Quantitative Precipitation Forecast Discussion
NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD
300 AM EDT Tue Apr 24 2018


Prelim Day 1 QPF Discussion
Valid Apr 24/1200 UTC thru Apr 25/1200 UTC
Reference AWIPS Graphics under...Precip Accum - 24hr


Day 1

...Eastern U.S...

The slow moving, stacked cyclone affecting the eastern United
States will bring a wet, showery day to areas from Ohio to eastern
Tennessee and toward North Carolina and the Mid-Atlantic states.
Rain will spread northward into New York and southern New England
Tuesday night. The model biases with this system have been very
consistent. The ECWMF is too confined with its QPF output,
especially around the northern periphery. The hi-res models are
generally over-estimating the precipitation magnitude, and also
failing to pick up on diurnally driven swaths of convection that
occur in the narrow instability axis near / south of the warm
front. The GFS, while not having an ideal deep layer solution for
the mass fields, at least does a better job of spreading
synoptically forced precipitation downstream to the east and north.

All of these biases are readily apparent again this morning.
Perhaps the good news is that the hi-res models were less bullish
with amounts today, and they are more unanimous in keeping the
largest swath of deep convection just offshore or grazing the
Outer Banks.  So sources like the WRF-ARW and HREF Mean looked
more usable. WPC leaned toward a version of our in-house ensemble
which incorporates the hi-res models, melding their output with
the global model consensus - which was advantageous given what was
described above about the complimentary GFS/ECMWF strengths and
weaknesses for this system. Our manually derived QPF ends up
looking also very similar to the National Blend of Models, which
has been performing well the past couple of days.

A Marginal Risk of excessive rainfall will likely be justifiable
in over some part of the Carolinas and Mid-Atlantic states,
although any truly heavy rainfall will probably occur on small
scales, with no real stand-out signal on the large scale. Our
primary concern is with parts of North Carolina where antecedent
rain this morning will lower flash flood guidance values before
late afternoon convection ramps up. And upslope-enhnaced rainfall
over Virginia. The big cities / I-95 corridor is more of a
question mark, being located north of the surface low and
occlusion. The literal FFG numbers requiring 1.50 to 2.0 inches in
3 hours will have a low chance of being exceeded, but there may be
enough local convective enhancement, especially Tuesday night as
the upper low approaches, that the combined effects of daytime and
nighttime rainfall could eventually lead to some isolated issues
with high water.


...Central U.S...

A fairly vigorous mid level low will remain well defined as it
drops south to southeastward through the Plains / High Plains
today. Given relatively scant moisture, most precipitation will be
slightly post-frontal and rooted in strong mid level ascent from
South Dakota down through Kansas, and eventually parts of TX/OK.
Some additional convection may act as surface-based during peak
heating over Colorado and west Texas. There may be quite a bit of
mesoscale influence to the precipitation pattern, given the steep
lapse rates, marginal low level moisture, and interplay between
the synoptics and terrain influences. That being said, however,
the model guidance was in unusually good agreement for such an
environment, and WPC took a consensus approach while leaning also
on the SREF 6-hour QPF probabilities and deterministic output from
the WRF-ARW and WRF-ARW2.

Burke