal gradient with a developing and strengthening 925 mb low and it keeps doing this run after run.

Regardless of ultimately how things turn out, the 00z NAM depiction makes sense as a direct point of comparison. It has the warmer air on the east and southeast side of the low wrapping back into the colder air on the north and northwest side of the low.

The GFS has most of the 925 mb low uniformly from 0 to +1C until Friday evening, like it's wrapping that air in and locking it in place. If the GFS ends up wrong as we expect, would hope the modelers at NCEP will investigate what went wrong. Based on WPC's internal collaboration graphics this afternoon, they completely tossed the operational GFS thermal profiles as well.

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23 minutes ago, RCNYILWX said:

100% agree. I was looking more closely at the various model depictions and the GFS doesn't make much physical sense. Particularly Thursday night into Friday, there's barely any thermal gradient with a developing and strengthening 925 mb low and it keeps doing this run after run.

Regardless of ultimately how things turn out, the 00z NAM depiction makes sense as a direct point of comparison. It has the warmer air on the east and southeast side of the low wrapping back into the colder air on the north and northwest side of the low.

The GFS has most of the 925 mb low uniformly from 0 to +1C until Friday evening, like it's wrapping that air in and locking it in place. If the GFS ends up wrong as we expect, would hope the modelers at NCEP will investigate what went wrong. Based on WPC's internal collaboration graphics this afternoon, they completely tossed the operational GFS thermal profiles as well.

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Is there a reason the OP GFS is consistently different than the Ensemble mean with respect to 925mb temps?  Is it an initialization error or something else?  I'd imagine if the same software was used for the operational as the Ensembles it would be a lottery and some runs the OP would be more bullish.

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Is there a reason the OP GFS is consistently different than the Ensemble mean with respect to 925mb temps?  Is it an initialization error or something else?  I'd imagine if the same software was used for the operational as the Ensembles it would be a lottery and some runs the OP would be more bullish.

Honestly don't know what's going on at this point, why I said hopefully they do a case study and can attempt to address the issue if it ends up being wrong as seems likely. I wish I could give a better explanation.

 

The divergence crops up on Thursday morning and then it's a strong outlier until Friday night. I think one of the best timestamps to compare is 12z Friday. One of these things is not like the other (00z GFS, 00z NAM, 00Z GGEM, 12Z ECMWF, 00z GEFS ptype as proxy). 

 

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