Tracking the Jan 7-9 threat---for those with strong hearts

[Ian]

Doesn't seem like surface temps are really all that cold despite frigid 850's and the PV on top of us....on the GFS anyway

Euro looks like 2 days below freezing or so.. Then sorta like we've seen lately. GOM sys way squashed.

[aldie 22]

Euro looks like 2 days below freezing or so.. Then sorta like we've seen lately. GOM sys way squashed.

So really no epic cold just "pedestrian cold"....I like cold but I would love to see some really low temps....cold and dry to me is high temps never get out of the 20's..if we are in the 30's near 40 and dry.....bleh

[WinterWxLuvr]

The frustration level seems to be rising. I can feel it in me as well. I hope that we can get some precipitation events that aren't caused by blizzards in Minnesota. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

I also would hope that as a New Year's resolution that everyone who posts in the MA threads would stop mentioning last year. It seems like you can't read 4 posts in a row without someone having to throw up last year. There is no snow balance sheet. There's no payback. We don't have a debt to pay. Last year has nothing to do with this year. So why is constantly mentioned?

Oh, well. Good luck to all of us.

[clskinsfan]

@Screw it. Lets just torch at this point. Cold with no snow is worthless. It would be nice to work on my golf game over the winter.

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

I also would hope that as a New Year's resolution that everyone who posts in the MA threads would stop mentioning last year. It seems like you can't read 4 posts in a row without someone having to throw up last year. There is no snow balance sheet. There's no payback. We don't have a debt to pay. Last year has nothing to do with this year. So why is constantly mentioned?

Yes, this...thank you!! I am of the exact same opinion and made a similar comment some time back. I do not agree with this attitude that "we're paying for it for the next decade now!" BS. If anything, I would almost feel the reverse is true...we paid for last year in advance in the DC area, with many blah winters and missed chances between those great winters of 2002-03 and 2009-10!

[Ian]

We probably missed our best opp of the yr. I'm hoping for a march 09 repeat now.

[Ji]

Winter is so fiokin over

[Yeoman]

@Screw it. Lets just torch at this point. Cold with no snow is worthless. It would be nice to work on my golf game over the winter.

@thanks

[Dr No]

Stay positive during these hopeless times:

-Think of the wind potential... let's track it . The 953MB LP over Cape Cod that the 18Z DGEX has will produce how strong of a gust here???

-Every model run is like a slot machine with hours 72+... the next run may just have a MA jackpot. This can be fun !!!!

[Ji]

We all know the ugly ending because we have read it before. Cold and dry with an embedded dusting and a near miss. Then a mammoth Midwest phaser that gives us rain and 58 followed by a cold front and wind.Then at some point this winter la Nina will exert itself and we will have a lenghty SE ridge so the cold and dry is replaced by the warm and dry. There might be then one last chance late in winter where the average high is 49. The chance of a snowless winter here is real and increasing

[ovechkin]

Yes, this...thank you!! I am of the exact same opinion and made a similar comment some time back. I do not agree with this attitude that "we're paying for it for the next decade now!" BS. If anything, I would almost feel the reverse is true...we paid for last year in advance in the DC area, with many blah winters and missed chances between those great winters of 2002-03 and 2009-10!

The point about last year is not about "paying" for it, or being in debt. It's realizing that where we live, amost every blockbuster winter is followed by a winter with very little. In fact, most winters here produce very little. If you notice we average about 18 inches a year, not because we get about 18 every year, but b/c for every season with 40+ we have 4 or 5 with 10 inches or less. Sure, we can be jealous of Philly for cashing in 2 straight years, but it would have been unprecidented to get back to back december wallops.

If anything i find it suprising that DCA itself got 2.1 inches for the Month- not too far from average, considering the whole lot of nothing we got all month. If Jan and Feb snowfall are around average we would still be > 10 inches for the year which is what most of the experts predicted around here.

Yes, last weekend hurt knowing what was just 50 miles from us, and it still hurts and probably will all winter, and maybe years down the road reading stories about it. We can hold out hope for a fluke, or that maybe one of these long range fantasy stroms might play out. But for now, let's just realize where we live and what history and law of averages likely mean for us.

Happy new year to all.

[mitchnick]

somebody missed this map from 12Z Euro

http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/charts/medium/deterministic/msl_uv850_z500!Geopotential%20500%20hPa%20and%20Temperature%20at%20850%20hPa!240!North%20America!pop!od!oper!public_plots!2011010112!!/

[FrederickWX]

We all know the ugly ending because we have read it before. Cold and dry with an embedded dusting and a near miss. Then a mammoth Midwest phaser that gives us rain and 58 followed by a cold front and wind.Then at some point this winter la Nina will exert itself and we will have a lenghty SE ridge so the cold and dry is replaced by the warm and dry. There might be then one last chance late in winter where the average high is 49. The chance of a snowless winter here is real and increasing

I'm not quite there yet. However, if we get through January without any real snow, then I would have to agree that the chance of any big snowstorms the rest of the winter is slim. Certainly, the first half of January isn't looking great.

[Ian]

<br />somebody missed this map from 12Z Euro<br /><a href='http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/charts/medium/deterministic/msl_uv850_z500!Geopotential%20500%20hPa%20and%20Temperature%20at%20850%20hPa!240!North%20America!pop!od!oper!public_plots!2011010112!!/' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.ecmwf.int...s!2011010112!!/</a>

Not much there at the surface... Day 10 is way out there in clipper land

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

The point about last year is not about "paying" for it, or being in debt. It's realizing that where we live, amost every blockbuster winter is followed by a winter with very little. In fact, most winters here produce very little. If you notice we average about 18 inches a year, not because we get about 18 every year, but b/c for every season with 40+ we have 4 or 5 with 10 inches or less. Sure, we can be jealous of Philly for cashing in 2 straight years, but it would have been unprecidented to get back to back december wallops.

If anything i find it suprising that DCA itself got 2.1 inches for the Month- not too far from average, considering the whole lot of nothing we got all month. If Jan and Feb snowfall are around average we would still be > 10 inches for the year which is what most of the experts predicted around here.

Yes, last weekend hurt knowing what was just 50 miles from us, and it still hurts and probably will all winter, and maybe years down the road reading stories about it. We can hold out hope for a fluke, or that maybe one of these long range fantasy stroms might play out. But for now, let's just realize where we live and what history and law of averages likely mean for us.

Happy new year to all.

Very good points here, Ovechkin. I suppose my use of the phrase "paying for" a good winter was not the greatest. But my point really was that some of this talk of "we're going to pay!" (as if it's a "debt") I find to be a bit ridiculous. So sort of tongue in cheek, I mentioned that if anything we're making up for several mediocre or less winters!

You're absolutely right about what it's like in this area. It's truly feast or famine, and more often than not it's famine with an occasional huge feast. Yes, the DC area averages ~15-18" or so (depending on where one is), but the variance or standard deviation around that mean is quite large. All it takes here is the right set-up just one time in a winter to dump, say, 20" on us, and that's your entire season right there.

Philly is actually in a better location geographically, of course. They typically benefit from the same kinds of storms that we'd get here (like last winter). They're also in the right place that they can still get at least a good amount of snow from the tail end of these systems that might pull a "wide right" around DC-Baltimore, such as last weekend's storm. And, they typically do better with Miller-B types of systems, at least getting into some of the banding a lot more often than we can here as storms wind up. So obviously their annual mean is higher. I'd wager the yearly variance around that is significantly less than here, too.

Where I grew up in northeast Ohio, the variance of seasonal snowfall is much smaller. I'm sure some of that is due to lake snows that can add to your totals even in a warmer and less snowy winter. KCLE averages around 60" or so annually, with more in the lake effect snowbelt areas. Typically you can count on ~50-70" each year. On the other hand, other than a big lake effect event you don't get the blockbuster 20" storms like you get here. Synoptic scale events of over a foot are not all that common there. Lots of moderate storms, clippers, and of course lake effect snow, and since it's obviously colder it tends to stick around for awhile. Interestingly, I've witnessed something like 8 or 9 of the 10 snowiest winters in Cleveland within my lifetime, but not one of the 10 least snowiest.

[snowchill]

Gfs has storm back on the map

[Ji]

really good run of the GFS. Truncation killed a pretty good storm brewing at 180

[Dr No]

So we pulled the lever and got thee sevens to watch (besides wind events)

1) The southern wave (Wed/Thurs)

2) The Miller B / WINDX event (Fri/Sat)

3) The second southern wave (Sun/Mon)

[Fozz]

Philly is actually in a better location geographically, of course. They typically benefit from the same kinds of storms that we'd get here (like last winter). They're also in the right place that they can still get at least a good amount of snow from the tail end of these systems that might pull a "wide right" around DC-Baltimore, such as last weekend's storm. And, they typically do better with Miller-B types of systems, at least getting into some of the banding a lot more often than we can here as storms wind up. So obviously their annual mean is higher. I'd wager the yearly variance around that is significantly less than here, too.

Philly airport's long term snowfall average is almost exactly the same as BWI's. While they definitely do better than DC/Baltimore with most Miller B's, they also miss out on or get fringed by DC/Baltimore specials, and moderately suppressed storms, which are not as rare as people might think. 2/2/2010 is a good example of DC/Baltimore getting 3-6" while Philly got a coating. Also, while being east and sticking out usually helps, sometimes it can be a liability, if a storm takes a due north track at the right distance from our area.

I don't think Philly's yearly variance is much different than here. Philadelphia's 127 year average snowfall is 22.4", but its median is only 14".

[TowsonWeather]

really good run of the GFS. Truncation killed a pretty good storm brewing at 180

Yeah, multiple threats on this run. The 13th-17th still looks interesting, too.

[Ji]

one of the wildest GFS runs i can remember

wind snow severe cold more cold. No warmth in sight

[kurtstack]

Funny how quickly folks were giving up on the late week event. GFS puts it back on the map - Looks like it will at least give us a decent amount of overrunning snow. We'll see how it pans out.

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

Just got home,

Are any other models on board for Wed-Thurs?

[stormtracker]

lol, i love how we're latching on to a GFS we know has ZERO chance of verif.ying and probably zero support

[VAsnowlvr82]

Yet people get so down and horribly pessamistic when a run shows nothing? For god sakes I guess there should be no discussion of weather more than 3 days in advance!

lol, i love how we're latching on to a GFS we know has ZERO chance of verif.ying and probably zero support

[Coach McGuirk]

I'll take another hit of snow.

Come on down.

[aldie 22]

6z gfs still has moisture in the area mid week but not as much as 00z had...let's see how it plays out this week...a couple of inches would be nice with the coming cold. The 14-17 has been advertising a high qpf event on several runs so let's see if that stays on there.

[Ian]

The euro still had nothing.. I guess the midweek thing is close enough to watch tho.. GFS inbound

[PhineasC]

There are a bunch of different players on the field right now, it seems. I suspect the models will continue to struggle. The Euro doesn't show much, but it hasn't been great so far.

[aldie 22]

There are a bunch of different players on the field right now, it seems. I suspect the models will continue to struggle. The Euro doesn't show much, but it hasn't been great so far.

We need some sort of southern stream energy to make its way here....get some overrunning and then maybe some brief moisture from northern stream and we may have our couple of inches...it sure doesn't seem like any of us should be wishing for a coastal at this point since that would seem to have to come from a jumper....anywho it is good to see SOME moisture on a few maps.