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Wintry More SE Snow ? (1/16-1/18)

1300m said:
NWS-RAH and the local broadcasts coverage area includes plenty of folks west of Wake County where they were consistently told that they would receive little to no accumulating snowfall. Yet Chatham, Lee etc. received 4 to 6". Imagine being an elderly person who had made their medical appointment plans or plans to pickup their medication the next day based on the consistent forecasts stating no snowfall if you lived in that area. It's rubbish and it's selfishly driven by this idea of it being better to be conservative until the last moment and then ramp up totals because people don't really care if you bust low only if you bust high. I think it's a deplorable practice.
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Webberweather53 said:
The local mets should consider themselves lucky that the dry slot developed over Wake Co. because if we had a normal precipitation shield we could have easily cranked out 6-8 or so which would have caught many folks completely off guard and would have resulted in a surprise snow. NWS RAH should feel embarrassed that they completely discounted the RGEM & NAM inside 24-36 hours over global models which showed virtually nothing west of I-95. The only reason they even verified in Raleigh was because of that mesoscale dry slot that the RAP & 12km NAM began to sniff out the night before the event... Unfortunately, some will make the same mistake yet again this week if the mesoscale and global models diverge in the short range and blindly assert that the Euro ensemble should receive precedent over high res models because it's "king" and the best performing model or some other garbage reason, yet it's designed to be sufficiently spread for the medium range only and won't be able to key in on small, mesoscale details that are important inside 36-48 hours.
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Yes, all day the local TV mets were saying it should stay Wake County and east, but areas west of Wake ended up with more than Wake. The higher totals did a U shape around Wake, and like you said the totals in Wake would have been higher if it didn't take so long for the dry layer to erode. And this is why I like coming here to get the whole story. It seems all the local TV mets do these days is start low and increase totals as the storm unfolds if they have to no matter what the models show.
 
Dallas to Memphis looks like the best zone at the moment for a nice little event for areas West of Atlanta

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Could be slight improvement with the GFS thru 60, looks similar to the NAM at same time..... let's see where it goes
 
you know, we were cursing the SER in December and rejoiced when it disappeared from the modeling. It sure would go a long way to helping us here if it was just show a little sign of life.
 
For areas West of the Carolinas the gfs at the surface looks just like the 06z run

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pooooooof! GFS And EURO are NIGHT and DAY from each other at H5 (ie gfs poof and euro tosses us a bone)
 
Webberweather53 said:
GFS digs more thru 72 hours and our s/w is stronger & further west when it enters the US thru Montana & North Dakota
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Definitely... what do we say baby steps right? Lol But it is making those steps in the right direction at least..
 
deltadog03 said:
pooooooof! GFS And EURO are NIGHT and DAY from each other at H5 (ie gfs poof and euro tosses us a bone)
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Yep, the Euro digs the s/w a lot more than the GFS, but as mentioned earlier the GFS is slowing and digging the wave more over the past several runs which allows for more prolonged & intense moist, mid-level southwesterly flow...
gfs_z500_vort_us_15.png
ecmwf_z500_vort_conus_17.png
 
Ok, i know my post is being remove, but this to me has trended much direr at least for my area. Hope things get better.
 
Cmc is nice for areas West of the Mississippi. Some 3-4 inch totals that way
4691b9e9f29dbdade1cb7194afaf367d.jpg


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Webberweather53 said:
Yep, the Euro digs the s/w a lot more than the GFS, but as mentioned earlier the GFS is slowing and digging the wave more over the past several runs which allows for more prolonged & intense moist, mid-level southwesterly flow...
View attachment 2790
View attachment 2791
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So when do you think that will reflect more on model output? As far as seeing precip breakout more.
 
metwannabe said:
We talk about how the NAM is really only reliable within 48 hours but I'm starting to think the GFS falls in the same category.... beyond about 72 hours or so it's different every run seems like
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Agree there, besides this last event in the Mid South, it wants to be a bandwagon at the last second and mooch off the other models 48 hours before an event. It did it last week and also for the event in early Dec.
 
So we have the progressive models dry and the European which is not as Progressive a little bit wetter. The Nam looks like it'll be somewhere in between. I would say if the Euro comes in today, and backs off the qpf a little bit then it's time to worry a little bit
 
I just hope the GFS and Euro wasn't a mirage yesterday. They both looked good here. I know they can lose storms and bring them back. Hope that is what is happening now.
 
GeorgiaGirl said:
Let me reiterate, the GFS showed nothing and barely picked up on this possible time period on even it's ensembles outside of 12z and 18z yesterday.
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Very valid point, not to mention with the coastal last week it did not show precip west of I-95 until the last run as the system was starting.... it's very late to the party often. Hoping that's the case here as well
 
How are those relative humidity maps looking today that Shawn told us to watch
 
Biggest thing I need to see if the UKMET is on board for a potential phase...without it, I would be highly skeptical this pans out.
 
GFS showed 6 inches here yesterday and hardly anything today. So frustrating.
 
Interesting how the GFS looks better earlier but produces less later.
 
1300m said:
The thing is by all accounts the 12z GFS today looks like it should have been a better run than yesterday's 12z run. It's all about how the vorticity interacts as it's diving southward, but even though the surface is looking worse, the trends at H5 are actually looking better as Webber has mentioned already.
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Hmmm then I'd like to see the ensembles to see if it says this solution is wrong.
 
1300m said:
The thing is by all accounts the 12z GFS today looks like it should have been a better run than yesterday's 12z run. It's all about how the vorticity interacts as it's diving southward, but even though the surface is looking worse, the trends at H5 are actually looking better as Webber has mentioned already.

12z yesterday:
View attachment 2793

12z today:
View attachment 2792
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Exactly.... I wish more people would take the time to look at the H5 trends (not just this storm) and recognize improvements or not instead of getting hung up on what the model shows in blue over an area. I know I post surface maps and clown maps but they're going to get posted anyway haha... it's just recognizing those maps aren't set in stone. Look at the set up.... meteorology over modelology
 
Problem is out in the Rockies, despite the stronger and further SW with the s/w, the ridge in the Rockies is much weaker vs it's 6z counterpart...

That's why I think the GFS did not amp up the longwave trough, and in fact was more positively tilted vs it's 6z run
 
1300m said:
The thing is by all accounts the 12z GFS today looks like it should have been a better run than yesterday's 12z run. It's all about how the vorticity interacts as it's diving southward, but even though the surface is looking worse, the trends at H5 are actually looking better as Webber has mentioned already.

12z yesterday:
View attachment 2793

12z today:
View attachment 2792
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metwannabe said:
Exactly.... I wish more people would take the time to look at the H5 trends (not just this storm) and recognize improvements or not instead of getting hung up on what the model shows in blue over an area. I know I post surface maps and clown maps but they're going to get posted anyway haha... it's just recognizing those maps aren't set in stone. Look at the set up.... meteorology over modelology
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Maybe this is one of those times the output on the model doesn't match the setup. Just frustrating to see the difference today versus yesterday.
 
While the surface output is less impressive than yesterday wrt snowfall in NC, the mid-upper level features are trending favorably for more snow in the Carolinas. As we observed w/ our mammoth coastal storm a little over a week ago, it's important not to get too enthralled w/ run-to-run variability in surface output (esp precipitation) whose frequency spectrum is more susceptible to mesoscale variability that's not easily resolved by global models like the GFS, but instead focus on what's happening at the synoptic-scale in the mid-upper levels where these mesoscale phenomena (like convective precipitation) take time to grow upscale & significantly impact the forecast....
 
Stormsfury said:
Problem is out in the Rockies, despite the stronger and further SW with the s/w, the ridge in the Rockies is much weaker vs it's 6z counterpart...

That's why I think the GFS did not amp up the longwave trough, and in fact was more positively tilted vs it's 6z run
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The last several GFS runs have actually trended towards a stronger ridge over the NW Territories and Alaska which is favorable for our s/w to dig more into the eastern side of the Rockies s/w ridge...
gfs_z500trend_namer_8.png
 
Webberweather53 said:
While the surface output is less impressive than yesterday wrt snowfall in NC, the mid-upper level features are trending favorably for more snow in the Carolinas. As we observed w/ our mammoth coastal storm a little over a week ago, it's important not to get too enthralled w/ run-to-run variability in surface output (esp precipitation) whose frequency spectrum is more susceptible to mesoscale variability that's not easily resolved by global models like the GFS, but instead focus on what's happening at the synoptic-scale in the mid-upper levels where these mesoscale phenomena (like convective precipitation) take time to grow upscale & significantly impact the forecast....
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So why are we seeing less precip now if the features are actually trending more favorably?
 
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