Saturday, January 31, 2015

"You keep me hangin' on..."

"You keep me hangin' on."
Headline winner Central MD reader Laura B.

9:45 PM 1/31 - FINAL PRECIP MAP & PROJECTIONS
Text of report to be added shortly





11:31 AM EST 1/31 - FINAL SCENARIO DECISIONS - As many are expecting, we are finalizing the projections for this event to the following main ideas. A precip/snow/timing map will be in progress today for issuance tonight.  An early synopsis below, with additional detail this afternoon ahead of the map:

OPTION A -- newly titled as "You The One I Wantis lowered to 30% but kept to account for an unexpected southward push of the cold front on Sunday night. There is a lot more precip with this system than the busted Round 1 of January 26-27, and that could lead to a surprise outcome for some if Snowstradamus played his wild card option below. Thanks to reader Kristin N. for capturing the feeling many Powderhounds have, we know you really wanted a good raging snowstorm (unless you are an outdoor worker.)
  • THE WILDCARD: Were the cold front to suddenly push south like it did early Monday 1/26, millions of us would end up in a very serious surprise snow and ice situation. The rising NAO forecast says otherwise, but large scale models have been known to be "off slightly" from time to time.  

OPTION B -- newly titled as "So Close, So Close And Yet So Far"  is raised to 70%. This looks to be the more probable outcome, as the track of the Low in Kansas (still about 1,500 miles away) would on Sunday traverse the mid-Mississippi Valley and reach northern Virginia by 7 PM Sunday. You can even detect the northward shifting on radar while the system is still way out there. 
  • This track favors light snow for northern VA, MD and PA Sunday late morning to early afternoon - but the major cities from Philly to Baltimore to DC would change over to rain Sunday evening. Even northern and western counties would see precip fighting between snow and rain, with occasional mix overnight. The rain/snow line could even set up along near PA/MD line and create a sharp gradient with rain in Timonium and Bel Air MD, but heavy wet snow in Taneytown, Carroll County MD and Frederick MD. 
Thanks to reader Mark M. for proposing this one last night. It could be tied to either the Hall & Oates classic or Elvis' timeless Paradise, depending on your music genre.

SUBMIT YOUR FUSION HEADLINE...
There's a lot of winter left. "That month" starts tomorrow. Many opportunities are left for fun headlines to come, with very worthy prizes from the team such as hoodies, beanies or perhaps your own FF snow ruler with the snowflake logo. If you have an idea for a future headline, such as good news on the weather horizon, a looming storm, a surprise ice storm, a light fluffy snow, or just a pleasant Spring day. We've seen it all in these parts and there's lyrics or quotes aplenty to match the varied weather of the East, only limitation is your boundless creativity!

As the Carpenters might say, "It has only just begun" for we plan several more fun contests and powderhound prizes for readers here... from the seasoned pre-Facebook ones to the recent FB converts. More details on our next contest after the Sunday event.



17 comments:

ravensbbr said...

Justin Berk hit the nail on the head with his quote about trying to predict a 50-100 mile wide storm path 48 hours out.

Prepare as best you can. Then close the blinds, watch the Super Bowl, go to sleep and the next morning it will be...
...


....


...


:-P

Westsidehideaway said...

Hey, given that I am planning on making home made bread, slow roasting baby backs and frying up some fresh Chessie oysters tomorrow, and not leaving the house all day, I'll take the probable forecast and enjoy myself watching whatever comes down.

Andy, Southern York County Pa said...

1 to 3 inches of snow and sleet to rain for baltimore metro followed by a quarter inch of plain rain. The winter of nuisance events continues. Confluence was far too weak to keep this storm south.

kyleZ said...

Scenario A 70% + Scenario B 30 % = A grand total of a 100% rain if it is not gonna be all snow then who cares losing any hope I had left in this winter is just does not wanna snow south of the mason Dixon it seems.

kristia35 said...

Next week looks interesting. Remember 5 years ago at that time 😊

kristia35 said...

Some day my HECS will come 🎢🎢

NeedaSnowday said...

πŸ‘€ at that slug of moisture and disgusted that it won't amount to a good ❄️❄️ ..... Ugh!

ravensbbr said...

Hear you on the 1-3 for Bmore metro, Andy, but thinking a little higher for us highlanders as always. Certainly more frozen precip up here, PLENTY of cold air in place, NAO still spiking downwards, maybe some blocking...I'll be the holdout, not ready to stick a fork in this one yet.

Butch Dynomite said...

For ravensb:
Lloyd christmas: "Mary what are the chances a girl like you and a guy like me could end up 2gether?"

Mary: . . "one in a million"
Lloyd: (Elated) " so your tellin me there's a chance!!!"

BioPat said...

Sunday doesn't sound like much but there is a current discussion focused on Monday afternoon/evening wrap around snow. Currently it appears that it may have some potential to cover Baltimore through Delmarva with some powder and lots of cold air as well.

Comments, thoughts, Andy??

ravensbbr said...

LOL, Butch, probably true...

ravensbbr come Tuesday -

"Wait a minute...!!!!"

"What was all that one in a million talk?!?"

:-P



ravensbbr said...

Although if you examine the WPC/NDFD12Z chart on Foot's main page closely, you'll see a very thin strip of dark blue (heavy snow) right along the Mason-Dixon line. Deals me and Mike Chev. in, might actually exclude Andy to the NE...?

Butch Dynomite said...

Yeah why does snow line follow M Dixon line anyway!!? .. politics...

Unknown said...

I like your thought process Ravensbbr. Wouldn't that be wild if our elevation causes a surprise.

Foot's Forecast said...

Evening check in all! We are in the process of moving our next update over to the post. We will first add the precip map and then the text soon after.

Will be an interesting dual-match to watch, one screen on the radar, one on the game.

ravensbbr said...

No lack of cold air. Was out huntng all day, last day of Canada goose up here, just NOW starting to get warm. There's cold and there's dang cold. This was the latter.

All we need is for this Canadian H to push down just 100 miles south and boom, in it...

kyleZ said...

It's 18 degrees in harford and feeling very depressed that it's not gonna snow.