:axe:

[Dcwx]

Hey, cheer up guys - the GFS says the snow anus is going to take a pounding!

http://www.nco.ncep....2/fp0_324.shtml

And at only 324 hours away, it's basically a lock ;-)

This one really hurts...bad. The only consolation I can take from it is that my in-laws didn't get snowed in at my place yesterday.

Looks similar to the low placement for this storm just a lot more western precip... gotta love the GFS at 324.

[Ji]

I dont care if we saw 190 inches of snow last year...this one hurts more than any other

[das]

especially since it all ended up in NJ

http://www.americanw...-1293474341.jpg

That's awesome. I think I like the clean and clear roofs as much as the piles of snow. It must have been just like our 10feb2010 storm this year up in Jersey.

[Fozz]

I know what it is like to be shafted in a screw zone believe me. Sorry you missed out but alot of you got to see 40" snow depths after two HECS last year!

How much did you get from this?

[Fozz]

I dont care if we saw 190 inches of snow last year...this one hurts more than any other

Um, it would have hurt a lot more, weenie, if we didn't get what we got last year.

[mattie g]

Be happy for those that got the snow...plus it will be all melted away by Saturday

Said it earlier in the thread. One consolation is that we won;t have to worry about a muddy New Year's Eve unless it rains. Shouldn't be too bad getting out and throwing some meat on the grill.

Looks similar to the low placement for this storm just a lot more western precip... gotta love the GFS at 324.

GFS at 324 is rarely wrong. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. It's a done deal.

[mattie g]

This really hurt as it was not the typical screw job. I am used to the Miller B screw jobs and the occasional suppressed screw job. However, this was a Miller A screw job that hit all around us. What makes it worse is that we have been hearing for months about the lack of KU type storms in mod/strong Ninas and then this beast shows up and we get nothing. I still can't believe the trough orientation and eventual storm path that this had to take in order to produce this screw job. It was the perfect storm in terms of DC screw jobs.

BTW, when's the next threat.....

MDstorm

Sounds like Wes is compiling information to see how it was that everything worked out the way it did in terms of DC/BWI getting hosed. If so, I'd be interested to hear his findings. If not, then perhaps someone should hop to it.

[LongRanger]

*shrug* the following tastes great, less shoveling: I just flipped through my pics from February showing snow piled to nearly the top of a yardstick... and that was before the 2nd storm added about 2 feet more a few days later

[ThreeRedheads]

Hey, cheer up guys - the GFS says the snow anus is going to take a pounding!

http://www.nco.ncep....2/fp0_324.shtml

And at only 324 hours away, it's basically a lock ;-)

This one really hurts...bad. The only consolation I can take from it is that my in-laws didn't get snowed in at my place yesterday.

I'm not investing any time or hopes anymore...well, until maybe a few days out. Or maybe I'll believe in snow when I see it falling from the sky.

[Ellinwood]

I'm not investing any time or hopes anymore...well, until maybe a few days out. Or maybe I'll believe in snow when I see it falling from the sky.

If only everyone used this reasoning...

[mitchnick]

look at it on the bright side, at least today is Dec 27 and not Feb 27

granted, I don't like it when a big storm like this one misses us for fear it represents the seasonal pattern, but we have plenty of time left this winter for some snow

at worst, its a signal that we will be odd man out on the east coast this winter for record or well above average snows

but I think (maybe, "hope" is the better word) the -AO/-NAO will work some magic eventually

[mattie g]

If only everyone used this reasoning...

There's no reasoning when it comes to emotions. And that's what it's all about for many people on here - a truly irrational emotion.

[Ellinwood]

There's no reasoning when it comes to emotions. And that's what it's all about for many people on here - a truly irrational emotion.

Use reasoning to control your emotions

Nothing irrational about loving snow. Just go about it in a reasonable manner.

[kurtstack]

It's tough that DC/BWI got shafted on this one, but if this is a sign that the pattern this year will produce a couple miller A's, we may have hope over the next 8 weeks. Well aside from the next 7 days which should be a nice reprieve from the bitter cold. It seems like the pattern is producing plains snowstorms and coastal snowstorms. If this pattern repeats throughout the winter we should have some decent shots along the way. Somehow I think we'll end around average or better snow for the season. Nina certainly didn't stop Nofolk from turning in their 3rd best snowstorm ever. So I'm not sure I'm buying the nina climo for this winter at this point.

[J.Mike]

Use reasoning to control your emotions

Nothing irrational about loving snow. Just go about it in a reasonable manner.

That's just crazy talk.

[Ian]

It's tough that DC/BWI got shafted on this one, but if this is a sign that the pattern this year will produce a couple miller A's, we may have hope over the next 8 weeks. Well aside from the next 7 days which should be a nice reprieve from the bitter cold. It seems like the pattern is producing plains snowstorms and coastal snowstorms. If this pattern repeats throughout the winter we should have some decent shots along the way. Somehow I think we'll end around average or better snow for the season. Nina certainly didn't stop Nofolk from turning in their 3rd best snowstorm ever. So I'm not sure I'm buying the nina climo for this winter at this point.

it's hard to examine any one storm in terms of climo overall... i agree it went against the general grain that we know to be la nina. that said, if you look at the month as a whole it looks like a nina here. i'd like to believe it's some look at a pattern ahead and oftentimes you can get some general idea early in retrospect. however the pineapple express thing was a pretty rare event overall so im not sure we'll see that part again at least this winter.

[Ellinwood]

It's tough that DC/BWI got shafted on this one, but if this is a sign that the pattern this year will produce a couple miller A's, we may have hope over the next 8 weeks. Well aside from the next 7 days which should be a nice reprieve from the bitter cold. It seems like the pattern is producing plains snowstorms and coastal snowstorms. If this pattern repeats throughout the winter we should have some decent shots along the way. Somehow I think we'll end around average or better snow for the season. Nina certainly didn't stop Nofolk from turning in their 3rd best snowstorm ever. So I'm not sure I'm buying the nina climo for this winter at this point.

The December pattern is wrapping up. We're moving on to a new background pattern.

[Ian]

i could see something similar happening again but minus the southern snow etc. if you take that out of the picture this wasnt that rare a screw for us. i was excited about this partly 'cause it would help my above avg winter call but now it could be tough. even if jan is a bit warm we can get snow.. so i think we'll have at least one threat then. and mod/strong ninas do have signal for march snow.

[Ian]

The December pattern is wrapping up. We're moving on to a new background pattern.

i'll buy it harder if the -nao actually goes away for more than a short period.. it's been dominant for almost 2 yrs now it seems.

[Ellinwood]

i'll buy it harder if the -nao actually goes away for more than a short period.. it's been dominant for almost 2 yrs now it seems.

This post makes it sound like you're saying a -NAO will mean that we will have the same pattern...

[Ian]

This post makes it sound like you're saying a -NAO will mean that we will have the same pattern...

maybe so, im not an expert on ENSO or longer range forecasting. i dont necessarily put gigantic weight in such a small sample set though so i think there are probably ideas to be stolen from analogs but not a full picture. -nao is good for east coast storms... if it holds tough there should be more ops even if jan/feb suck as a whole. we already saw we can have it and get little from it too..

[kurtstack]

it's hard to examine any one storm in terms of climo overall... i agree it went against the general grain that we know to be la nina. that said, if you look at the month as a whole it looks like a nina here. i'd like to believe it's some look at a pattern ahead and oftentimes you can get some general idea early in retrospect. however the pineapple express thing was a pretty rare event overall so im not sure we'll see that part again at least this winter.

Maybe and maybe not. Who knows, but this winter is certainly starting off across the country much like last winter with the plains getting smoked and big east coast storms. I'm not a fortune teller, so I don't know what the future holds for us here in DC, but on the marcro level this is anything but nina climo. I clearly believe the AO is the best thing to watch as far as snowstorm possibilities, and it looks to be going positive for the next 6-10 days. Whether it tanks again after that is for the doctoral mets to debate, and I'm certainly not going to try to make a prediction beyond 6-10 days. One thing I took from this storm, is that while the Euro didn't get the details of the storm right for the local area, it certainly had the right idea on a coastal bomb about 8 days before the storm. So I would look to the Euro this winter for the next snowstorm possibility. Until it shows something I'm not really a believer.

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

Big disappointment, which of course is kind of an understatement. Oh well. We did get a wind advisory out of the deal!

On a serious note, it is surprising with the indications as of late Friday night and early Christmas. Even if you assumed the GFS precip was too high, all model guidance and ensembles were pulling things west. We "should have" been in line for at least a minimal warning critera snow, but I was worried this would pull a December 2000. Was hoping we'd kind of end up with what Philly got here.

Oh, and as for those who say we're "paying for last year" now, by getting missed...I have this to say. In my opinion we "paid for" that in advance...big time...with 6 intervening below or well below normal snow seasons after 2002-03. And basically no truly big storms from Feb. 2003 through half of Dec. 2009. That's a fairly long time even for DCA. Yes, we had some moderate events in there. But my point is that even those ended up being either (1) not nearly as much as they were expected to be, or (2) were a whole lot bigger north of the region toward, say NYC and the like when we were expected to share in the larger amounts too. To whit, Jan. 2005 we got a moderate snow that was supposed to be on the order of 6-10" (DCA I think did not even get 4 out of that in the end), then two winter storm warnings in Feb. 2005 that were supposed to be pretty good and we barely pushed 2-3" from both. Everyone talks about Feb. 2006, which was a great storm if you were farther north up toward New York. It was not bad here, we got ~8-10" of wet snow, but was supposed to be a bigger event, and was gone less than a week later in 60+ degree temperatures (and was essentially the only event in 2005-06). How about the Feb. 2007 sleet storm that even a couple of days out looked like a major storm for the East Coast but ended up hammering the midwest while we got the ice? And, how about March 2009, our only real event of that winter? If it weren't for the band on steroids that gave us 5" in a couple of hours, that was looking like a major forecast bust (much of the local area got ~6" total, luckily, though again a fair bit more was originally expected, and again I think areas north of here got notably more).

Sorry to rant, and yes I know we're not exactly in the best area for all the big snows here (nor do I expect them all), but I wanted to give a little perspective. Mostly for those in the DC area who think we're paying for it now and for those farther north in New York or New England who might think that after last year we somehow "deserve" to get screwed because they got missed on most of those events. Nobody deserves to get screwed and I sure would have liked it if one or two of our big ones last winter had run the entire coast for a Cat 5 NESIS event. Well, even in a bad year they do well up there, and so we got the fluke 1 in 10 (or more) winters here that we actually were in a better place. Hey, didn't New York City recently have 3 straight 40"+ winters...the first time that's ever happened or something?

And on a final note, no, I do not begrudge anyone who got hammered in this storm. Anyone who does is kind of petty (as petty as those who felt the same last year about this area). I truly find it fascinating the blizzard conditions to the north, it's really incredible to see the reports and video. Just too bad that it didn't turn out to be something that hammered the entire East Coast like what the Euro depicted last week.

[kurtstack]

I would think since this storm was very similar to 1996 in that we got an east coast blizzard around the same time of the year in a nina then a warm-up afterward it may be a good analog for the next 2-3 weeks. I can't seem recall what happened after the warmup in 1996 though.

[BlizzardNole]

I thought for sure we were going to go mild for a long time starting around New Year's...looks like a big fat NO according to the Climate Prediction Center's 8-14 day discussion from this afternoon:

"...THE 0Z GFS ENSEMBLE MEAN INDICATES THAT THE NORTH ATLANTIC OSCILLATION (NAO) INDEX WILL BECOME HIGHLY NEGATIVE BY THE BEGINNING OF THE WEEK 2 PERIOD. THE NEGATIVE NAO INDEX IS CONSISTENT WITH MODEL GUIDANCE DEPICTING A LARGE POSITIVE 500-HPA HEIGHT ANOMALY CENTER OVER THE DAVIS STRAIT AND SOUTHERN GREENLAND..."

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

Use reasoning to control your emotions

Nothing irrational about loving snow. Just go about it in a reasonable manner.

Well said, I agree! I've always loved snow since I was young (growing up in northeast Ohio). And have to admit that I've always gotten disappointed when it didn't pan out. But of course, you move on, so many more important things in life. It's not really different than being disappointed by your team losing the playoffs or coming oh-so-close to winning a World Series but not. Heck I'm a Cleveland Indians and Browns fan, so that's all you need to know about a history of feeling agony!

I put up a bit of a "rant" earlier, which perhaps seems a bit contradictory to what I just said here. Well, not so much of a rant, mostly a commentary on how people seem to view this recent storm and some of the sniping (either that we're paying for last year or getting what we deserve because others got screwed last year...honestly!).

[Ellinwood]

I thought for sure we were going to go mild for a long time starting around New Year's...looks like a big fat NO according to the Climate Prediction Center's 8-14 day discussion from this afternoon:

"...THE 0Z GFS ENSEMBLE MEAN INDICATES THAT THE NORTH ATLANTIC OSCILLATION (NAO) INDEX WILL BECOME HIGHLY NEGATIVE BY THE BEGINNING OF THE WEEK 2 PERIOD. THE NEGATIVE NAO INDEX IS CONSISTENT WITH MODEL GUIDANCE DEPICTING A LARGE POSITIVE 500-HPA HEIGHT ANOMALY CENTER OVER THE DAVIS STRAIT AND SOUTHERN GREENLAND..."

We may not be in the Above Normal category the majority of the time, but near normal is certainly leagues better than consistently being 3-10 (and sometimes 10-15+) degrees below normal.

EDIT:

Also, thanks for making the same exact post in two different threads...

http://www.americanw...post__p__198602

[Ian]

I thought for sure we were going to go mild for a long time starting around New Year's...looks like a big fat NO according to the Climate Prediction Center's 8-14 day discussion from this afternoon:

"...THE 0Z GFS ENSEMBLE MEAN INDICATES THAT THE NORTH ATLANTIC OSCILLATION (NAO) INDEX WILL BECOME HIGHLY NEGATIVE BY THE BEGINNING OF THE WEEK 2 PERIOD. THE NEGATIVE NAO INDEX IS CONSISTENT WITH MODEL GUIDANCE DEPICTING A LARGE POSITIVE 500-HPA HEIGHT ANOMALY CENTER OVER THE DAVIS STRAIT AND SOUTHERN GREENLAND..."

The Greenland Block refuses to go away for more than a bit here and there.

[Dalfy]

That's awesome. I think I like the clean and clear roofs as much as the piles of snow. It must have been just like our 10feb2010 storm this year up in Jersey.

yea except with the precip amounts of the feb 6 storm.. I recall getting around 14-18'' of additional snow from the feb 10 storm... but the feb 6th one dropped nearly 30''.. but some places in new jersey got over 30'' with intense winds in one storm..

[usedtobe]

"There was some grumbling to that effect from a couple meteorologists in this news outlet, who believed on Christmas that the snowfall would be less but felt obligated to report the official prediction."

This bugs the living daylights out of me. It used to be that weather forecasters could report what they thought would happen, but it seems more and more that they simply spit out what the national weather service says, right or wrong. I have no problems with them reporting what NWS says, but they should also give their opinions, rather than simply grumbling after the fact.

Not only do I see it with the NWS, but I also see it with some other forecasting service that provides graphics to a few stations. It makes the meteorologists out to simply report what someone else says, rather than using their own heads for this stuff.

Mdjnr

How do you know they're not covering their buts. For them the bigger problem would be not forecasting an event when the NWS had a warning and then having it happen. To me it smacks of making an excuse for something you ran with and then trying to foist the blame on someone else.