January 19th-20th: 1st Call Snow Map

.2 is not severe anything .4 and above you gotta start to worry. Unless the ice encased a lot of snow accumulated on trees. Now roads will be treacherous.

Euro 12z is north quite a bit compared to the 6z. The 850 temps are above freezing for the southern half of NJ by Saturday night.

Wasn't expecting crap from this storm anyways, so 6 inches will be fine. Whatever we get is whatever we get. I just can't afford to lose power. I know we shouldn't look at the long range and take it as 100% correct but February doesn't look that exciting either. Definitely some cold days but of course those look dry. But I'll save that for the long range thread.

REG NAM has a very dangerous situation setting up with the ice boundary geographically speaking - a heavy front end thump to and all out ice storm:

The 20 -25 mile wobble is a MAJOR difference for millions from an all our ice storm that could cripple us to a 6" snowstorm
Jesus this waffling is small but has major impacts

amugs wrote:REG NAM has a very dangerous situation setting up with the ice boundary geographically speaking - a heavy front end thump to and all out ice storm:

The 20 -25 mile wobble is a MAJOR difference for millions from an all our ice storm that could cripple us to a 6" snowstorm
Jesus this waffling is small but has major impacts

Hopefully not an ice storm. I'm old enough to remember the one in 1978. Lost power for 4-5 days in the heart of winter. No fireplace. Sucked!

http://www.northshorewx.com/19780113.html

Euro 6Z snowfall map, no sleet or freezing rain just snow but assumed 10:1 ratios which will vary greatly from north to south especially upstate NY

2 Inches in NYC (central Park) to 10 inches in Northern Orange County. Geographically 50 miles. That's what we're dealing with.

Mount Holly update



915 AM UPDATE...UPDATE REGARDING WINTER STORM...WE ADDED UPPER
BUCKS AND WESTERN MONTGOMERY COUNTIES TO THE WINTER STORM WATCH
BASED ON POTENTIAL SNOW AND ICE IMPACTS...ESPECIALLY GIVEN
OVERALL COLDER TREND WE'VE SEEN IN THE MODELS. ALSO REGARDING
THIS TREND, I HAVE INCREASING CONCERNS THAT COLDER TEMPERATURES
AND ICING COULD BE MORE OF AN ISSUE TOMORROW NIGHT THAN WE'VE
BEEN THINKING EVEN NEAR THE I-95 CORRIDOR. THIS IS BASED ON
FORECAST POSITION OF SURFACE WARM FRONT QUITE FAR TO THE SOUTH
WITH THE COLD AIRMASS WE'LL HAVE IN PLACE AHEAD OF THE SYSTEM
AND STRONG WARM NOSE COMING IN ALOFT. WE'LL BE TAKING A CLOSE
LOOK AT THIS AS THE NEW 12Z MODEL GUIDANCE COMES IN WITH A FULL
UPDATE ON THE STORM THIS AFTERNOON WITH THE MAIN PACKAGE.

CPcantmeasuresnow wrote:Euro 6Z snowfall map, no sleet or freezing rain just snow but assumed 10:1 ratios which will vary greatly from north to south especially upstate NY

2 Inches in NYC (central Park) to 10 inches in Northern Orange County. Geographically 50 miles. That's what we're dealing with.

If I read that right CP we are going to get 8 to 9 inches of concrete in our neck of the woods.

Morning all. Looks like my area (NW Jersey) could be in for quite the ice fest. Also looks like I won't be making it into the city on Sunday. Looking forward to discussing this with you all today!

DAYBLAZER wrote:Morning all. Looks like my area (NW Jersey) could be in for quite the ice fest. Also looks like I won't be making it into the city on Sunday. Looking forward to discussing this with you all today!

Total bummer Dayblazer...sorry to hear that!

My wife has a Mon 7 am flight out of JFK ( to Florida!!!!!!! ). Aside from the brutal temps, I'm thinking things would be functioning by then? Anyone have any thoughts/updated info?

This is wild, the boundray is going to be absolutely crazy. It could be anything from brief snow to ice to snow here in Jersey City heights.

I copied this from another board...someone who says he is an emergency manager. All good info. Not that I want to sound all kinds of alarms because we still have no concrete idea what where and when with this storm. But it is a good idea to be prepared for the worst case scenario. So here are a few tips of what you should be prepared for worst case:

Fill up you gas tanks.

Be prepared to be without heat, hot water and electricity for up to two weeks

Fill up on bottles water and keep it some place interior and insulated so it does not freeze.

If you lose heat.. Keep the water running to prevent frozen pipes (at least during the initial after freeze)

If the house becomes too cold, use a vehicle for heat. Run it for ten to fifteen min and warm up. Then shut off for thirty min. Continue this cycle as necessary. Ensure you are not enclosed in your garage (Carbon Monoxide kills).

Be prepared to not be able to travel for several days.

Ensure you have an adequate supply of medication.

Keep your cellular phone charged and use it sparingly when there is no electricity. You can use your vehicle to charge your phone.

Have warm clothes handy.

This is a potentially disastrous situation. Please remain vigilant, you and you alone are responsible for your safety. 


I will add one trick that i learned over the years. Fill large ziplock bags 3/4 full with water and put them in your freezer so that they have time to freeze solid. If the power goes out, transfer some of these into your refrigerator. The ones that remain in the freezer will help it stay colder longer, and the ones in the refrigerator will help the inside do the same.

I've been seeing so much talk about the ICON. When has this EVER been used and come out right? Mikey P and I have asked several mets and they say it's just another tool in the box and always a laughing stock. Today the GFS has some spots in the 50s, is this a legit trend? Winter just isn't on our side this season

The latest GFS is very warm. It tracks the low actually N&W of NYC. Everyone is raining.

Frank_Wx wrote:The latest GFS is very warm. It tracks the low actually N&W of NYC. Everyone is raining.

Well I'm getting to the point where I don't believe any run on any model for this storm. I never bought the colder runs and I'm not buying this one either.

Since a lot of the previous runs have had over a half inch of ice for many areas bring on the rain over that.

It seems like we are moving farther away from a model "consensus" the closer we get to the storm itself. Personally, I'm taking all the runs today with a large grain of salt. I just can't see that GFS run coming to fruition.

The ongoing GFS and NAM split seems to hold, with GFS getting a tick worse (for snow lovers). For Central/North Jersey/NYC the NAM still favors prolonged mixing of freezing rain/sleet mid-storm, while GFS favors all rain mid-storm. In fact as Frank just pointed out, new GFS is warmer. Really only snows very briefly for many before going to all rain pretty much the rest of the event. Barring one model caving to the other in the next 24 hours, I can't see any way this is settled until we're nowcasting Saturday night.

I'm not even interested in the Global models anymore with this storm. It's the Nam and RGEM from here on out.

CPcantmeasuresnow wrote:

Frank_Wx wrote:The latest GFS is very warm. It tracks the low actually N&W of NYC. Everyone is raining.

Well I'm getting to the point where I don't believe any run on any model for this storm. I never bought the colder runs and I'm not buying this one either.

Since a lot of the previous runs have had over a half inch of ice for many areas bring on the rain over that.

Maybe, but part of me is kicking myself. I've felt a more northerly track was possible because it seems the HP's are trending weaker or more north each passing run. Most likely my 2nd call map will cut down on snow totals for some areas.

12z RGEM for 12z Sunday has Flemington at 50 degrees...

Im holding steady for now with the colder NAM soln. NAM insisted that last nights little clipper would stay all snow for LI whereas pretty much all others remained warm. Im still flurrying now when it should have transitioned to rain by now.

SENJsnowman wrote:

DAYBLAZER wrote:Morning all. Looks like my area (NW Jersey) could be in for quite the ice fest. Also looks like I won't be making it into the city on Sunday. Looking forward to discussing this with you all today!

Total bummer Dayblazer...sorry to hear that!

My wife has a Mon 7 am flight out of JFK ( to Florida!!!!!!!   ). Aside from the brutal temps, I'm thinking things would be functioning by then? Anyone have any thoughts/updated info?

Maybe get a flight out of Philly? JFK may be operating, but how will you get there? Could be treacherous.

nutleyblizzard wrote:I'm not even interested in the Global models anymore with this storm. It's the Nam and RGEM from here on out.

Same here, not bothering with them, it's almost nowcast time!

The spread between the GFS solution and NAM is pretty stark in some areas mid-storm. In parts of NJ the gfs has the surface temp at 52 degrees at a point where the NAM has it struggling to break 32.

I guess what concerns me about that spread is the GFS has to be off by about 20 degrees to be wrong. NAM only has to be off by about 5 degrees for a rainier solution.

sroc4 wrote:Im holding steady for now with the colder NAM soln.  NAM insisted that last nights little clipper would stay all snow for LI whereas  pretty much all others remained warm.  Im still flurrying now when it should have transitioned to rain by now.  

You know, I was JUST thinking about this very thing this morning. Most, if not all models besides the NAM, had the clipper producing rain anywhere south of I-78 by 1-2 AM. In reality, the snow was basically area-wide, with minimal changeover at the very end on the immediate coast.

Could this perhaps be a signal moving into this next storm? It may be wishful thinking, but I would love if any more experienced members would chime in on this.

Biggest takeaways for me:

1. NAM largely held serve
2. Hi-res RGEM and HRDPS are both still at their extended ranges and love to amplify storms like their parent model, GEM with a warm bias
3. The SREFs came in notably COLDER, even than their previous run, which, as I’ve stated multiple times, is a serious red flag to be on the lookout for colder solutions
4. With such a tight thermal gradient and inherent model wobbles, aside from the SREFs, NOTHING HAS TRENDED ANYWHERE today. Typical wobbles at this range from run to run are anywhere from 10-40 miles with surface tracks, and with such a tight thermal gradient these changes are exacerbated.
5. I’ll be looking at the Euro and UKMET, but other than that, I believe GFS and GEM are too warm too quick and am throwing them out