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The Psuhoffman Storm


Ji

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You don't have to go all the way back to 2003-- last December 5 was an elevation dependent event as well. A dusting around DCA, an inch or two inside the city, up to 7" in NW Montgomery County.

Very true. Got 2-3 inches in Bethesda when I lived out there and drove into downtown DC and saw nothing.

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I don't remember the exact setup, but there was a storm on Dec 5, 2003 that was a "thread the needle" event for N&W of the cities. I got on the MARC train in Germantown that morning with 6-7 inches of snow on the ground and still snowing, and watched the snow quickly dwindle with each stop until I got off at Union Station to WET ground! That was one storm where being N&W really mattered.

I imagine this storm will be quite similar in terms of results

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i still like my chances for now even if the odds are weighted rainy. in a marginal situation you're not going to know the specifics till near the end.

I would think that we should all be doing a happy dance just with the fact that we will see decent precip with this. Getting over .5" qpf is significant

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You don't have to go all the way back to 2003-- last December 5 was an elevation dependent event as well. A dusting around DCA, an inch or two inside the city, up to 7" in NW Montgomery County.

You're right...we spent that weekend at my folks down in Calvert County LOL :axe:

It sure looked nice when we got back home that night though! Road were really slick -- saw several accidents on 270 North as wet pavement had turned to black ice, including one big one on that HOV-lane down ramp.

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Hey um... can't you just get the jist of what I was saying and leave it at that? i've been reading this forum non stop for the whole winter...I can remember some of the early runs of the EURO and GGEM that were all rain east of I81. And is the 30 miles seperating hagerstown and I81 that big of a deal?

Whoa..what?

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I would think that we should all be doing a happy dance just with the fact that we will see decent precip with this. Getting over .5" qpf is significant

i guess, tho i'd rather get my .5" from a cutter or something that looks terrible at all levels

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I'm feeling good about the possibility of backend stuff. Like others, I'm usually leery of believing in backend snows, but things seem to be pointing towards a little something. I'm also still feeling fairly good about being slightly cooler than some guidance is showing. I'm not expecting anything major, but a nice thump after a decent period of some sloppy snow/mix wouldn't be the end of the world.

You don't have to go all the way back to 2003-- last December 5 was an elevation dependent event as well. A dusting around DCA, an inch or two inside the city, up to 7" in NW Montgomery County.

I've seen people mentioning in tha past couple days that Dec 5, 2009 was a dusting around DCA. I had no idea. I'm about 15 miles or so west of DCA and ended with 4-5". And I don't know if my 300' elevation would have mattered.

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I've seen people mentioning in tha past couple days that Dec 5, 2009 was a dusting around DCA. I had no idea. I'm about 15 miles or so west of DCA and ended with 4-5". And I don't know if my 300' elevation would have mattered.

i got about 2" in the city with ~250' elevation. it was basically all snow at my location just melty snow.

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This is somewhat like the March 1-2 09 event-- we had 1-3 inches region wide from the actual SLP and another 8-10 from the ULL. Biggest difference was the -10 h85 air that was screaming in from the west. We had a slushy 2 inches at my house round one and another 8.5 ull driven. Was pretty amazing-- 5 inches in 2 hours.

I'm feel pretty good at 48 hours out and the NAM/GFS bring the ULL a little to far south for me. No model will do well with the banding set ups-- March 1 had a 2 band event that dumbed a ton over the NRV region that wasn't really forecasted. They were expecting 2-4 and got 8-10.

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This is somewhat like the March 1-2 09 event-- we had 1-3 inches region wide from the actual SLP and another 8-10 from the ULL. Biggest difference was the -10 h85 air that was screaming in from the west. We had a slushy 2 inches at my house round one and another 8.5 ull driven. Was pretty amazing-- 5 inches in 2 hours.

I'm feel pretty good at 48 hours out and the NAM/GFS bring the ULL a little to far south for me. No model will do well with the banding set ups-- March 1 had a 2 band event that dumbed a ton over the NRV region that wasn't really forecasted. They were expecting 2-4 and got 8-10.

i agree at least in that if the ull stays how it looks now there will be surprises. the gfs/euro have pretty much locked on its track and it's a very good one for many.

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I've seen people mentioning in tha past couple days that Dec 5, 2009 was a dusting around DCA. I had no idea. I'm about 15 miles or so west of DCA and ended with 4-5". And I don't know if my 300' elevation would have mattered.

i got about 2" in the city with ~250' elevation. it was basically all snow at my location just melty snow.

And all I got was a dusting and I'm S of DCA. Elev around 180. The r/s line was painfully slow to reach me that day

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I've been surprised before by the intensity of the precipitation with the upper low and can remember getting about 4 inches on a new years eve back in the mid 70s with no surface cold air to start with. We had a nice rain and then an hour or two of s plus.

I remember that one from when I was living in Owings Mills. Went to bed when it was warm and raining hard and woke up New Years day to maybe 6 inches or so with a cold NW wind. Want to say that it was 1976 or 77.

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And all I got was a dusting and I'm S of DCA. Elev around 180. The r/s line was painfully slow to reach me that day

Yeah the cutoff was really sharp. NW DC around Cleveland Park/Van Ness/Tenleytown had a good 2 inches like Ian was saying, I had closer to 3 in Bethesda; but down on K street in the city nothing was really sticking and they had rain. I would imagine it would have been even worse at DCA.

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i got about 2" in the city with ~250' elevation. it was basically all snow at my location just melty snow.

Interesting. Seems that elevation may have made a difference. Mine was a pretty wet snow, as well, but it did accumulate far better than I had expected. I didn't track that one, but remember it being a real surprise that it just kept snowing and accumulating. Oh...the memories.

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It's painful that we're 48-60hrs out from this storm with the coldest air of the year over us and we're talking about rain with a beautiful 500 and surface track :thumbsdown:

So removing modelology and inserting meteorology, why couldn't the models be wrong with soundings given the ideal tracks?

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I remember that one from when I was living in Owings Mills. Went to bed when it was warm and raining hard and woke up New Years day to maybe 6 inches or so with a cold NW wind. Want to say that it was 1976 or 77.

Anyone remember a storm in 2004 or December 2005 where DC had no snow at all and Columbia Maryland ended up with 10 inches? I remember having to drive up there that day and as soon as you passed the PG/Howard County line on Interstate 95 you started seeing snow, and then by the time you got back toward Columbia on Route 32 it was like an entirely different world.

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Anyone remember a storm in 2004 or December 2005 where DC had no snow at all and Columbia Maryland ended up with 10 inches? I remember having to drive up there that day and as soon as you passed the PG/Howard County line on Interstate 95 you started seeing snow, and then by the time you got back toward Columbia on Route 32 it was like an entirely different world.

That was December 2003. I got about 9" of snow from the first part of the storm, in which warmer areas were completely screwed, and 6" from the second part.

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So removing modelology and inserting meteorology, why couldn't the models be wrong with soundings given the ideal tracks?

Because the things that we look for to keep cold air locked in over us are either really weak or completely absent:

1. high pressure to the north

2. confluence over New England

3. 50/50 low

4. -NAO

So what we're working with is "stale" cold air or what's generated in place.

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