ETA vs GFS vs JMA vs ECMFW and the monster storm

[EXTONPA]

your wrong Purdue

[Planetsnow]

everyone's just predicting what they want. I hate this.

[RestonVA]

everyone's just predicting what they want. I hate this.

I agree, I feel that a lot of that is going on. Stuff will be more solid when the 0z rolls out tonight. BTW, I'm still very concerned about the air temperature for Northern Virginia.

[ohiostorm]

Please base forecasts on actual data.

[EXTONPA]

I like combination of JMA, GFS and ECMFW solutions: data from these three models put heaviest axis of precip in I95 corridor

[EXTONPA]

This type of storm is what makes meteorology fun! Regardless of where the storm ends up going, the fun is in trying to predict

[krysof]

I agree, predicting is fun, this is my first time on this site ever trying to predict a complex storm, I mean sure the powerful late January snowstorm was one to predict, I'm happy to see so many people are active and trying to predict this one. The late January snowstorm wasn't that hard to predict, we knew it would be all snow, no doubt about that, and we knew the track, the amount of snow was the only thing we were predicting. This one seems more exciting.

[JRwx]

Ah, this is looking pretty depressing seeing as I live in southeastern michigan. I am completely new around here, so my words have little weight but I thought I would throw in my two cents anyways. First of all, that shortwave that will be digging into the plains, but there is already a wealth of cold air to the east of it, so it WON't be forcing anything due north like the ETA had until 12z...not unless the thing goes nuts. Secondly, there is a huge amount of moisutre pluminginto texas as I write, and this looks aimed pretty well north or northeast, which makes this confusing and contradictory with the first part about the shortwave. There also will be a fairly decent low floating around toledo somewhere which should give more of an eastern bias to teh storm by pushing it that way.

Right now, I'm thinking the two systems might get in eachother's way. I'm worried that 12" + amounts will be the EXCEPTION, and not teh rule, with the highest amounts found from west virginia, through albany, and then up towards inland maine. I expect 2-6" in the major cities, except washington, where I'm thinking the lower end is more likely. NWS's New York area discussion seems to agree with much of this. I also think areas like boston may get more like 8". Time will tell, it certainly will be fun to watch!

[krysof]

the main low will do fine without any other system interacting with it. The low will be in the gulf of mexico and it will carry a sufficient amount of moisture, an interaction would increase the moisture but the main low will not be dependent on the second disturbance