RU848789

As of 9 pm, 6.5" in Metuchen, so 1.25" the last hour and it's down to 30F; snowing close to heavily but radar showed that really heavy looking band to my SE kind of fizzling to "normal" heavy snow. Just shoveled the end of the driveway, since the plows just went by and I hate letting that slushy mess freeze.

As of 8 pm, 5.25" in Metuchen and it's still 31F; snowing close to heavily but radar is showing a couple of SW to NE oriented bands moving NW towards us, which look really heavy, like maybe 2" per hour heavy.

I just noticed that the blizzard warnings from 1 pm from Mt. Holly backed off the snowfall amounts vs. their event total map. It has 13-21" for Sussex-Warren-Morris-Hunterdon-Somerset-Middlesex-Mercer, and 18-24" for Monmouth/Ocean, but the map always had much of NJ at 18-24" with parts of the coast at 24-30" Not sure how I missed that. They also have a new map up for "expected snowfall" but that is not "event snowfall" as a few inches have fallen and that map starts at 7 pm. That bugs me - they should always have an event snowfall map and if they want to add a "how much more from X time" map fine. Rant over. Back to enjoying the snow.

I just noticed that the blizzard warnings from 1 pm from Mt. Holly backed off the snowfall amounts vs. their event total map. It has 13-21" for Sussex-Warren-Morris-Hunterdon-Somerset-Middlesex-Mercer, and 18-24" for Monmouth/Ocean, but the map always had most of NJ at 18-24" with the coast at 24-30" Not sure how I missed that. They also have a new map up for "expected snowfall" but that is not "event snowfall" as a few inches have fallen and that map starts at 7 pm. That bugs me - they should always have an event snowfall map and if they want to add a "how much more from X time" map fine. Rant over. Back to enjoying the snow.

As of 7 pm, we have 4.0" of snow, so 1.5" last hour as it's been snowing close to heavily (not crazy heavy, but visibility maybe 3/8 of a mile. Temp still 31F. Just finished my first shoveling and it wasn't too bad - bottom snow layer was wet but snow falling now is somewhat drier, but still packs.

As of 6 pm, we have 2.5" of snow, so another 1" last hour it's snowing at moderate+ whatever that is. Temp still 31F. Very pretty snow coating everything including the trees since the first inch or so was pretty wet and it stuck, despite ~15 mph winds with gusts to 20-25 mph now.

As of 5 pm, we have 1.5" of new snow, so 1" the last hour and we're still at 31F. All roads now covered, as expected.

Yep, 2-parter...here's a short excerpt of my write-up on it (I have a way longer version, lol). Wow, what a freakin' snowstorm. Ended around 3 am here and our final tally was 5.5" for part 1 and 12.0" for part 2, for a grand total of 17.5" for the event. Puts it in the top 10 for the last 50 years in this area. Sounds like there was a general overall 12-20" in the Philly to NYC region, which is quite an overperformance vs. the forecast.

Folks - don't forget to go outside and enjoy this gift, as it's simply gorgeous out there now and about to go nuclear. If you need an excuse to get outside, do a measurement every hour and report back. Also, if you end up with several inches less than the NWS and others are predicting, don't whine - remember back to 3-4 days ago when we were worried about a whiff

So, as of 4 pm, we have 1/2" of new snow on the ground and the snow is just starting to accumulate on paved surfaces as temps are now down to 31F, so road conditions will start deteriorating quickly now.

Wow, this is exactly what I've been saying.

SIAP, but Tomer Burg just published his final call and he's very bullish on this storm with similar forecast amounts as the NWS as per the Twitter thread below.https://x.com/burgwx/status/2025657853998969116

NBM, which uses a combo of Kuchera and the Cobb method has overall ratios of 12-13 for the NJ coast and 15-17 NW of 95, which is part of the reason why the NBM is showing more snow per QPF than the 10:1 snowfall maps. I can definitely see this, since once we overcome the early melting, the snow crystal growth dynamics in the DGZ should be great for low density/high ratio dendrites, especially after about 7 pm with temps below 32F in the whole column. Only question then becomes how much crystal breakage do we see upon descent through a very windy column. Will be interesting to see. Also, measuring the snow accurately will be tough once we get past 9-10 pm and winds really pick up. Might have to use my technique of going to a huge field near me, which limits the "edge effects" one gets in most house properties with fences, trees, roads, etc. This was the only way I could get decent measurements for big storms with high winds like Jan-96, BDB and Jan-2016.

After a few hours of light rain/snow/mix with temps in the 35-36F range, the temp has dropped to 33F over the last hour or so and the snow intensity picked up then and accumulation just started on grass/cars/colder surfaces; paved surfaces might take another hour or so. If you're thinking of heading out now, you might want to reconsider - even if salted roads are ok for a few more hours, visibility is becoming an issue now. Also, here's our starting point for snowfall, as we still have 1-2" of snow/sleet on our property, which admittedly is on the shady side, but damn, that's about 35 days straight with <1" on the ground and that's going to go for at least another 7 days now. Sweet!

Just changed to light snow here as we dropped from 37F to 35F over the past hour.

So Mt. Holly updated their CWA map, but not the better map showing neighboring areas - anyone seen that yet (not on FB/Twitter/NWS pages)...

Blizzard and Winter Storm Warnings Expanded The blizzard warnings were extended about a county inland by the NWS (counties in orange) and those watches for counties in NEPA were converted to warnings (pink), as the NWS clearly has more confidence in more snowfall making it that far inland so they upped snowfall for everyone especially west of 95. Below is a bulleted summary of the blizzard/winter storm warnings which is easier to digest than those long text strings the NWS puts out. Hopefully we'll see a new NWS map soon, as snowfall amounts have been increased, as per these warning amounts. Specifically, the warning for Somerset/Middlesex/Mercer is for 16-20" of snow and the map had us at 12-16" (and this goes for everyone). The links below have the full text for all of the warnings. Blizzard Warnings from the NWS-Philly and NYC Blizzard Warning for Atlantic-Cape May Counties for blizzard conditions with total snow accumulations between 12 and 20 inches and winds gusting as high as 50 mph. Blizzard Warning for Gloucester-Camden-NW Burlington-Cumberland-Counties for blizzard conditions with total snow accumulations between 14 and 20 inches and winds gusting as high as 45 mph. Blizzard Warning for Monmouth-Ocean-SE Burlington Counties for blizzard conditions with total snow accumulations between 15 and 20 inches and winds gusting as high as 50 mph. Blizzard Warning for Morris-Somerset-Middlesex-Mercer Counties for blizzard conditions with total snow accumulations between 16 and 20 inches and winds gusting as high as 45 mph. Blizzard Warning for Passaic-Hudson-Bergen-Essex-Union Counties for blizzard conditions with total snow accumulations between 12 and 18 inches and winds gusting as high as 50 mph Blizzard Warning for Westchester-Manhattan-Bronx-Staten Island-Brooklyn-Suffolk-Queens-Nassau Counties for blizzard conditions with total snow accumulations between 15 and 20 inches and winds gusting as high as 55-60 mph Blizzard Warning for N Westchester-Rockland Counties for blizzard conditions with total snow accumulations between 11 and 15 inches and winds gusting as high as 45 mph Note: blizzard warnings are also up for Delaware and Connecticut, as well as Rhode Island/Mass (not including those details) Winter Storm Warnings from the NWS-Philly and NYC (very close to blizzard conditions, looking at the winds) Winter Storm Warning for Carbon-Monroe-Berks-Lehigh-Northampton Counties for total snow accumulations between 8 and 16 inches and winds gusting as high as 45 mph Winter Storm Warning for Delaware-Philadelphia-Chester-Montgomery-Bucks Counties for total snow accumulations between 14 and 18inches and winds gusting as high as 40 mph Winter Storm Warning for Sussex-Warren-Hunterdon Counties for total snow accumulations between 13 and 18 inches and winds gusting as high as 45 mph Winter Storm Warning for Salem County for total snow accumulations between 14 and 18 inches and winds gusting as high as 40 mph https://forecast.weather.gov/wwamap/wwatxtget.php?cwa=PHI&wwa=blizzard warning https://forecast.weather.gov/wwamap/wwatxtget.php?cwa=PHI&wwa=winter storm warning

Ok, time to up those accumulations - the King is on board! Best Euro run yet.

A few commnts on the NBM. Some think the high amounts are all due to the GFS/NAM being part of the blend and that's partly true, but snow ratios are also part of it as can be seen by just looking at the QPF vs. snowfall maps, as there's nowhere with >2.4" of QPF, but many locations getting >24" of snow even along the coast and inland with maybe 1.5" of QPF. The NBM table above says they use a combo of max temp aloft (Kuchera, I assume) and the Cobb method for generating ratios. So those 10:1 maps are likely underestimates.

Personally I'm good with the NWS going with the "average" model camp (8-12" NW of 95, 12-16" near/along 95 and 16-20" for the coast) from a public safety/trust perspective, since going with the low end model average and having something near the high end verify would have people not quite ready for an historic storm. They can easily bump down from the average camp if things trend that way before the storm starts and easily bump up towards something historic (the 10% high case) if the low end models bump up significantly. I am a bit surprised their 10% low end case is so low - that implies they still think there's a worst credible case for the system to go back to the Euro 2 days ago. That would kind of suck.

Nothing is tougher to remove than sleet, especially when it falls at 15F and freezes solid if people didn't remove it soon enough (I did, but many friends didn't). This won't be a picnic though, either.

AIGFS 18Z snow map? TIA. And has there been a WN2 lately?

We still have 2-3" of heavy snow/sleet on our entire property (over 1" since 1/17), although it's no longer topped off with a hard frozen sleetcrete layer anymore as that has softened up from the rain/warmth. Should still be >1" on Sunday and then boom!

They updated that but not the main map yet - actually they just did update, but it's only through 7 am Monday - was wondering why the numbers looked low. I wish they'd only ever issue maps for full events - these partial maps are misleading.

That's an HECS like the GFS. Wow! Thanks for posting the AIGFS/Weathernext models which TT/Pivotal don't have.