Western Pa / Pittsburgh area Winter Discussion ❄️☃️

[dj3]

The eps maps Weatherwill posted in the ma forum actually look the best they have so far. Quite a few west members in there that give western pa a direct hit

[dj3]

[Mailman]

Apparently, there were a lot of good hits on the Euro ensembles.  15-25% chance of a foot in our area.  I'll take that.  50-60% for 6+.  Can live with that, too.  

[CoraopolisWx]

Seems like the OP’s have the 850’s more tightly wound. 
Would like to see a more elongated 850 low, and 500 low for that matter. 
Basically if someone else has to get 2ft for us to get a 1ft, then so be it. 

[Rd9108]

1 hour ago, CoraopolisWx said:

Seems like the OP’s have the 850’s more tightly wound. 
Would like to see a more elongated 850 low, and 500 low for that matter. 
Basically if someone else has to get 2ft for us to get a 1ft, then so be it. 

I think many would be happy with 12-16inches even if out east they get 2ft+  

[Burghblizz]

4 hours ago, CoraopolisWx said:

Seems like the OP’s have the 850’s more tightly wound. 
Would like to see a more elongated 850 low, and 500 low for that matter. 
Basically if someone else has to get 2ft for us to get a 1ft, then so be it. 

Agree - as long as it’s a solid foot and not 10 miles away :-)

1.2016 was the worst in recent memory. 5” and 15 miles from me had 15”. But you clear a foot all is good 

[KPITSnow]

4 hours ago, Rd9108 said:

I think many would be happy with 12-16inches even if out east they get 2ft+  

Yep...I do not care if someone else gets two feet if we get 14 inches. It is when we get 4 inches and 50 miles away gets 16.

[KPITSnow]

On 12/11/2020 at 1:11 PM, ChalkHillSnowNut said:

Yea but the trend is our friend-it keeps pushing more energy back west due to negative tilt....we’ll see and hope-our Friends out in CPA are due tho! 

Ehh, we are still pretty due. I mean we got a nice 7 inch storm to start the season, but we have not had a crusher in a decade. 

[KPITSnow]

Here is what I will say though, as usual there is never much of a middle ground with us. We are either fringed or having mixing issues...it is pretty amazing how often these two scenarios repeat themselves here.

The one thing I will say is that I hope it is 33 and rain in the mid atlantic.

[Rd9108]

2 hours ago, KPITSnow said:

Yep...I do not care if someone else gets two feet if we get 14 inches. It is when we get 4 inches and 50 miles away gets 16.

Which happens a lot. 

[Rd9108]

Gfs went east. Still time for big changes but as of now the trend is not our friend. I'm just glad we got an early season surprise. Now let's get one really good storm this year. 

[Mailman]

Still plenty of time to go.  Not sure if I'd wanna be in the bullseye at this point or not.

[CoraopolisWx]

That weak 850 low tracking into Ohio and right over us while it decays is not ideal. 

Further south and stronger is what we need. 

Obviously a closed 500 low would be great, unfortunately non of the guidance is showing anything close to that at this time. 

I don't expect any real answers until Tuesday. But it is nice not having to wait until late January or February to track something. 

[north pgh]

Right now the NAM looks pretty good. We need to move that GFS low west. 

 

[north pgh]

[Burghblizz]

NAM sometimes a trend, sometimes a tease. And 84 hours is only wed eve. Hope the globals can provide a similar look by tonight.  

[Rd9108]

Both storms look to miss to the SE next week. Is the second one correct? According to the NAM the HP retreats a little bit and allows the LP to be tucked. Gfs is not a fan. Is this sampled at all yet?

[north pgh]

1 minute ago, Rd9108 said:

Both storms look to miss to the SE next week. Is the second one correct? According to the NAM the HP retreats a little bit and allows the LP to be tucked. Gfs is not a fan. Is this sampled at all yet?

GFS sucks east and your right NAM moves up coast throwing snow back our way. If the Canadian and euro go east I think we’re doomed. Still several days out but not looking too good. I think a lot has to do with the first storm. We may not know for sure til Monday night. I’m looking forward to see if Canadian is our friend or not. 

[jwilson]

I think the NAM is still too far out of its comfort range to be instructive.  There's the rare occasion where it picks up on something, but usually you want to avoid the NAM until its under 48-60 hours.  As you can witness on the NAM, the high pressure is bouncing all around, but I think it should be fairly locked in because of the overhead blocking (-NAO) and a ~50/50 low.  The system that will eventually evolve into Wednesday's threat is just now hitting the west coast.

The GFS at 12Z remains the most progressive of all the models.  That solution creates such strong frontogenesis that you'll have winners under an INTENSE deform band with divergence elsewhere.  The 12Z even screws much of Central PA that looked "safe" under other, previous solutions.  Basically, you get a very narrow range of top snow depth instead of a widespread event.

I'm not inclined to take the GFS at 100% right now.  That said, the entire system is clearly vulnerable to disruptions, because it is early in the winter and we don't have a colder airmass established.  The warm Atlantic waters are another wild card.  It's also not near a true Miller A, which is what we really need to see for Pittsburgh to capitalize on these setups.  Widespread overrunning snows.  It's more like 75% Miller B and 25% Miller A.  Those coastal transfers are tricky to time down.  Too late and the mid-Atlantic misses out entirely.

[MAG5035]

2 hours ago, jwilson said:

I think the NAM is still too far out of its comfort range to be instructive.  There's the rare occasion where it picks up on something, but usually you want to avoid the NAM until its under 48-60 hours.  As you can witness on the NAM, the high pressure is bouncing all around, but I think it should be fairly locked in because of the overhead blocking (-NAO) and a ~50/50 low.  The system that will eventually evolve into Wednesday's threat is just now hitting the west coast.

The GFS at 12Z remains the most progressive of all the models.  That solution creates such strong frontogenesis that you'll have winners under an INTENSE deform band with divergence elsewhere.  The 12Z even screws much of Central PA that looked "safe" under other, previous solutions.  Basically, you get a very narrow range of top snow depth instead of a widespread event.

I'm not inclined to take the GFS at 100% right now.  That said, the entire system is clearly vulnerable to disruptions, because it is early in the winter and we don't have a colder airmass established.  The warm Atlantic waters are another wild card.  It's also not near a true Miller A, which is what we really need to see for Pittsburgh to capitalize on these setups.  Widespread overrunning snows.  It's more like 75% Miller B and 25% Miller A.  Those coastal transfers are tricky to time down.  Too late and the mid-Atlantic misses out entirely.

The setup is such that Pittsburgh would do well with a miller B type scenario. The problem is the Ohio Valley low isn't very strong and we're transferring to the coast pretty early, making the bulk of the precip shield associated mainly with the coastal low. You hold that Ohio Valley low just a bit longer and stronger and you can likely get a slightly better easterly fetch into western PA to the Ohio Valley and perhaps maintain a better precip shield across western PA. I don't think this region is in play for what's looking like a swath of excessive totals somewhere further east BUT I do think low end warning totals can be achieved if the more amplified solutions have their way. We'll need the meso models to get more into range to see if that idea has any legs.

For now though, I have pretty decent confidence with Pittsburgh metro and surrounding seeing at least a decent higher end advisory event by the end of this. I think the GFS is just a bit too tight and SE with it's swath. 12z Euro coming in a tad SE with it's heavy swath and appeared a bit weaker on the Ohio Valley side of things (def NOT on the coastal end), but maintains the advisory totals over the area. 

 

[dj3]

3 minutes ago, MAG5035 said:

The setup is such that Pittsburgh would do well with a miller B type scenario. The problem is the Ohio Valley low isn't very strong and we're transferring to the coast pretty early, making the bulk of the precip shield associated mainly with the coastal low. You hold that Ohio Valley low just a bit longer and stronger and you can likely get a slightly better easterly fetch into western PA to the Ohio Valley and perhaps maintain a better precip shield across western PA. I don't think this region is in play for what's looking like a swath of excessive totals somewhere further east BUT I do think low end warning totals can be achieved if the more amplified solutions have their way. We'll need the meso models to get more into range to see if that idea has any legs.

For now though, I have pretty decent confidence with Pittsburgh metro and surrounding seeing at least a decent higher end advisory event by the end of this. I think the GFS is just a bit too tight and SE with it's swath. 12z Euro coming in a tad SE with it's heavy swath and appeared a bit weaker on the Ohio Valley side of things (def NOT on the coastal end), but maintains the advisory totals over the area. 

 

Thanks for the analysis MAG! You look to be in a better spot for this one, hoping you guys in central PA cash in big 

[KPITSnow]

The Euro literally will make you cry. We get like 3 inches while 100 miles east gets a foot and a half.

Once again, we are either fringed or mixing. Are only "good" storms seem to be like the one two weeks ago that overachieve and we get 7 inches instead of 4. Big 12-18 types storms just aren't in the cards here.

 

[dj3]

13 minutes ago, KPITSnow said:

The Euro literally will make you cry. We get like 3 inches while 100 miles east gets a foot and a half.

Once again, we are either fringed or mixing. Are only "good" storms seem to be like the one two weeks ago that overachieve and we get 7 inches instead of 4. Big 12-18 types storms just aren't in the cards here.

 

Definitely frustrating but I’m hoping the western edge of the precip expands a little closer to go time. We won’t be getting jackpotted but I’d take another significant snowfall in December.

[KPITSnow]

Just now, dj3 said:

Definitely frustrating but I’m hoping the western edge of the precip expands a little closer to go time. We won’t be getting jackpotted but I’d take another significant snowfall in December.

Yeah, if we can get over 6 like MAG mentioned I could deal with that. If we get 2-3 inches while Altoona gets 15 I will be salty af.

[dj3]

11 minutes ago, KPITSnow said:

Yeah, if we can get over 6 like MAG mentioned I could deal with that. If we get 2-3 inches while Altoona gets 15 I will be salty af.

The snow maps remind me a lot of January 2016 which was also a pretty painful cut off for us. The negative NAO is something we root for but it would be more helpful if there was a strong primary running up into the Ohio valley before transferring. 

[dj3]

Either way it’s nice to be tracking when there was a lot of doom and gloom in winter outlooks.

[Rd9108]

Just now, dj3 said:

The snow maps remind me a lot of January 2016 which was also a pretty painful cut off for us. The negative NAO is something we root for but it would be more helpful if there was a strong primary running up into the Ohio valley before transferring. 

This has a Jan 2016 feel to it. I just know the cutoff is gonna be basically AGH county line. Seen it far too often. 

[Rd9108]

EURO ensemble mean is not terrible. Pretty close to a 6-8 type which lets be honest if we start with almost 20 inches in December then we could be pretty happy with the season so far. 

 

[dj3]

9 minutes ago, Rd9108 said:

EURO ensemble mean is not terrible. Pretty close to a 6-8 type which lets be honest if we start with almost 20 inches in December then we could be pretty happy with the season so far. 

 

Cut back a few inches from 6z but still ok. I was thinking how crazy it is that with all the info we have access to this one is actually still 72 hours out and could possibly shift a bit more either in our favor or the other way. The models have been remarkably consistent with this one so far 

[Rd9108]

NAM has ticked east. Let's hope for an overperformer but this isn't our storm.