Forecast: Sligthtly warmer and dry today

Martinsburg/Shepherdstown in the cold spot this a.m.--14 degrees! Wasn't expected. Winchester is a balmy 28.

Sad story about the red-wing blackbirds. I worry about the percussion effect on my windows when my W.Va. neighbors celebrate the Fourth of July...for about 4 months.

re next week's potential storm, adapted from the previous thread:

ian, thanks for the link.
(http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer/gfs/18/images/gfs_ten_216m.gif )

DLO1975, lilymama,
when you say they (accuweather) are "predicting 18" and they "have 21 inches", is that really what they're saying? or is it a 5% chance of that? or are they just reading the gfs?

also from yesterday's post:

ian, statisticians,
there must be some "level of certainty" that one could assign to the gfs prediction (which looks to be 5-7" based on that gfs link) for my front yard (MFY) @216 hours out.

do people do studies of these models' accuracy for a given location? what's the chance of that verifying for MFY? 1%? 5%? 20%?

Is the CWG column by Jason in today's print edition of TWP (p. D8) a new feature? And will be a recurring column?

btw, per DLO1975 and lilymama, those predictions of 18 and 21" are for eldersburg and olney md. respectively - unfortunately not d.c....

6z gfs has the storm missing us pretty much completely. This is why you don't get excited about something 10 days out.

according to Joe Bastardi, as of Wednesday, we'll all have to live in the woods and eat snow as civilization comes to an end 30 miles west of I-95 from Central Virginia to somewhere in Northern New England, this new snowmadic society will last about 5 days until it too is buried under another blizzard, and then again 12 more times as the city formerly known as Richmond, Virginia receives 400 inches of snow for the season according to his "forecasts"

It is definitely too early to get excited yet about next week's storm threat. But my guess is that we will see more storm chances in the weeks ahead as a mother lode of cold air dumps into the U.S. next week and the week following. We certainly will not be hurting for cold air supply.

tgt111 - LOL, that was awesome! Matt Rogers...thanks for the exciting news! Cold in Reston...27 degrees, wondering if we'll see that 45/46 degree high we have forecasted.

Matt Rogers is trying to cheer me up.
Cold is back - we're set for snow. Send in the moisture.
You can keep those crazy winter winds though.

If Acuweather is forecasting a major snowstorm, it's more likely to be snowfail, not snowfall.

FIREDRAGON47 - agreed about those winds!

12Z GFS is running now and looks good for next week. Once again - NEXT WEEK!!!!!! Please know that these models are only decent at this range of telling you that "something" "might" "be in the vicinity" and that is about all. There is no skill to these models about anything falling in YFY (Your Front Yard) this far out. We can talk come Friday if this is still a potential solution. (Rant over).

Walter...that was yesterday's forecast for Eldersburg, MD. Today, accuweather professional's 14 day is calling for flurries next Tuesday. It really depends which way the wind blows with them. Oddly, their forecast rarely matches up with what Bastardi and Margusity are calling for. Given that those two are accuweather's winter experts one would think the forecast would at least somewhat relate to what they are saying...which is a big storm next Tuesday. We'll see what happens...as always. In the meantime, an inch or two of snow on Friday would be nice. Cold without snow is just nuisance cold to me...and December was filled with it!

Yeah, midday GFS model has the storm for next week, but it is complicated for us- maybe some ice/sleet at the front end on Tue and then snow afterward later Tue into Wed? The threat is still there. Details cannot be determined yet.

Dance season is starting up in the New Year, so there seem to be more snow threats on dance nights. Thus far the Friday threat [flurries or dusting] doesn't seem to be a dance-wrecker.

Weather board posts seem to be signing on to CWG/Bob Ryan's Siberian snow/cold weather ideas.

Haven't checked the ensembles yet re any storm threat middle of next week.

@tgt111: LMAO.

Re: Cold air. Meh. Useless without the precip threat.

Re: Next week threat. Meh. Don't get fooled again, no no!

Matt -

So what happened to the expected warmer than normal January? What about February? Is that now gonna be colder than expected too?

Doug Hill also said this morning he's backing off his prediction of a warmer January.

oh Matt...(shaking head, but smiling). I guess you gotta feed the peanut gallery something, right?!?

This is a fascinating winter because we have never seen a La Niña this strong with so much cold air transport into the mid-latitudes. So yes, I suspect that February runs the risk of being colder than expected just like January.

tgt111,
re the end of civilization: get yer snowshoes and mukluks now - before the frenzy begins.

matt, you said,
"...mother lode of cold air..." nice! well, that's half the equation.

model experts and statisticians,
i know this storm is next week and the odds of it coming to fruition are small, but does anyone know how small? 1%? 5%? 20%? has there been any kind of "post stormum" analysis of how accurate the GFS is for DCA 192 hours out?