In my obsession with the blizzard of 96 and the Bridgeport report of 15.5 inches vs THE NEXT TOWN OVER FAIRFIELD reporting 27 (and of course Norwalk newspaper reporting 27) I looked at the BDR observations courtesy of the linked Ray's winter storm archive.
Q. Can snowfall rate be determined by visibility? If so, what would .1, .3, .5, .8 be? 3, 2, 1, .5?
If above is correct BDR would be wayyyy higher than 15.
http://www.raymondcmartinjr.com/weather/1996/07-Jan-96-RegionalSurfaceObservations.html