January 6-7 Storm Discussion: we’re due?

[nj2va]

It seems like somewhere between Frostburg and Hancock along 68 will be the jackpot zone for this.  Models are honing in on that area.

[Eskimo Joe]

5 minutes ago, primetime said:

Having lived in Owings Mills for 10 years, then moving to Hampstead that elevation change does make a big difference. From OM to Hampstead, it's only about 15-20 minutes north and west but the elevation climbs to 850'.

Parrs Ridge baby. It never fails

 @wxmeddler has done some research on it.

[EastCoast NPZ]

19 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said:

It's right.  It has just misplaced the decimal.  Lol.

[87storms]

I think Frederick is going to need to rely on the rolling hills from Germantown to Urbana to act as a force shield from the milder air.

[RockabilyJunior]

I posted this a few days ago. I tried to be positive in my outlook then, but for anyone who is new here, my sense from the experienced meteorologists here is that you should smooth, maybe even aggressively, whatever forecast models are showing with climatology averages. 

[87storms]

6 minutes ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

It's right.  It has just misplaced the decimal.  Lol.

Maybe this is the anti-January 3, 2022 storm.

[Paleocene]

GFS consistent with NAM with snow at first, but thermals are close at the surface for DC metro area.

 

[WesternFringe]

48 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Shame. Looks like Augusta County got the shaft.

We will see.  That map my shows 3-4 imby in Augusta County and we tend to do well with actual thermals compared to forecast thermals here in the northwestern parts of the county at least.

[clskinsfan]

GFS colder this run heading into the event. Looks like a nice thump.

[DarkSharkWX]

low is quite south this run, colder and we stay snow longer

[BristowWx]

1 minute ago, Paleocene said:

GFS consistent with NAM with snow at first, but thermals are close at the surface for DC metro area.

 

Gross snow or not I see blue at my location.  And no shoveling!  Win-win!  

[hstorm]

GFS looks slightly colder than 6z.

[Paleocene]

After the thump, this gives me concerns:

[nj2va]

18z Saturday sounding at DCA.  Super close but did get a tick colder than 6z at the same time.  

[WxUSAF]

Under my new “I’ll take anything measurable” criteria for storm success, IMBY, I’ll take the gfs in a hot second. Far N/W folks probably like it a lot less though as it trims precip totals for the mountains.

[TSSN+]

3 minutes ago, Paleocene said:

After the thump, this gives me concerns:

As long as we get 2-4” before the flip idc at this point 

[NorthArlington101]

[TSSN+]

Just now, WxUSAF said:

Under my new “I’ll take anything measurable” criteria for storm success, IMBY, I’ll take the gfs in a hit second. Far N/W folks probably like it a lot less though as it trims precip totals for the mountains.

Ya I’ll take 2-4” in a heartbeat 

[Buddy1987]

Those of us in central and southern VA may want to start preparing for a pretty nasty ice storm. Models at 12z trended colder. Majority of the precip looks to come through during overnight into Sat morning where temps would naturally be cooler due to nocturnal effect.

[Paleocene]

GFS has this thing bombing out off long island and nuking SNE... lucky jerks

[konksw]

I’ll take a snow globe outside my window for a few hours at this point tbh. 

[psuhoffman]

11 hours ago, Terpeast said:

Not sure why this run sucks. Synoptically it looks the same to me. Slp and sfc high placements shuffle a bit, thermals fluctuate a tiny bit. It’s noise. Nothing really changed

Both 0z nam and gfs are finally in agreement. Well, for this run at least

This feels related to what I was getting at yesterday, if you just look at the features we usually rely on to get a feel for the event, SLP, sfc high, confluence, heights, and ignore the specific thermals, everything has actually been trending BETTER over the last 72 hours.  You have to pull back to see it, ignore individual run random bounces, but if you look over the last 3 days and just look at the average of all those features its better now than it was.  Yet our snowfall has been slowly slipping away across all guidance over that same period.  Because regardless of all those features its been trending warmer.  A run would trend southeast with the track and better with the high...and the rain snow line still moved 10 miles NW, and this was happening across guidance, worse on the euro which is another bad sign since it's the best with thermals among the globals.  

So seeing the GFS trend warmer, even if just 1-2 degrees, I think everyone got that feeling like...here we go.  The only thing making the GFS better than the Euro was it was simply slightly colder, but everyone knows which one is more likely correct on that one thing.  The annoying thing is there is no trend we need with the amplitude or the high, or the confluence, or the upper low, that stuff is all fine, we just need it to be colder than it is.  

On the positive side things might stabilize now and salvage some frozen for the NW parts of this forum.  I could see a path to a quick thump snow still NW of 95 on Saturday.  Also, maybe this is like the storm in early 1987 that gave my area like 6" of slop and was a big interior snowstorm for central PA up into interior New England.  Then there were a few more interior storms before the snow hit the coast.  Maybe we are on a similar progression here.  

If there was a true block there might be a pathway for something like this to have worked for DC.  The path would have been a phased system that was blocked from tracking too far NW.  That would have provided the colder profile needed without an inside track.  But without a block...we were left with a really really narrow path here.  No phase (or a late phase with the trailing SW which is what this is trending towards) wont work for us, congrats New England.  It's too warm without any NS interaction.  But a phase would have likely lead to an inside track anyways.  I don't think those runs 3 days ago that had a 988 low tracking half way up the Chesapeake bay would have actually been snow in DC come game time, that track was way inside what we needed.  And it was likely to adjust further inside if that early phased idea was correct anyways.  

Once we have better blocking and a 50/50 locked in that's when I will get really upset if a setup like this fails.  

[North Balti Zen]

6 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Under my new “I’ll take anything measurable” criteria for storm success, IMBY, I’ll take the gfs in a hit second. Far N/W folks probably like it a lot less though as it trims precip totals for the mountains.

In an absolute second I would take 3-4 inches (of snow)

[SnowGolfBro]

3 minutes ago, konksw said:

I’ll take a snow globe outside my window for a few hours at this point tbh. 

Yes i think for us lowlanders that is the boom scenario. 

[clskinsfan]

CMC still a coastal hugger. But thermals got crushed. Still a 6 inch event out this way. But not as good as it was.

 

[DarkSharkWX]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

This feels related to what I was getting at yesterday, if you just look at the features we usually rely on to get a feel for the event, SLP, sfc high, confluence, heights, and ignore the specific thermals, everything has actually been trending BETTER over the last 72 hours.  You have to pull back to see it, ignore individual run random bounces, but if you look over the last 3 days and just look at the average of all those features its better now than it was.  Yet our snowfall has been slowly slipping away across all guidance over that same period.  Because regardless of all those features its been trending warmer.  A run would trend southeast with the track and better with the high...and the rain snow line still moved 10 miles NW, and this was happening across guidance, worse on the euro which is another bad sign since it's the best with thermals among the globals.  

So seeing the GFS trend warmer, even if just 1-2 degrees, I think everyone got that feeling like...here we go.  The only thing making the GFS better than the Euro was it was simply slightly colder, but everyone knows which one is more likely correct on that one thing.  The annoying thing is there is no trend we need with the amplitude or the high, or the confluence, or the upper low, that stuff is all fine, we just need it to be colder than it is.  

On the positive side things might stabilize now and salvage some frozen for the NW parts of this forum.  I could see a path to a quick thump snow still NW of 95 on Saturday.  Also, maybe this is like the storm in early 1987 that gave my area like 6" of slop and was a big interior snowstorm for central PA up into interior New England.  Then there were a few more interior storms before the snow hit the coast.  Maybe we are on a similar progression here.  

If there was a true block there might be a pathway for something like this to have worked for DC.  The path would have been a phased system that was blocked from tracking too far NW.  That would have provided the colder profile needed without an inside track.  But without a block...we were left with a really really narrow path here.  No phase (or a late phase with the trailing SW which is what this is trending towards) wont work for us, congrats New England.  It's too warm without any NS interaction.  But a phase would have likely lead to an inside track anyways.  I don't think those runs 3 days ago that had a 988 low tracking half way up the Chesapeake bay would have actually been snow in DC come game time, that track was way inside what we needed.  And it was likely to adjust further inside if that early phased idea was correct anyways.  

Once we have better blocking and a 50/50 locked in that's when I will get really upset if a setup like this fails.  

6z euro was quite decent thankfully, hopefully it continues in 12z

[mattie g]

I mentioned this in the banter thread because I really don't know anything, but I'll throw it out here.

If you check the last couple days of runs, you'll that the low pops up to the north of Lake Superior. As that thing has deepened and shifted ever so slightly, our thermals have worsened. Not saying that's the only thing that's going wrong, but it can't be coincidental.

[nj2va]

6 minutes ago, mattie g said:

I mentioned this in the banter thread because I really don't know anything, but I'll throw it out here.

If you check the last couple days of runs, you'll that the low pops up to the north of Lake Superior. As that thing has deepened and shifted ever so slightly, our thermals have worsened. Not saying that's the only thing that's going wrong, but it can't be coincidental.

Yeah, that hasn’t helped us at all.  It started showing up on ensembles the other day and clearly hurting us on the OP runs as this has gotten closer.

[TSSN+]

Anyone know what’s up with sterlings radar? Been down for like 3hrs 

[LeesburgWx]

Just now, TSSN+ said:

Anyone know what’s up with sterlings radar? Been down for like 3hrs 

I hope it stays out so I don't have to see the rain line move in