IowaStorm05

December 2003 you had one storm do a 100 per cent snow in SE CT and SW RI. This was followed up by a storm that IIRC dumped like 6 more inches of a thump before things turned to rain. it was the 3rd storm that melted everything I think now. Of course, the whole 03-04 season was dynamite for everyone but even more significant for coastal peeps, where storms would leave Woonsocket smoking virga. It might have only been a little above normal for the coast but with the way things have gone in the last two decades down there it seemed to stand out to me among the best 5 or 6 seasons in the last 20 years.

I think it’s going to… rain.

A lot of people say that we should all get in on some great action come January and February. But guys that’s super far away. How many grueling work shifts must I complete before something big arrives to bring snow down to a Norwich/Warwick/Taunton line and Clobbers my place.

Ew. So far so bad. you know most of my family is out in Nevada and my cousin just sent me this photo from this morning in Battle Mountain, Nevada. This was taken in a relatively less favorable location for heavy snowfall… 3/5 of the state is just getting pummeled and it ain’t over yet. Much more on the way Not always but usually, if they’re getting slammed in the far west it is because we are torching.

It was big. It was very big. But Westerly RI got wrongfully cheated out of that event by last minute ticks northwest. I remember it like it was yesterday. And, I was just 22 years old. Which means I was profoundly more springy than I am today. I get that some people might be older than me here… but trust me. 22 is in a class of itself. Once you get well into your 30s you might as well be 55 it’s all middle age. i live with my mom today still. Multigenerational living is a thing these days. And sometimes she speaks about possibly moving down to Ledyard. We have good reason to but in my heart I’m like nope. Nope nope noooooooope. Of course, I do make sure I use lots of salt so nobody slips or anything but when I eventually give in to moving down there it’s basically saying “I don’t want to see big snowstorms anymore”.

I remember O6-07. I lived in Westerly! Not only was it under 10 inches…. But half of that fell from a storm in April 2007, which isn’t even winter. the Valentines Day storm at first was promising to be a blizzard on the coast. This was in the days of those early accuweather discussion videos. I was horrified when about 2-3 days out they revealed that it would be a “mix of rain and snow along the 95 corridor”. This was bad because I knew that meant mostly rain for us. And mostly rain it was, it was pooling water under a thin crust of ice. The evening it arrived I saw exactly one large snowflake before plain sleet started the onset. Another winter was equally as bad: 2001-2002. Same place. Same bullshit kind of winter. I guess we got 5 inches that season.

It wouldn’t surprise me if we start seeing some winters where the south coast and islands fails to receive 1 inch for the entire winter. Not very often but some years I guarantee will be snowless.

Doesn’t mean too much but I am noting that the GFS has consistently signaled for heavy snow in SNE For several runs in a row. The reason it doesn’t mean much is because it’s like 180 hours away. But it IS several runs in a row!

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That is the weirdest dang situation for accumulation and elevation dependency. It shows even Willimantic at 230 feet was in on the action. But ct valley totally screwed. these lapse rates were even more insane than you’d see in the Sierra Nevada in the Lee side Great Basin side

Yes at least. The reason I say this is because I lived up near the Sierra out west at that point. I was 12, and it snowed again and again and again and again. Western trough long time.

I feel like it resembles December and January 1996-1997

Up to about 6/10 of an inch now, spotty looking, but snowfall rates are very light now. Again though with my location in a canyon near a river, I’m fairly sure that more favorable locations even just within town on the hills probably scored an inch. Don’t know if we will get much more than this, kind of doubt it. Snowfall rates just too light now.

Willimantic. Around 4/10 of an inch on the best accumulative surfaces, a bit heavier in rates now than the light-moderate stuff 15 minutes ago. I expect just about an inch at this location before it’s done. Temps aren’t perfect so some stuff will probably just be ice by morning or crusty fraction of an inch. This spot has factors that keep it a bit warmer, like water, and I bet things look much better just a mile up the hill.

Snowing moderately, most unpaved surfaces covered maybe 2/10 to 3/10 of inch

I mean idk if it’s just me but that radar already looks amazing now as it is, particularly compared to 2 hours ago. So much better conditions after 9pm is even cooler! I still insist somebody is gonna get a nice unlikely total with this somewhere. I just don’t know where

Very light but seemingly large area of echos popping up to the west.

Doesn’t look to be quite low enough to bury all of Reno save for a few inches but the foothills of the city as well as much of northern Nevada in general that are above 5000 to 5500 feet will see significant snow. Note that almost all of northern Nevada is above 5000 feet, with only a few select valleys being as low as 3300 to 4500 feet. west slopes of Sierra above those elevations… you’d be in serious trouble if you got stranded out in that.

I like that the event itself is weird, unusual, progressive whatever. Because again it feels like there’s some hairy chance we jack and get 8 inches tonight or something. Wouldn’t that be wild. It just has a funky vibe to it

It’s been “white rain” here down on the CT southeast coast for 2 hours now…. But before even looking at any updates since this morning I get the feeling there’s more moisture than was suggested by models I haven’t checked about inland CT

I have definitely been thinking that this one is liable to deliver some surprises both positive and negative.

I don’t really care if you do or don’t like what I wrote. There are no guarantees that what I say is going to verify exactly. But I have faith you’re smart enough to get it. im not a professor. I don’t need to be exact and do 4 hours of new research before I say something. And the Sierra and Reno area is dramatic to me. I grew up there. I like how Reno looks under a blanket of snow and have little certainty that that’s going to always be happening in the near future. But I digress. This week, unlike most of us, Reno area is getting a bunch of snow. But I just really don’t have faith that, if given 3 or 4 more degrees of warming, that it is going to snow as much as it used to in these parts. Or many parts. That’s all I was trying to convey in detail. Given how infrequent I post on here overall, and the natural variability of topic on these threads, I thought that it was appropriate and could be done without being criticized.

Places like northern New England are probably going to see increases in annual snowfall from global warming providing setups for more moisture and blockbuster storms. but Southern New England? I think that after perhaps a transitional period with occasional massive blockbuster snowstorms, we’re simply going to get rain. no way are annual snowfalls here as big as they were in the last century region-wide. I don’t have proof on hand, but already there are some years in westerly Rhode Island where it barely snows at all. What does it do? It rains! It’s not Iowa. There isn’t gads of polar air always tunneling through the region. unstable polar air masses should make things interesting for a good while but I doubt that’s going to win out forever

For water resources there It’s all about how it’s stored and delivered. Im not as good at explaining it as they are but in essence not really, somehow they need the precip to fall as snow, and for that snow to stick around into late spring to work the way they need it to for today’s setup of reservoirs. they say that when it falls as rain, it goes to waste somehow, by running off or evaporating. That’s it I think. The evaporation. and frankly, climate change models suggest that warming is not going to be doing any favors for precip amounts in California overall, so it’s not like there’s going to likely be a significant increase in annual precip from modeled climate change to make up for the fact that it’s not being captured and saved as snow.