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Jan Medium/Long Range Disco: Winter is coming


stormtracker
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3 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

This kind of proves my point...that the temps are the most important issue...the thing I don't get is you act like its a given we will always have temp problems...NO its not...There are plenty of times we had a cold enough antecedent airmass in place that was....wait for it...5-10 degrees colder than the one forecasted this week.  And that's why it snowed those times and why it might not this time for many places!

Look at where the thermal boundary is at 850 and surface as the wave approaches

Surface

Boundary2.thumb.jpg.34bee389bb9ff84e6a80d4414c782f69.jpg

850...and look where the REAL cold boundary is

thumbnail_image0.jpg.d6eb4874db5de3207d5f3805d4bd7865.jpg

This is NOT what we want or need the thermals to look like as a wave begins its final approach...the WAA hasn't even kicked into high gear yet and were already too warm!  We are left relying on everything else to be absolutely perfect to make up for the one main deficiency.  

Look at what we WANT the thermals to look like as a strong wave approaches us from the southwest...just so we can remember what COLD ENOUGH looked like, what we actually want the thermals to look like.  

January 1996

Boundary3.png.f646120f68227509814db7e784ee2efa.png

Ok maybe this isn't fair...it's one of our colder big storms and during a Nina.  So here is a storm in another strong Nino during a very "warm" winter...at least by those days standards

Feb 1983

Boundary4.png.fe178a7a54badf6476a66327bf9b8c65.png

And finally...Feb 2010 and at the time this was considered to be a marginal airmass!  I remember about 5 days before that event I was discussing with Wes weather the airmass would be cold enough, he thought it was problematic and we were debating if with a perfect track it would be able to overcome the "questionable" airmass... so this was considered marginal and the bare minimum of what we need to be cold enough to snow

Boundary5.png.44a26336a56232c1480d17605c23bf1b.png

Still miles better than what we have leading up to this event on guidance.  

So we could be super picky and analyze what we need from the SLP track and the upper low and the exact amplitude of the wave and the exact composition of the 50/50 and the western trough....but the one obvious flaw that makes it so that we need all that other crap to go 100% perfectly for us to get a big snow in DC is that its NOT COLD ENOUGH.  

BTW the reason I have been saying this a LOT lately is because its been true a lot lately and its why its not been snowing much the last 7 years.  This is the least edgy controversial thing Ive ever said.  Its a melba toast comment.  Its like DUH.  There is no mystery to why we haven't been snowing as much lately.  


THIS IS WHY...Temp anomalies Dec-Feb last 7 winters

Warm.png.18b95889d7a0ad6598832d843f826c67.png

ITS THAT SIMPLE 

Say it more.  You have proven your point (at least to your self-satisfaction) literally hundreds of times.  We all come here to talk about how it might snow and to have fun with it.  What is the actual f-ing utility of saying the same thing over and over and over?  

At a certain point, who cares if this used to be a snowier set-up?  What we all care about is snow chances for next week.  We don’t need an incessant and never-ending dissertation why it would have been a better set-up 20 years ago.  Who fucking cares? Jesus christ.  

Most of us just care about the fun of snow chances next week, and really don’t care where you think it fits historically at all or in the least little bit.  This hobby is supposed to be fun and you are a kill joy at times.

It’s that simple.

 

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Those 1994 ice storms were what got me into weather which eventually became my career! I do remember 93 but it was 94 that I got into watching TWC all the time.

Two distinct memories from that year (all these are from near IAD) - the MLK day ice storm which started out as snow in the morning, then progressed to sleet and freezing rain during the day. Just when the temp hit 32 the arctic front came through and froze everything solid...the water that had ponded in my backyard literally become a skating rink (I had taken ice skating lessons a couple years earlier, and jammed my feet, which had grown a good deal in those 2 years, into my skates just so I could say I skated in my yard!). This week had a few sub-zero low and single digit highs, and there was a clipper that came through later in the week that dropped 1-2 inches of some of the lightest, fluffiest snow I have ever seen.

Mid-February there was a huge sleet storm - I want to say that the piles of sleet that bounced off the roof created 2 foot "drifts" around the house but the accumulation elsewhere was more like 4-6 inches. 

Then we had 2 inland runner storms, one in early january and another in early march, which were 3-6 inch type deals with wet snow, although I remember hearing that north and west did much better in these.

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Latest disco from sterling!!!! Good read....

 

As we move into the weekend, attention will turn to a storm system
approaching from the south and west. By Friday night, this system
will be located over the southern Plains. The initially closed upper
low is modeled to transition into more of an open wave and
potentially take on a negative tilt as it tracks east-northeastward
toward our area. With the system taking on a negative tilt, there
could be a corresponding strong area of low pressure at the surface,
with access to ample moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. As one would
expect seven days out, there is still considerable spread with
respect to the track of this system, but most solutions cluster
somewhere between a track into the eastern Ohio Valley and along the
coast just off to our south and east. Probabilities for substantial
QPF continue to increase. If the storm were to take a favorable
track off to our south and east, some or all of this could occur as
snow across portions of the area. Synoptically speaking, most
solutions don`t have a strong area of high pressure off to the
northeast, which could work against a snow solution, but the airmass
in place ahead of the system is fairly cold/dry, which could create
a decent amount of cold air in-situ once precipitated into. We`ll
continue to monitor this system over the upcoming week, as it has
the potential to be the first substantial winter storm of the season
(and really last two seasons) to the east of the mountains
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9 minutes ago, GEOS5ftw said:

Those 1994 ice storms were what got me into weather which eventually became my career! I do remember 93 but it was 94 that I got into watching TWC all the time.

Two distinct memories from that year (all these are from near IAD) - the MLK day ice storm which started out as snow in the morning, then progressed to sleet and freezing rain during the day. Just when the temp hit 32 the arctic front came through and froze everything solid...the water that had ponded in my backyard literally become a skating rink (I had taken ice skating lessons a couple years earlier, and jammed my feet, which had grown a good deal in those 2 years, into my skates just so I could say I skated in my yard!). This week had a few sub-zero low and single digit highs, and there was a clipper that came through later in the week that dropped 1-2 inches of some of the lightest, fluffiest snow I have ever seen.

Mid-February there was a huge sleet storm - I want to say that the piles of sleet that bounced off the roof created 2 foot "drifts" around the house but the accumulation elsewhere was more like 4-6 inches. 

Then we had 2 inland runner storms, one in early january and another in early march, which were 3-6 inch type deals with wet snow, although I remember hearing that north and west did much better in these.

Yea, I remember that year pretty well.  There hasn't been anything close to the severity of those ice storms since and I also remember that extremely high ratio 2-4" deal we had.  Dews were very low for that event.  The sleet parade was the result of a low forming along a stalled out frontal boundary near the gulf coast.  It snowed for like 5 minutes and the rest was several inches of pure sleet.  LaGuardia ended up with close to a foot of snow lol, if I recall correctly (from news reports).  That was an equally frustrating and interesting storm.

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