• Hello, please take a minute to check out our awesome content, contributed by the wonderful members of our community. We hope you'll add your own thoughts and opinions by making a free account!

Wintry More SE Snow ? (1/16-1/18)

just give me an inch of snow and I'll be happy. I have seen a dusting so far this winter. It feels like we are already much further along into this winter than we actually are given how much we have been tracking and those that have seen snow. Plus we have been brutally cold at times. We have a lot more time to score than it feels like lol.
 
FROM KBMX - what storm referenced
Models have held fairly steady with the upper-level pattern for
Tuesday as an Arctic vortex moves southward over the Great Lakes
Region. This will drive an Arctic front southward, and concern is
growing regarding the potential for snow just behind the front.
Southerly low-level winds over the western Gulf of Mexico will
guide moisture northward toward the ArkLaTex where it will become
lifted as height falls overspread the region. The combination of
lift from the right entrance region of a 300mb jet and a
developing 850mb trough along a thermal gradient, will be crucial
in this situation. Models will need more time to resolve these
features and come to a consensus on the amount of expected
precipitation. Currently there is good operational and ensemble
support for 0.05-0.10 inch QPF across most or perhaps all of the
forecast area Tuesday into Tuesday night. Temperature profiles
suggest this will fall almost exclusively as snow, even in our
southern areas with temperatures in the 22-30F range. This could
yield snow ratios up to 18:1 especially across the North, which
means 1-2 inches could of snow could occur from just 0.10 inch of
liquid equivalent. This is a challenging forecast because we are
only talking about a minimal amount of liquid equivalent amounts,
but temperatures will be more than cold enough for significant
impacts to roadways. Slight changes meteorological features could
mean the difference between no precipitation and a high-impact
event.
 
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
1300m said:
That should come stamped on every ECMWF/EPS output generated. 100% agree on everything stated here. I'm not saying this in a condescending way, but I highly doubt that more than 1 or 2 folks at NWS-RAH have ever heard of the RGEM (unless someone has made them aware of it). When I was there, many did not even know the CMC was in AWIPS and you'll notice they never mention it or other models like the UKMET.
Click to expand...

How is that even possible? That is mind-boggling, if true.
 
BMX and HSV have very good takes on it. I tend to lean towards HSV's take, as moisture will really have a hard time coming down for a sustained period of time. 0.5 - 1 inch looks good, but should be high impacts.
 
Phil Connors said:
FROM KBMX - what storm referenced
Models have held fairly steady with the upper-level pattern for
Tuesday as an Arctic vortex moves southward over the Great Lakes
Region. This will drive an Arctic front southward, and concern is
growing regarding the potential for snow just behind the front.
Southerly low-level winds over the western Gulf of Mexico will
guide moisture northward toward the ArkLaTex where it will become
lifted as height falls overspread the region. The combination of
lift from the right entrance region of a 300mb jet and a
developing 850mb trough along a thermal gradient, will be crucial
in this situation. Models will need more time to resolve these
features and come to a consensus on the amount of expected
precipitation. Currently there is good operational and ensemble
support for 0.05-0.10 inch QPF across most or perhaps all of the
forecast area Tuesday into Tuesday night. Temperature profiles
suggest this will fall almost exclusively as snow, even in our
southern areas with temperatures in the 22-30F range. This could
yield snow ratios up to 18:1 especially across the North, which
means 1-2 inches could of snow could occur from just 0.10 inch of
liquid equivalent. This is a challenging forecast because we are
only talking about a minimal amount of liquid equivalent amounts,
but temperatures will be more than cold enough for significant
impacts to roadways. Slight changes meteorological features could
mean the difference between no precipitation and a high-impact
event.
Click to expand...
Matt Grantham at BMX is awesome!!! I highly respect his disco/forecasts.
 
Chattownsnow said:
Looks as though this NAM run will be an improvement on the last for TN, AL, GA, MS. the wave crashing into the PAC NW is slower and ridging is further west. Should help the northern stream dig a bit more. Hope that is a trend we see on all the models today.
Click to expand...

I agree, the NAM is trending in the right direction inside 48-60 hours w/ our s/w as it enters the US. I definitely feel much better having our wave enter thru eastern Montana & North Dakota vs over Minnesota as some NWP was suggesting a day or so ago... Its solution beyond this point closer to truncation doesn't matter a whole lot for the moment given the model is pretty terrible after 60 hours.
Unknown.gif
 
Storm5 said:
1-2 Seems resonable. This won't be a big snow but it could have big impacts

Sent from my SM-J320VPP using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Bingo!! And that's why you have to pay super attentive on this. Even an inch of snow is gonna stick like glue.
 
I know its the 84 Nam but its seems to go poof like the gfs
 
NAM vaporizes the system at 84. But I’m betting in the later hours the energy transfer to the coast blossoms some moisture back into areas of the Carolina’s.
 
1300m said:
Amen brother, amen! I really respect that and commend you for that attitude! Folks are not dumb - if you present them with the scenario in an intelligent manner, most can comprehend that it's a possibility and to keep an eye on the forecast. All of these "our worst case scenarios are coming true" silliness at the 11th hour is just embarrassing, and that just happened here with the NWS-RAH for our last event.
Click to expand...
Thank you! When I was on TV, I know y'all know from being on the board here and FB, because most on here are not from Macon DMA, know I always made my own forecasts. I'm talking about maps of events (good or bad lol) but I owned them. nWS is awesome and great folks, seriously. However, can't tell you how many times there forecasts get barfed back out over the airways. This isn't a rant and sorry if it sounds like it, but it always bothered me how conservative and scarred people are to make there own forecast and maps and to tell people about the potential. That's your job!! This will not be a huge snowfall, hell if any, BUT it could have HUGE impact. It almost reminds me of a snow jam 2014 setup ( maybe not as much precip) but Arctic airmass incoming and shi* is gonna stick like glue
 
I have a love hate relationship with systems like this one.... I love it because it has potential to be an overperformer: jet dynamics, if it can close off, high ratios, etc.... but I hate it because we have to wait for precip to develop, gonna be lots of radar gazing to see returns expanding or not. We may not know in NC until Tues what if anything will happen.....
 
ForsythSnow said:
Everyone needs to remember that the NAM and moisture go together like chocolate and gum. You think it's a good idea, but it's just nasty in the end!
Click to expand...

Didn’t see much of anything from the NAM today, but it would be prudent to give it more time that the main event is likely at the long end of the range at this point.
 
My thoughts on the trend in the two major globals here.

Hopefully we see some better trending today and tonight and we don’t take more steps backward.

This is a thread, click tweet to view the replies.






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top