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Friday the 21th storm


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hah you beat me to it lol

good to see i have your blessing :scooter:

LOL...

I hope "my blessing" isn't a jinx! ;-)

TBH While the Tues event is far from a minor one for me I have been looking at next Friday's one as potentially the more significant one for a while now. Actually Tornado Girl has been pretty big on these two events for a while.

Pulling back...sometimes as forecasters and mets we get caught up on potentially "bigger" events and develop "tunnel vision" on weather events prior to these "potential" events. I.E., today's clipper IMO will be an over-performer for a good chunk of NYS along and north of I-90. Today's clipper is a classic and textbook example where local factors and minimal synoptic factors come together in the right place and time to yield better than anticipated results. Sort of like severe weather forecasting in the summer...

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LOL...

I hope "my blessing" isn't a jinx! ;-)

TBH While the Tues event is far from a minor one for me I have been looking at next Friday's one as potentially the more significant one for a while now. Actually Tornado Girl has been pretty big on these two events for a while.

Pulling back...sometimes as forecasters and mets we get caught up on potentially "bigger" events and develop "tunnel vision" on weather events prior to these "potential" events. I.E., today's clipper IMO will be an over-performer for a good chunk of NYS along and north of I-90. Today's clipper is a classic and textbook example where local factors and minimal synoptic factors come together in the right place and time to yield better than anticipated results. Sort of like severe weather forecasting in the summer...

Pretty much on the mark for my location. Closing in on 4" with moderate snow still falling. A bit above 4-cast amounts which were in the 1-3" range.

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LOL...

I hope "my blessing" isn't a jinx! ;-)

TBH While the Tues event is far from a minor one for me I have been looking at next Friday's one as potentially the more significant one for a while now. Actually Tornado Girl has been pretty big on these two events for a while.

Pulling back...sometimes as forecasters and mets we get caught up on potentially "bigger" events and develop "tunnel vision" on weather events prior to these "potential" events. I.E., today's clipper IMO will be an over-performer for a good chunk of NYS along and north of I-90. Today's clipper is a classic and textbook example where local factors and minimal synoptic factors come together in the right place and time to yield better than anticipated results. Sort of like severe weather forecasting in the summer...

yeah the N shore of lake ontario is really getting hammered, great echoes with lake enhancement

a clipper tracking right across the ottawa valley with nice southerly WAA out front after a very cold night, always a great clipper combo for most of our region

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It is snwing steadily here in Ottawa. Traffic cams show near white out conditions on many of the roads.

:thumbsup:

Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier Int'l Airport Date: 1:54 PM EST Saturday 15 January 2011

  • Condition: Heavy Snow Pressure: 100.0 kPa Visibility: 0.4 km (1/4mile) Air Quality Health Index: 2
  • Temperature: -10.1°C Dewpoint: -12.0°C Humidity: 88 % Wind: ENE 18 km/h Wind Chill: -17

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Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier Int'l Airport Date: 1:54 PM EST Saturday 15 January 2011

  • Condition: Heavy Snow Pressure: 100.0 kPa Visibility: 0.4 km (1/4mile) Air Quality Health Index: 2
  • Temperature: -10.1°C Dewpoint: -12.0°C Humidity: 88 % Wind: ENE 18 km/h Wind Chill: -17

Got to love it when it snows with cold air temperatures. So much for it being "too cold to snow". :thumbsup:

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tues-wed event comes together too late for most sections, but still some decent trends towards a coastal hugger, the GFS ensembles may be onto something....hopefully the coastal can get going quicker, the northern stream wave is a piece of junk anyways lol

estimates....ptype an issue

midHV 0.5-0.75

rest of HV around 0.5

central NY 0.25-0.5

some bizarre looking qpf max extending from the midHV to over the central dacks between ART and SYR looks to be 0.5-0.75

rest of the region 0.25 or so, caught between the transfer

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tues-wed event comes together too late for most sections, but still some decent trends towards a coastal hugger, the GFS ensembles may be onto something....hopefully the coastal can get going quicker, the northern stream wave is a piece of junk anyways lol

estimates

midHV 0.5-0.75

rest of HV around 0.5

central NY 0.25-0.5

some bizarre looking qpf max extending from the midHV to over the central dacks between ART and SYR looks to be 0.5-0.75

rest of the region 0.25 or so, caught between the transfer

What about the dacks? anything there besides LES worth noting

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tues-wed event comes together too late for most sections, but still some decent trends towards a coastal hugger, the GFS ensembles may be onto something....hopefully the coastal can get going quicker, the northern stream wave is a piece of junk anyways lol

estimates

midHV 0.5-0.75

rest of HV around 0.5

central NY 0.25-0.5

some bizarre looking qpf max extending from the midHV to over the central dacks between ART and SYR looks to be 0.5-0.75

rest of the region 0.25 or so, caught between the transfer

What about the dacks? anything there besides LES worth noting

rest of dacks is 0.25-0.50 for tue-wed event

more precip with the second storm and cold air surge later in the week as well...but thats too far out to take qpf seriously

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for up here, i havent been big on tuesday, caught between 2 systems, very disorganized look continues on the models and only light precip with temp issues...perhaps if the system can get better organized along the coast it could be better but time is runnig short for that now.......wed could end up being the more interesting day if the GEM/NAM are onto something.

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Still huge discrepencies regarding Tues event and the one on Friday.... looking at data now and so far I am just scratching my head and thinking WTH...

You aren't the only one scratching your head. I don't think I have ever seen this kind of discrepancy in the models inside of 48 hours like this. Hopefully tonight's 0z runs come to some kind of consensus.

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LOL It happens a lot now it seems and when I suggest the model accuracy is not improving much I am told that it is. :) So my only conclusion can be that we have so darn many models now that we get so many solutions. It's not like the early 90's when we had the NGM and MRF and then the ETA came along.

You aren't the only one scratching your head. I don't think I have ever seen this kind of discrepancy in the models inside of 48 hours like this. Hopefully tonight's 0z runs come to some kind of consensus.

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Looks to me like Tue is a minimal amt. of snow up front and by the time we have P-type issues, we are drying up in the screw zone.

I agree. I was working on a write-up and my browser crashed....

Any way here's the condensed version of my initial thoughts:

EC and UK are east of NAM, GFS/GEFS and SREF. UK is farther east and EC looks to deep too soon on LP.

UK, GFS and NAM all show SE-S Ageostrophic flow of varying strength: UK weakest, GFS weak and NAM moderate. NAM may be overdoing the LL winds/jet.

All models show varying degrees of warming aloft the NAM warmest, the GFS second followed by EC and UK near the same 3rd and coldest . I have issues with the degree of warming that the US OP models are showing. A weaker system like they are forecasting shouldn't have as much WAA as they are forecasting. This said BOTH GEFS and SREFS temps @ 850 hPa are nearly the same as the OPS models are. However the SREF from 09z this morning compared to 03z run is trending much colder by late Tues after most of the precip is done. Just concerned that this colder trend may leak over and or start sooner during Tuesday.

Attached are forecast soundings from the 16 Jan 12z UK run. ( Caution is advised since this from lores UK data). Nonethless I am leaning on a weaker solutionto the track of the warm frontal LP and slightly east of the US OPS. It will probably track close to or just a bit west of the EC.

The soundings will be posted to my wx4cast blog see my signature below. I cant upload stuff to this website.

They are there now on Wx4cast blog. I expand on them a bit later.

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Just to add to what Andy said, For the Tue/Wed event. The GFS don't show too much snow on the front end. I think maybe 2-4 inches of snow before the sleet, ZR and rain move in. then there could be as much as 4-6 inches on the back side. If anyone is watching the 540 it show a fairly narrow window for snow formation when it starts...

Looking past the Tue/Wed storm. The models are showing a nice storm next weekend...with the EURO leading the pack......

It's going to be a fun and interesting week for sure. :thumbsup:

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Just to add to what Andy said, For the Tue/Wed event. The GFS don't show too much snow on the front end. I think maybe 2-4 inches of snow before the sleet, ZR and rain move in. then there could be as much as 4-6 inches on the back side. If anyone is watching the 540 it show a fairly narrow window for snow formation when it starts...

Looking past the Tue/Wed storm. The models are showing a nice storm next weekend...with the EURO leading the pack......

It's going to be a fun and interesting week for sure. :thumbsup:

How's it looking for Ottawa, in your opinion? I'm just really hoping that we don't get rain and above freezing temperatures. I was hoping for at least 2-4" of snow before the really cold air moves back in.

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Maybe because of this the EC gets much more qpf into ENY. Taken verbatim it is a more significant front end dump of snow and the 1000-500 540 line doesnt seem to get nw of the CD. Beyond that I didn't look at any other maps. The 18Z NAM on the othe hand has almost no measurable qpf in ALB.

I agree. I was working on a write-up and my browser crashed....

Any way here's the condensed version of my initial thoughts:

EC and UK are east of NAM, GFS/GEFS and SREF. UK is farther east and EC looks to deep too soon on LP.

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Maybe because of this the EC gets much more qpf into ENY. Taken verbatim it is a more significant front end dump of snow and the 1000-500 540 line doesnt seem to get nw of the CD. Beyond that I didn't look at any other maps. The 18Z NAM on the othe hand has almost no measurable qpf in ALB.

I find the EC QP suspect......this one probably won't be resolved 'til 36-24hours of the event IMO. It is just that kind of year.

Only confidence I have is in the bitter cold for the end of next. Combine this with next weekend's storm and you'll be looking at a very huge liquid to snow ratio on that storm.

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How's it looking for Ottawa, in your opinion? I'm just really hoping that we don't get rain and above freezing temperatures. I was hoping for at least 2-4" of snow before the really cold air moves back in.

The way I see it. You will have a snow mix...You will have some warm air trying to move in. But, the cold looks to hold on for the most part. I would say Through Wednesday that 1-3 inches looks to be a good bet. There will be cold pockets so some places will have more of a mix than others.

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In other words, we could compare the models to cooks in the kitchen. In this case, there are too many of them. :popcorn:

LOL It happens a lot now it seems and when I suggest the model accuracy is not improving much I am told that it is. :) So my only conclusion can be that we have so darn many models now that we get so many solutions. It's not like the early 90's when we had the NGM and MRF and then the ETA came along.

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After further review of the 18z data I am now dumber having done so. I award myself no points, and may God have mercy on my soul.

Seriously, the Nam has come in with a colder, but drier solution, while the GFS suggests that icing could be a problem Tuesday afternoon into Tuesday night for points east of the Syracuse area.

One thing that I have learned over the years is not to underestimate WAA (warm air advection). Often times I have done so and gotten burned more often than not. In this case, however, I think the GFS wants its cake and eats it too. I fail to see how it can strengthen a coastal low, yet bring warm enough air aloft for a changeover? Normally I would take a blend of the Nam and GFS, but how does one do that in this case???

Onto the 0z runs and my second bottle of Advil. :arrowhead:

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FWIW, the 18Z GFS looks a lot more like the ECMWF now on Tuesday. I'd actually be very pleased with scenario because the bulk falls as snow and/or sleet and then our dear friends in SNE get the more extended heavier qpf in the form of fzra and ra. ;)

I find the EC QP suspect......this one probably won't be resolved 'til 36-24hours of the event IMO. It is just that kind of year.

Only confidence I have is in the bitter cold for the end of next. Combine this with next weekend's storm and you'll be looking at a very huge liquid to snow ratio on that storm.

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