Typhoon Tip

You might do well pretty quick.. . That's what happened here - we silver-slush to whitened everything exposed at the same time. Interesting... wasn't differentiating at all between tree, road, car... grass. It all seemed willing to glow and then just be white. 33 F here over an inch... The sound of civility is muting ...atoning to the damping nature of snow filled air. The white noise of humanity is snuffed(ing) rending the only thing audible are those damn beeps of DPW vehicles in reverse... That's how we know we've really crossed the threshold into an actual snow storm as opposed to whatever that was this morning - that "muting" effect. Its getting quiet out there... Trees starting to sway a bit.

1.25" accumulation here in Ayer, Ma 33 F ... Underscoring the point... This is in a valley? It is - ...it is interesting that in this area, we are not really depending upon elevation. Everyone/where else seems to be seeing that but I am not. I drove up to Groton center and across the NE side of town, just over the Littleton line and back into Ayer and home and this whole region was committed to snow as of 1.5 hours ago

No need to do that ... ...go to you car. Enter said vehicle. Observe particle impact behavior upon windows/windshield... If the 'blatting' pattern ends up in 'star' structures - your transition level is probably not that high up and you are close... Rain drops in that phase of early transition will catch your attention as they zip by ...sort of 'glowing' a little bit but ... they may also not be falling quite at the same terminal velocity of straight liquid particulates...

The complexion of this down here even in the valley is starting to look that way, Will - it's interesting ... elevation doesn't "seem" as important as the dynamics for this ... I mean the top-down cooling part of this seems to completed for our region of NE/N Middlesex Co

Okay... it's been a fun progression this morning ... really definitive almost 'staging' to this event. But as of this hour ( 11 am and ticking on ...) we have commenced substantive and more obvious real accumulating. How's the RGEM doing ...lol. You know, in a way we are like "snow storm scatologists" as the event poops out aggregate structures, we sift through them to determine the vitality of "snow" health... Let me tell you something .. it ain't in favor of the pallid RGEM solutions - holy smokes. If anything, this is ahead of schedule and vastly more aggressive than - at least for me, admittedly ... - my own interpretation of how this event would unfold. Right now it is 33 F here, with uniform small to mid -sized aggegates, and everything exposed is/has turned white ... Interestingly, the streets are slushed over and whitening at the same rates as the grass -..kind of interesting. I think the cold rain predawn sapped the streets of lay-over heat and so they were more primed and ready to cryo - Anyway, the snow health of this thing here at 200 foot elevation in the Nashoba Valley is very, very good! The scenery around the land-scape on me geek drive.. it looks like deep winter rather abruptly... It didn't 'flash' in the stricter 'subjective' definition of that sort of phenomenon... but pretty dern close! So quick recap: 7:45 am, straight rain at dawn... 40 F ... One could almost imagine a 'fat' rain drop zipping down here and there and in fact, the particle size was large. 8:45 " , cat pawing/white rain 39 F ... 9:00 " , cat pawing with occasional larger aggregate vestiges 38 F 9:30 " , cat paws, large aggregates more common 37 F 10: " , large aggregates predominate.. but irregular intensity intervals. 37 F 10:30 , massive griddle cake aggregates and secondary aggregate bundles/truly enormous. One particle IS a winter storm warning.... ( jesus) First sign of visibility restriction... 36 F 10:45 , Vis 1/2 mi in pounding thumpers... aggregate and aggregate bundles begin falling slower, ..abruptly, smaller sizes commence 34F Now ... 11:30, vis 1/4 to 1/2 mi, uniform small to mid size aggregates are completely anti RGEM implicating ( heh..)... 1/2" accumulation but uniform cling to everything... 33 F but some networked home stations putting out 31 and 32s within 5 miles so...I think we're getting some thermal lag in a rapidly cooling column type deal... It looks like a heavy snow storm out side, period -

Wow... seemed to have crossed a 'panache' threshold if you will - we have convincing moderate snow now, and the aggregates are even slightly smaller and more uniform.. Ground is slushing and whitening... 35 here ..down 4 in the last hour as this transition really got convincing over the span of time.

I love these quirky observation metrics like this .. but, you can no longer hear whatever is falling outside ... so, we snow

transition complete... 200 ( ~) elevation Nashoba Valley floor here in Ayer and it's all snow - ...but, it's like the type of snow you have to get at 37 - we wait on the 33 .. 34's down 2 last hour -

actually.. .ugh, late wake up time for me ... so just putting the pieces together - I don't believe the fantastic dynamical aspect ( feed-back from hgt falls and all that rigger ) was going to set in until 4 to 6 hours from now... Remembering back to 1992 .. we were not even this successful at big gloppy cat paw blats before that transition swept through ...pretty much anywhere. Those proportions as described back then are essentially correct - it was either raining or snowing - Anyway, I'm thinking despite being nearly 60 over some driveways yesterday, this system is actually a little ahead of 1992 .. .if using that one as the "dynamic model" - interesting.. But, if we are doing this now and we have nearly 12 hours of this thing deepening passed... oy - we should probably have the tinged blue light coming thru most windows regardless of elevation by dusk... no problem I would think - okay - edit, 50/50 here ... giant cotton balls along side cat paws...

Classic ...elevations flipping first. Buddy down around 800' in Auburn is 70/30 giant cotton glops... while here in the Nashoba Valley, I've been 20/80 ( ~) ... cat paws with bigger glunks zipping down here and there along side. Looks like a more gradual flip tendency. Yesterday we had fun in nostalgia over the 1992 flash event where communities went from heavy wind swept rains to white whirling in 30 seconds or less during that infamous storm's winter entrance frames. It was like dad came home and settled the debate ... But I've been edging 30/70 ... 20/80 for over an hour here. Ha, funny how Eskimos are said to have 70 words for snow - it's like figuratively we have 70 words for mixing stages - But, the transition temperature is higher due to the top --> down cooling of the column. I can look at the sky and just make out the large aggregate melt level as it moves by, while giant cat paw white rain globs survived and accompany the other victimes down here on the ground ( Actually at the moment I'd say it's the first time I've gone 40/60... ). It's 38 here ..I figure the commitment temperature to be right around 36 ... By 34 you've been accumulated and you may even think it's colder than it is... Meanwhile, anyone 1200' is probably 31.9 with transformer booms -

GFS is suspicious of some of that. Last night’s 00z was comical

Your change over temps probably 36 with glop chutes it’s a top —> down cold atmosphere

I’d have to analyze the bigger scope. I’ll look at the NAO aspect in the morning. It could impose but I suspect it’s nuances in capturing. Closing lows tend to correct slower.

Oh I see It’s slowed the exit by 4 to 6 hrs CCB curl pounds us for nother 6” Good Christ. No power

Rolling back my enthusiasm when/if this may all mean getting into power outages that last very long... and to that 4 hours is my cap - my house has no alternate heat source I'd rather the snow go ahead and dry out... or, stay gloppy so that that it 'slips' off and doesn't 'cling'

Sort of... graupel is partially refrozen aggregate pieces ...which is sort of the same thing .. but those under thundersnow/CSI banding...they are larger and really do appeal as though they were suspended by updraft for a period - graupel is snow falling into an incomplete melting layer. The end result may be similar but not quite, and also different formation sequencing - But alas ...many of these process in this crazy business in reality share processing/physics so ... the seams can be rather "cloudy" - haha... puns are free by the way -

oh ...yeah, if we get into elevated instability layers... could be an unusual warmer layer at 700 with feeding convection all over top a shallower growth region.. weird action... In early January 1994 we had a column like that - not thundering per se...but moderate sleet actually hurt on exposed skin drilling slant wise in wind at 19 F along side a snow growth fall out ...probably a saturated 800 layer with some lift ...but now that I think about it OE was also involved with that. I think we had 1/2 of solid sleet accumulated along with 3 to 5" dry snow over eastern Mass... The best is the Kanasas City thunderstorm at 24F Freezing Rain

I almost wonder ... Sometimes in thunder-snow ... you get these 'pingers' that aren't really clear like sleet, but are mangle aggregated refrozen thumpers along side of the "normal" aggregates. - Its something I routinely noticed when amid the fall column out of a snowing thunderstorm - I'm wondering if it's similar to what you are describing... to being 'in the top half of a CB cloud' ... interesting - like aggregates are getting UVM blasted and caked into clusters - hail seeds if you will...

8th became a long-shot when this one in the near-term became real - The wave spacing was never right ...and we need some help. Some cycles over the last day .. day and a half started hinting to that by slowing down. It's still not impossible, but again ... a long shot. What needs to happens is more short wave ridging ejecting out ahead of the these trough components ... The models all seem to agree in coalescing/phasing or whatever they are doing, into a cohesive structure in the lower MA but without that roll-out ridge ... it's heading out. The system here over the weekend needs to evac on up and out of even the lower Maritimes ... that would be the first step. It's lollygagging upon exit sort of 'absorbs' the ridge ejecta ... and that feeds back on keeping this next event for the 8th moving more E

yeah... appears as more and more N/stream relays over the U.S./Can border heading over the Lakes region ...we are negotiating more intensity - I don't know/think that's a mere coincidence ... but, we're also pretty sightly into a consensus here at this point and that's/those are probably within noise - Thing is, when we're on the razor of margin ... noise matters. it's 53 F here with tepid warm sun and it smells like late April - ...it almost feels like it is NOT marginal... but we wait to get to marginal, THEN... see what happens... hahahah

It certainly is an interesting venture into marginality ... Could all bust warm -

Yeah...as amazing as that storm was ... and it was multi faceted ( there was a wind damage and a tide problem at shore communities all the way down the Jersey shore/up to eastern Ma and coastal Nh in that too ) it was not a prolifiic snow producer over inland 'shadow' topographies. Someone can probably drub up the snow chart from that - it's a easy google effort no doubt. But the CT River valley and the like, ...I think Springfield Ma only got like 2-4" but that may be just my memory - heh. Meanwhile places like Sutton were up over 30 inches.

Ha...sorry y'all that was supposed to be paraphrase and I kinda got carried away .. There was a point to that - haha. I am wondering if this might be an opportunity to maybe watch for shock transitions? I mean, there is not much analog value between this and 1992... no but, both scenarios do have one aspect in common: hugely dynamic... 1992 was not initially a snow column over Lowell .. I remember earlier that afternoon - in the non-abridged version of that story .. - setting the stage. I was clamoring back across University Ave Bridge, 3 ..3:30PM with it's iron cold grate for a surface, and 70 foot draft over the Merrimack River bed... leaning against the cold gusts and the large drops of rain could be heard against one's head pegging away. You know? Those kind of big glop drops - ? I guess they might have cat paws at the time...but this was before I'd ever heard the expression before.. I remember looking at the sky and you could make out an 'undulatory motion' to the ceiling - and I really got the distinct impression of looking at the snow level ...I dunno 1200' elevation? So it was probably not too far off the deck..and waiting for something to implode the lower thickness... As Will was pointing out...we both seemed to thunder around the same time - probably at max dynamic and that was trigger for us...and that ceiling collapses -

Still to this point in my life have I yet to experience a transition awe the likes of which I did back on the evening of December 10 1992. I've told this story ...in prose novular format, so no sense waxing and laboring description all anew. But, the paraphrased version: We were experiencing large cat paws amid sheeting cold rains ... sideways at 38 and change F. I was living in Fox Tower dormitory Hall up at UML as I date myself - heh. Anyway, the building seemed to 'sway' slightly by the force of the wind. We had a real humdinger bomb going off between NJ and ISP ... destined to be capture, it would then trundle only a slow death off ACK for another day ..day and half, I time in which some pretty extraordinary things took place. You know I can't recall - if the Merrimack Valley region was actually under a winter advisory? But, that system had already spun for 12 hours worth at that point, and out toward Worcester country ...the elevations were rumored to be over a foot with ongoing choking fall rates... Mind you...this is way back before hand-held high tech made access to radar, satellite and the dizzying array of other Meteorological colonoscopy that we over-stimulate our e-zombie psychotropic addictions with today. We had the bitter-sweet virtue back then of the 'unsolved mystery,' the 'wonder' of what would be in store. Haha... yeah, I know - lost on today's wit ... Can't say I'd be willing to return to that state of affairs either in all honesty. That was one of those rare times where and when the rumor was actually vastly UNDERselling what was happening out toward Worcester country. I was hanging out down the lounge/lobby area not studying... a typical haunt. The setting was just off the front entrance of the Hall, when some guy comes in ..he's looking slightly disheveled ... peering around in juts. He's soaking wet and runs his hands frantically back through his hair a couple times and murmurs "Jesus Christ" "What's wrong with you - what's going on," the security guard that most students had developed a friendly rapport with - you could tell he liked his gig. Probably kept him young to interact with passer by students, I can imagine. Anyway, the guy stopped and said, "You wouldn't f'n believe it..I'm in a hurry. I gotta get back to my girlfriend waiting in the storm in her car up in Dracut" Mind you, Dracut was/is 5 miles as the crow flies from Fox Toward and the UML campus... "Why what's up?" The sequence of events had managed to capture multiple attention spans. The guy says, "It's the snow storm. She's off the road and I got to make a phone call for a tow because I can't push her out." A few of us walked over to the large windows next to the door and looked left and right out into the rain abyss of the night ... and furled brows at each other, 'what the hell's he talking about.' "Right up over the Tyngsborough bridge it's snowing so hard you can't see!" ... A little while later I boarded the elevator and ascended to my aerie abode higher up in the building. Unlike my grade-point average, I did have the elevated vantage point out of window overlooking the campus. Ha. Least I had that goin' for me. As I was getting off the elevator...another subtle sensation of swaying, 'whoa'. The distant sound of huge wind, I imagined, as it was curling around the monolithic structure of the building. I'm standing in front of my door, and as I am fumbling with my keys, they of course jingled to the floor. When I bent down to recollect just then, a brilliant flash permeates from under the door.. Like the crack along the floor, light flashed through. At first I wondered if my bone-head roommate was in there with his chums sparkin' one off, but as I keyed the door and opened it, I was not greeted by purple haze, the murmur voices, and the sweet stench of skunt testicles... I was greeted by the cocophantic booms of thunder ... 'Holy shit!' ...Immediately I'm tripping over chairs in the dark and I recall I dinged the front of my shin bone - I remember that hurting like holy hell..but I was fumbling my way to the window because ... you know, priorities. I was standing there... there was another flash puslated over the building... and as the thunder soon followed it seemed to herald one of the more fantastic things I've ever seen in a weather phenomenon. The entire sky afar began aglow in a butterscotch hue. It was as though the sky was a glow lamp that was turned up all at once. One by one, dots of distant humanity lights began to blink off... I was trying to makes sense of what I was seeing as another flash ... and as the boom occurred, that hue over took the immediate atmosphere outside the window, and the whole sky to earth and air in between went from R+ to S+ ... 5 seconds. Visibility went from typical heavy rain and wind at night ...to glowing 1/8th of a mi vis or less, .... immediately! No lie. Not an exaggeration. If anything ... 5 seconds may be generous; it may have been less than that. It was literally, instant ... 12 hours later, we had 18" of snow under a blizzard warning.

Yup...I'm still expecting thunder - ... I also posted about this last hour, I wonder if the wind is being considered enough? I haven't read BOX AFD just yet... Still just staring at the FOUS numbers like a deer in head-lights. f'n wow - The numbers of that grid really suggest an isollabaric wind perturbation ... 11 kts to 35 kts in 6 hours, might be the best the resolution of the NAM can do to warn you that you may go from benign to leaning white noise in an "air" of rapidity - to put it nicely... The 1009 to 996 pressure fall in 6 hours is the key-stone clue! That's an abrupt acceleration, and if the mix already has gone over to snow first, that is probably going to impose a siggy grid implication. People really should take it seriously what even 4" of blue bomb snow type, weight loads telegraph lines and trees...particularly ... temp squeezes toward freezing, then sends wind through the scaffolding... Yeah... o- kay. 40 to 45 mph winds. We proooobably won't generate those winds out in Lee or Fitchburg...Sutton ... But, places like Bedford, Framingham... these'll be right at the deformation where the wind field responds to the bombogenesis in the Harbor ... gulping in restorative mass like hapless sun that strayed too close to Sagittarius A-star - the Quazar in this metaphor will be the electric spatter and blue flashes over the treetops. But ...I love my hyperbole - Seriously though... I think this could be a unique grid issue in this particular event based on present blends and trends ...lain-over experience. But we'll see