Ready for the Wrap-Around?
8:25 PM 1/26 - TEAM STATEMENT & LOOKING AHEAD (Forecaster Mike Natoli & WSC Team)
As we warned last night, Part 1 of this event fizzled today with the clipper system moving through. Now, a strong cyclone is starting to develop offshore, and this will begin phase 2 of this extremely complex system.But before you ask, no, we will not get the big snow that parts of New England are projected to get. Beyond that, there is still some uncertainty because this storm is so complicated.
The graphic attached shows the total liquid precipitation from the late afternoon run of the HRRR (High Resolution Rapid Refresh) model - a very short range model sometimes useful for short term forecasting. This shows generally 0.1-0.3" of liquid this evening for the Mid-Atlantic region until early Tuesday morning.
EXPECTATIONS OVERNIGHT
- Phase 2 does not look impressive, but it could cause more of an impact because of the lack of sunlight allowing accumulation on roadways.
- That amount of liquid would translate to a total of about 1-3" of additional snow ending tonight using a 10:1 ratio.
- This would be associated with a band of snow on the back edge of the developing cyclone retrograding from NE to SW across central MD this evening.
- The biggest issue heading into the AM commute will be ICE! Moisture and standing water from snowmelt will refreeze overnight, especially on untreated and elevated surfaces.
BUST FOR PART 2 ALSO?
If this band does not form as indicated on this model (40% chance), most areas will be stuck with the coating-1" we got during the day today and that will be the end of it.
9 comments:
Back to school today for Balto County, I'd rather move to get some work done then try to get those weary eyed kids back to work after a week off. Looks like a few more nuisance snows in the upcoming days the in time for mid February a chance for a snowblast. We have a professional day scheduled the 13th and that means a snow day if history holds true.
Got another 4" overnight or so in NE CC. Just enough to mess up the drive and make me late plowing it...
You always said during this latest stretch of bad weather that the models were giving a range of possibilities. I'm no forecaster nor meteorologist, so in my opinion you played it pretty straight. Mother Nature took the 5% (?) possibility and ran with it. You're still the best out there.
I've always used Foot's as a weather source & have found your accuracy higher than my other sources. You said early on it was a hard storm to forecast & gave more frequent updates which is appreciated. Admit missed forecast & move on & tell us what's really coming once it becomes clearer. Seems everyone jumps on the bandwagon to see who's closest at some point. Batting 0 on the last two though. Not like you at all. Mother Nature is still the boss....unpredictable like all women lol. (Joke...I love the LOTW article)
I believe that you guys give the most and best information out there in a digestible manner. The only thing as of late that has been putting me off is sometimes your posts get overly dramatic. Like, you know when you go to weather.com and they show a radar map titled, "You see all that blue stuff? It's going to kill your whole family." I know you guys haven't gone that far and I know that you make more money the more people that click on your website, but in science, facts are awesome, drama is not.
Your forecast was the ONLY one that consistently stated that the snowfall amounts were always uncertain. You stated it could be 3-4 inches or 8-10 inches, But always said it could go either way. The weather channel, in contrast, hyped this storm up to the max? They had a reporter who kept saying how bad it was snowing and when he stuck his measuring stick into the snow, it was only 3" deep. So why in the heck did they act like the end of the world was coming. As I said, Foot's Forecast always tempered their forecast with caution and I appreciate that
I just found your web site (I know: better late than never) and I'm certainly going to add it to my "Weather" bookmarks. I can forgive the NWS for getting the January 2015 storm so wrong for NJ and NYC - especially after some folks there apologized. But I'm extremely angry at Accuweather. They hyped this storm past the time it was obvious they were wrong. Worse, I didn't see any of them take responsibility today for their doom-saying. Bernie Raynoh, especially, with his "Epic storm!" proclamations and his, "I still like a foot in Philadelphia" was especially galling today as he explained - not why he was wrong - but why the storm did what it did. As your web site demonstrates, a little humility is an essential factor in weather prediction.
The question of moisture was never up in the air on this. We could see plenty of it on the radar and indeed we got a lot of moisture...as rain.
The biggest failing I see is in all of this was that temperatures were much too high going into it. Whenever the Baltimore area is near (but above) freezing temps the forecasters should always lean towards the very conservative side of any accumulations..if any. But for whatever reason, all of the major sites kept showing the same information, regardless of actual temperatures.
Had the Baltimore area been 10 degrees (or maybe even 5?) less than it was for all of the precipitation, we would have very likely gotten what was forecast.
So my take on all of this is, pay MUCH more attention to actual temperatures people are reporting on the ground and using actual reports by people on the ground in various spots to give a better take on it as it happens. Don't wait until it's over to call it a bust.
Let's crowd source the information of temperatures and accumulations of storms like that as they go along and then we'll be more accurate. That clipper LOOKED like it was producing a lot of snow based on the BLUE on the radar, but I bet it wasn't dropping much snow as it went along and that should have been part of what we were all considering.
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