OceanStWx

Unfortunately ASOS is king, and that liquid is what goes in for the climate. Even if the snow observer reports more (or less).

You can see from the study that only 1 in 4 obs is greater than 13:1 in SNE, maybe 1 in 10 greater than 20:1. Even factoring in people who measure once when the storm is done or the next morning with compaction, you're maybe moving the SLR 2 inches, not 5+.

We're still getting used to the forecast process now, and the NBM is good, but it still has some big holes. One is that it provides us with snow ratios, but it nearly always too high. It is too frequently in the 15-20:1 range. As an example for BOX's CWA, if you just had your extended forecast living in the 8-14:1 range you would be a lot less susceptible to these kinds of NBM busts.

@ORH_wxman Honestly he may have even done the work 20 years ago.

They are just like a coop, once daily measurement in the morning. But they will report to us on the 6 hours when they are in the office.

2 NNW is Pennichuck water. Their data is pretty meh overall, they do us a free service but there are occasional mistakes and they like their "round" numbers x.0 and x.5. The Hudson coop had 28.6" and is a former met, so pretty reliable obs there.

It won't necessarily get weaker, but you will see the band contract in size as the warm advection moves north and it becomes more driven purely by deformation.

Once a certain amount of time passes it is no longer a local WFO thing. Only NCEI can change it, so IIRC when Will pieced together the missing records it was too late for BOX to change things. And NCEI is notoriously unwilling to change data (with good reason, don't need ulterior motives driving data changes).

I believe they got 2" Brutal. But we did actually get those 20+ totals in the south.

This one's right up there with the St. Valentine's Day massacre of 2015 for GYX.

Congrats Dendrite!

Day drinking FTL

I'm just doing the math from the 5 inches on the ground at 7 pm last night before the snow started.

I actually can't myself. I know GYX has internal documents we keep of the top 10 lists, I know BOX has similar. But that's what I mean about them not being digitized. Without asking BOX directly, you can't really search on your own.

Seeing BOX LSRed a 31.5 in Warwick, so they are buying the 30+ reports now. Should start coming fast and furious now.

SNINCR 4/37! That's a +32 change from this storm.

I mean they reported 33 inches on the ground (+28 change) last hour. I don't see how they haven't recorded over 29" of snow for this event. The 1978 is "only" 28.6".

Looking at some objective analysis today, and it does support what some of the more mesoscale guidance was showing Saturday/Sunday. The 850 mb frontogenesis while it does weaken in max intensity, does broaden and lift north towards southeast SNE. The real kicker is 700 mb. Look at how stationary that forcing is from GON to ORH for the 12-18z period (remember north winds will cause snow to drift south of this forcing). So while 700 forcing was stationary, 850 mb forcing moved north to meet it. The end result is one very intensely forced band of snow with subsidence immediately to the west. But the storm is so intense that warm advection and deformation continues to expand northwest of the low and a secondary 700 mb frontogenesis max exists. That is the one that has struggled against dry air though for my forecast area.

In 4 hours (12-16z) they increased their depth from 21" to 30". That is dumping snow.

The data exists, it just hasn't been digitized in a lot of places. So searchable records usually have missing data for that ~decade. However the "Top 10" lists usually include the missing data.

METAR had SNINCR 2/30. Which is 2 in the last hour 30 on the ground - but they had 5 before the snow started, so that's at least 25" from this storm. With compaction I would guess the measured total will be higher at 1 pm. So I think that makes this at least #2 all time (as long as they've cleaned up the record with Will's info).

I completely checked out while in Florida with the kids on vacation week, but one thing that became clear as I started to look at things this past weekend was how well 700 and 850 mb f-gen was going to align vertically. That usually signals a single intense band, and when you get to that level of lift you can usually bet on a subsidence zone nearby. I was hopeful the secondary band at 700 mb farther northwest was going to do its mid level magic, but the dry air has really given that one fits so far.

I wish. I might have to go back to December 2002 to find a storm where I was jealous of my parents compared to my location. At GYX now, but we're just finally getting the snow to reduce visibility up here.

If I didn't come back for this one, I was never coming back. Pants optional on the ops floor today.

Glad to know you feel that way. The probationary employees that were let go were not the fat in the organization. I know them, I had friends lose their jobs. I frankly find it offensive. That ho hum attitude about it all is definitely what is causing people to continue quitting government service in NOAA/NWS.