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RU848789

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Everything posted by RU848789

  1. RU848789
    Never sleep on a Miller A, lol. It was written off as a major snowstorm 2 days before it hit, with most solutions showing the storm going out to sea, some missing completely and some showing 1-2" for the 95 corridor and a few to several inches for coastal NJ and LI and SE New England, whereas 3-4 days before the event there was absolute model mayhem with complete misses and blizzards (especially on the Euro). And then the epic 12/25 0Z runs all showed a huge snowstorm, about 36 hours before the event started. Thread below. I was in Charlotte visiting family on Christmas Eve night after everyone went to sleep causally surfing the web and watching the model runs and every model showed a bomb for our area. Best Christmas present I could get, lol. I even convinced my wife and then 16 year old son that we should leave Charlotte after Christmas dinner so we could be home for the blizzard and we left around 7 pm getting caught in the snow a bit for the first 3-4 hours of the drive with several inches on even the interstates, but traffic was light and we outran the snow by about Durham and the rest of the ride was fine. I got a couple of hours of sleep, played soccer the morning of 12/26, as usual for a Sunday, then sat back and enjoyed an incredible storm. Craig Allen had this to say after seeing the 0Z suite that night: "Good data or bad, garbage in/garbage out, wish for what you do or do not want, no matter what has been said before, from feast to famine to feast....the most amazing thing has happened tonight. EVERY SINGLE COMPUTER MODEL IS NOW IN LINE FOR A MAJOR SNOWSTORM/PSBL BLIZZARD CONDITIONS LATE SUN INTO SUN NGT. NEVER IN 35+ YEARS OF DOING THIS HAVE I SEEN SUCH CHAOS LEADING UP TO A SOLUTION LIKE THIS."
  2. RU848789
    Well, I'm liking the fact that all 4 major global models at 0Z are at least now showing a pretty significant to major coastal storm this weekend (mostly Saturday late morning through the evening for the Philly-NYC region), but only one of them is showing significant snowfall. The GFS shows a snow to rain storm with significant snowfall along and NW of 95, while the UK shows a monsoon of a rainstorm with 1-3" of rain (close to 1" well NW to almost 3" near the coast), and the Euro and CMC show a major storm a couple hundred miles off the coast, with just some modest rains near the coast, but huge rains offshore (1-2"), so the precip is certainly there with all 4 models. But we're about 5 days out and obviously much can change between now and the event, especially with the main players being well offshore of the NA continent. As many have said with borderline antecedent temps this is a serious "thread the needle" scenario, so a major snowstorm is unlikely, but we all know powerful storms like this can essentially "generate" their own cold air via dynamic cooling with heavy precip rates and sometimes turn a rainstorm into a pastebomb of a snowstorm. So, nobody needs to buy milk and bread yet (or a canoe), but this one is worth tracking and maybe it's our time to get lucky...or not. The one thing that's starting to look likely is the potential for heavy surf and possibly minor tidal flooding (fortunately it won't be a full moon).
  3. RU848789
    Nov 2018 was 2nd worst for me, behind Jan 1987, which was the absolute worst. Was in grad school at RU and there were literally hundreds of cars abandoned on roads all around the area, as many got stuck for 4+ hours moving just a few miles, all over CNJ. Storm was underpredicted and hit really hard right after lunch on a Friday. My commute home was 1/2 mile and it took 30 minutes, partly because I got out of my car a few times to help people who had spun out.
  4. RU848789
    Temp finally up to 32F here, but everything not covered in snow is encased in about 0.1-0.2" of ice. For folks who haven't changed over to ZR yet, wait until after the ZR goes over to rain to clear your driveways and sidewalks, as ZR fallling on snow is a non-issue, but ZR falling on cleared, sub-32F paved surfaces leads to an ice rink. My neighbor cleared the sidewalk after the snow and it's now a sheet of ice.
  5. RU848789
    Unfortunately, the sleet was relatively short-lived, as I got 0.1" of the pellets, so 1.7" total snow/sleet, and now it's moderate freezing rain at 28F, but it is climbing. Nobody was really predicting 0.2" or so of freezing rain for much of the area. Fortunately, much of it will fall on snow and be absorbed rather than creating skating rinks, although cleared, non-treated paved surfaces, especially lightly traveled ones, could become very icy with instant accretion with temps in the upper 20s, so be careful out there for the next few hours until temps go above 32F. At least we should wake up to some snow/slush.
  6. RU848789
    Damn, same here with sleet snow mix (mostly sleet) - by the cc-radar a tongue of sleet looks to have developed along 78 from Allentown to Somerville and then along 287 to Perth Amboy. Hoping the precip behind it, which is not showing a sleet signature is back to snow (with heavier precip - will see shortly as heavier precip is on our doorstep) and not freezing rain, since it's 26F at the surface and that would be a mess.
  7. RU848789
    Wow, got 1/4" over the last 15 minutes of moderate snow with gorgeous dendrites, as we're obviously getting very nice supersaturation-driven crystal growth up in the DGZ - don't usually get 1" per hour rates without heavy rates. Up to 1.5".
  8. RU848789
    Over the last hour we had mostly light snow or no snow, getting only 1/4" more, so we're at 1.25". However, moderate snow is on our doorstep and will hopefully fall for the next hour or so, if the sleet can hold of (it has stalled out near Trenton). Temp is up to 26F. Enjoying my walks outside and watching the young ones sledding across the street at a small hill, where I used to take our son (now 25) - by the time he was 11-12 we had to upgrade to driving out to Schooley Mountain in Long Valley.
  9. RU848789
    Can't make this stuff up, since this model was showing a quick change to sleet much of the day - now I hope it's right, lol...like I just said on FB, I have no clue what's going to happen, so I'm going to continue going for walks and watching the kids sledding on the small hill across my street.
  10. RU848789
    After the lull, moderate snow started back up about 10-15 minutes ago and we're now up to 1.0". Guessing another hour or so before the sleet gets here, assuming it moves at its current rate - that would likely put us near 2" before what would likely be a few hours of sleet. Temps up from 23F to 25F over the past 2 hours so the warm air advection is certainly ongoing.
  11. RU848789
    Thanks. And I agree on impact being most important. Don't know if you've seen my sometimes exhaustive (lol) posts on this, but I strongly believe sleet is almost as impactful as snow and that people greatly underestimate the impact of sleet because 3:1 ratio sleet is only about 1/3 the depth of 10:1 snow. Problem with that thinking is that for 1" of sleet and 3.3" of snow, for example the frozen mass is the same and frozen mass is all that really matters for driving and snow/sleet removal; and, in fact, sleet will melt more slowly than snow, given its much lower surface area per unit volume vs. flakes, since melting occurs at the surface and less SA means slower melting. The one exception to impact is that sleet obviously has nearly no impact on visibility, which does matter.
  12. RU848789
    I lol-ed...
  13. RU848789
    Just went for a nice walk with the wife in the snow, doing some eating and shopping downtown. As of about 12:30 pm we had 1/2" of snow and we got another 1/4" in the last hour, so we have 3/4" on the ground at 23F. It really is gorgeous out there folks!
  14. RU848789
    Just took a quick walk - gorgeous out there with moderate (not quite heavy) snow and 1/4" down; guessing another 1/4" before this band ends - nice!
  15. RU848789
    Light snow has begun here in Metuchen! Band looks thinner, so hoping for 1/2" out of it... Edit - 1 min later and it's moderate - didn't expect that, lol...
  16. RU848789
    Didn't see anyone mention that, surprisingly, the NWS-NYC upped their snowfall forecast for NYC metro at 10 am. Not sure why, since there was no AFD update at the same time, but they did. Here you go...
  17. RU848789
    Best post in the thread. Confirmation bias is a terrible thing, lol.
  18. RU848789
    Walt - I know you know a ton more about meteorology than I do, but I have a ton of knowledge about heat transfer/physical chemistry (PhD in chem eng'g) and I'd quibble with one point in your post. Once there is a layer of frozen precip on the ground (and there will be) the 2M surface temp becomes largely irrelevant to whether falling snow will accumulate at the surface, since the "actual surface" is snow, which, by definition, has a maximum temp of 32F and can't ever get warmer than that (will melt at 32F). If you're talking about bare paved surfaces (plowed or treated), then the actual surface will quickly warm to the 2M surface temp and further snow accumulations on the paved surfaces could be more difficult, unless, of course the falling snow rate exceeds the melting rate at the surface and with moderate snow or heavier, that will occur, as melting rates after dark at 33-34F should be <1/4" per hour.
  19. RU848789
    NWS (Philly and NYC offices) reduced snowfall a bit for areas along and south of 78 (and 495 east of Manhattan), including for NYC, based mostly on less QPF while temps are cold enough, according to the AFDs. None of the advisory counties changed and the advisories still say 2-4" for NE NJ/NYC/LI, but the maps have less within that 2-4" range. A little surprised as I didn't think the 0Z models had backed off on snowfall amounts, but what do I know, lol.
  20. RU848789
    Euro comes in a bit snowier than today's 12Z, like most of the other 0Z models. Nice. Might actually get 2-3" out of this in the 95 corridor.
  21. RU848789
    It all depends, obviously, but if one gets 2" of snow and 0.3" of sleet, then that's about 0.3" frozen LE and if the amount of rain that then falls is <0.3", most of the rain would be absorbed, making for a fairly dense mass of slush - in areas to the NW where it will likely go below 32F later at night, it could make for some cement. Shouldn't happen along the 95 corridor and SE of there, as temps don't look to fall back below 32F until Sunday night. Still, I just want to see some white stuff for more than a few hours, lol.
  22. RU848789
    The Euro backed off a bit on snowfall for the 95 corridor and towards the coast vs. the last couple of runs. Interestingly, the NWS offices kind of flip-flopped with their forecast snowfall, with the Philly office decreasing snowfall vs. yesterday's forecast, while the NYC office upped the snowfall forecast a fair amount. The two offices are moderately far apart at the boundaries between the offices (Passaic/Essex/Union/SI vs. Sussex/Morris/Somerset/Middlesex) - hopefully these discontinuities are cleared up before the event or someone will be wrong, lol.
  23. RU848789
    latitude sometimes really matters. Recall 3/1 and 3/3 earlier this year, where most of us in northern Middlesex County got 9-11" of snow, combined (I got 10.5"), while folks 5-10 miles south in East Brunswick and Sayreville only got 2-4" of snow/sleet with some rain. I even drove around the morning after one of those to see the gradient from Metuchen (5.5") to Highland Park (3") to New Brunswick (2") to East Brunswick (1").
  24. RU848789
    Yep, even 5 days out, every global model is showing some snow for the Philly-NYC corridor and even towards the coast, with the usual SE to NW, less to more snow gradient being likely. Surprised nobody posted the relevant model output - here you go. Note that most of the snow for the 95 corridor looks to fall between early afternoon and late evening, depending on the model - I included maps through Sunday morning to include total snowfall through New England. If I could lock in the 2-3" the Euro shows for me now I would (let alone the 5-6" on the GFS/CMC).
  25. RU848789
    Ended up with about an inch on colder surfaces, with nothing on paved surfaces, so no impact at all from this little event. Nice surprise to see at least a little snow - was very pretty out there overnight and should be gone soon...
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