Who Is Ready For Some Snow This Weekend?

[soccerdad72]

Updated forecast...

 

[MGMmjl]

Here in the South, winter weather threats are always so borderline. With the shift northward in the forecast low pressure area, places just north of me that models originally showed having a significant threat of ice are now likely looking at just a cold rain. There's always a question on how early is too early to make a definite winter weather forecast, or just to say that we are watching things and the weather could get interesting.

A TV meteorologist in Knoxville, TN posted this today:

"REAL TALK MOMENT: If it were up to me, I wouldn’t start talking about these potential winter storms until a few days out and that’s what we (TV Broadcast Meteorologists) used to do before social media. Over the past several years, social media weather wannabes started posting model data 10 to 14 days out. Also, winter storm watches are now being issued 4-5 days out.

I now now have no choice but to talk about it, even if we know it may not happen based on my past experience with similar systems and climatology. And if I don’t talk about it, I get told that we’re afraid of being wrong, when the reality is, we know there’s no guarantee that it’s going to happen and the model data is probably gonna change.

Hopefully, that helps folks understand our dilemma when it comes to forecasting snow and ice. None of this is as black and white or as simple as people think it should be. All the different variables involved in forecasting winter weather alone are super complex and nearly any southern winter system is going to have a large potential to change even within 24 hours of the event."

 

[Genie+]

Hopefully being over the weekend will help.

I remember Nov ‘18 when our storm came in quicker and intensified much quicker than predicted. Ended up gridlocking the evening commute. After 4 hours of driving my normally 20 minute route home from work, I still didn’t even make it home.

Slow moving traffic with conditions rapidly intensifying caused more and more detours as more and more vehicles went from being able to handle it - to not. One route would be moving, halfway thru it ended up blocked, take an alternate, halfway thru ended up blocked, take another alternate... Finally I got to a 5 mile road leading directly to my house, and that too was blocked by cars skidded out of control unable to make it up the next incline bend. Had to turn around once more in the opposite direction, find somewhere safe to park, hunker down and wait for DH to come rescue me with his monster work truck lol, and from there we still needed to take a circuitous route home.

If I had left work 30 minutes sooner could’ve avoided the whole thing. Took almost 6 hours for 13 mile commute

 

[_19disnA]

Here in the South, winter weather threats are always so borderline. With the shift northward in the forecast low pressure area, places just north of me that models originally showed having a significant threat of ice are now likely looking at just a cold rain. There's always a question on how early is too early to make a definite winter weather forecast, or just to say that we are watching things and the weather could get interesting.

I agree. Those 24 hr weather channels seem to make every weather event something bigger than reality like they want you to sit glued to their station until it is over. Many things can impact the exact track of a storm as well as its intensity or whether you get rain vs snow/ice. I think it is good to create awareness of potential storms, but so many random variables can impact where it goes that trying to predict many days in advance usually turns out to be wrong. I am not sure what value there is showing those competing mathematical models of the projected storm which generally predict different outcomes.

Counties and areas where bad weather is predicted need to do advance planning and then see what develops.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

"REAL TALK MOMENT: If it were up to me, I wouldn’t start talking about these potential winter storms until a few days out and that’s what we (TV Broadcast Meteorologists) used to do before social media. Over the past several years, social media weather wannabes started posting model data 10 to 14 days out. Also, winter storm watches are now being issued 4-5 days out.

I now now have no choice but to talk about it, even if we know it may not happen based on my past experience with similar systems and climatology. And if I don’t talk about it, I get told that we’re afraid of being wrong, when the reality is, we know there’s no guarantee that it’s going to happen and the model data is probably gonna change.

Hopefully, that helps folks understand our dilemma when it comes to forecasting snow and ice. None of this is as black and white or as simple as people think it should be. All the different variables involved in forecasting winter weather alone are super complex and nearly any southern winter system is going to have a large potential to change even within 24 hours of the event."

That seems to be very specific to your area that may not get stuff often. The last line about changing within 24hrs of an event for is applicable to many different areas not just the south. The way the jet stream, rivers or lakes, specific location a place is, topography of the land, etc all often influence a system such that it can change within a few hours of an expected event. Where I live that IS the norm because where we are in the middle of the country is influenced by both Canada and Mexico all the time. And in my case it's often "south of I-70"= X north of I-70=Y, or at times west of I-35=X, eat of I-35=Y.

Another take to your weatherman you're talking about is the other side of the coin. The fact that when more knowledge is given more safety can be taken. It's like talking about tornadoes, you can't predict them with any sort of real advancement, they are wildly random, but advance warning systems have done a tremendous help in reducing the deaths in such events.

The most advanced weathermen will still talk about long-range models but they won't inject confidence in them, they'll talk about a potential for a particular weather pattern in the coming weeks. They are helpful for learning weather patterns as the years go on by, learning how norm weather patterns change too. I don't think the person you're talking about is giving their due diligence to their own industry by calling people wannabe social media weather people and connecting it to long-range models. There is a subset of people who are less or not trained at all but they shouldn't be lumped into a category like the person you quoted said.

Weather is always unpredictable no matter where you live no system can really be predicted without unknowns or with certainty, timing is often one of the most difficult things to predict. From when a system shifts over from rain to snow or doesn't even have rain to begin with first (which is better for pre-treatment around my area). So there is such a thing as too much forecast with confidence but at least in my area if they only started talking about things these days only a few days out it would not be better, it would be worse. They just don't know what a system will be like but they should start talking about it early enough to give people time to prepare including schools and businesses.

 

[Mtraynom]

No, '94 was so bad it left a collective scar on everyone in the area! I was in high school though, so for me it was fun. We didn't lose power and a tree fell on a friend's house. His mom didn't really have anywhere they could both stay, so he stayed with us and it was like an extended sleepover. We rode our bikes across the pedestrian overpass on Sam Cooper and slid to the bottom. Making up the missed school was no fun though!

I lived in Fayette County, back then, and we were out of school for 2 weeks, it was amazing. I am looking forward to a couple of days off work...

 

[hardcorestitch]

Update from WAVY-TV 10: looks like you folks in the Norfolk area will have until mid Sunday morning the latest to enjoy the accumulated snow, as from a window between 8am and 3pm, there will be rain.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Hopefully being over the weekend will help.

It would be better in my area if the heavy snow hit overnight Friday into Saturday morning and that was it. Instead it's late Friday night into Saturday with heavy snow most of Saturday with a secondary Saturday night into Sunday with the extreme cold still around Monday. That will impact Monday if we get too much snow and the temps I would anticipate kids being out Friday and Monday if they cancel class.

It being the weekend is actually not as good as people may think. You still have a ton of people who are expected to go to work especially retail and food and there's not much time to clean up before the following week. If it was a storm system occurring even Thursday night into Friday into Saturday it would be more time to clean up for the following week.

 

[Willow Ufgood]

You must live in the South, lol. We only had one measurable snowstorm when we lived there and it was crazy at the grocery stores- just nuts.

Actually, I live in the Northeast. I'm old enough to remember the blizzard of '96. Three feet of snow and nowhere to put it so they were dumping truckload into the river. School was closed for a week because there were so many rural roads that hadn't been cleared that a lot of kids couldn't make it in.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Yeah I wash things in cold water for my laundry. And that's what I meant unless you're concerned about water supply. If you live in a place where the tank runs down more quickly with hot water it wouldn't be as easy to do both at the same time.

We had a repair person years ago during the warranty of our microwave (it was like 11 months old brand new house at that time) when he was at our house mention starting your tap first, getting it to the hottest it goes, then start the dishwasher to help kick start the hot water into the dishwasher so that is what I've done for years now. This is supposed to help the cycle run more efficiently and take less time to heat up.

We wash everything in the hottest setting possible, knits, towels, whatever. And we use a capful of detergent and either laundry sanitizer if towels or liquid fabric softener if knits because everything has so much static if we don't.

But that's a good idea about the dishwasher. We usually turn it on right after we've cleaned the kitchen and done the dishes for the night anyway, so it's probably not much difference in what we already do. But still a great idea.

 

[georgina]

Snow here is supposed to be powdery since it will be cold, so maybe not the best for snowballs, but fights are tentatively planned Sunday locally here in Alexandria and in DC on the mall....hoping the ice stays away!

dcnewsnow.com/news/life/snowball-fights-planned-for-dc-alexandria/

 

[georgina]

View attachment 1040871
From the Giant Eagle Facebook page.

Yup, that was the joke when we lived in Pittsburgh - milk and bread!