ariof

Congrats Nova Scotia

Me, watching models update.

December 2014 was subpar. Wet, warm, snow-free (0.3 at BOS, 1.5 at ORH) and the Christmas torch. That winter got a little better I guess.

It wasn't until it was in NAM range that the models even picked up on the first of those storms … that was on the 24th. 10 years ago and I still remember seeing that first monster run on that Saturday.

Lowest temps were around 0Z on Feb 4 at -10˚ GFS lowest temps for KBOS: 1/28 00Z: -3˚ 1/28 06Z: 8˚ 1/28 12Z: 4˚ 1/28 18Z: -2˚ 1/29 00Z: -8˚ 1/29 06Z: -4˚ 1/29 12Z: -9˚ 1/29 18Z: -9˚ 1/30 00Z: -7˚ 1/30 06Z: -8˚ 1/30 12Z: -9˚ 1/30 18Z: -7˚ 1/31 00Z: 1˚ 1/31 06Z: 1˚ 1/31 12Z: 0˚ 1/31 18Z: -1˚ 2/1 00Z: 0˚ 2/1 06Z: -2˚ 2/1 12Z: -3˚ 2/1 18Z: -3˚ 2/2 00Z: -8˚ 2/2 06Z: -6˚ 2/2 12Z: -8˚ Beyond this the models converged on -9˚ (which was correct) although the MOS were a good deal higher. So basically the GFS had it correct for two days a week out from the event, then was wrong for two days, then got back in line.

Will there ever be a model swing as strong as last year's Valentine's Day debacle? This forum at least knew enough not to cancel school the day before once the models had swung wildly away from it.

The GFS sniffed that out … almost exactly … a week out. It didn't quite get the 59-degrees-over-31-hours temperature rise correct (underestimated, but the trend was there). The GFS actually backed off the extreme cold as the week went on (still <0 at KBOS, but not -10) but the week-out op model verified.

Gotta love the toaster bath at the end of the GFS op. Grinch comes a couple of days late this year.

It never gets too warm but the cold just disappears for the last half of the op GFS. Just cold and dreary.

Colder than pretty much anywhere in NH and VT.

Is that LES off of Champlain?

Lock of the year.

It uses up a lot of oxygen to argue about soundings at D11 but you do you.

Nice little battle with the NAM and Euro in one corner and the GFS and Canadian in the other.

Was this the same storm where in Boston it went from 18" to nothing in the last 24 hours? That was a mess.

But that last couple of seasons, whichever model predicted less snow won out.

So at 138H the 12Z models have BUF (Euro) BAF (Canadian) Flat and off NJ (ICON, GFS) Maybe Charlie Brown will kick the football right through the goalposts this year … but I doubt it!

We can lock that in years in advance.

We don't know much in the long term other than that the Grinch will make an appearance.

I'd trade the whiff next week for what the GFS is smoking on the 5th.

And with basically 0 snow, the Charles froze solid and people were skating down it from Watertown to Boston.

I'm sort of wondering about your strategy, but it sounds like you probably didn't hit the road until 1700 or so. From Eustis at least I wonder if the optimal route would have been to get to Kingfield and then take 142 down to 156. There are enough branching roads south of there that it may have been possible to do so. The whole idea here was to avoid converging roadways (especially if you were on the secondary road in a merge) and seek out branches, and where possible think about three steps ahead of the average driver (one step ahead = taking the parallel road to the interstate, two steps ahead is a different route, three steps ahead is a parallel road to a different route). Get beyond what can be solved algorithmically, use intuition. Google is not smart enough to predict where there will be backups 30 minutes after totality ends. Try to figure that out, and go elsewhere!

Caught the eclipse in Monson, Maine after deciding the longer drive (without traffic) would be better with fewer clouds (none) and probably less traffic. Especially once we saw Franconia backed up before dawn. Zero traffic up the Turnpike and past Waterville; saw some exiting traffic in Newport so got off onto 152 near Pittsburgh. No traffic to Guilford, then I made a mistake of listening to my dad telling me to get onto a back road instead of Route 6 because Google Maps said to. The issue was that it was "junior" to Route 6 in the merge in Monson, and backed up a mile. No cell service, so Google didn't expect or detect the traffic, so kept pushing people that way. We were well into totality and it eventually stopped in Monson, a few miles shy of meeting friends who had flown to Greenville. The event was spectacular watching across a snowcovered lake. Surrounded by white snow I took my sunglasses off before totality; didn't need them. I had spotted the car so we were the first ones out of town. The Monson traffic had been a blessing in disguise, as we would have been stuck in Greenville for an hour. From Abbott, we did an end-around of Guilford to avoid that bottleneck, west on 16 and south on 151. Amazing to go through towns with 50 people and see people at every turnout and every clearing. That was a good choice, although 151 had a 20 minute backup into Athens since, again, it was "junior" to the other road. I had originally plotted a route onto a road which would be out of the way by 2 miles but avoid the merge. It would have been faster, but wasn't a dealbreaker. A bit of traffic crossing Kennebec in Hinckley and then freeflow to Portland for dinner. Drive time under 5 hours each way from Boston. Route planning almost as exciting as the event itself!

I think that's three lanes of traffic squeezing into one!

Dallas also has from satellite maps the instance of the cumulus clouds dissipating as the solar radiation decreases and totality passes, then increasing back. Just very cool to watch.