MLK 2022 Storm Potential

[ChesterfieldVa80]

9 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

I’m just (unwisely) hugging the HRRR. Shows a very equitable 3-5” across the region with some banding winners before a little sleet and a little rain.

Do you have the entire state?

[NorthArlington101]

Do you have the entire state?

This leaves out the SW, which I think you are OK with based on your handle, but if not let me know and I’ll DM you something else.

[wkd]

2 hours ago, MillvilleWx said:

I want to make sure anyone interested in meteorology and wants to follow along with storms now and of the future; the upper level evolution is the driver the atmosphere. What happens up top will reflect what happens below it. Once you understand the dynamics of the levels 700mb and up, you can be a better forecaster. Cold and warm air will always have the ability to be washed out by an evolving surface and low-mid level pattern. This storm is no different. 

Sampling is a smaller issue at range than it ever has been due to GOES 16/17 and the countless reconnaissance we have delivered over the course of the past 10-15 years. Yes, some minor shifts that could play major components to a pattern evo can occur when a specific feature is sampled over land, but the discourse of, "Changing to tunes of 100s of miles" is ancient history. Overall, this has been a pretty well documented storm with minor adjustments here and there, but in a setup where every 10 miles counts and timing is everything, they are magnified. 

I didn't post last night for two reasons:

1) I was tired and my wife was finally off. I wanted to spend some time with her and we watched some of our favorite shows. It was a wonderful evening.

2) I wanted to see if models held serve on what the hi-res guidance has been insinuating recently, and it looks like they are. This will lead to a forecast shift myself, which I'll have today. 

For those interested in meteorology, I will preface by saying this will be a sight to watch unfold. Result you are looking for may be damned, but take it from someone only getting more wind and absolutely no precip from 2000 miles away; enjoy the meteorology and learn, or I would find something to do on Sunday evening that will take your mind off it all. Ice will be coming, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. Pattern is still loaded in the long range. We are okay for now. 

Enjoy your Saturday!! Life is too short to worry about what Mother Nature is gonna do.

"We'll weather the weather, whatever the weather, whether we like it or not!" 

 

[MDphotog]

1 hour ago, Weather Will said:

WB 12Z 3K NAM:  not as much precipitation in central zones.That will be interesting to track as well.

I don’t know if South Mountain has that much of a rain shadow effect, but we will see.

[nw baltimore wx]

A little frustrating to see the gfs wrapping the cold air around into the southeast quadrant just as the storm passes our latitude.

[wkd]

2 hours ago, MillvilleWx said:

I want to make sure anyone interested in meteorology and wants to follow along with storms now and of the future; the upper level evolution is the driver the atmosphere. What happens up top will reflect what happens below it. Once you understand the dynamics of the levels 700mb and up, you can be a better forecaster. Cold and warm air will always have the ability to be washed out by an evolving surface and low-mid level pattern. This storm is no different. 

Sampling is a smaller issue at range than it ever has been due to GOES 16/17 and the countless reconnaissance we have delivered over the course of the past 10-15 years. Yes, some minor shifts that could play major components to a pattern evo can occur when a specific feature is sampled over land, but the discourse of, "Changing to tunes of 100s of miles" is ancient history. Overall, this has been a pretty well documented storm with minor adjustments here and there, but in a setup where every 10 miles counts and timing is everything, they are magnified. 

I didn't post last night for two reasons:

1) I was tired and my wife was finally off. I wanted to spend some time with her and we watched some of our favorite shows. It was a wonderful evening.

2) I wanted to see if models held serve on what the hi-res guidance has been insinuating recently, and it looks like they are. This will lead to a forecast shift myself, which I'll have today. 

For those interested in meteorology, I will preface by saying this will be a sight to watch unfold. Result you are looking for may be damned, but take it from someone only getting more wind and absolutely no precip from 2000 miles away; enjoy the meteorology and learn, or I would find something to do on Sunday evening that will take your mind off it all. Ice will be coming, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. Pattern is still loaded in the long range. We are okay for now. 

Enjoy your Saturday!! Life is too short to worry about what Mother Nature is gonna do.

"We'll weather the weather, whatever the weather, whether we like it or not!" 

I really like your informative posts.  If you get the chance, please transfer to the Mount Holley office.

[MillvilleWx]

Alright y'all. I think I have time to delve into some details on this event and my forecast will be the last thing I post if you want to jump to it, now's your chance!

Anyway, the setup is one that is complicated in the evolution, but the ground truth makes perfect sense meteorologically. Leading into the event, a cold HP over the top will deliver some pretty chilly air to the east coast with wedging down as far as northern GA. Traditionally, this would spell a pretty significant snow/ice storm for the piedmont and areas NW. There will be significant storm, but how we get there will determine the fate of the sub-forum. That fate will make some people sad, but it unfortunately is how it is and how we will roll, so lets dig in.

First off, a potent upper-low (ULL) is currently traversing the south plains into the Arklatex and will round the corner this evening and move through the Deep south. This ULL will be matured and ready to go as it moves eastward overnight into tomorrow morning prior to making the turn NE after it enters GA. Over the N Atlantic, a beast of a low pressure will meander for about 12-18 hrs before slowing pulling eastward due to limited blocking over Greenland. This will allow for spacing to occur to our NE and weak ridge extension from the Atlantic over New England. This allows our HP to the north to scoot eastward, generating an onshore pattern for later in the storms life cycle (More on that in a bit).

 

Off to the NW over Canada, a progressive shortwave trough will dig into the northern plains with eyes on the Midwest/OH Valley by Monday. This is what will cause a fair bit of commotion in the overall setup as the shortwave will "capture" the ULL over the east and begin to lasso it in place while tilting the trough negative as it wanders nearby. The associated surface low over the SE will motion to the north, then NW as the anchored 500mb presence will drive the low pressure towards the ULL as the features try to stack on top of each other, which is known as an occlusion.

While this is all happening, the low pressure along the Atlantic coast will bomb out on its journey north, generating a prominent low-level jet (LLJ) in the lower confines of the boundary layer (PBL). Remember that HP that moved out into the Atlantic, well that in tandem with the developing LLJ will couple to create a "fire hose" effect of warm, moist air within the 850-700mb layer in the atmosphere. Figure Below shows a 7 StDev u-vector component. That screams warm/moist air funneling due west off the Atlantic. This is caused by the tandem of the base of the HP off the coast and the counter-clockwise flow around our surface low. This is what will be aimed at the area during the storms life cycle as it moves into the region. In the very beginning of the storm, the antecedent airmass is still pretty cold with near to below 0C temps through the column above. The leading precip will help wet bulb temps a bit with an initial start as snow, but the vigor of the LLJ will allow for the warm air aloft to quickly notch above freezing with areas to the SE seeing the transition first. Due to the increasing pressure gradient pattern and slow warming of the PBL, winds will increase areawide, leading to a mixing out of the cold surface inversion layer in place. This is why temps on models appear to "jump" to near and above freezing despite the cold air that was in place. There is no refresh of cold air to lock into place, so the warmer air above is able to mix appropriately and nothing can fight it back. 

As the storm begins its occlusion phase, guidance wants to have the stacking phenomena occur pretty much overhead or very close by. ULL's are dynamic and a mature mid-latitude cyclone has multiple parts that make it tick. As the low becomes stacked and the phase between the Midwest shortwave and ULL occur, the storm will drift off to the NE given the lack of blocking and the region will be on the backside of the flow at all levels. A strong vort max on the base of the mean trough axis will pivot through on Monday AM with a potential to kick off some light to moderate snow showers before pulling NE due losing the areal ascent on the underside of the trough. Way out west in the mountains, a continuous westerly flow pattern found on the western flank of the low/trough pattern will induce a period of upslope snowfall under cold upper-level conditions, leading to a higher-ratio powder that occurs over the traditional spots in Garrett/Tucker counties in MD/WV respectively. This will add to the synoptically drive snowfall with the storm, putting those areas in the best chance to reach double digits, despite the fact they will likely mix with sleet/freezing rain for a time during the storms height at their latitude. 

Overall, this is still a pretty high profile event due to expected winds and widespread impacts from N GA up into New England. As fate would have it, it's just not a pure snow event due to the lack of reinforcing cold air and the positioning/magnitude of features that occur overhead. That's just meteorology for you, but one cool thing to take away is the satellite will be pretty incredible, and will fit the textbook of a classic Norwegian Modeled Mid-Latitude Cyclone (Gotta love the Nords for their expertise on this matter )

In any case, there will still be winter weather in the area, and here's my thoughts displayed. I utilized a blend of NBM interpretation and hi-res guidance as they begin to narrow down the goal posts in terms of precip/timing/temps. There's a MEDIUM confidence on this forecast as there could be a slight bust either way, so keep an eye on those short term trends tomorrow to see what could be occurring. For now, look for a wintry mess with all the trimmings. 

Second Call (Potentially Final outside Minor Adjustments)

[SnowGolfBro]

26/1 in Montclair. Cloudy. Feels like rain lol

[Stormfly]

7 minutes ago, MillvilleWx said:

Alright y'all. I think I have time to delve into some details on this event and my forecast will be the last thing I post if you want to jump to it, now's your chance!...snip

Thanks for this informative post and taking the time to explain this.

I leave at it this, I'll take what we get!  At least it's a storm, it breaks up the monotony of boring weather!

[lpaschall]

Westminster 19/0. Hard to believe I may only get an inch of snow but the guidance so far is hard to ignore. Definitely going to be monitoring the Meso’s and compare to the previous model runs.

[nj2va]

Waiting at the tire shop getting my snow tires put on for the season — sorry to those out in the mountains for jinxing the storm now.  

[WinterWxLuvr]

50 minutes ago, stormtracker said:

Or better yet, by viewing this movie:

That would make you Captain Smith 

[clskinsfan]

CMC drives the surface low over Leesburg. The blessing about that is surface temps even out here go up to the mid 30's. I would prefer not to lose power. Temps do crash again mid day Tuesday. But if its right freezing rain wont be an issue out here. 

If the GFS is right get your generators warmed up. 

[WinterWxLuvr]

I think it’s easy to lose sight of things. If the storm fails, so be it. For the record I’m not on that train yet. But even if it does, the last few days have been fun. Interaction amongst this crew is awesome. I have laughed more times than I can count. Isn’t that what we are here for. Our thoughts and observations have nothing at all to do with the weather that actually transpires. We do this for fun. Keep that in mind.

[jayyy]

It’s alright guys, at 18z DT will release a new snow map, claiming the models will pick up on the effects of the volcanic eruption flaring tsunami advisories along the west coast, shifting our storm hundreds of miles east downstream.
 

Stay focused.    
 

**sarcasm**

[mdhokie]

16 minutes ago, nj2va said:

Waiting at the tire shop getting my snow tires put on for the season — sorry to those out in the mountains for jinxing the storm now.  

I brought my generator up just in case, so we are double jinxed now.

[IUsedToHateCold]

1 hour ago, stormtracker said:

Or better yet, by viewing this movie:

I think we will be lacking the iceberg around these parts. I suppose my heart will go on

[NorthArlington101]

[nj2va]

2 hours ago, Fozz said:

I'll be staying in Garrett county Sunday through Tuesday, but I'm thinking I will head to Timberline on Monday. It's a bit of a drive but it looks way too good to resist. And this time it looks like just about the entire mountain will be open. An amazing opportunity coming up.

I haven’t been there but I’ve read great things this season about them. Conditions will be perfect with powder falling Monday. 

[clskinsfan]

Round and round she goes. What a beast. 

 

[BristowWx]

Just now, clskinsfan said:

Round and round she goes. What a beast. 

 

In a normal situation we would be giddy about this…like silly mode

[Bob Chill]

2 hours ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

I don't recall, but have any of our big snowstorms became stacked south of us?

We all know the perfect track of the SLP, but what is the optimum track of the 700 and 500 lows?

Where do we want the capture to occur?

I made a typo in my op and went back and fixed it. It is uncommon in winter with an upper level setup like this to have the low stack and start occluding so early. Which can still easily work for a big storm with a clean offshore track. That's not what we have here due to that stupid hallway of weakness tracking NW of the upper low. It what it is. 

Ultimately, we just want Feb 2010 type storms. Capture and stack just off shore near or just south of our latitude. Those types of storms never stop snowing and the finale is usually heavy high ratio stuff as things crank in the upper levels 9ver the gulf stream. 

We can also do well with an upper level "trailer" type progression. Jan 2011 and Feb 2014 are perfect examples. Lull in between sucks but it's still a 1-2 punch. Those progressions often smoke the NE big time because they catch the climax during the capture phase. 

Once a storm stacks, it's done getting stronger. It marks the beginning of the weakening process. Occlusion is well along in the weakening process. Basically, whomever is due west or NW when the upper and mid level lows move over top of the surface low will be smiling ear to ear for many hours 

Eta: no matter what the progression is, generally speaking you want all 3 to pass south and east of us. We can survive the upper low passing over or west on a slanted system if the surface and mid level lows draw in cold air (banana highs are so dman important because of this). We can sometimes survive an 850 low passing west or overhead. Surface low? Lol. We survived one in 2014 but that shocked  basically everyone. 

[Buddy1987]

53 minutes ago, MillvilleWx said:

Alright y'all. I think I have time to delve into some details on this event and my forecast will be the last thing I post if you want to jump to it, now's your chance!

Anyway, the setup is one that is complicated in the evolution, but the ground truth makes perfect sense meteorologically. Leading into the event, a cold HP over the top will deliver some pretty chilly air to the east coast with wedging down as far as northern GA. Traditionally, this would spell a pretty significant snow/ice storm for the piedmont and areas NW. There will be significant storm, but how we get there will determine the fate of the sub-forum. That fate will make some people sad, but it unfortunately is how it is and how we will roll, so lets dig in.

First off, a potent upper-low (ULL) is currently traversing the south plains into the Arklatex and will round the corner this evening and move through the Deep south. This ULL will be matured and ready to go as it moves eastward overnight into tomorrow morning prior to making the turn NE after it enters GA. Over the N Atlantic, a beast of a low pressure will meander for about 12-18 hrs before slowing pulling eastward due to limited blocking over Greenland. This will allow for spacing to occur to our NE and weak ridge extension from the Atlantic over New England. This allows our HP to the north to scoot eastward, generating an onshore pattern for later in the storms life cycle (More on that in a bit).

 

Off to the NW over Canada, a progressive shortwave trough will dig into the northern plains with eyes on the Midwest/OH Valley by Monday. This is what will cause a fair bit of commotion in the overall setup as the shortwave will "capture" the ULL over the east and begin to lasso it in place while tilting the trough negative as it wanders nearby. The associated surface low over the SE will motion to the north, then NW as the anchored 500mb presence will drive the low pressure towards the ULL as the features try to stack on top of each other, which is known as an occlusion.

While this is all happening, the low pressure along the Atlantic coast will bomb out on its journey north, generating a prominent low-level jet (LLJ) in the lower confines of the boundary layer (PBL). Remember that HP that moved out into the Atlantic, well that in tandem with the developing LLJ will couple to create a "fire hose" effect of warm, moist air within the 850-700mb layer in the atmosphere. Figure Below shows a 7 StDev u-vector component. That screams warm/moist air funneling due west off the Atlantic. This is caused by the tandem of the base of the HP off the coast and the counter-clockwise flow around our surface low. This is what will be aimed at the area during the storms life cycle as it moves into the region. In the very beginning of the storm, the antecedent airmass is still pretty cold with near to below 0C temps through the column above. The leading precip will help wet bulb temps a bit with an initial start as snow, but the vigor of the LLJ will allow for the warm air aloft to quickly notch above freezing with areas to the SE seeing the transition first. Due to the increasing pressure gradient pattern and slow warming of the PBL, winds will increase areawide, leading to a mixing out of the cold surface inversion layer in place. This is why temps on models appear to "jump" to near and above freezing despite the cold air that was in place. There is no refresh of cold air to lock into place, so the warmer air above is able to mix appropriately and nothing can fight it back. 

As the storm begins its occlusion phase, guidance wants to have the stacking phenomena occur pretty much overhead or very close by. ULL's are dynamic and a mature mid-latitude cyclone has multiple parts that make it tick. As the low becomes stacked and the phase between the Midwest shortwave and ULL occur, the storm will drift off to the NE given the lack of blocking and the region will be on the backside of the flow at all levels. A strong vort max on the base of the mean trough axis will pivot through on Monday AM with a potential to kick off some light to moderate snow showers before pulling NE due losing the areal ascent on the underside of the trough. Way out west in the mountains, a continuous westerly flow pattern found on the western flank of the low/trough pattern will induce a period of upslope snowfall under cold upper-level conditions, leading to a higher-ratio powder that occurs over the traditional spots in Garrett/Tucker counties in MD/WV respectively. This will add to the synoptically drive snowfall with the storm, putting those areas in the best chance to reach double digits, despite the fact they will likely mix with sleet/freezing rain for a time during the storms height at their latitude. 

Overall, this is still a pretty high profile event due to expected winds and widespread impacts from N GA up into New England. As fate would have it, it's just not a pure snow event due to the lack of reinforcing cold air and the positioning/magnitude of features that occur overhead. That's just meteorology for you, but one cool thing to take away is the satellite will be pretty incredible, and will fit the textbook of a classic Norwegian Modeled Mid-Latitude Cyclone (Gotta love the Nords for their expertise on this matter )

In any case, there will still be winter weather in the area, and here's my thoughts displayed. I utilized a blend of NBM interpretation and hi-res guidance as they begin to narrow down the goal posts in terms of precip/timing/temps. There's a MEDIUM confidence on this forecast as there could be a slight bust either way, so keep an eye on those short term trends tomorrow to see what could be occurring. For now, look for a wintry mess with all the trimmings. 

Second Call (Potentially Final outside Minor Adjustments)

This is awesome!! Appreciate you getting back to me yesterday. I know the globals are too close to game time at this juncture but the GFS has been overly consistent out this way for days on end, never wavering. I do fear that LLJ as well however and am hoping we can cash in on that initial thump of WAA before any derailment of the mid levels become a factor to change over to sleet. 

[LeesburgWx]

DT now turning the blame on the NWS so people forget his hilarious map from last night. Unreal hahaha

[Buffalo Transplant]

Good afternoon from sunny Buffalo at a balmy 8 degrees!  So what timing do we think for onset?  Trying to plan the trip back in the morning and obviously want to try and beat it.  Thanks everyone and Go Bills!

[Mordecai]

32 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

I think it’s easy to lose sight of things. If the storm fails, so be it. For the record I’m not on that train yet. But even if it does, the last few days have been fun. Interaction amongst this crew is awesome. I have laughed more times than I can count. Isn’t that what we are here for. Our thoughts and observations have nothing at all to do with the weather that actually transpires. We do this for fun. Keep that in mind.

The real snow will always be the friends we made along the way 

[DDweatherman]

4 minutes ago, LeesburgWx said:

DT now turning the blame on the NWS so people forget his hilarious map from last night. Unreal hahaha

As you guys know DT is a laughing stock as a meteorologist. Totally unprofessional and disrespectful to his followers.

He’s better when it doesn’t involve his backyard but he pulls stunts like these all the time. 
 

Shouldn’t even be mentioned with the quality of Mets in this thread. 

[nj2va]

6 minutes ago, LeesburgWx said:

DT now turning the blame on the NWS so people forget his hilarious map from last night. Unreal hahaha

His final call map will be out after precip starts. 

[Amped]

Fun forecast for the Cleveland metro.

[IronTy]

4 minutes ago, nj2va said:

His final call map will be out after precip starts. 

Talked to the realtor, I'm setting up to look at that property next week if conditions allow. The G Wagon is getting serviced so I'd have to drive my old WRX and am not sure how good the roads are.