Alert: Sunday Night Storm Odds Increasing
New information I'm analyzing suggests an increased risk of significant precipitation starting Sunday afternoon and especially Sunday night. The exact location of rain/snow line -- likely to be somewhere between the Chesapeake Bay and mountains -- is so uncertain, that it's too early to confidently say whether the metro area will receive more rain, more snow or a mix. A detailed forecast and Snow Lover's Crystal Ball will be posted Saturday morning.
By Jason Samenow |
January 11, 2008; 10:50 PM ET
Alerts
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Posted by: JB | January 11, 2008 10:55 PM
New GFS further west with the low, precip shield not much further west though. Trends continue.
Posted by: Ian, Capital Weather Gang | January 11, 2008 11:01 PM
You wouldn't be tormenting us snow-lovers, would you Jason? :)
Posted by: jtf | January 11, 2008 11:27 PM
My University begins second semester classes in Foggy Bottom on Monday. I wonder what are the chances we will have a snow day and thus prolong our winter break by 1 day
Of course, it would mean making it up in May, but still....
Posted by: John Doe | January 11, 2008 11:32 PM
Man the TV Mets were all over the place on this one. The woman on channel 4 said the storm is trending more eastward and we might not even get much rain! The other stations were saying the opposite.
Posted by: TJ | January 11, 2008 11:33 PM
JB: Here are a couple of links I use to look up terms -
American Meteorological Society Glossary at http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/glossary
NOAA Glossary at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/glossary/
Posted by: ~sg | January 11, 2008 11:34 PM
So is the PM Update now permanently renamed CommuteCast or am I confusing the two of them? Just wondering...
Posted by: ~sg | January 11, 2008 11:37 PM
This would be great if it snowed on Sunday night!! MCPS exams start monday and on monday morning, I'm getting a wart burned off. PLEASE SNOW!!
Posted by: Peter | January 11, 2008 11:41 PM
Come west! Come west!!
I'm excited to see the SLCB for the first time on WaPo!
NWS says about the storm next Thursday-Friday..."A SECOND COASTAL LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM IS PROGGED FOR THE END OF NEXT WEEK. THIS SYSTEM STILL LOOKS PRETTY POTENT...AND COLDER THAN SUNDAYS SYSTEM."
Posted by: Chase, Luray (THE Valley King)--Don't hate. lol | January 11, 2008 11:41 PM
As a poster had days ago predicted, I caught a local TV weatherman during the 11pm news referring to this past weeks "golfable weather" and now a snowstorm on the horizon! Yipee!
Posted by: Christina in Centreville | January 11, 2008 11:50 PM
~sg: Steve's PM Update has morphed into two posts -- "News and Notes" and "CommuteCast."
Posted by: Jason, Capital Weather Gang | January 11, 2008 11:51 PM
~sg -- bear with us as some of the titles of posts are going to evolve as we get our feet wet in our new home.
Posted by: Dan, Capital Weather Gang | January 12, 2008 12:19 AM
Any thoughts on just how far west this is trending? With the type of storm track suggested here, my area should most certainly be in the snow - if we get QPF at all that is. Hopefully it'll take that perfect track that buries everyone :)
Posted by: Jim in Blacksburg | January 12, 2008 12:51 AM
Just got home and took a look at latest models, especially gfs....have to like whats going on. Was a bit foggy out coming home tonight.
Posted by: arnoldkh | January 12, 2008 2:42 AM
I hate to be a bubble-burster, and there's probably no bigger a snow lover on this site than me, but this still looks like a largely rain event over the immediate DC metro area. Perhaps changing to snow, yes, but there is very little in the way of cold air set in place for the storm. I, do, however, think that the rain-snow line will probably be within 20-30 miles of I-95...
...Still, a pretty uncertain forecast, however.
Posted by: Josh, Capital Weather Gang | January 12, 2008 3:55 AM
Im guessing another dissapointing Rain event and everyone up North gets to enjoy the snow is there ever gonna be a good snow here again?
Posted by: Jonathan Johnson | January 12, 2008 4:54 AM
Jon from Ruther Glen
Stick with the rain scenario, maybe a brief changeover Sunday overnight, but primarily rain with this one. Our "better" winter pattern doesn't set in until January 19th. We'll get our storm later, but forget this one-don't waste your time!
Posted by: Jonathan Fletcher | January 12, 2008 7:03 AM
The comments to this entry are closed.
I'm a life-long Metro-area resident who has always been very interested in this region's weather, possibly because it provided a "safe topic of conversation" with my family (you know, so we didn't have to discuss anything controversial, like politics, or religion, or our feelings). So discovering this blog on the WaPo website has been very exciting to me. I can only refresh the RSS feed for the Post's "Soccer Insider" and "Capitals Insider" blogs so many times before I am grudgingly forced to return to work. This opens a whole new venue of time wasting for me. But as a weather n00b, much of the terminology is a bit baffling. I deduce from context that the 00Z/18Z/etc NAM/NGM/GFS/etc must be models that are run at certain times (the Z standing for Zulu, perhaps) the more educated among us track, but there are plenty of other acronyms to wade through (NAO - North Atlantic Oscillation, EIEIO - East Indian Enhanced Inversion Oscillation, etc.). Is there a thread floating around here somewhere that we lowly bystanders can refer to that might clue us in to what some of the terminology means? Either way, love the blog, keep it coming, and MAN I hope we get some legit snow soon so my wife (upstate NY snow snob) will quite harping on this area's lame winters.