CT Rain

That damage in the Farmington valley was on par with the ice storm damage here I saw in ORH county...I'm not sure if it was as widespread in arial coverage but the fact it covered such a large population made it just as impressive.

I think the two storms are awesome in showing the power of two different things....first the power was 12"+ wet snow with leaves on the trees and the absolute destructive power of ice without leaves. (IIRC you covered some of the damage in 2008 in Holden, MA because you called me asking where to go).

Yup I was in Holden a couple days after... and shortly after the storm I was up in the high terrain up on the east slope of the Berks.

You are correct that the extent of the damage wasn't terribly widespread. What was remarkable about the snowstorm damage was that the worst damage was in the lower elevations and highly/densely populated areas. Once you got up above 700 or 800 feet the snow was a bit fluffier and you had less leaves on the trees in general.

Imagine ice with leaves lol.

Must have been 12/73. I was 5, so I have vague memories.

Oct 2011 was really bad not for from me. We got about 8" which did a lot of damage, but noting like the war zones N/W of me, and nothing like your ice storm in 2008.

Yeah the damage in some parts of the Farmington Valley was just unreal. On par with some of the stuff I saw in Massachusetts after the 2008 ice storm.

Yeah, the lasting effects of a few storms last winter was memorable, to say the least.

1978 closed schools for a week. All roads in CT were closed except to emergency vehicles - and there was widespread damage on the coast. Oct 2011 had a major impact, but probably not as widespread, but it hit CT hard in some spots.

There was an ice storm in '74 (I think). I have vague recollections of being able to actually use flexible flyer runner sleds since the ice was so thick. No power for at least a few days.

I don't remember 1888.

Yeah there were some areas in CT that saw very little from Oct 2011. So 1978 was more widespread with heavy impact though western CT did not see as much of an impact and southern and eastern parts of the state. The wind was vicious though so you had very impressive drifting even where you had less than 20". The fact so many people were stranded turned the storm into a legendary one for many. Had the storm occurred on a weekend it probably would have had much less of an impact (if it happened 20 years later the number of 4WD/AWD cars would have alleviated some of the issues too).

I would probably edge 1978 over 2011 in CT particularly because it was more widespread and impacted everyone. The two are in the same league, however, something that CT hasn't been able to say in over 30 years.

Not a single storm but last year was amazing. Classes canceled for a week at universities and longer than that ay public schools. Roofs collapsed etc, unbelievable.

Yeah agreed.

Looking at specific storms we all have memories of different ones for different reasons. 3/93, 1/96, 4/97, 3/01, 2/03 all have pretty special places in my weather memory. Oct 11 blows them all out of the water though.

Well def for CT...I'm not sure about MA though since Oct 2011 "missed" a large portion of MA with big snows...even though lots of people had power outages with 6" of snow in interior E MA. There's some coastal flooding monsters like Dec 1992 in E MA that combined with the snow inland that might put Oct '11 behind it.

But I agree overall it was a monster impact storm for SNE. I would be interested in hearing the damage totals when they finally get them final (in adjusted dollars of course)...the lack of coastal flooding in Oct '11 will prob put it behind a few snowstorms in NE...but in terms of just the snow damage dollars, nothing comes close to Oct '11...not even close.

Yeah agreed.

Judging storms by impact I think is the most important means of ranking storms. The 2006 powder bomb was the least impactful 26" of my life. I cleared my car off in about 3 minutes.

I would have to give the edge to 1978 and definitely 1888 over 2011. All three storms were quite different.

Probably not...Feb 1899 probably did.but that was pre-1900. The leaves on the trees made the October storm so unique.

The 3 biggest for impact would have to be October 2011, February 1978, and March 1888.

1888 for amounts, 1978 for drifts/amounts/strandings/coastal flooding, and 2011 for damage.

I'm not sure any others come into that category.

Trying to put October 2011 in some type of historical perspective in CT. I can't think of any snowstorm other than 1978 that had the same type of societal impact in post-1900. Can anyone think of any others?

Seems to me based on the service assessment that there may be a push to make "tornado emergency" a separate warning per recommendation 2.

They clearly state they want to maintain the existing POD but want to "provide a non-routine warning mechanism that prompts people to take immediate life saving action in extreme events like strong to violent tornadoes"

Also to modify the warning structure to be more impact based than phenomenon based.

All of the above would be great I think.

I was in Guilford then on the shore... we were rocking that year.

Even though a few of those years look "high" one of my coworkers in the wx department lives right next to the airport and had nearly identical totals in 95-96.

I think he had 108" in 95-96... I'll look at work when I get in. Same elevation in East Granby.

That was a very good year for the valley in CT...all the overrunning events muted any downslope for them. BDL broke 90" didn't they? Even if they were inflating back then, still a huge year.

I was in Guilford then on the shore... we were rocking that year.

Even though a few of those years look "high" one of my coworkers in the wx department lives right next to the airport and had nearly identical totals in 95-96.

I was pouring rain at 9 degrees in the 94 disastah

Some of those 94 storms were my favorite. 2 back-to-back foot storms within a week made for a nice February

oh jan '05 without question.

dec. 05 was an amazing experience. but 30" of snow and 70 mph winds is hard to vote against.

dec. 05 i only got about 1.5" of snow....and the wind....as ridiculous as it was...was in and out in a matter of minutes. almost what i imagine it would be like to have a tornado i guess.

Yeah I figured

Nice year for you!

good question. i'm not sure.

depends on what qualifies too. i'm pretty sure we had some light OES early in the decade that didn't stick but was festive enough.

What would you prefer to be repeated this year for you Jan 05 or Dec 05?

I remember Ryan saying something on the air about GON having their first white Xmas in over a decade last year

Did they I don't remember? They got a nice hit in the Dec snowstorm.

12/9/05 is almost sacred weather ground up here.

almost like in the movie Twister when the lady asks what an F5 would be like and the whole table goes silent.

Was so happy to miss it

Was working in Albany that morning and driving to CT that afternoon to work at NBC in Hartford. Ughhhhh.

I couldn't see the new and improved version of this, but I was living in Somers, CT around 300' at the time and this truely had the greatest gradient I've seen. I had 3.2" by the time everything was done but just a few miles east of me there was 12-14" around 900'. The amounts rose dramatically from there in Union, CT and I remember measuring 32-35" in the morning as my brother and I drove to the coast to check out the waves there. I'd have to check my weather record but I thought I had measured around 37" in Union when we were driving back home in the afternoon. I rank this as one of my favorite storms even though I got screwed at my house.

Wow, nice.

I remember the wind and waves down at the water with like 24 hours of -RAPL. It was awful but a very exciting storm to watch.

highlight of last winter for me...deformation band sets up over LI/SE CT for the Dec 20, 2009 storm...2-3"/hr rates:

What was your final total from that one?