H2Otown_WX

On 3/19/2026 at 8:36 AM, The 4 Seasons said:

I updated several storms in the 97-00 period, i've been going back and forth on whether to include E. Granby for Windsor Locks ob. I decided to just label it with asterisk for that period. 

About half the storms in the Historic Snowstorms section have been updated and have new L. Northeast maps.

https://www.jdjweatherconsulting.com/historic-storms

 

6 year old me hanging from his basketball hoop

5 hours ago, Brian5671 said:

Ton of rain incoming on the Euro

@RUNNAWAYICEBERG there's our usual rain jack

6 hours ago, The 4 Seasons said:

do you remember the snow event before the big storm? I had no idea that was even a thing, i just assumed (wrongly) that there was even an accumulating event before Oct 29-30th. Only far northern Connecticut in the hills picked up accumulating snow. Norfolk 2SW 2.5" 

Oct 27th, 2011

 

 

No I don't remember that at all. I don't think it snowed here. 

16 minutes ago, The 4 Seasons said:

Another thing i just discovered is that there was a moderate event BEFORE the major halloween snow bomb of 2011. I can't believe that. I have to re-do that storm completely because a lot of the coop and cocorahs data i used overlapped for both events. When i've been doing these extremely anomalous late or early events in Oct/Nov or Apr/May i usually assume there is no storms that overlap on almost the same day or day before/after. Clearly i was wrong to assume that. On Oct 27th 2011 there was a 0-7" interior event that covered the Worcester hills, Berkshires and bled into NW CT in the Litchfield hills. 

Crazy thing is how warm the first half of that October was...maybe right through the 20th. I just remember sitting in Calculus class with shorts and a t-shirt at The Cann.

19 minutes ago, The 4 Seasons said:

The official number for BDL for that storm is 12.3" in the climo data. The PNS has 20.3 lol, which i threw out. I'm just using whats in the F6 which is 12.3 for that date. 

So do you think i should or should not use E. Granby for BDL from that period 96-00 when BDL is missing? It sounds like the answer is no. 

 

Hmm, maybe he's thinking of a different storm? Sounds like they way overmeasured on that one lmao. I mean, assuming it really was done at the same place as it was done from 2000-2012 then I don't see why you wouldn't use it...just be leery of the totals in some cases which it seems you're already aware.

21 minutes ago, ineedsnow said:

18z ICON 

18z NOGAPS    

On 3/12/2026 at 6:25 AM, The 4 Seasons said:

That was my suspicion as well, though it is never noted on any of the PNS from BOX during that time and the data is missing in the now data F6.

Do you think it would be fair just to label those as BDL on the maps im doing for that time?

Ill wait to see what @H2Otown_WX says

Alright, got some info from my supervisor...so first of all there were no weather observers here from Fall of 1996 to Spring of 2000. Any snowfall data from 2000 to 2012 is also not from CWO's but from the Air National Guard about a mile northeast of where we're situated now. When we were in Terminal B there was no place to measure snow accurately. He isn't sure if the data (assuming there is any) from 96-00 was also measured there since he didn't start working here til a little bit after obviously since there were no observers at all. One thing to keep in mind is that the measurements were often inaccurate. For instance, in the Halloween 2011 storm ANG measured 8" but my supervisor said it was more like 11 or 12"

14 hours ago, The 4 Seasons said:

really? that's a high bar. I think i got the significant wording from the benchmark that the NWS has used forever. 6+ = warning snowfall and the wording in the watches and warnings usually includes "significant". And before they switched to "light, moderate, heavy" accumulations in the zones it used to be "significant" for anything that would meet warning criteria. So i personally use moderate for advisory and significant for warning level or higher which that storm in Dec definitely was. It's all subjective and personal opinion though..

Yeah Jan 03 sucked here, there was a tight gradient in CT though. Similar to the christmas blizzard. 

Dec 03 and Jan 05 i lump into the same bucket of a long duration shredded radar mess. They were both pretty bad. Dec 05 was wild but still way better out east about 6-12 for most of CT

Advisory is like 2-5" right? I feel like that's a light event. Am I playing by CNE/NNE rules? Lol. That December storm was solid but a 7" storm in late December in this day and age isn't really going to turn any heads. You're closer to the coast so maybe to you it's classified differently.

Ditty finally gets his siggy damaging wind event?

I don't consider that December event right after Xmas to be a sig event. It was decent but I would classify it as moderate.

23 hours ago, The 4 Seasons said:

But when we are grading the winter its just for our area or town no? Who cares about the rest of the region E MA/N MA/RI etc...respectfully. I'm sure they'd say the same thing when grading their local area. So with that said, we did get a sig event in December 6-10" is a big deal and overall December was well above average with 12-16" around our areas. 

I think you meant Jan 05. Jan 2005 wasn't a bust per-se but it was a garbage blizzard overall for most of CT. If that happened today, people who consider the Blizzard of 2026 meh or a let down, would be absolutely be bridge jumping if that repeated. Leading up to the storm most models were dumping 2-3" of qpf over CT and most forecasts were for historic territory with 15-30" at the time. What happened was a long duration, light to moderate snowfall with zero verified blizzard conditions for CT, maybe GON? I dont think we ever got above moderate for snowfall. BDR reported -SN to SN the whole time. I remember the deepest drift i could find was about 18" with mostly ~8" in non drift areas. I dont know where the snow went or what happened but reports are all 12-16 around here. Either way, that was still way under what was expected. Same thing with Dec 2003, which was worse Check out the radar here its a joke compared to 2026. 

https://www.jdjweatherconsulting.com/jan-22-23-2005

https://www.jdjweatherconsulting.com/dec-5-7-2003

You said that 02-03 had many teases and busts and you cited the Christmas Blizzard which I agree sucked and then you said Jan 2003. I know January had a couple nice events. didn't think there were any busts though. Idk I thought January 2005 was decent for us but maybe not I must be thinking of December 2005. Both were better out east. Haha, yeah I knew December 2003 sucked but it does pique my long duration fetish. That's what sucked about missing out on January 2010. That could have been such an awesome long duration event if I was farther NE.

4 hours ago, dendrite said:

I’ve found it’s usually sleet. I suppose it technically can report it in other scenarios, but I feel like you usually just see it defer to the alternate ptype when there’s a mix…or the dom type in a RS scenario.

I’ve just seen it report S with a jump up in vis too many times when there’s ptype goes from straight S to an obvious SIP mix.

Unfortunately ASOS is pretty bad with L/ZL detection. 

It can report UP when temps are near freezing and it's rain. I've seen it do that.

15 minutes ago, CT Valley Snowman said:

Impressive  3 day torch here in the valley. Looks like BDL put up a 70, 79, and 72.  Even Sunday was prett nice in the PM at 58.  

We actually got to 74 today 

13 hours ago, The 4 Seasons said:

Hey @H2Otown_WX could you help me out with something? There is notorious missing data from BDL from 1996-2002 on the F6 and climo data. However, i have this theory and suspicion i wonder if you could verify or deny it. There are a lot of reports from around that time on the PNS from BOS during significant snow events and almost always lists East Granby. Kind of strange that during that missing data time East Granby is always there but Windsor Locks is not. Did BDL once report from East Granby? When i checked on google maps Bradley International spans over both towns. So it would make sense that it was once reported as "East Granby" instead of Windsor Locks. Though that still doesn't explain why a lot of data is missing. Just a theory, thought you might know or could find out. Thanks.

 

Hey Dylan, I'm not sure what the situation was back then observing wise...I know in the 2000s and early 2010s we were at the terminal which is in Windsor Locks. In 2012 we moved to Signature Flight Support on the west side of the airport which is indeed in East Granby. I have no idea who would have been doing those measurements at that time though...probably wasn't a contract weather observer if I had to guess. Could it have just been DOT or something or airport operations people? I'll ask my supervisor about it. He started in 2000 I think so he might know.

17 hours ago, The 4 Seasons said:

We'll see how the rest of Mar and Apr goes but it can't be lower than A- currently for many a reason. There's really no other winter i can think of overall better than this except for 95-96 and 10-11. Another 1-2 Mar/Apr adv or warning events and ill bump it up. 

Also no major busts, which is rare for any winter season. Most of our good or great ones had a couple.

It's a lot like 2000-2001 with better snow pack.

Strictly snowfall amounts yeah, but 04-05 was seriously back loaded. Probably 50-60% of our snow occurred from late feb to late mar that season. Each one melted right after it happened. And the "blizzard" sucked balls for most of CT..hours of light to mod snow that slowly piled up with no blizzard conditions.

02-03 was great but had many many teases and near busts like Dec 2002 christmas blizzard, Jan 2003. Also couldn't touch this season with snow pack. And we ended the season on a major Apr 7th bust. 02-03 was like 95-96 lite with wall to wall snow from Nov to Apr. 

Both those seasons were good-great but had plenty of problems, i think this winter is better overall, just my opinion. 

Yeah maybe you're right, '04-'05 blow torched at the beginning. It is hard to find another winter with the cold consistency of this one. I think one more big one or not having such a long wait for the first big storm would have sent it to elite territory. I don't like that most of the region didn't get a sig event til late Jan. I know 14-15 did that too but obviously this was not that. Idk, I'd take 10-11 over this one just because it was so prolific for about 5 or 6 weeks. I feel like snowfall wise this one was a bit boring in comparison even if we did end up with a great pack. What made Jan '03 a bust? I'm not remembering that. 03 and 05 had great Marches whereas it appears this one will not. I guess most don't care about that though.

30 minutes ago, DirtySnowDen said:

Can we all just agree this is Top 10 of METEOROLOGICAL Spring? There are no insects, DST has kicked in, and there is a CHANCE of a final breath from Ol’ Man Winter later this March.

Do you still work at the WCSU Weather Center?

Just now, kdxken said:

77 at BDL

78 now for the last 7 straight minutes so that'll likely be the high, shattered the record by 6F lol

We now hit 78 for 3 straight minutes, not sure if it'll count

8 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Nothing tops January 1996 for me...imagine what depths could have been achieved that season if we had managed wire-to-wire cold like this season...

Yeah looking at the 4 group tracking sheet here at BDL and I didn't realize we were already down to 5" on Sunday morning. Idk maybe where I live it was a bit more drastic since we probably had more OTG. I'm too young to remember Jan '96. I thought you got porked in the Blizzard of '96? I guess you're speaking generally.

I think if we're done it gets a B or B+. The snowpack was impressive due to the consistent cold and even the cold in absolutes was pretty good at times with highs under 20F several times including the January storm having temps in the single digits with heavy snow. I just don't think it deserves an A when I only got slightly above climo for snowfall. I would take a winter like '02-'03 and '04-'05 over this one just on account of them having significantly more snow but I can see how areas south of me would give it an A since they did so much better in the storm a couple weeks ago. This winter reminded me a lot of 2000-01 but with better results for eastern NE and NYC. Both had a few huge storms without much in between.

This might be the fastest I've ever seen deep snowpack vaporize. It's right up there with February 2011.

19 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Also…the 76° at BDL is the 3rd warmest temp on record for this early in the season. 

It's 77/41 now 

On 3/7/2026 at 1:44 AM, The 4 Seasons said:

I'd sign in second for that. 8-10" storm in March would make this winter an easy A. 4 months in a row with a warning event. It's not like it's historic for SE mass, just more. I don't care what my neighbors get as long as I'm expecting it. 

Well I was looking at the 2' 75 miles away...plus for here it's a worse solution than for you. But anyway, doesn't matter, not gonna happen.

11 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

Lets go !

If that verifies I quit the hobby

We're talking big time stuff, a major league blizzard the way I see it.

Thanks for making this thread. One of the all time great storms and of course I-95 busts of all time. A truly long duration event too, we'll probably never see something like that in our lifetimes with this new fast flow BS. I bet schools didn't close ahead of time like they do now. The good old days, when you had to wait to see if your school closed at the bottom of the screen on NBC30.