March Medium/Long Range Discussion

[TSG]

36 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Just because there’s no cold pattern on the horizon after Sunday doesn’t mean it won’t hit freezing again! Last freeze even in the cities is usually at least late March? 

March 29 for CHO

[WinterWxLuvr]

1 hour ago, WxUSAF said:

Just because there’s no cold pattern on the horizon after Sunday doesn’t mean it won’t hit freezing again! Last freeze even in the cities is usually at least late March? 

Early May here. But even if it’s not freezing, it can still be cold for many more weeks

[frd]

1 hour ago, CAPE said:

Just about time to deactivate my WB account until next December. it's been real.

You did relatively well this winter considering, I basically lost interest after mid February without any type of upstream blocking or negative nao it was very difficult to cash in. I am looking for to a walk on Sunday morning when the temperatures are forecasted to be in the lower 20s , this might be the last time this winter we get to the lower to mid-20s for overnight lows.

[BristowWx]

5 minutes ago, frd said:

You did relatively well this winter considering, I basically lost interest after mid February without any type of upstream blocking or negative nao it was very difficult to cash in. I am looking for to a walk on Sunday morning when the temperatures are forecasted to be in the lower 20s , this might be the last time this winter we get to the lower to mid-20s for overnight lows.

yes we do above normal temps quite well..there will be no shortage of those days.  be nice to see snow one last time before we push off the dock

[Weather Will]

WB 12Z EURO….

 

[WinterWxLuvr]

If the euro is to be believed, Saturday morning would be fun

[Scraff]

26 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

WB 12Z EURO….

I’ll take my mulch topper and like it. Hell of a winter. 

[Chris78]

5 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

WB 12Z EURO….

It's still snowing at 1pm on Saturday. 

Your slacking WW. 

[CAPE]

31 minutes ago, frd said:

You did relatively well this winter considering, I basically lost interest after mid February without any type of upstream blocking or negative nao it was very difficult to cash in. I am looking for to a walk on Sunday morning when the temperatures are forecasted to be in the lower 20s , this might be the last time this winter we get to the lower to mid-20s for overnight lows.

I am totally content with this winter honestly. January was about as good as it can get here, so even though December was a snowless torch( the usual) and February was nearly snowless, I exceeded the the long term annual mean, and it all fell during the best month climatologically for combo of cold and snow and low sun angle. The pattern was generally cold and the snow stayed around awhile too.

[Weather Will]

Updated….:)

29 minutes ago, Chris78 said:

It's still snowing at 1pm on Saturday. 

Your slacking WW. 

 

[Roger Smith]

Saturday snow potential in the I-95 corridor probably squalls with cold front that will blast through with NW winds 35-55 mph, could be brief visibility reductions with that, some areas a bit higher up will have a flash freeze situation and 1-2" then the mountains should see a decent snowstorm of 4-7". Morning highs will range from about 55-60 in the Delmarva and se VA, to near 45 in DC and 50 in BAL, temps will drop about 15-20 deg within 3-6 hours after the front. 

Hat tip to Capt Obvious on that one. 

Any last minute eastward shift on this low track and you have yourselves a surprise snowstorm.

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

1 hour ago, Weather Will said:

Updated….:)

 

I would guess all or nearly all that falls between ~15Z-20Z, there about, before it hauls ass out of here.  At least that is what appeared to be when precip would be frozen.

ETA:  I'm talking more in the metro areas, but I'd still think most of it falls for the N/W folks in that same time period as well.

[psuhoffman]

6 hours ago, HighStakes said:

Another dud. So close to a decent little event. 

This is another event I log into my "this is concerning" mental file.  Maybe not for DC and Baltimore as marginal events in mid March were always problematic for them, but up here this was troubling imo.   We had a low off the Delmarva with a reasonable airmass profile across the CONUS to work with, at least by recent standards, and the lower levels didnt work out even for our area with 1000 ft of elevation.  Even when it was pounding snow it was 34/35 degrees at my house!  

There have been numerous little things that bug me every time I see them.  Like how there are frequently storms in mid winter without any appreciable frozen precipitation shield on the NW side at our latitude!  Like how there are more and more examples of storms where there is no ice transition zone because the boundary temps are so warm well into the "cold sector" of the storm that it just goes right from rain to snow.  We saw a troubling thing today that I have noted recently a lot...typically there are two zones of higher snowfall.  One just NW of the rain/snow line where there is heavy precip associated with the frontal/baroclinic forcing and one further NW associated with higher ratios and better mid and upper level forcing.  But lately the former zone is often rain...and the only snow zone is the latter because the rain snow line is much further NW then it should be given the track of the system and where the baroclinic boundary is!  

The retort I get every time I bring these things up is for people to focus on the imperfections.  "Well this or that wasn't exactly perfect".  Yea.  That's true.  I am not saying it can't snow anymore.  But its not going to snow very much if we need EVERY DAMN THING to be exactly perfect.  It used to snow frequently in very flawed scenarios.  I know...I did a deep examination of every warning snowfall event for both our area and Baltimore!  Not even the majority were perfect classic everything was right setups.  All of the 20" plus storms were...and I would say most of the 10" plus ones in the cities are also...but up here we bootlegged our way to 10" storms quite a bit with really funky looking patterns and synoptic looks in the past.  Recently it seems to get a snow of any significance we need everything to be almost freaking perfect and that is annoying and has be pretty disillusioned because perfect doesn't come along very often.  We need to be able to win with decent but flawed looks more often then we are lately imo or our winters are going to be...well like they have been most of the last 7 years.   And yes I am including 2016 in there because while we did get the HECS...that was a PERFECT setup so that doesn't count towards my gripe here...and there were 2 other marginal but pretty good im0 setups that year that failed.  One managed a decent event up here but was another example of a mid winter perfect track 36 degree rain event in the cities!  

[Ji]

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

This is another event I log into my "this is concerning" mental file.  Maybe not for DC and Baltimore as marginal events in mid March were always problematic for them, but up here this was troubling imo.   We had a low off the Delmarva with a reasonable airmass profile across the CONUS to work with, at least by recent standards, and the lower levels didnt work out even for our area with 1000 ft of elevation.  Even when it was pounding snow it was 34/35 degrees at my house!  

There have been numerous little things that bug me every time I see them.  Like how there are frequently storms in mid winter without any appreciable frozen precipitation shield on the NW side at our latitude!  Like how there are more and more examples of storms where there is no ice transition zone because the boundary temps are so warm well into the "cold sector" of the storm that it just goes right from rain to snow.  We saw a troubling thing today that I have noted recently a lot...typically there are two zones of higher snowfall.  One just NW of the rain/snow line where there is heavy precip associated with the frontal/baroclinic forcing and one further NW associated with higher ratios and better mid and upper level forcing.  But lately the former zone is often rain...and the only snow zone is the latter because the rain snow line is much further NW then it should be given the track of the system and where the baroclinic boundary is!  

The retort I get every time I bring these things up is for people to focus on the imperfections.  "Well this or that wasn't exactly perfect".  Yea.  That's true.  I am not saying it can't snow anymore.  But its not going to snow very much if we need EVERY DAMN THING to be exactly perfect.  It used to snow frequently in very flawed scenarios.  I know...I did a deep examination of every warning snowfall event for both our area and Baltimore!  Not even the majority were perfect classic everything was right setups.  All of the 20" plus storms were...and I would say most of the 10" plus ones in the cities are also...but up here we bootlegged our way to 10" storms quite a bit with really funky looking patterns and synoptic looks in the past.  Recently it seems to get a snow of any significance we need everything to be almost freaking perfect and that is annoying and has be pretty disillusioned because perfect doesn't come along very often.  We need to be able to win with decent but flawed looks more often then we are lately imo or our winters are going to be...well like they have been most of the last 7 years.   And yes I am including 2016 in there because while we did get the HECS...that was a PERFECT setup so that doesn't count towards my gripe here...and there were 2 other marginal but pretty good im0 setups that year that failed.  One managed a decent event up here but was another example of a mid winter perfect track 36 degree rain event in the cities!  

what a juicy event today. in the old day...we would of seen at least snow mix with rain and not accumuate. The Euro had mixed precip for my area at 12z. the NAM/Euro had me at 35/36 at 12z with heavy precip....it never went below 40

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

This is another event I log into my "this is concerning" mental file.  Maybe not for DC and Baltimore as marginal events in mid March were always problematic for them, but up here this was troubling imo.   We had a low off the Delmarva with a reasonable airmass profile across the CONUS to work with, at least by recent standards, and the lower levels didnt work out even for our area with 1000 ft of elevation.  Even when it was pounding snow it was 34/35 degrees at my house!  

There have been numerous little things that bug me every time I see them.  Like how there are frequently storms in mid winter without any appreciable frozen precipitation shield on the NW side at our latitude!  Like how there are more and more examples of storms where there is no ice transition zone because the boundary temps are so warm well into the "cold sector" of the storm that it just goes right from rain to snow.  We saw a troubling thing today that I have noted recently a lot...typically there are two zones of higher snowfall.  One just NW of the rain/snow line where there is heavy precip associated with the frontal/baroclinic forcing and one further NW associated with higher ratios and better mid and upper level forcing.  But lately the former zone is often rain...and the only snow zone is the latter because the rain snow line is much further NW then it should be given the track of the system and where the baroclinic boundary is!  

The retort I get every time I bring these things up is for people to focus on the imperfections.  "Well this or that wasn't exactly perfect".  Yea.  That's true.  I am not saying it can't snow anymore.  But its not going to snow very much if we need EVERY DAMN THING to be exactly perfect.  It used to snow frequently in very flawed scenarios.  I know...I did a deep examination of every warning snowfall event for both our area and Baltimore!  Not even the majority were perfect classic everything was right setups.  All of the 20" plus storms were...and I would say most of the 10" plus ones in the cities are also...but up here we bootlegged our way to 10" storms quite a bit with really funky looking patterns and synoptic looks in the past.  Recently it seems to get a snow of any significance we need everything to be almost freaking perfect and that is annoying and has be pretty disillusioned because perfect doesn't come along very often.  We need to be able to win with decent but flawed looks more often then we are lately imo or our winters are going to be...well like they have been most of the last 7 years.   And yes I am including 2016 in there because while we did get the HECS...that was a PERFECT setup so that doesn't count towards my gripe here...and there were 2 other marginal but pretty good im0 setups that year that failed.  One managed a decent event up here but was another example of a mid winter perfect track 36 degree rain event in the cities!  

Some very good points.  It almost makes me think if something like Commutageddon (Jan. 2011) would even work out as well or at all in the cities anymore, if it were to occur today.  It was a marginal event, at least near the surface.  That may not be the best example, as that was very dynamically driven with intense uplift and I believe the 850 temps crashed.  So perhaps not quite fair.  But you get the idea.  It was like 33-35, there about, while it was snowing hard for like 5 hours.  A perfect paste job.  Right after the snow ended it started melting underneath (at least on roads), before everything froze later that night as temperatures finally dropped.

[psuhoffman]

15 minutes ago, Ji said:

what a juicy event today. in the old day...we would of seen at least snow mix with rain and not accumuate. The Euro had mixed precip for my area at 12z. the NAM/Euro had me at 35/36 at 12z with heavy precip....it never went below 40

 

12 minutes ago, Always in Zugzwang said:

Some very good points.  It almost makes me think if something like Commutageddon (Jan. 2011) would even work out as well or at all in the cities anymore, if it were to occur today.  It was a marginal event, at least near the surface.  That may not be the best example, as that was very dynamically driven with intense uplift and I believe the 850 temps crashed.  So perhaps not quite fair.  But you get the idea.  It was like 33-35, there about, while it was snowing hard for like 5 hours.  A perfect paste job.  Right after the snow ended it started melting underneath (at least on roads), before everything froze later that night as temperatures finally dropped.

I don’t have the ability to quantify this accurately. I’d be very interested if someone found a way to model this and went back and tried to use old saved data to project how some historical events would be different in todays temps. Of course maybe we could do that simply for the UHI effects but it’s not really likely to work on a full scale since the temp changes affect the global patterns so the truth is none of those storms would have even existed at all and completely different storms would if we changed the whole temp equation. You can’t just change just the temps but keep everything else the same. It doesn’t work that way. 
 

But to simplify I think everything’s bleeding the wrong way to some marginal degree. Ignoring the fact they wouldn’t be the same events I think in general storms that would have been a 30* 8” snow would be a 32* 6” wet paste bomb now.  Some 6” paste bomb might be a 2-4” slush slop fest now. And what I was a slop fest is now white rain. You get the idea. 

[WesternFringe]

Washington DC has annual snowfall data going back to 1888.  When I get a chance, I will enter in all the annual totals and run a linear regression to find the line of best fit.  By the slope of that line, we will be able to quantify any change in snowfall totals relative to the totals of the late 1880s, or from any point in time since for that matter.

I can then overlay and/or add other cities and do likewise.  It should be interesting to see how the cities may differ or not and what the slope is when starting with different points in time.

16 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

 

I don’t have the ability to quantify this accurately. I’d be very interested if someone found a way to model this and went back and tried to use old saved data to project how some historical events would be different in todays temps. Of course maybe we could do that simply for the UHI effects but it’s not really likely to work on a full scale since the temp changes affect the global patterns so the truth is none of those storms would have even existed at all and completely different storms would if we changed the whole temp equation. You can’t just change just the temps but keep everything else the same. It doesn’t work that way. 
 

But to simplify I think everything’s bleeding the wrong way to some marginal degree. Ignoring the fact they wouldn’t be the same events I think in general storms that would have been a 30* 8” snow would be a 32* 6” wet paste bomb now.  Some 6” paste bomb might be a 2-4” slush slop fest now. And what I was a slop fest is now white rain. You get the idea. 

 

[midatlanticweather]

I am definitely no meteorologist, but I wonder if there also a correlation to the heat of the ocean on the east coast. To me, when they are as anomalously warm as they are now it is a factor that can influence the impact of the marginal temps. Maybe I am grasping at straws.. but I just wonder.. yes, that can help juice up storms at times so it can be helpful, but I also think it messes things up. 

The Ocean is off the chart above normal! 

[HighStakes]

50 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

 

I don’t have the ability to quantify this accurately. I’d be very interested if someone found a way to model this and went back and tried to use old saved data to project how some historical events would be different in todays temps. Of course maybe we could do that simply for the UHI effects but it’s not really likely to work on a full scale since the temp changes affect the global patterns so the truth is none of those storms would have even existed at all and completely different storms would if we changed the whole temp equation. You can’t just change just the temps but keep everything else the same. It doesn’t work that way. 
 

But to simplify I think everything’s bleeding the wrong way to some marginal degree. Ignoring the fact they wouldn’t be the same events I think in general storms that would have been a 30* 8” snow would be a 32* 6” wet paste bomb now.  Some 6” paste bomb might be a 2-4” slush slop fest now. And what I was a slop fest is now white rain. You get the idea. 

There were several cold shots this past January that were certainly solid cold days but I'm convinced they would have been more impressive just several years ago. DCA is another story all together but now even BWI has trouble staying below freezing during the day even when there is a decent mid winter cold front. 

There are way too many days that bust warm now. A sunny winter day forecasted to be in the mid 40's ends up in the low 50's up here. On the other side it seems there are almost no days that bust too low anymore. 

[CAPE]

1 hour ago, Always in Zugzwang said:

Some very good points.  It almost makes me think if something like Commutageddon (Jan. 2011) would even work out as well or at all in the cities anymore, if it were to occur today.  It was a marginal event, at least near the surface.  That may not be the best example, as that was very dynamically driven with intense uplift and I believe the 850 temps crashed.  So perhaps not quite fair.  But you get the idea.  It was like 33-35, there about, while it was snowing hard for like 5 hours.  A perfect paste job.  Right after the snow ended it started melting underneath (at least on roads), before everything froze later that night as temperatures finally dropped.

My take on today's event specifically is it was simply a bad setup for our latitude. The lower levels were complete crap with with really no mechanism for colder or drier air to advect in for any significant cooling. Most guidance had just about all locations wet bulbing above freezing. Dynamic cooling gets talked up a lot but it cant work miracles, and in this instance we would have needed some hella rates for a long duration to get it done even in areas with some elevation. Just because a low tracks along/off the coast to our south doesn't mean we snow simply because temps are marginal and "should cool" enough. 

[BristowWx]

I may not see a flake of snow out of this.  Wretched winter please end soon.  

[CAPE]

HH GFS has my yard as the east of the mountains jackpot!

Sorry @Weather WillI couldn't resist.

[jaydreb]

Not even pity flakes on the GFS?

[CAPE]

1 minute ago, jaydreb said:

Not even pity flakes on the GFS?

This has been/will be an uphill battle. There is more bad with this setup than good. We can say that for a lot of events, but removing the weenie glasses this has mostly always looked too warm in front and too progressive, save for a few op runs here and there. Maybe the latest Euro is on to something (again?) lol. I doubt it. I think at best its a brief period of snow/ snow showers depending on the timing of the cold with the ass end of the wave along the front. We know how that usually works despite what guidance might suggest.

[Weather Will]

WB 18Z GEFS; know you aren’t supposed to use ensembles within 3 days….

[BTRWx's Thanks Giving]

6 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

WB 18Z GEFS; know you aren’t supposed to use ensembles within 3 days….

That's not a bad look.

[JVscotch]

15 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

WB 18Z GEFS; know you aren’t supposed to use ensembles within 3 days….

Was this improved vs. 12z?

[WxUSAF]

2 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

This is another event I log into my "this is concerning" mental file.  Maybe not for DC and Baltimore as marginal events in mid March were always problematic for them, but up here this was troubling imo.   We had a low off the Delmarva with a reasonable airmass profile across the CONUS to work with, at least by recent standards, and the lower levels didnt work out even for our area with 1000 ft of elevation.  Even when it was pounding snow it was 34/35 degrees at my house!  

There have been numerous little things that bug me every time I see them.  Like how there are frequently storms in mid winter without any appreciable frozen precipitation shield on the NW side at our latitude!  Like how there are more and more examples of storms where there is no ice transition zone because the boundary temps are so warm well into the "cold sector" of the storm that it just goes right from rain to snow.  We saw a troubling thing today that I have noted recently a lot...typically there are two zones of higher snowfall.  One just NW of the rain/snow line where there is heavy precip associated with the frontal/baroclinic forcing and one further NW associated with higher ratios and better mid and upper level forcing.  But lately the former zone is often rain...and the only snow zone is the latter because the rain snow line is much further NW then it should be given the track of the system and where the baroclinic boundary is!  

The retort I get every time I bring these things up is for people to focus on the imperfections.  "Well this or that wasn't exactly perfect".  Yea.  That's true.  I am not saying it can't snow anymore.  But its not going to snow very much if we need EVERY DAMN THING to be exactly perfect.  It used to snow frequently in very flawed scenarios.  I know...I did a deep examination of every warning snowfall event for both our area and Baltimore!  Not even the majority were perfect classic everything was right setups.  All of the 20" plus storms were...and I would say most of the 10" plus ones in the cities are also...but up here we bootlegged our way to 10" storms quite a bit with really funky looking patterns and synoptic looks in the past.  Recently it seems to get a snow of any significance we need everything to be almost freaking perfect and that is annoying and has be pretty disillusioned because perfect doesn't come along very often.  We need to be able to win with decent but flawed looks more often then we are lately imo or our winters are going to be...well like they have been most of the last 7 years.   And yes I am including 2016 in there because while we did get the HECS...that was a PERFECT setup so that doesn't count towards my gripe here...and there were 2 other marginal but pretty good im0 setups that year that failed.  One managed a decent event up here but was another example of a mid winter perfect track 36 degree rain event in the cities!  

Here’s your 2-4F warming 

 

[BTRWx's Thanks Giving]

2 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Here’s your 2-4F warming 

 

Interesting to see how the most tornado prone region has some of the least warming.

[WxUSAF]

2 minutes ago, BTRWx's Thanks Giving said:

Interesting to see how the most tornado prone region has some of the least warming.

That’s explicitly December-February