vortex95

And ydy the ECMWF had *no* storm at all. But all the other global models had a storm ydy. Now the ECMWF has a storm, and the others are still on track for a sig E Coast snowstorm. So what's w/ this excessive ECMWF praising, as if it is the buck stops w/ it? Ever since Sandy in 2012, it has had this aura around it as if it is always right. And I am not talking about model performance over time. That's a smoothed avg. I am talking about individual events, which are all different, so it's never one size fits all. And we are talking an low pressure system that just gets going over NC around 12z Sun, so that's 4.5 days out still. There is no good reason to throw in the towel yet b/c one model is not onboard.

Or as CoastalWx would say, "DIAMOND DUST AT 30,000 FT!!!"

18z GFS is a Weymouth special! 3 contour cut off at 500 (going by standard every 6 dm) w/ a min height min of about 511 dm. That's nasty. A large part of New England gets into the closed circulation at 500, which I was concerned about initially b/c it was so tight off the Delmarva. And the best gradient at 925 ends up covering most of MA/RI/CT and SE NH. So that should mean solid S+ banding. Look at the mini-block at 500 initially over James Bay. That moves w/ the 500 low to the S and ends up S of NFL for excellent downstream s/w ridging. And look at those 925 and 850 temps. That's pure powder ratio up! If you want something to "complain about" (EEYORE CoastalWx will find a way - LOL), the uber crushing is well S over the Delmarva and NJ. 27" max near ACY and look at that rear sfc pressure gradient residence time as the low undergoes RI and sits in place for a period until the 500 support can catch up. This taken at face value, it's going to be "KRAZEE" for this area w/ sig coastal flooding. I seem to recall this happened unexpectedly or more than fcst in the Feb 2016 blockbuster, or one of those events in the mid 2010s. Ocean City was hit hard.

With the 500 cut off where it is on the ICON at 120 hr and the sfc low about 100 mi E of ORF, that should be enough for a movement close enough to SNE for sig snow. The strong vort SW of the cut off is somewhat of a wildcard. It seems to be rotating around the cut off faster than the upper low itself, so does it continue and go negative as it crosses the coast and you get one large cut off low just S of LI? The ridge over the Rockies is staying put and not de-amplifying, so that's good. Downstream the flow is still rather flat, but there are modest 500 height rises S of NS and NFL 108 to 120 hr.

Yes, more GEFS members than not show a big goose egg for New England. That is concerning when coupled w/ the ECMWF op. But the AI ECMWF shows a hit!?

CoastalWx concern is the 12z ECMWF op still not on board!!! What can go wrong, will! This is not as straightforward as it seems, the Fri event could muck up things enough so a flatter ECMWF could happen.

I thought the same thing. First, who said this? Second, context? Third, is it a facetious post?

Complex the next week. We have the light snow NNE overnight, then the sheared narrow band of mdt SN Wed, and then what? GFS wants to do a pseudo-repeat of Wed on Fri, and then makes a weenie coastal. And the ECMWF puts all its eggs in the 3rd system Fri, and a big nothing-burger for the "CoastalWx wanna-be storm!" The GDPS/UKMET/ICON for the Sun-Mon coastal are in-between the GFS and ECMWF scenarios in various forms. So lots going on, and a rather "crowded" pattern for snow events. UA pattern fast W-E zonal first, and then amps up this weekend. Also, you can clearly see the later Feb transition to a more blocky upper-air pattern this week, w/ the main jet across the cntrl and srn CONUS and "loose" and "confused" flow along the Canadian border. So that further complicates things!

Ooo, make it sound "techy" or arcane as if that makes them appear "in the know" about types of precip. It's all just doublespeak, plain and simple! Yes, I get the business and marketing aspect of it, but deceiving people and insulting their intelligence is not a good thing from a societal POV.

I honestly have not heard it before this term, but you learn something new every day, even in your field of expertise. How about this? -- "noddles." They are raindrops that still have some slush left in them, and you get "cats paws" on the car windshield!

"White rain" LOL. Reminds of what ski areas say when it rains, "LIQUID SNOW!" I recall one time it was -RA in CLE and the 1000-500 thickness was 525. That's impressive for lower elevations. Partial thicknesses count! Can't use the 1000-500 layer in a vacuum. 540 works best for low elevations.

And I am so sick of OCMs and other people saying before any out-of-season event, "the ground is too warm!" FALSE! Sure, at the start if the snow it is, but once intensity picks up and you get relentless phase change cooling from the melting snowflakes on the ground, the warm issue goes away very quickly! And in other parts of the country, it is even more extreme. Early Sep 1993, DEN was 92 for a high one day, and the next day they had 5" of snow. And this: 4/9/1988 Residents of Sioux City, Iowa awoke to find 2 inches of snow on the ground following a record high of 88 degrees the previous afternoon.

It still amazes me it was in the 80s for high several days before. Just is the ultimate "freak out" for ppl! Even more amazing IMHO is that inland sections of SNE already had an official heatwave late April in 2002, and then accumulating snow a month later, during the DAY no less. And the intensity was nothing like May 9-10, 1977, nor was the pattern. If you look at the 500 for 5/18/02, you will go "that produced low-elevation accumulation snow in SNE???!!!" May 1977 you can track the 500 trough from nrn Hudson's Bay days before. It drops almost due S and evolved into a massive 5 contour cut-off low just S of New England. Take a look 12z 5/10/77. Last closed contour goes from Newfoundland to RDU! Omega block. Of note, the block moved E enough for the wrn trough to move E and resulted on the "7 Fabled Days in the Plains" for large, highly visible tornadoes, esp. in the TX/OK Panhandles. It does not look impressive on SVRPLOT, but that was long before storm chasing became popular and detailed account of svr wx were limited if populated areas were not hit. But from a storm chasing POV, it was unreal. Similar to the first week of June 1995 for the same area. Lots of footage of that as Project VORTEX was on it!

CoastalWx was mad I bet b/c GHG was in a relative mind for snowfall! He hadn't moved to Dorchester yet!!!

I think in MWN's case, the always prefixed their remarks sections w/ "RMK," so perhaps that why they were retained. Standard airport SAs did not do this. I have printouts from the 80s and 90s of many SA ob string from various U.S. sites when big wx was occurring. I'll take a look sometime and take pix of them. Even after the METAR format was adopted in 1996, WSI took the raw METARs and converted them back to SA format for our clients/customers, so I have digital file of obs strings of selected cool wx events. Ask CoastalWx about "Q62" for BOS concerning SAs!

Did not know TS occurred w/ the May 1977 event. I wish these obs were also archived in the original SA format. Also, all remarks were lost for some reason when they converted the SAs to METAR format. Those were the best part! LTG obs and SNOINCRs, among other things.

Thanks! I just noticed the other sections for the May 2002 and Oct 2020 events. I have snowfall map booklets from a private wx company I worked for in the late 80s/early 90s that lists all snow events from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. Let met dig those out of storage at home and I'll give you a list of the more significant ones. Here's one from Mar 22, 1977 I can recall offhand. A blockbuster coastal storm lashed New York and New England. Norfolk, Connecticut was buried under 33 inches of snow. 24 inches was reported at Pittsfield, Massachusetts and 18 inches piled up at Gardner, Massachusetts. Snow amounts exceeded 30 inches in the Catskills in southeastern New York. 3 to 5 inches of rain deluged south coastal New England and wind gusts reached 60 to 90 mph. A 450 foot radio tower in Framingham, Massachusetts was toppled by the high winds. Oh and this one! Oct 3-4, 1987 A rapidly deepening coastal storm dumped record early snows in eastern New York, western Connecticut, western Massachusetts, and southern Vermont. Grafton, New York was buried under 22 inches and Pownal, Vermont recorded 18 inches. This was primarily an elevation storm but even Albany, New York received 6 inches of very wet snow. Damage to trees was extensive since many of them were still in full leaf. Road crews had to scramble to get their plows on as the snow caught everybody off guard. Not sure if you include very localized events, but this is one of the most impressive NORLUNs in SNE in the past 35 years. Feb 19, 1993 Intense ocean effect snow squalls buried Chatham, Massachusetts under 20 inches of snow. Snow fell at a rate of 4 inches per hour for 3 consecutive hours. A "NORLUN" instability trough was responsible for this event.

Ok, looked it over. I realize getting data for events long ago is not as easy, but here's a list of the "biggies" in the 80s (not that there were many!) that you could add when you have time. Dec 5-6. 1981 - big bust as the storm was fcst OTS April 6-7, 1982 - powder blizzard in April! Mar 29, 1984 - nasty wet paste bliz, among the worst power outages for SNE on record for a snowstorm, G108 mph MQE and tons of TS+ Jan 2, 1987 - the "syzygy storm" w/ big storm tides that breached the barrier island in Chatham Jan 22, 1987 - worst traffic gridlock in SNE since 1978 Jan 26, 1987 - Cape Cod bliz only #1 Feb 9-10, 1987 - Cape Cod bliz only #2 Apr 28-29, 1987 - poorly fcst late season crushing Nov 23, 1989 - big surprise Thanksgiving snowstorm Others: Feb 24-28, 1969 - "100 hr snowstorm" Jan 20, 1978 - bliz #1 w/ 24 hr snowfall record for BOS to date Dec 11-12, 1992 - the blockbuster that started the epic snow period 1992-93 to 2015-16 May 18, 2002 - latest accumulating snow on record for many locations in SNE Oct 30, 2020 - BOS biggest Oct snowstorm and also many other areas far E/SE MA

Awesome. Will share w/ other mets I know!

Where is your photo of you standing w/ such uber pride in it all!

But I have heard so much from you over time about the Bliz of 05!!!!

But nothing takes the cake for CoastalWx than the Bliz of 05. Scott has the radar loop archived for that I think! So which is it for you, Bliz of 97 or 05? Does Bliz 13 round out the top 3 for you? From both a meteorological set up and personal experience event, the Bliz of 97 takes the cake for me. Why? 1) Being so mild that weekend leading up, and strong tstms later on Sat across SNE. Then a pleasant Easter Sunday for the region w/ temps in the 60s. That just makes the stark contrast to what was coming even better, It is the "let's freak out the general public as much as possible" wx swing! 2) I was off on Monday, and I recall the forecast was not for a flip to snow until later in the aftn. Yet it started as a R/S mix in Woburn MA at 1030am. I was like "oh boy...." 3) The struggle for accumulation during the day due to marginal temps. I had 4" but it was only on certain areas, like on the car top or mulch. 4) Then as night fell, remarkable transformation occurred. I went out at 6pm for some errands, and it was not too bad, by the time I finished them by 8pm, it was nuts. Temp dropped from the low 30s to mid 20s, snowfall rates 2-3" hr, and blowing and drifting everywhere. Even the 128 was a total mess. I could see transformer explosions in the distance. Got home and then a brilliant LTG strike. And the poundage continued. Got 4" in one hr 2-3am. You'd never think it was April 1 w/ what was going on outside. 5) My car was completely drifted over the next morning. Never had I had that happened before. 6) BOS struggled R/S mix all day into the early evening, and then BLAM!, went to S+ right around 00z, and they got 25" in about 12 hr. I really think that BOS had it all-time record snowfall w/ this storm, but access and drifting issues prevented the observer 1 mi away from Logan that took the airports obs at the time from getting an accurate measurement. 7) BOS DPW was taken by surprise by the rapid flip to S+ that evening, and the rates were so crazy, the city was snowed in bad, and some part of the city remained unplowed for 3 days. I recall I front page story from the BOS Herald, and it said "TICKED OFF" and showed a resident hold a clock 1201pm standing in his unplowed street, stating the city promised his street to be plowed by noon (still had the paper). 8) The satellite image morning of 4/1...absolutely epic. I attached it. Look at the enormous size of the storm, and how far wrapped it was with a classic giant mesh of instability CU over the ocean! After that, I said to myself, I've got my fill for big snowstorms. Since it had been so good since 1992-93, I was "sated" so to speak. Nothing could top this event on multiple levels as I noted above (not all meteorological). Not that I did not enjoy what happened later as the epic period continued, capped off by the crazy Jan-Feb 2015 snowblitz, but I no longer got "CoastalWx mad/in a snit" when snowstorms did not work out, or mild/snowless winters occurred. All my hardship from the lame winters of the mid 80s to early 90s was excised, so to speak, after the Bliz of 97. Maybe CoastalWx should take note of this, and not get so miffed when winters do not cooperate! Not like you've never experienced epic winters, and 1991-2020 was the snowiest 30 yr normal period for much of SNE on record, w/ truly an exceptional snowblitz Jan-Feb-2015, unlike anything on record for SNE. This does to mean I do not welcome big snowstorms and get into weenie mode when one is imminent, but there is more to wx than that. And really, it nice to have breaks sometimes! Also, always swinging for "home runs" (blockbuster snowstorms) you are going to be disappointed very often. Who needs that emotional roller coaster from something no one has control over?

Awesome snow maps. On your site, how many have you done, and how far back?