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Pattern January 2021 - Joyless January

Webberweather53 said:
Don't really like the fact that we're also having to rely on dynamical cooling to push us down to freezing in light of how much warm advection there's gonna be. It would be one thing if we actually had the cold air in place prior to precip arrival.
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It's not like you to downplay a snow threat. You seem really confident that this is a DC / Baltimore storm. I would normally be excited to see all the models showing accumulating snow for MBY, but I am reserved.
 
I have to say I'm pretty shocked that this thing has trended so substantially SE. GFS says I get 6" per the maps posted by @Ollie Williams, but that's obviously suspect especially when considering it also says temperatures are in the mid-30s:
1609714119341.png
Accumulations could occur with this look but very inefficiently (another Feb 2020, but further north). Doesn't help that ascent is not maximized (and the cloud is a bit dry) in the DGZ.

One promising thing is the trend towards colder temps ahead of this system- in many ways, I suspect, a continuation of the warm bias we've seen in the medium to long range.
gfs_T850_us_fh96_trend.gif
We'd need to see another few trends like this for temperatures not to be so marginal. Which is a big ask IMO, when anticipating a NW trend in the shorter term. This has gotten a lot closer than I thought it would.

We could also use the 850 mb low to be just a little bit weaker/further south on approach than it currently is- again a big ask if anticipating typical trends. But the GFS is really nice in that it develops a strong offshore 850 low which wraps up subfreezing temps really nicely, all the way to the coast. Really the problem by this point is surface temperatures, which are just a few degrees too warm. We'll see if we can pull a good trend at the surface out of our a$$es or not. Otherwise we're relying on latent heat absorption, which relies on heavier rates than we're seeing, which relies on strong forcing for ascent, which requires WAA.
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RVD said:
I have to say I'm pretty shocked that this thing has trended so substantially SE. GFS says I get 6" per the maps posted by @Ollie Williams, but that's obviously suspect especially when considering it also says temperatures are in the mid-30s:
View attachment 62191
Accumulations could occur with this look but very inefficiently (another Feb 2020, but further north). Doesn't help that ascent is not maximized (and the cloud is a bit dry) in the DGZ.

One promising thing is the trend towards colder temps ahead of this system- in many ways, I suspect, a continuation of the warm bias we've seen in the medium to long range.
View attachment 62193
We'd need to see another few trends like this for temperatures not to be so marginal. Which is a big ask IMO, when anticipating a NW trend in the shorter term. This has gotten a lot closer than I thought it would.

We could also use the 850 mb low to be just a little bit weaker/further south on approach than it currently is- again a big ask if anticipating typical trends. But the GFS is really nice in that it develops a strong offshore 850 low which wraps up subfreezing temps really nicely, all the way to the coast. Really the problem by this point is surface temperatures, which are just a few degrees too warm. We'll see if we can pull a good trend at the surface out of our a$$es or not. Otherwise we're relying on latent heat absorption, which relies on heavier rates than we're seeing, which relies on strong forcing for ascent, which requires WAA.
View attachment 62203
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Yeah those backside soundings are really good, it’s just the marginal surface temps EF15FEAA-2560-4DE5-87D6-7F847051940D.png
Would be so much better if we were dealing with colder air (temps around 25-30 during the event) rather then 32-38
 
Ollie Williams said:
Now this is the stuff I'm talking about!
View attachment 62198View attachment 62200View attachment 62199View attachment 62201
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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Rain Cold said:
The LR look definitely has the RC stamp of approval...exactly what I have been wanting to see us evolve toward. Hopefully, it's the real deal.
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We were just stating about no cold on this side of the world , like 2 days ago! Great turnaround! Rooting for y’all!
 
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