Possible Snowstorm Thursday, 3/5

CPcantmeasuresnow wrote:

jmanley32 wrote:Yardsticks, omg now I am not gonna sleep for 3 days lol, rb I so hope you are right and this is huge for everyone, who favors the most here or is everyone in fairly equal play?

Oh Geez now Jman and I are having the same thoughts at the same time. Not a good sign, one or both of us is posting way to much.

Hahaha

LOL CP, yeah been a lazy on the computer day for me. I'll sleep we gotta so we can be up for this bad boy (hoping anyways)!

Watch the EURO show Juno-like snowfall for all of us tonight haha, would be a very long 3 days.

Hahaha thanks, but everybody on here knows a lot of different things and offers sound input. I'm learning from you guys just as you are from me. You base forecasts off of large-scale patterns, which is really, REALLY, impressive. I look at other, smaller-scale things but am learning (from you) to utilize pattern assessments, and I truly thank you for that. This is why I enjoy this board so much, because it is a constant two-way street of information. That's how you get better; spitballing, hashing ideas and hypotheses out with others, watching the result and then finding where somebody went wrong and why. Ideally, the perfect forecast would combine all of these aspects, and if you think about it, and average all of our input together you get just that.

To everybody getting excited, I want to offer three things:

1) IT'S THE NAM
2) VERY FAR OUT FOR SUCH A DELICATE SETUP. A lot more has the chance to go wrong versus right
3) I AM NOT TRYING TO HYPE lol I am only describing what I see

GFS looks icy Tuesday night from PA to NW NJ





Not much for NYC Metro. Little ice then rain

BTW Frank, never at the g2g would I have thought I would be up to 45 inches and with a possible storm of the upcoming magnitude possibly surpass last yr, would be insane! Also gr8 job with this storm, and models too (short range) had me around 5 or 6 and I got just about 5, totally satisfied with this storm, but man oh man the potential Thurs sounds like it could be redonculous lol, or a letdown, lets hope for the first. With the power of us all we will bring this to fruition!

Still early in the run but I don't like how H5 looks on the GFS. Leaving behind a large piece of energy in SW CONUS so mid level trough looks less phased

I'm just trying to do some quick and dirty comparison between the GFS and NAM, and WOW are there GLARING DIFFERENCES lol

Well I am not worried yet even if outcome is not good, its 3-4 days away, and I assume the tuesday ice/rain event will have some sort of effect on what happens thurs. Tempered excitement here because of what u said rb, your very right.

Even with a less impressive H5 GFS still brings heavy snow into the area. PA does not do nearly as well like NAM shows, however.

More like moderate snow. In order for the big, Godzilla type amounts to occur we need more phasing with the trough and the southern energy. If not, PA misses out and SNJ will be closest to seeing those amounts while we get 6-12 or 4-8 depending on location.

Comparing the 12z GFS to 00z NAM:

1) GFS opens the cut-off H5 low much later, and so holds back energy preventing a phase
2) GFS is roughly 6-10 hours faster in closing off the H5 trough crashing into the Pacific Northwest, which helps to buckle and flatten out the PNA ridge versus the NAM. This also allows the GFS to be more progressive with the overall pattern.
3) The NAM is produces a stronger trailing "streamer" of vorticity on the backside of the trough versus the GFS. This allows it to dig deeper, tilt more neutral faster, and also phase more with the southern stream.

Because of these three main (although I'm sure there are more) differences, the entire event is shifted east in the GFS versus the NAM, which can be seen if you extrapolate the differences at H5 southeastward (frontal boundary/lift, moisture transport/jet/etc.), because of the connection of all of the levels with height.

rb924119 wrote:I'm just trying to do some quick and dirty comparison between the GFS and NAM, and WOW are there GLARING DIFFERENCES lol

NAM ejects all the H5 energy. GFS does not. I wish it were vise versa

Frank_Wx wrote:Even with a less impressive H5 GFS still brings heavy snow into the area. PA does not do nearly as well like NAM shows, however.

What a surprise....this will verify. Mark my words hahaha Murphy's Law this season :p

If it is any consolation to anybody, and honestly, it may be, the energy that is responsible for acting as the backside "streamer" that I talked about is currently north of the Arctic Circle IN RUSSIA. We have seen now how CONSISTENTLY UNDER-MODELED this energy has been over the last few weeks, and I'm starting to suspect that bias may be presenting itself again, regardless of the GFS' track record of northern-stream driven systems. That does not offer much offset to the H5 low crashing into the Pacific Northwest, because that is still very much in play, and we have also seen the tendency for that ridge to collapse rather quickly for much of this season. It will be an interesting battle amongst the models this week, and I hope that nobody gets attached to a single series of model runs up until the day before.

The end of the 0Z RGEM has front end snow Tuesday evening with a lot of ice before it before plain rain.

The 12z EURO seems to be in the GFS' camp right now, but given it's souther-stream tendencies this may change. It is also different in how it handles the speed of the H5 trough in the Pacific Northwest versus the other two....MUCH SLOWER. Right now, a blend of the three (although cliche') I think is your best bet right now. Put the H5 trough (almost closed off) somewhere near the northern coast of British Colombia, a moderate "streamer" and a southern-stream maybe slightly behind the NAM.

All these models playing into their bias'. NAM too far NW...GFS too far SE...take the median and that could be your result.

Guys check the banter thread for a link to a youtube video of a crazed taxi driver on my street!

Frank_Wx wrote:All these models playing into their bias'. NAM too far NW...GFS too far SE...take the median and that could be your result.

Look at that...we actually agree on something off the get-go....the stars, planets, galaxies and universes are aligning. That's it; gas up every piece of snow removal equipment you can find because we are about to receive more snowfall this storm than Boston has this entire Winter hahahaha

You guys are the best. Freakin psychotic, but still the best. This storm is literally just winding down and you're all going into detail about model intricacies that most people don't even understand for another potential storm 4 days away.

By the way. Not that it means much at all right now, but the NWS has me for snow Tuesday afternoon and thru midnight before turning to ice early Wed. morning with 3 to 7" accumulations.

You think if I make a sacrifice to the Pagan Snow God(s) it would work? lmao Might be worth a shot....

Haha CMC coming out now. Looks good. I don't have H5 though just surface

DEAR GOD........

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gem/2015030200/gem_z500_vort_us_11.png

HOLY CRAP LEE CYCLOGENESIS IN MEXICO?!!!!!!

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gem/2015030200/gem_z500_mslp_us_11.png

This may be insane for somebody, just don't know where....

Cmc is a big hit. Starts as rain to ice to a lot of snow