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Ostrich December

SnowNiner said:
Yes that's true. I do remember now it being plenty cold at the start of that storm. At H5 it's relatively similar with the AK vortex. I'm not sure why it was so much colder. I remember it being in the mid 20s at onset IIRC.
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Considerably more snow & ice cover over N America & the CONUS leading up to that event, preventing more modification of the oncoming air mass(es).

1607719088036.png


It's mid-February, the source region (arctic) is usually colder at that time of the year than during December due to greater land and sea snow/ice mass and cooler adjacent oceans (where sea ice isn't present). Another thing to keep in mind is that an arctic air mass that reaches us in the 2nd week of February usually starts moving towards the mid-latitudes several days prior (early February near their climo temp mins), whereas this one started over the Arctic in early December when it's typically much warmer.

Take Barrow, Alaska's temperature trace as an example, notice their climo temperature min doesn't come until late January at the earliest, and it's usually colder in February than it is in December (one reason why we tend to do better snowfall-wise in Feb vs Dec despite similar mean climo temps here).

Screen Shot 2020-12-11 at 3.40.01 PM.png
 
ryan1234 said:
The irony is that while we don’t have as much cold air available as we would in January and February. We also are approaching the shortest days of the year as well the angle being the lowest it gets. You’d think we’d be able to muster up something this month.


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Many here can attest to the fact that sun angle means everything.
 
ryan1234 said:
The irony is that while we don’t have as much cold air available as we would in January and February. We also are approaching the shortest days of the year as well the angle being the lowest it gets. You’d think we’d be able to muster up something this month.


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I mean I'm not sure we would necessarily have more cold air available in Jan or Feb than on Dec 11. For example, in Atlanta the average high is warmer on Feb 11 than it is on Dec 11. And it's only 3 degrees colder on Jan 11 than it is now.
 
Robert West said:
Wild "pre event" to the bigger storm that came 12-18 hours later. That little event overperformed big time for areas that didn't end up getting much at all with the next storm.
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Yeah, I had 4 inches from that “pre event” which was the first of 3 consecutive days of 3 or more inches of daytime snowfall for me and that was a ton of sleet during the middle of the main storm. I had more snow those 3 days than I’ve seen in the 6+ years since.
 
You can see the N/S trough in Canada improve which is our confluence on the NAM (18z isn’t out) 34BEF68F-8A37-4C57-81ED-55D78D9CC973.gif
 
as of right now forecast. nothing screams ice storm anywhere to me.[mtns] I think 2-4” snow then rain while ice starts in the east off the mtn. [foothills] near 1” snow then freezing rain up to 0.15”, areas of drizzle but some stay below freezing whole time. [Piedmont] freezing rain to rain. A light glaze. Areas like Statesville to Greensboro. Maybe starts as snow near Winston briefly could see dusting northern piedmont along Virginia counties. *[everything subject to change as this is very far out and trends could be to a more snowier solution I think and less ice]. Laugh all you want but reality is ice storms are bit of a rarity esp in widespread coverage.
 
Pretty classic continental-scale pattern for a Miller B/CAD event around here, and it's good to see the pattern in NWP lining up well w/ the composites I made last winter, at least makes look like I know what I'm doing lol.

I'd like to see NWP trend towards a more amplified wave pattern over Atlantic Canada & New England, w/ the trough over Newfoundland digging a bit further south. This tweak would both strengthen our CAD high and delay its erosion at a synoptic-scale anyways.

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SWVAwxfan said:
That would be a freaking mess.
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Not as bad as you think taken verbatim. Snow can eat away at ice totals. Sleet can eat away at both. Same for cold rain. If it trends colder then could be looking at more issues.
 
Webberweather53 said:
Considerably more snow & ice cover over N America & the CONUS leading up to that event, preventing more modification of the oncoming air mass(es).

View attachment 57072


It's mid-February, the source region (arctic) is usually colder at that time of the year than during December due to greater land and sea snow/ice mass and cooler adjacent oceans (where sea ice isn't present). Another thing to keep in mind is that an arctic air mass that reaches us in the 2nd week of February usually starts moving towards the mid-latitudes several days prior (early February near their climo temp mins), whereas this one started over the Arctic in early December when it's typically much warmer.

Take Barrow, Alaska's temperature trace as an example, notice their climo temperature min doesn't come until late January at the earliest, and it's usually colder in February than it is in December (one reason why we tend to do better snowfall-wise in Feb vs Dec despite similar mean climo temps here).

View attachment 57073
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The first half of February 2014 really was a beast. Notice the insane ridging north of AK.ezgif-2-13307a84737c.gif
 
BirdManDoomW said:
Not as bad as you think taken verbatim. Snow can eat away at ice totals. Sleet can eat away at both. Same for cold rain. If it trends colder then could be looking at more issues.
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If others charge for this information and you give it for free, I still want my money back. :p

BTW, the EURO still looks like 33F and rain here. It would be nice if this thing could go all Miller A on us!
 
Went back to look at the EURO for my area and the entire event I was between 32 and 35 degrees during the warmest part of the day (1 pm - 4pm). Take into account the globals, especially EURO, are always too warm by a few degrees at the surface and it would be a pretty significant system. Most of it would have likely been sleet and ZR as the 925s were below and right at freezing. 850s were scorching however. It dropped .7 of liquid so that would be a pretty considerable icing event.
 
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