bristolri_wx

You don’t even really need a map for the forecast: Coating to an inch: S/E I-95 1-3”: N/W of I-95 to I-90 2-4” I-90 N to NH/VT/ME Mountains 3-5”+ NNE mountains Probably won’t be model agreement until tomorrow, as again northern stream energy is windshield wipered on the models every time a reindeer farts in the wind. It might snow near Christmas. Expect disappointment and be pleasantly surprised if it does. Happy holidays!

Not sure how we have epic meltdown’s in a 1-3” region wide event.

NBM looks decent considering time range.

Unfortunately enembles don't look great at the moment either. Better than these super torchy ops runs though.

(To the tune of “Silver and Gold” by Burl Ives) “Inverted trough, inverted trough. Everyone wishes for inverted troughs. How does one measure its worth? Another 3-6” of snow on the earth.”

Models were a pinch overdone here all the heavier AM snow bands stayed south and east. 1.75” final tally. Oh so close to being closer to 3-6” band by 25-50 miles…

Cleared off the cars and a little on the driveway. About 1.75” in the yard. In a bit of a break here… just flurries 33.

Just a coating to about 1/2" here... not much yet. 30.

The speed of this storm seems to be slowing down... the NAM still has it snowing an accumulating in RI and SE MA on late Sunday afternoon.

Latest BOX map...

WWA expanded a little. The box probability maps indicate theres a higher ceiling than floor on this one in relation to the current predicted amounts...

If someone decides to set it up like I did, sure!

Did the person who does snowfall map ranges at BOX get shit-canned during the shut down? The ranges are noticably odd this year. Never saw 0" for the low range in the past with any number other than 1" as the top end of that range. Usually it was shown as < 1".Still appreciate the maps are published but it just makes my brain hurt to see things like 1-6"...

Hey whattya know I may be able to add something to my own snowfall map. Finally something to be interested in here...

GFS ensembles also don't support what the op is selling in the long range. There is consensus across the board of some relaxing of this colder pattern for at least a few days coming up. How much TBD...

2015-2016 is not a winter anyone wants to show up on comparisons/analogs. Blech!

It would be interesting for someone to do a case study on the accuracy of model forecasts for these shortwaves that originate in areas with lower amounts of sample data. My totally half-assed ignorant theory is that as the model resolution has increased over the last few years, paired with the faster flow we've had, it causes more run-to-run inconsistencies on the operational models for these types of storms. If the flow was a little slower, there would be time of the physics to catch up to the shortwaves as they develop and provide a more consistent forecast. We often do not get consensus on the info we need to determine snowfall amounts until a day or two before because many of the storms that have been happening over the last few years have been fast movers. Not a lot of systems stalling and/or phasing, and when they do, they are usually modeled better. The older lower resolution models may have been less sensitive to this problem, though may have not generated a more accurate forecasts, just one that was more consistently wrong until go time. And as usual, we are often talking about differences in tracks of 50 or 100 miles to determine snow amounts, which is more difficult to pin down compared to just plain rain during other parts of the year.

My lord, Zoloft should buy a sponsorship on this thread. Hopefully one of those shortwave hits. Patience…

So I made some adjustments to the web site where it's easier to quickly view totals: https://newenglandsnowfallrecords.blogspot.com/ I removed the individual reports and made the individual pages on the Google Sheet visible for viewing. Also, I made changes to the custom Google Map so that the current total shows up as the label for each reporting location. I know that there will be situations where we get a "trace" of snow in the future. For record keeping purposes, if you want to enter trace amounts when they fall, enter them as 0.01. Throwing text into the form and the spreadsheet will break the math formulas doing the totals.