RU848789

Sorry if I missed it, but I think our forecasters at the NWS (and many of our posters, too, who did quite well) deserve some love for a bang on forecast for 95% of the Philly-NYC CWAs and where there were misses, they were typically at the edges of forecast swaths where one can't be too disappointed if ending up in the next lowest swath (not major busts). Here are the final forecasts from 4 pm Friday vs. actuals. Allsnow, NJwxguy78 and Jake302 like this

Apart from being just a tad low in the northern 2/3 of Somerset and eastern Morris, I thought the NWS did a superb job on this forecast with the vast majority of people being within their forecast ranges or very close to them (and people on the edge of a forecast swath shouldn't be surprised if they end up on the adjacent swath), as per the final forecast map, below vs. the actual above. On another note, if any Philly folks are reading this, any reports from Center City/South Philly? A guy I know is claiming he only got 4" in South Philly and that the forecast for Philly was a bust, despite reports from the airport, Fairmount Park and Chestnut Hill showing 6"+. There had been a preliminary report of 4.5" from South Phillly before the storm was over, but no final report from there or Center City. Again, @MGorse- if you weigh in on the above post, maybe you could here, too. Also always wondered whether the preliminary reports don't end up in the final PNS because somebody simply didn't update their report after the storm was over or do you guys weed out reports you think might not be credible?

MGorse in the house, thanks!! Are you still at Mt. Holly? Had been wondering if the NWS wasn't allowing employees to post on social media or something, since it's been a long time since I saw any NWS mets posting (or maybe I'm not paying enough attention). Two other questions if you don't mind. First, @JERSEYSNOWROBin a thread on this on 33 said he had been told that the ASOS station is at the airport, like you confirmed, but that the snowfall measurements for "Philadelphia Int'l Airport" are taken across the river in National Park NJ. Is that correct? Finally, yesterday, a met showed me how to find the forecast snow/liquid ratio in the point forecast matrices (which list QPF and snowfall, so one can easily do the math for snow ratios). For yesterday, it was showing 13.8:1 for NYC, while Kuchera was 15:1. Do you guys have some in-house ratio calculation and more importantly, do the NWS snowfall maps include a correction for ratios (vs. being 10:1 ratio maps)? Would love to know the answers to these questions. Thanks!!

Question: I know that Philadelphia International Airport is the climate site of record for Philadelphia County, but I also know that part of the airport is in Philadelphia County and part is in Delaware County - does anyone know if the actual weather station is in Philadelphia County or not? TIA.

Damn, radar didn't show it well, but we got some more light to moderate snow the past hour, so we got another 1/4", since my noon measurement, to get us to 7.5" as of 1 pm. Kept thinking the storm was over and it kept going, albeit at a mostly light clip. Had 4.75" at 4:30 am, mostly over about 7 hours (about 0.7" per hour, with only one hour at a 1" per hour clip) and then only got 1.5" over the next 4.5 hours (1/3"/hr) to get to 6.25", and the radar was looking really weak, so I was thinking we would not get to 7". But since 9 am, we went from 6.25" to 7.25" over 3 hours (still 1/3" per hour). Usually if we get a 7"+ storm, there would be some hours with 1" per hour and once it tailed off it would be over soon after that, but this one kept chugging, slowly. I kind of like the "slow" snowstorm more than I thought I would as it's been more hours seeing the snow falling, which I love. It is finally looking like it might be done though. Pretty good storm and, overall, very well forecast, with even the "busts" being maybe a couple of inches low or high vs. forecast, which is minor to me, given how complex this storm was. The NWS had a 9" forecast for my house before it started and I got 7.5", which is pretty good, IMO. One other meteorological comment is I've seen a couple of posters reporting snow:liquid ratios of about 12:1, which is what I was thinking it was this morning. This means the NWS was a little off (they were predicting 14-15:1) and Kuchera was off even more (15-16:1 for most locations and up to 20:1 NW). Have never liked the Kuchera maps, but yesterday was thinking they'd be reasonable, so I included them along with the 10:1 maps, but the 10:1 maps ended up being better predictors. Will likely go back to just showing 10:1 maps in the future, unless we have an unusual case. Plus 10:1 maps let you also know the QPF at a glance, whereas not knowing the Kuchera ratio easily, one has to work hard to get the QPF from Kuchera maps. Up to 15.3" for the season, over 50% of the seasonal average. Let's see if we can get to 30"...

Damn, radar didn't show it well, but we got some more light to moderate snow the past hour, so we got another 1/4", since my noon measurement, to get us to 7.5" as of 1 pm. Kept thinking the storm was over and it kept going, albeit at a mostly light clip. Had 4.75" at 4:30 am, mostly over about 7 hours (about 0.7" per hour, with only one hour at a 1" per hour clip) and then only got 1.5" over the next 4.5 hours (1/3"/hr) to get to 6.25", and the radar was looking really weak, so I was thinking we would not get to 7". But since 9 am, we went from 6.25" to 7.25" over 3 hours (still 1/3" per hour). Usually if we get a 7"+ storm, there would be some hours with 1" per hour and once it tailed off it would be over soon after that, but this one kept chugging, slowly. I kind of like the "slow" snowstorm more than I thought I would as it's been more hours seeing the snow falling, which I love. It is finally looking like it might be done though. Pretty good storm and, overall, very well forecast, with even the "busts" being maybe a couple of inches low or high vs. forecast, which is minor to me, given how complex this storm was. The NWS had a 9" forecast for my house before it started and I got 7.5", which is pretty good, IMO. One other meteorological comment is I've seen a couple of posters reporting snow:liquid ratios of about 12:1, which is what I was thinking it was this morning. This means the NWS was a little off (they were predicting 14-15:1) and Kuchera was off even more (15-16:1 for most locations and up to 20:1 NW). Have never liked the Kuchera maps, but yesterday was thinking they'd be reasonable, so I included them along with the 10:1 maps, but the 10:1 maps ended up being better predictors. Will likely go back to just showing 10:1 maps in the future, unless we have an unusual case. Plus 10:1 maps let you also know the QPF at a glance, whereas not knowing the Kuchera ratio easily, one has to work hard to get the QPF from Kuchera maps. Up to 15.3" for the season, over 50% of the seasonal average. Let's see if we can get to 30"...

Took a much needed nap and did some shoveling and walking around and as of 12:00 pm, we have 7.25" here in Metuchen, which was very, very hard to measure with the windblown snow, so it was probably an average of at least 20 measurements around the yard (the snowboard measurement seemed a touch high to me at 7.6") which is close to my 8.25" prediction - wasn't sure we'd get that close a few hours ago, but the mostly light snow still delivered 1/3" per hour for the last 3 hours. 19F now. Debating what to do with the 1/4" I got yesterday in the late morning - have seen some saying to include it - if so, I got 7.5". I'm inclined to not include it, as it was from the front/clipper and we had many hours of no snow after that. Don't think we'll get more than another 1/4", looking at the radar. 7.25" seems consistent with numbers I've seen reported near me in Middelsex County here and elsewhere, such as 8.5" in Carteret, 7" in P'way, 8" in Woodbridge, 8.5" in Staten Island, and 7.5" in New Brunswick. Haven't seen any reports from Edison/Metuchen, though. Anyone?

Took a much needed nap and did some shoveling and walking around and as of 12:00 pm, we have 7.25" here in Metuchen, which was very, very hard to measure with the windblown snow, so it was probably an average of at least 20 measurements around the yard (the snowboard measurement seemed a touch high to me at 7.6") which is close to my 8.25" prediction - wasn't sure we'd get that close a few hours ago, but the mostly light snow still delivered 1/3" per hour for the last 3 hours. 19F now. Debating what to do with the 1/4" I got yesterday in the late morning - have seen some saying to include it - if so, I got 7.5". I'm inclined to not include it, as it was from the front/clipper and we had many hours of no snow after that. Don't think we'll get more than another 1/4", looking at the radar. 7.25" seems consistent with numbers I've seen reported near me in Middelsex County here and elsewhere, such as 8.5" in Carteret, 7" in P'way, 8" in Woodbridge, 8.5" in Staten Island, and 7.5" in New Brunswick. Haven't seen any reports from Edison/Metuchen, though. Anyone?

Well, we got some light to moderate snow the past 2 hours and we're now up to 6.25", which is a nice storm, but very likely will fall a bit short of my 8.25" prediction. Part of that is because the NWS predicted 14:1 ratios, so I kind of figured that in, but DonCat in Staten Island reported a 12:1 ratio - if it had been 14:1, I'd be at 7.3" now. No biggie, just interesting to observe. It's still snowing and the radar looks like we might have another hour or two with a shot at a heavier band as the storm pivots and starts heading ENE. For hours I've been watching heavy bands about 10-15 miles east of me falling apart as they move west, but maybe we'll still get one. Oh well, still a fun storm. 20F.

Well, we got some light to moderate snow the past 2 hours and we're now up to 6.25", which is a nice storm, but very likely will fall a bit short of my 8.25" prediction. Part of that is because the NWS predicted 14:1 ratios, so I kind of figured that in, but DonCat in Staten Island reported a 12:1 ratio - if it had been 14:1, I'd be at 7.3" now. No biggie, just interesting to observe. It's still snowing and the radar looks like we might have another hour or two with a shot at a heavier band as the storm pivots and starts heading ENE. For hours I've been watching heavy bands about 10-15 miles east of me falling apart as they move west, but maybe we'll still get one. Oh well, still a fun storm. 20F.

That's a 12:1 ratio roughly. When I posted around 4 am I was speculating our ratios weren't nearly as good as predicted by the NWS (14:1) and guessed that I had probably gotten 12-13:1 ratios on a post on 33. And Kuchera was estimating about 15:1. Had 5.5" at 7 am and doubt I've had more than 1/2" since then, which would give me 6", but will measure shortly - that ~10 miles east of me really helped you get 1-2" more

Ok, woke up and saw that the radar from about 5 am to 7 am was meh and measured about 5.5" at 7 am (very tough to measure with wind blown snow even in our backyard where usually wind doesn't affect measurements that much), which meant we only got 3/4" over the last 2.5 hours. Looking at the radar now, if those bands east of us can't make it here, there's no way we're going to make it to my 8.25" prediction, which I thought was a lock at 4 am. There was always going to be a sharp NW cutoff and we may be the victim of that. 21F now.

Ok, woke up and saw that the radar from about 5 am to 7 am was meh and measured about 5.5" at 7 am (very tough to measure with wind blown snow even in our backyard where usually wind doesn't affect measurements that much), which meant we only got 3/4" over the last 2.5 hours. Looking at the radar now, if those bands east of us can't make it here, there's no way we're going to make it to my 8.25" prediction, which I thought was a lock at 4 am. There was always going to be a sharp NW cutoff and we may be the victim of that. 21F now.

As of 4:30 am, we're up to about 4.75" (difficult to measure with blowing/drifting snow) as we had good intensity for awhile, but then it waned, giving us 0.5" last hour. NWS forecast as of 4 am was for 4-6" more snow, so I'm thinking we'll get to 8-10", which would be a great snowstorm. All the way down to 23F.

As of 4:30 am, we're up to about 4.75" (difficult to measure with blowing/drifting snow) as we had good intensity for awhile, but then it waned, giving us 0.5" last hour. NWS forecast as of 4 am was for 4-6" more snow, so I'm thinking we'll get to 8-10", which would be a great snowstorm. All the way down to 23F.

As of 3:30 am, we're up to 4.25", as we got 1/2" last hour with somewhat diminished intensity, although the radar and my eyeballs are indicating intensity picking back up again now. Really want to get into some of those 1"+ per hour bands that look to only be 15-20 miles SE of me. Down to 24F.

As of 3:30 am, we're up to 4.25", as we got 1/2" last hour with somewhat diminished intensity, although the radar and my eyeballs are indicating intensity picking back up again now. Really want to get into some of those 1"+ per hour bands that look to only be 15-20 miles SE of me. Down to 24F.

And now up to 3.75" as of 2:30 am, for another 3/4" in the last hour. After measuring, which was difficult with the 20-30 mph winds moving the snow around so much, I went ahead and did my first shovel of the storm. I love shoveling in the dead of night without a soul around, in the perfect silent beauty of a gorgeous snowscape (in what's usually a busy town). And it gives me an excuse to be out in the snow. Was snowing moderately most of the time - we've been right on the edge of going consistently over 20 dBZ, but the band just won't quite get over us, although it's certainly better than 15 miles NW of me. Down to 25F.

And now up to 3.75" as of 2:30 am, for another 3/4" in the last hour. After measuring, which was difficult with the 20-30 mph winds moving the snow around so much, I went ahead and did my first shovel of the storm. I love shoveling in the dead of night without a soul around, in the perfect silent beauty of a gorgeous snowscape (in what's usually a busy town). And it gives me an excuse to be out in the snow. Was snowing moderately most of the time - we've been right on the edge of going consistently over 20 dBZ, but the band just won't quite get over us, although it's certainly better than 15 miles NW of me. Down to 25F.

So, up to 3.0" at 1:30 am, meaning 0.75" the last hour, with greater intensity, obviously, and the radar continues to look quite good, with moderate to almost heavy snow coming down - probably 3/8 of a mile visibility. Down to 27F.

So, up to 3.0" at 1:30 am, meaning 0.75" the last hour, with greater intensity, obviously, and the radar continues to look quite good, with moderate to almost heavy snow coming down - probably 3/8 of a mile visibility. Down to 27F.

As of 12:30 am, we're up to 2.25", for almost 1/2" the past hour and just in the last few minutes it started really picking up in intensity and I see the radar finally showing over 20 dBZ. Maybe we can get into 1" per hour rates, being not too far from the SPC's mesoscale discussion about 1-3" per hour rates through much of SNJ and the coast for the next few hours. 28F.

As of 12:30 am, we're up to 2.25", for almost 1/2" the past hour and just in the last few minutes it started really picking up in intensity and I see the radar finally showing over 20 dBZ. Maybe we can get into 1" per hour rates, being not too far from the SPC's mesoscale discussion about 1-3" per hour rates through much of SNJ and the coast for the next few hours. 28F.

As of 11:30 pm, up to 1.8", but only 0.3" the last hour, as the intensity let up some. Down to 29F. Radar looks like some heavier bands are en route.

As of 11:30 pm, up to 1.8", but only 0.3" the last hour, as the intensity let up some. Down to 29F. Radar looks like some heavier bands are en route.