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January Medium/Long Range Discussion


WinterWxLuvr
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15 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

With the exception of 96 I can’t remember any storms close to those dates. I remember some a couple weeks or more later. Are there storms I’m just not remembering?

Jan 80 & 04 both had decent storms in DC. Overall the list shows at lot of Januaries that had storms or were good periods for storms but didn't come together. 

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31 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

Just let Ma Nature do her thing. There is no doubt a good looking period being advertised. One of the best we've seen in January for a long time. Never any guarantees but at least it looks like a multiple chance window. We usually need those. 

Oh, and take a nice long look at the analog list and let your imagination have some fun. 

500hgt_comp_sup814.gif

Stop posting porn or I’ll report you to the authorities. 

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1 hour ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

With the exception of 96 I can’t remember any storms close to those dates. I remember some a couple weeks or more later. Are there storms I’m just not remembering?

Some rudimentary research, but here's what I could figure out.

2009-01-21 Tail end of a brutal cold pattern for most of the central and eastern US. 1-28 featured a snow to ice/rain event but the major storm (12-18"+) was confined to the interior NE. 

2003-01-15 Southern slider with light accum for DC. 4-10" for SE Virginia.

1980-01-24 Couldn't find much other than a WSW event for North Carolina on the 30th.

1978-01-29 Follows a sizeable MA/NE storm on the 20th and predates the New England blizzard during Feb 5-7th (which we got scraps from).

1961-01-25 Follows a decent storm from the 18th-21st and predates a sizeable one from Feb 2nd-5th. DCA had a high of 18 and a low of 8 on the 25th, so a pretty frigid timeframe.

2004-01-20 Predates a pretty decent system on the 26th. Pretty broad range of 4"+ for most of the subforum.

2007-01-28 Couldn't find much until well after

2003-01-20 Same as previous analog 

1996-01-03 Lol I wonder what happened here

2009-12-31 Not much other than a weak system on NYE 

 

Biggest takeaway for me is that just about all of these analogs occurred before a substantial system, even if that storm didn't target our general area. A lot were also coupled with brutal temperatures, so if there's any way to test if we can still get "true" cold, this would be the time. 

 

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13 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Awesome replies guys. Thanks

I wasn't being super specific with the analogs as I'm more interested in the entire upcoming 2-3 weeks. Not just the upper air progs on d11. That analog list is loaded with good winter wx in the east in general. That upper air pattern looks beautiful and when setups like this come along, it usually last for a while. If things play out as it looks now, there's going to be multiple threats to track. Seems like it wants to snow here for some reason too. Weird. 

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1 hour ago, benjammin said:

Those tiny maps in the Washington Post and Star. Of course dialing 936-1212 but the biggest thing was when Bob Ryan said it was going to snow a lot because he was usually conservative and right. In January 96 when he forecasted 1-2 feet before a flake had fallen I knew we were going to get nailed.

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I always felt that Ryan would cover all bases more than being conservative.

The original great DC weatherman was Louis Allen, imo.

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52 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Awesome replies guys. Thanks

I’ll add that when going that far out on an ensemble the pattern gets smoothed and washed a bit. You’re getting a general pattern look v a specific finer details one.  It’s different when using the 24-72 hour CIPS analogs for a specific storm. A lot of times a general pattern stays in place for weeks and ebbs and flows or recycles. I know some day those long range analogs are meant to be day specific but I’ve found that when the pattern actually comes to fruition they can pick out pattern similarities and what the potential is for snow from that pattern if it sticks around a while. 
 

Some examples both good and bad recently…in late December 2019 those analogs started spitting out every total awful snowless dreg winter we’ve had. In late Feb 2018 they started quoting some of our epic March years. It took 3 fails but we did eventually cash in!   comp patterns tend to progress somewhat similar. I do think there is some value to seeing what the same general pattern produced in the past even beyond just on that exact date to set a guideline for potential. 

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2 hours ago, benjammin said:

Those tiny maps in the Washington Post and Star. Of course dialing 936-1212 but the biggest thing was when Bob Ryan said it was going to snow a lot because he was usually conservative and right. In January 96 when he forecasted 1-2 feet before a flake had fallen I knew we were going to get nailed.

Sent from my motorola edge plus using Tapatalk


 

I have distinct memories of watching Bob Ryan’s forecasts and loved it when he had to up his snow totals. He was always so conservative with his snow forecasts. 

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2 hours ago, benjammin said:

Those tiny maps in the Washington Post and Star. Of course dialing 936-1212 but the biggest thing was when Bob Ryan said it was going to snow a lot because he was usually conservative and right. In January 96 when he forecasted 1-2 feet before a flake had fallen I knew we were going to get nailed.

Sent from my motorola edge plus using Tapatalk


 

I know those Washington Star maps well. Used to deliver the Star a longggg time ago.

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51 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:


Could be one of those events where trees, colder surfaces are slick even in places that aren’t below freezing given its fairly frigid tonight and tomorrow.

     Spot on.      It's pretty clearly going to be well down into the 20s Saturday night before the temperature rises later at late.    All road surfaces will be super cold, so just getting to 32 or 33 Sunday morning won't end the icing threat.     It's also worth noting that the NAM Nest appears to be doing its usual thing of being slow with precip arrival, and the earlier start shown by some of the other guidance certainly suggests a fairly disruptive (and likely a high-impact) icing event.     The only thing keeping it from being an extreme high-impact event will be that it's on a Sunday morning.

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2 hours ago, Cobalt said:

Some rudimentary research, but here's what I could figure out.

1978-01-29 Follows a sizeable MA/NE storm on the 20th and predates the New England blizzard during Feb 5-7th (which we got scraps from).

1961-01-25 Follows a decent storm from the 18th-21st and predates a sizeable one from Feb 2nd-5th. DCA had a high of 18 and a low of 8 on the 25th, so a pretty frigid timeframe.

2007-01-28 Couldn't find much until well after 

Nice research! Just a couple of notes on these quoted dates:

The blizzard of 2/78 was a also a significant snowstorm from the northeast DC suburbs and northeastward, including Baltimore and especially northeastern MD. Immediate DC and west of the city did miss out.
 

1/26/61 was the only significant snow you missed on your entire list. 5.9” storm for DC. 
 

The end of January 2007 was notable not for a specific storm but for marking the pattern change that brought a wintry and very cold February. 

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37 minutes ago, high risk said:

     Spot on.      It's pretty clearly going to be well down into the 20s Saturday night before the temperature rises later at late.    All road surfaces will be super cold, so just getting to 32 or 33 Sunday morning won't end the icing threat.     It's also worth noting that the NAM Nest appears to be doing its usual thing of being slow with precip arrival, and the earlier start shown by some of the other guidance certainly suggests a fairly disruptive (and likely a high-impact) icing event.     The only thing keeping it from being an extreme high-impact event will be that it's on a Sunday morning.

I agree with both of you. Sunday morning may be nasty

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2 hours ago, AU74 said:

I always felt that Ryan would cover all bases more than being conservative.

The original great DC weatherman was Louis Allen, imo.

Louis Allen? Damn. You's old. And then it was Gordon Barnes and Bill Kamal. 

It’s been alluded to already, but as much as I presently enjoy tracking and guessing the outcomes of snow, I miss the days of kneeling over the newspaper and seeing yesterday’s weather and trying to figure out tomorrow’s from a black and white map with data that’s at least 18 hours old. Even back than I obsessed, but I didn’t do it every six hours.

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