My First HECS on the Boards.....

[DomNH]

Why does the GFS give that lower "v" QPF signature in C MA/NE CT? It doesn't look to be a dry slot problem based on the track of the H7 low.

[snowNH]

24-30 hours out, and there are huge differences between the NAM and GFS. They seemed to trend away from each other to some extent

Yea they did... Give me the 16" and a compromise

[OKpowdah]

??????? Whyd do you say that?

Further east and more progressive, and made significant QPF cuts to the north. The worst of it is in central NH, but MBY also drops under an inch.

[CarverWX]

Etaunton, would you put me in the 12 -14 range being on the Carver. Middleboro line?

[snowNH]

Why does the GFS give that lower "v" QPF signature in C MA/NE CT? It doesn't look to be a dry slot problem based on the track of the H7 low.

Downsloping for CT River Valley.. Has to be... Its had it every run and it will be a problem for HFD.

[Clinch Leatherwood]

Let's just step back a second and enjoy how incredible this is. This is by far the most positive model bust (and one of the largest) in my 15 years of model watching/forecasting. Incredible.

LOL, let's just hope it's not done yet, you may have just jinxed yourself in CT!

[weatherwiz]

lol no kidding we're snowing here from just low level crap

Yup!

Dry air is not even a remote concern at this point. Plus forecast soundings say there is nothing to worry about

[Damage In Tolland]

Im a little surprised how low the 9z SREF probabilities are. They are really really hammering western areas.

Think this is the way to go..wagons west

[HarveyLeonardFan]

it sure beats the moderate nothing I've had since February

Where do you live? As long as you're west of Narragansett you should be in decent shape. I'm in Newport and I think I'll be too far east. In January 2000 the coastal front set up at the Jamestown Bridge. The storm turned to ice for most of SNE but to the west of the CF temps stayed below freezing while Newport on east shot up into the 40s.

What's the best winter mosaic radar? Right now in Newport steady light snow has begun with the viz dropping to 1.5 miles or less but raindrops aren't far from my doorstep.

[ORH_wxman]

Why does the GFS give that lower "v" QPF signature in C MA/NE CT? It doesn't look to be a dry slot problem based on the track of the H7 low.

It does that a lot in these setups where there is another slug of qpf max to the east. It tries to "see" the valley shadow but puts it too far E. When Ekster plotted it on awips higher res map, it had the shadow in the more correct areas.

But either way, it really doesn't matter that much, a lot of this is going to be determined by banding.

[The Iceman]

Further east and more progressive, and made significant QPF cuts to the north. The worst of it is in central NH, but MBY also drops under an inch.

09z sref's were fine for us...i'm not worried at all about the gfs.

[MaineJayhawk]

12z GFS love for SE MA out to ORH back down into RI.

Unless I'm mistaken, ORH's QPF has been reduced substantially on GFS.

[weatherwiz]

I'm not as worried about downslopping as I was this time yesterday, even if we see some it should not be that big of a deal I don't think, even if it does cut down on my totals I still think I see 10''+ which I'll certainly take. Plus I have a good feeling about possibly getting into some good banding based on some of the latest trajectories.

[Clinch Leatherwood]

09z sref's were fine for us...i'm not worried at all about the gfs.

GFS looked fine from NW MA/NY border right to Sunday River SW/ME at 7h

that lines up well with the new RGEM too, and really the 12z NAM. I wouldn't freak out over the QPF maps...yet. It has shifted quite a bit over the last three runs to the east at 700mb, compare yesterdays 18z to todays 12z for a comparison but again wait and watch.

[Collinsville]

The main snow shield is ripping up here fast, will be snowing shortly!

[ski MRG]

Think this is the way to go..wagons west

Blizz, justy looked at the sref's, seems like a good thing out this way. I'll remember you're call for West is best. Hopefully I'll be able to congratulate you. Snowing here though not on radar.

[weatherwiz]

Friend of mine in Norwich has light snow falling!

[millwx]

39kt sustained, gust to 51kts at buoy east of HAT. Impressive, esp this early in storm evolution.

[Clinch Leatherwood]

Wall of snowing moving up from western sandwich. Slowly out over the water land vanishes. I was just out on the roof, power plant going bye bye too.

snow wall inbound!

[Southshorewx]

Etaunton, would you put me in the 12 -14 range being on the Carver. Middleboro line?

Same as yesterday when they answered you.

[powderfreak]

Im a little surprised how low the 9z SREF probabilities are. They are really really hammering western areas.

They look a lot more like what the RUC has been showing all morning.. max snow like POU-ski_MRG-MHT.

There's definitely one camp that is seeing stuff a lot further west than the operational models.

Speaking of which, I found this very interesting from ALB in the AFD this morning... the ensemble forecast means are much, much higher with QPF back west than the operational models.

PCPN TOTALS INTO LATE MONDAY MORNING FOR KALB:

03Z SREF SNOW PLUME MEAN: 1.13"

00Z MREF SNOW PLUME MEAN: 1.15"

00Z GFS: 0.72"

00Z NAM: 0.68"

00Z ECMWF: 0.75"

[weatherwiz]

39kt sustained, gust to 51kts at buoy east of HAT. Impressive, esp this early in storm evolution.

Wave heights of 21 feet as well!

Pressure falling rapidly as well!

[leesun]

Tip, credit where credit is due. You were on this thing even when the models were not. Nice job! Congrats

So much for 'you can't get a KU storm in a La Nina' .... CORRECTION, ...so much for 'you can't get a KU storm in a STRONG La Nina.

Couple quickies on why that supposition was so silly:

1) Sample size was completely inadequate to derive a confidence value. Chi test probably would have shown that (from stats experience we know that to be true).

2) How many La Ninas have there been spanning the last 50 years? 10 - arguing for 11 or 9, not withstanding. Of those ~4 events were greater than -1.0C in the mean. 4/50(100) = 8% of the time. 8 percent! That's the skinny number of times we have to work with. Of that small fraction of years out of the last 50 ...you have to then apply that relative rarity, to the frequency of KU's per annum (as an expectation/mean per year). You really don't have to do the arithmetic any further. You can immediately see that the odds of these two disparate ( and there really is no connection because the rarity precedes the conclusion ) circumstances collocating in time is slim - real slim. That's the reason. In fact, as a Meteorologist, one can almost argue from a purely physical point of view that there should have been more frequency, and that we've dodged some bullets through the years. The reason why is because the La Nina background canvas wants to deposit cold into the NP ...to perhaps as far E as the GL region, and that would occasionally enhance the mean baroclinic axis in the OV to NE where storm production should take place. In fact, if you look at the longer term precipitation anomaly distribution there is in fact a small maximum in that area of the conus. It is entirely logical and reasonable to assume that of those times a few events could ...and probably should have (but merely did not for whatever local time scale permutation prevented (I call it the Kevin factor ) been more coastal in nature.

The problem is that as human beings we like to put nice little rules and bounds on things. Nature, however, is not like that. The events of the atmosphere and the physical processes that drive them to being occurs upon a seamless spectrum. A purely baroclinic systems are in fact impossible; likewise for a purely barotropic ones - there is always a small fraction of either physical process taking place across the aisle of dominant process type. All you can say is that to some degree of excruciating tolerance, x, y, or z system is baroclinic or barotropic. The same relativity exists at the scope of the hemisphere, too, and a purely La Nina year is also a virtual distinction. The philosophical perspective, if understood, serves as a good segway in to the 3rd point...

3) How many of the La Nina years spanning the last 50 was there a concurrent 300 years superpostion negative solar cycles? Answer: 0 0 number of times, and therefore no means to check history for reference on how the very highly correlated tnegative AO (which is hemispheric, not just NAO's bed buddies with western Europe and the eastern United States) on seasonal time scales might alter things. -AO means that the westerlies are suppressed everywhere (save any local time scale anomalies of course...). What that means is that with westerlies being S and blocking evolving at higher latitudes, there is entire arena is hugely untested, uncharted waters as they like to say...

Well, that's long enough and probably a bit much for nog hang-overs... But, sufficed it is to say, I was really never impressed at all with those Nina -related limitation ideas that were bandied about the Met community during Autumn.

Storm at hand:

...Nice, woke up this morning to light snow ...some 5 hours ahead of schedule. I checked the radar and there is some fascinating detail there. You can see a stationary lead deformation band developed in northern Mass to southern NH, ...just sitting there pulsing light to almost moderate. You can see some OES cutting WSW. Lastly, the main show is a wall approaching the South Coast. Its 22F with no evaporational stealing of the snow going on here.

12Z NAM is 968mb near Fire Island, then moves east... This is a perfect location and evolution to maximize snow and probably exceed its own QPF - the type of evolution that busts forecasts too low on totals, too. I got over 2" melted at BOS... Inland the ratios may be closer to 15::1 so that almost mind-boggles this deal for what it may end up - wow! Looking at the 18 hours of 35-40KT BL flow with all that QPF, ...yea, BLIZZARD, no other way to cut it. I would also not be surprise if FIT-CEF qualify eventually given to the dryness of the snow and the frequenty gusts to 35mph that I feel will verify there with such low press crawling E under that axis - while very heavy fall rates are taking place notwithstanding.

Big warm up next week before a pattern reload at the end of the first week of January.

[powderfreak]

Think this is the way to go..wagons west

I'm with ya there, haha.

[HarveyLeonardFan]

Same as yesterday when they answered you.

What an arrogant response.

[weatherwiz]

I wonder if there were trucks or something putting stuff down on the roads, there is some weird green power-like substance on the road outside my window...I don't see it on the main street though, just my side road.

[CarverWX]

Just asking I was reading the r/s line was making it further north.

Same as yesterday when they answered you.

[The Iceman]

I wonder if there were trucks or something putting stuff down on the roads, there is some weird green power-like substance on the road outside my window...I don't see it on the main street though, just my side road.

pics?

[Clinch Leatherwood]

Suny MM5 is in. I know Ginx and one pro that swear by it. Odd presentation. It's no question going to be all snow IMO for Bob/Scott/Weatha, doesn't really get the 0c 8h line west of the canal. It's shuffling the warmer air out east and with it the dynamics with the heaviest precip during phase one way SE down here.

This rockets NE and then more develops, just food for thought.

Personally I've had hopes broken but this model a lot, I no longer think much of it but it'd be nice!

[metagraphica]

Friend of mine in Norwich has light snow falling!

Yep, I can verify...light snow here in Salem for the past 30 minutes or so.