Mount Joy Snowman

I swear I’ve been adding to my snowpack just from all the snow flying off the tall pines and cedars ha. Back yard has been like a snow globe all day. True winter, and it’s glorious.

We are both sticklers with the data so that makes sense haha.

Total QPF here of .35”, for a SLR of 13.4.

Low of 13 here, which is the current temp. An additional .2” overnight from those rogue bands, bringing storm total to 4.7”. A stunning scene outside. Happy for those to the west who really made out overnight with those streamers. Let’s see if we can cash in on another surprise or two today.

FINAL observation: Sitting at 24/22 and an additional .1” brings the event total to 4.5”. Very pleased. Intrigued by all this talk of long-lived streamers tomorrow. Doubt we see much of anything down this way but love to see the strong wording from CTP. Settling in for a couple days of arctic cold. Fireplace and whiskey kind of night.

4:45 observation: An additional .7” since 1pm, bringing event total to 4.4”. Just shoveled driveway and everything is covered again. Is there anything worse than being super sweaty when it’s freezing cold out ha. Anyway, solid light snow continues here. Sitting at 27/25. Loving every minute!

Great post. Hey Training, on what kind of surface do you take your official snow measurements?

1pm observation: 1.2" of additional snow over the last four hours, bringing my event total to 3.7". Steady light snow continues but things seem to be slowly ramping up again. Sitting at 31/25, although my thermo is spiking a wee bit due to meager midday solar getting through (crazy I know, but true, running a couple degrees higher than any surrounding station). Let's see what the afternoon brings. Not seeing much in the way of coastal redevelopment showing up on the radar for the LSV but the water vapor loop seems promising. That might be the best tool to use in this instance. Fun little event.

I'm almost exactly equidistance between you and @Itstrainingtime. Would have thought you'd have a touch more than me. I'll have another official observation at 1pm so we'll see.

Yes that is quite the difference between us. I will measure again at 1pm but I should be close to 3", I would think. Yeah, we'll see what happens with any redevelopment from the coastal but it doesn't look like anything too crazy. Thinking maybe we can add another inch, 2 if things break just right.

Yeah most of the guidance has been consistent in showing a dissipation and slowdown during the mid to late morning hours and then reinvigorating early this afternoon with some coastal influence. May be limited more to people in eastern parts of the LSV but we shall see. Things have definitely lightened up here considerably. Bring on the pivot!

9am Observation (~5am start time): 26/23 with 2.5" and moderate snow falling.

It's great to be wrong! Really nice flakes here at the moment. Excited to see how things fill in with the coastal as well. Really hard to see how this doesn't exceed expectations at this point, at least down this way.

25/23 here and already 1.6" of nature's white. Wasn't quite expecting that. A very steady powdery snow falling here. What's that feeling? The one in my loins? Oh that's right, it's the feeling of an over-performer! Let's get it boys!

Thought Calhoun retired??

Moistening the atmosphere. Watch your temp drop, dew point rise, RH reach needed levels, and then boom fireworks! Just gonna take a while ha.

Precip field appears less robust on 18z HRRR when compared to 12z. Think totals may come more in line with other guidance.

I've mentioned before but I really like what I've seen with the new RRFS model since its release. I just wish we didn't have to wait so damn long for the model output after its timestamp (12z is still running ha). Anyway, here is its total Kuch snowfall map for the event, FWIW....

For those interested in such things, here are the biggest totals for the lake effect event from Jan. 16-18, off of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, respectively: ...Erie County... West Seneca 2.5 SE 37.8 in 0600 AM 01/18 COCORAHS West Seneca 2.8 ENE 29.0 in 0700 AM 01/18 COCORAHS Buffalo 3.7 SE 24.5 in 0700 AM 01/18 COCORAHS 3 N Lackawanna 24.3 in 0800 AM 01/18 Trained Spotter Elma Center 1.8 SE 22.3 in 0700 AM 01/18 COCORAHS Orchard Park 21.0 in 0719 AM 01/18 Trained Spotter Hamburg 2.0 N 20.8 in 0741 AM 01/18 COCORAHS Lancaster 0.3 S 20.3 in 0600 AM 01/18 COCORAHS East Aurora 0.1 ENE 19.3 in 0700 AM 01/18 COCORAHS Wales 16.0 in 0700 AM 01/18 COOP Boston 2.5 NE 14.8 in 0700 AM 01/18 COCORAHS 3 SW Elma 13.5 in 0630 AM 01/18 Cocorahs Cheektowaga 2.7 NE 13.1 in 0700 AM 01/18 COCORAHS Hamburg 0.4 WSW 13.0 in 0700 AM 01/18 COCORAHS 1 WNW Alden 12.8 in 0800 AM 01/18 Trained Spotter N Buffalo Airport 12.2 in 0700 AM 01/18 Official NWS Obs Eden 1.4 SSE 11.5 in 0700 AM 01/18 COCORAHS Glenwood 1.5 SE 10.0 in 0800 AM 01/18 COCORAHS 2 NW West Falls 10.0 in 0802 AM 01/18 Trained Spotter 3 SE West Seneca 9.8 in 0600 AM 01/18 NWS Employee ...Jefferson County... 4 NW Copenhagen 40.0 in 0825 AM 01/18 Trained Spotter 5 SE Black River 35.8 in 0741 AM 01/18 Trained Spotter West Carthage 0.3 ENE 31.2 in 0700 AM 01/18 COCORAHS 3 SW Natural Bridge 25.9 in 0804 AM 01/18 Trained Spotter Watertown 0.9 SSW 21.5 in 0645 AM 01/18 COCORAHS 5 S Black River 18.0 in 0615 PM 01/17 Public Watertown 17.4 in 0700 PM 01/17 Trained Spotter West Carthage 17.0 in 0715 PM 01/17 Trained Spotter 1 SSW Deferiet 15.8 in 0100 PM 01/17 Trained Spotter Adams 15.5 in 0836 AM 01/18 Public 1 S Calcium 13.0 in 0430 PM 01/17 Trained Spotter

Indeed it is. The type of ramp-up you love to see on the Mesos inside of 24 hours.

Low of 15 here. Currently sitting at 19. Pretty straight-forward long duration light snowfall event upon us, which has been modeled very consistently for the most part. Everyone enjoy the flakes and the weekend cold because we may be in for an extended warm period thereafter. It looks like I've lost barely any snow here from the last event. Always love to get snow on top of snow. Enjoy!

I get that, and maybe it is just that it's the perfect little inversion spot. After doing some more digging, it looks as though the exact location of the climate station is right near the little creek bed in one of the lowest spots on the property so that could help explain some of it. The thing I struggle with is there are loads of relatively low-lying rural spots surrounded by miles of farmland and they don't get THAT cold. Heck, I drive through just such an example before I hop on the train in the mornings, and it is often 5+ degrees colder than my house but still doesn't reach THV levels. I did notice from some aerial overheads that part of the quarry and its surrounding dry land does butt up against pretty much the whole southern half of the runway. Just searching for something to explain the extremes ha. Who the heck knows. The only sure thing is I have spent WAY too much time thinking about this haha. Back to snow talk!

Hey @mitchnick I see the topic of THV's coldness came up again last night. That, and the fact that it looks like they bottomed out at -1, led me to dig up this post I had a few months ago. Something to chew on. ..... You know, the THV site has always fascinated me. Outside of being a relatively low spot with some minor ridges around that make it conducive to cold air inversions, I think the main driver may be the large quarry and rocky terrain that exists adjacent to it. This lack of vegetation would make for a more arid airmass and allow temps to drop more at night than surrounding locales. This is the same phenomenon witnessed at the Barrens, which is just a few miles outside of State College but believed to be one of, if not THE, coldest micro-climates in the entire state. THV is obviously a much scaled-down version of that but I think that it may be a similar explanation. Food for thought. Anyway, those who want to read about the Barrens can do so here, a fascinating place indeed..... https://climate.met.psu.edu/features/barrens/ Edit: I see you actually liked the original post so perhaps it was unnecessary to rehash it haha.

10 degrees when I left the house this morning. Friday looks like a very similar event to the one we just experienced, i.e. a long duration light snowfall. Sign me up. Although, ratios weren't as great as I thought they'd be down this way.

All wrapped up here. An additional .5" of snowfall since this morning, making for a grand total of 3.1". Nice little event. The craziest part is that it snowed nearly continuously for almost 24 hours and I barely eclipsed the 3" mark. That is impressive in and of itself haha.