Bring on ice storm 2008!

Aaron, have you been in major ice storm before? The aftermath is not pretty. Please no ice, Mr./Ms. Weatherman.

We already had Ice Storm 2008 last week. Bring on Snowstorm '08. lol

Jack Diamond gave me my morning laugh.

Tomorrow: Afternoon snow flurries possible.

That after he advertised the Winter Storm Watch about a million times. LOL!

I just can't get over how funny that is.

Any chance snow or even sleet hold out for longer then expected and if so what are the chances?

Seriously, can we PLEASE ban comments like this:

"RAIN!"

Those posts are not only obnoxious, the are incredibly irritating to read at a time like this. (talking to you greg!) Especially when most other aren't saying that. I know you're entitled to your forecast (haha), but at least make it in a more detailed way so we can understand why you are bombing the current forecast. Thanks!

Yeah, no ice storms please. It's no fun sitting (and freezing) in the dark and watching all the food go bad. I'd rather have rain.

Okay people:

SWEEP THE SNOW OFF YOUR CAR BEFORE YOU LEAVE!

The snow is flying off the rooves of people's cars and smashing into other people's windshields. Although it is cool seeing the snow blow around on the road, it's not cool seeing people slam on their brakes because they just got an oversized snowball smashed in their windshield. Use common sense people!

so what's the deal for tonight/fri? 6"? 8"? is that even possible? what confluence of events would have to happen? (and how can i help?)

No! No ice please! I am flying out of National on Saturday morning for the Dominican Republic.

I'm hoping this storm fizzles out!

I have high hopes but there are indications of disappointment in the making for snowlovers, especially south and southwest of D.C.

Why? northern and southern streams of energy and moisture, no phasing, westerly winds aloft. I hope for some change in the 12Z runs because I want the moisture...and snow!

Looking on the bright side. We certainly don't need another ice storm!! though the moisture would be nice without the ice.

Mid and late next week will have to be watched for surprises. A forecasted very strong and deep 500 mb vortex taking on a negative tilt will favor cyclogenesis along the east coast.

Re. the surprise late yesterday snow, east of D.C.: As the snowfall intensified, the clipper was nearing the coast along the Va./N.C. border. The movement and pressure falls had tracked a steady southeast movement from n. Kentucky at 8 am. Between 3 and 4 pm, I noticed the pressure falls took a sharp left turn from northeast N.C. to off the Va/Md. coast. The low pressure then elongated in this direction. By 5-6 pm an east to southeast movement had resumed. Draw your own conclusions!

Anyone ever fly out of Dulles on the day after a storm? I have a flight Saturday night and I'm looking for advice. Is it just as much of a nightmare as National is?

It sounds a bit like we are questioning whether or not temps will remain at or below freezing. What is the liklihood that temps will remain below freezing throughout the day tomorrow in DC? In addition, if clouds roll in a bit to early this afternoon, could this keep our temps up a bit tonight? Finally, as opposed to usually experiencing cooling of the lower levels of the atmosphere with percipitation, can we expecting warming due to the invasion of warm air aloft? Thanks!!

Any ideas when the snow will flip to "wintry mix" on friday?

Only an immature person would hope for an ice storm. I am assuming that Aaron would enjoy having his power out for days and having no heat in his house while he enjoys a day off from school.

Nobody wishes anybody else harm when they want winter weather Jay... There are always going to be people who love winter and want everything. Then there are always going to be people that hate winter and accuse everyone that loves winter of wanting to bring great harm to people.

I've noticed that winter haters always accuse the winter lovers of wanting to bring harm to people when they hope for snow/ice...it happened to me a few storms ago.

Don't hate on the winter lovers just because you have to drive in it, if it's that bad DON'T GO TO WORK! Students don't have that luxury. If school is open we HAVE TO GO or else. We don't have the advantage of paid sick leave you know...

Sorry for that rant...my mom is the same way with the winter hating - she says that I want weather that kills people...well, rain kills people, knocks people's power out, and washes people's homes away too, but we all want that, right?

Still trying to get a handle on the forecast at this point . . . even areas well west of us are forecast to change over to freezing rain after 1:00 p.m. Friday? So the strong westerly is bring in warm air aloft?

I know everyone is focused on this weekends system. I just glanced at GFS for March 5-6. Looks good "now".

Augusta, Could a scenerio set up where we get more snow then expected? Thanks

The weather is VA is pretty boring. So when people get the chance to get excited about anything out of the ordinary they jump on it. Nobody wishes harm they just want something different from the 40 degree lame rain events. So if that means getting excited about ice I don't blame them. I am a displaced Midwesterner and really sad to be missing out on the record snowfalls they have been seeing this winter. I want something that is actually newsworthy here too.

Augusta Jim:

Could you explain what you mean by this? What does streams of energy and phasing mean? I'm a new poster, Thanks.

----Why? northern and southern streams of energy and moisture, no phasing, westerly winds aloft. I hope for some change in the 12Z runs because I want the moisture...and snow!

skinsfan:
Absolutely!! There remains many questions concerning the ultimate evolution. One scenerio could see unexpected phasing and strong coastal development near Hatteras that moves north.

What about a flight into National that's supposed to get in around midnight on Friday? Any chance I won't be stuck in Miami?

For the record, the average high for today is 50. Today's actual temperatures forecasted to be in the mid-30s. Approximately 15 degrees below normal.

In other words, winter weather lovers - be glad for anything frozen you get from this. These temps are not the norm for this area (like some people seem to think when they complain about weather in the 40s).

It will be interesting to see how much CAD factors into this storm seeing how most forecasters undercaculated CAD with the storm last week. Does CAD ever lead to more snow versus more icing with a storm?

Could August Jim or the Capx team take answer the following:

It sounds a bit like we are questioning whether or not temps will remain at or below freezing. What is the liklihood that temps will remain below freezing throughout the day tomorrow in DC? In addition, if clouds roll in a bit to early this afternoon, could this keep our temps up a bit tonight? Finally, as opposed to usually experiencing cooling of the lower levels of the atmosphere with percipitation, can we expecting warming due to the invasion of warm air aloft? Thanks!!

Matt:
Simplified, if the jet stream is split between nothern and southern branches, energy is separated. When there is a phasing, energy is consolidated and storm development is stronger.

Fairfax,

I feel the same way..I think most folks get excited becuase we dont often get winter weather, especially this winter. We dont wish anyone harm.

I do hope for a snowier solution instead of ice. Will see if the 12z trends in our favoer..

Thanks Jim.

SNOW vs. ICE...... You can check out the big fight "Live" tomorrow on Doppler Radar.....;)

Snowlover: Right now, it looks like temps will stay subfreezing N&W of DC most of the day tomorrow and into tomorrow night. In DC and points S&E, temps will probably flirt with the freezing mark between late afternoon and 8 or 9pm Friday... it will be a close call.

Uh oh: Tough call on your flight. You're probably looking at some delays... but don't think this will be the kind of crippling event that causes mass cancellations or airport closures.

re: questions about when changeovers will occur-- that's the toughest question. Snow to ice probably occurs early to mid morning Friday. Ice to rain probably occurs between late afternoon Friday and late Friday evening in DC and S&E. N&W of DC, precip likely stays all frozen.

re: could we get more snow than forecast? yes. but we could also get less. my best bet right now is 1-3" before a changeover.

a lot of this will be covered in the snow lover's crystal ball later this morning.

At 7:41 a.m., I expressed concerns for snowlovers south and southwest of D.C..

The 12z NAM, now gives even more support to those fears. For folks living north of D.C., things look much better, even beefed up since the 06 NAM.

I think the excitement in DC about winter weather is two-fold. One, we don't get much winter weather compared to the Northeast or New England. So anytime we get the sniff of winter weather we get excited. Secondly, we have the potential for some really "BIG" snowstorms. So there is always the hope in back of people's mind that maybe this winter will the the one where we get the next storm that we can measure in feet.

Hey! I got my snow AND ate my eclipse too!

Springfield had snow showers at 7pm and by 9pm I had 10-12 people looking through the telescopes at a perfect eclipse in a perfect sky.

Nice.

What's the time frame on updating from a winter storm watch to a warning?

In the new 5-day forecast graphics, those triangle-shaped icicles just LOOK scary.

No ice storm. Snow or rain please!

Just reported - Powerful earthquake reported in northeast Nevada...

I know this has nothing to do with our weather, but thought it was worth mentioning.

Weatherdude I like snow as much as you do but I certainly don't want an ice storm. You probably have never lived with one having your power out for five days.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/nn00234437.php

Very cool. I'm going out and make my frozen offering to the Snow Gawds during lunch. Maybe I'll do my semi-naked Snow Dance in Lafayette Park and the let the SS chase me into McPherson Square.

Ooga-Booga. Ooga-Booga. Ooga-Booga. Snow!
Ooga-Booga. Ooga-Booga. Ooga-Booga. Snow!
Ooga-Booga. Ooga-Booga. Ooga-Booga. Snow!

Uncle Dak: A 2.5 isn't that powerful. Back in 2003 we had a 4.5 near Richmond, VA. I remember it well, it shook everything up here.

So what do you think, should I cancel my 1:00 PM meeting at Dulles on Friday? I'd have to drive out from DC for it and drive back afterwards.

Safe to cancel now or wait until morning?

The 2.5 must be an aftershock--the main quake was a 6.0.

Jay:

When people say they like ice, they generally don't mean a crippling ice storm. No one wants that. I much prefer snow, but I do think a light (less than 0.3") accretion of ice on trees and grass and such is a beautiful sight to behold - its like the world is made of crystal.

The Nevada earthquake was measured to be 6.3. Pretty powerful but fortunately far away from most communities!
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/eqinthenews/2008/us2008nsa9/

Andrew: Wait til morning to cancel meeting. There may be some breaks in the action tomorrow.

So he linked to the wrong earthquake--the one he's talking about was a 6.3.

(Sorry if someone already pointed this out--I'm having horrendous cache issues, not sure if I should blame the ISP or the Post....)

John - same cache issues here. Not sure why!! .

Ohh ok, makes sense now. 6+ is a strong quake. Should have checked CNN or something before I said that, lol

I've decided to do whatever I can to insure that we get plenty of snow tomorrow. I'm not so sure that Ivan's chant is the way to go.

Ooga-Booga. Ooga-Booga. Ooga-Booga. Snow!
Ooga-Booga. Ooga-Booga. Ooga-Booga. Snow!
Ooga-Booga. Ooga-Booga. Ooga-Booga. Snow!

Instead, I am going to schedule as many important meetings as I can for tomorrow in the middle of DC. I'm positive that once I've finally been able to get all these meetings scheduled the great Snow God will smile and be pleased with the prospect of "ruining" my wonderful business plans!

Thats how its always worked for me :-)

LOL

Peter,

Hello! Thank you for your feedback. Based on your suggestion I will stop making comments of "RAIN" for my forecast. Sad thing is, most of the time I have been correct with my forecasts and there is no need for explanation.

Good day!

John and MoSno, I have the same cache issues as well. I think it is a Post thing. I'm on firefox, and get around it by using a hard refresh to bring up updates (ctrl+r). This will also affect the front page, and you won't see when the new posts get updated. Very frustrating....

I'll explore and see what else I can find out.

12z GFS gives more support to the idea of an over hyped storm, especially south and southwest of D.C.

Time is running out, for snowlovers in this area. We are going to bat, in the bottom of the eighth with a tied score.

Augusta Jim, you wrote:
"12z GFS gives more support to the idea of an over hyped storm, especially south and southwest of D.C."

Can you define (area-wise) what you mean by south/southwest of DC?

So AJim are you saying we get nothing again?

Good informative 11:00 a.m. disco from NWS crew in Sterling shows difficulty of forecasting precip types Friday morning. They say one model would increase snow amounts to warning criteria and bring lesser amounts of ice, while the other would keep snow to 1-3 inches but produce more ice, into the quarter-inch range, which would be ice storm criteria. Either way, looks like we are in for some excitement Friday.

Coverage of
"Ice Storm 2008- II"
'This Time It's Personal'

Hi again folks! Snowy Hill here...We're sitting here in the Doppler Super Storm Center watching the ice and snow approach for what could be one of the more memorable winter storms in a few years!

Buster: It's your living room we're sitting in and I don't think the fans out there are excited about more ice. My bus was stuck on I-395 for 4 hours last time.

Snowy: That sure is the case Buster, but, many times this winter, the models have overestimated how much warm air would make it into the area. I have a gut feeling that we're looking at more snow than the NWS is calling for.

Buster: Don't mind his gut, folks. Even I can admit when frozen precipitation is on its way, and this looks like a real tough one coming. I might find a way to get the flu before tomorrow morning.

Snowy: Well nothing is certain in the weather, but, even with northern and southern branch phasing questions to consider, the freezing rain and snow are falling to our distant west and the upper level flow brings it here. Buster? Do you have all your toilet paper, bread, diapers and milk stored up for tomorrow?

Buster: I wasn't going to go shopping until next week...am I going to suddenly quit eating my groceries and have a baby?

Snowy: I'm running out now for the store!
Don't forget folks: buy some flares so you can signal for help when your food runs out!

Buster: (mutters to self) This is ridiculous.

Sterling also says it will update watches by 4 this afternon.

Snowy and Buster, that made me smile :)

They're right, everyone needs to run to the store ASAP!!!

HURRY! GET ALL THE BREAD MILK AND TOILET PAPER YOU CAN!!!!

IMPENDING DOOM ALERT!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!

;)

Here is something that has always bugged me. What the HECK good does milk do you if the power goes out!?

My mom is afraid to drive in flurries, but she wants to go to the store tonight. We had to anyway, and as of 630 this morning she still says we have to go. I hope she has fun, cause there is no way I'm standing in the 60 person deep lines, thank you very much. I have better things to do - like obsessively check NWS and CWG.

Time IS running out for winter here, but of course there is always another model run showing a storm two weeks out...:)