FXWX

I grew up in New Britain, CT (south-central Hartford County). Even that area did well during many of the 50's and 60's winters. Moved to Burlington in 1979. These days the 1,200' elevation certainly helps... While I was young, I remember the 1960-61 period well... Love the Lindsey Day storm of 1969... Hard to beat the 78 storm in my book; Organized a neighborhood supply hike to get baby food since we lived on street with lots of babies and couldn't travel by car. Several sleepless nights due to the drone of payloaders clearing streets... Great memories... Have a great holiday period.

Hey Jerry... Agree. You're also right about the age! One thing about our age bracket is that we have been able to experience the incredible seismic changes in the observational and forecasting sides of weather over the past 65 or so years. Also, we got to live, depending where you grew up, through some historic winters; temperature-wise even more so than storm-wise. Stay well...

I hear ya... When I was in high school I purchased a radio facsimile that I could receive the all the latest upper air plots and hourlies from ME to NC... I thought I was in heaven! I remember they started sending the LFM model (went out 48-hrs) maps just prior to the 1978 blizzard! Forecasting was never the same; lol

Ignorance was bliss back in the day! Depression and disappointment were what happened in the 24-hr run up to a storm event when you noted negative trends in the latest 500 mb analysis (often hand plotted), or during the onset period of the storm when obs from the Middle Atlantic indicated a snow to rain flip was likely, or the track might be trending too far east for big snows!!!!! While many on this board we're not around to "enjoy" the low information era, it had its pluses!

I think we can start getting excited for far southeastern Mass / Cape. Although the increasingly dynamic look to the short wave could open the door to a westward adjustment, which in turn could trend the Cape warmer? At least a trackable event for a portion of SNE...

Forget the fine details when using the NAM but don't dismiss it's large-scale feature trends. Still enough time for this trend to play out more favorable, and given its now just at the range of better sampling, keep an open mind on the NAM trends. Personally with 2 snow starved grandkids on the Cape I'd be perfectly ok with a southeast Mass special...

Rare now...the last couple of decades... The heydays of Miller A's were the 1960's and 70's and even a few years in the 90's... I keep wondering if the lack A's is tied to what Tip has harped about so many times; "the relatively recent trend of northern shift of the Hadley cell" leading to more northern latitude compressed flow / speed enhancement and thus more shearing out of northern stream short waves; thus less digging. If that is part of the issue, the Miller A's are going to be increasingly hard to come by.

The good old days when sharp digging northern stream short waves would dive deep into the southern states, phase some southern stream energy and the go boom on the NC coast before heading toward the benchmark! These days you have to flip through the Kocin books to get a sense of how nice they were!

Correction "almost always rushed"

It never does... recovery from AN periods are almost rushed on the modeling; sometimes by a week or two. As good as Jan 2015 trended, it also was slower than expected...

Closing in on 2" here... 29 F

I thought the same thing; back in the "good old days" having that type of scenario playout was not uncommon. Not so much in recent winters...

Certainly easy to screw up, but I would like to play with that pattern a few times this winter. It will be interesting to see if the recent winter trend of shredding energy to pieces rears it's ugly head, or if we can finally get a coherent sw to swing into the mean trough and generate a viable stc low tracking under SNE. I know Tip has correctly harped about the speed issue for the past few winters? This setup could be the first test of this winter??? The look is a tease for now...

Yep... most under-perform. But you have to monitor and alert everyone to the threat because MOST does not mean ALL. And that is where communication comes in...

You deserve it... Too bad you were videoing on your phone at the moment! It would have made a great Xmas present for Kevin...

70 mph gusts at Conimicut Light... often the highest winds in RI area...

Likely an under-performer (at least for CT)... Regardless, you still have to be wary of these setups and just not dismiss their potential because of past failures. It does bother me that so many posters love to bash the NWS, and others, when these types of events fail. They always carry a high degree of uncertainty, and at least in the private sector, those uncertainties are conveyed to the client. But the client and in the case of the NWS, the public, have to be made aware of the high-end risk, were the setup to verify. Just dismissing a potential disruptive wind event because they may have failed in the past is not the answer. Just like a snow forecast, if the biggest numbers in the range don't verify, the public thinks it was a failed forecast. I don't have time to read every AFD, but the I did note confidence levels were discussed and as one might expect there was concern about error potential. Like the NWS snow forecast graphics that state low-end amounts, expected amounts and then high-end amount, I usually state the possible range of max wind gusts to my clients during conference calls... Many want to know what the high-end risk levels are, even though they will mostly make decisions using the most likely gusts values. I think it is also imperative to note to the public that most damaging wind events in SNE are scattered events; rarely are they widespread. You can have a few trees smash into houses across the state or a car or two get crushed, but that is still only a "scattered" event. The problem is there is no way to forecast the specific town or street that will be impacted. So, we end up with a generic forecast that implies widespread issues but is almost never widespread. As Wiz chatted about earlier, there is a lot of communication issues in play, and nowcast trends need to be posted on a regular basis to keep the general public up to speed as you move into the threat period. Folks on this forum are constantly monitoring the trends and can often see where things are heading. But the vast majority of the public does not have the time or ability to assess weather data trends. I know the NWS is overwhelmed on days like this, but a county-by-county storm trends update product (short and concise; ex. wind threat decreasing for county X, or wind threat still high for county Y) that could scroll across the bottom of the tv set or be read by any radio announcer to allow the latest trends to be heard by the public would be great. Today we thought if we warmed into the 60's, we would be in trouble... But not the case this time around given the eastward trend of the lvl jet.

That's the NWS GIS Viewer page... when it first loads for the first time it will show the world... Zoom into the region you want to view, change the background to your preference. Open up layers and go to "real time observations" and click on it. From there you have a ton of options to display, and when you open it back up it will remember your area of interest and what you last viewed. I keep one page bookmarked with the Metars (you can chose any or all of the parameters) Put it in station model display and pick parameters and networks for the data. Below is my metar display using NWS/FAA sites, weather, temp, wind and gusts. The earlier graphic I posted I had limited the display to gusts, but chose all networks, not just metars. Lots of layers to pick from and I use it as my primary metar display, as well as my gust display. Once you get a display you like it will remember it, or you can bookmark it. Auto updates every 1 to 5 minutes.

Current wind strongest gusts focused on southeastern CT on across southeastern Mass & Cape...

59 here; but almost no wind... wind trends appear to be focusing on far eastern and/southeastern CT more and more, along with southeast Mass, RI and the Cape. Given trends would not be shocked if only eastern CT gust to 50 mph with the vast majority of the western and central CT staying in the 40 to 45 mph range. Always a nowcast at this stage of the game, but trends certainly are less impressive for much of central & western CT... Euro has bailed and HRRR has been adamant about this being an eastern CT eastward threat.

For sure there is fear; with both sides of the issue... under-react and or over-react! I do wish the NWS would use more terms like "scattered" or isolated" and not just statements that give the impression the damaging winds will be widespread. I try to use qualifying words about the coverage of the disruptive or damaging impacts so folks can get a sense of how widespread or not widespread it will be, which they then can incorporate into their decisions.

My 2-cents, since I deal with about 100 school districts here in CT... there is no consensus on what to do on days like this... A multitude of folks are involved with the decision... In some towns, the issuance of a Warning or Advisory is sufficient to cause a delay, early D or outright cancellation. Wind and flash flood events, given their highly variable nature in terms of impacts at anyone location, the decision is compounded by the fact that most of the time only a few streets are impacted, but those that could produce deadly results. Most schools will not dismiss early today, but all of them have been assessing the issue, and getting feedback from local emergency managers, police and DPW personnel. Some folks are just too uncomfortable with a worse case outcome and will dismiss early. But even that is an issue. Most bus runs take 90 minutes to 2 hours to complete... trying to time when a tree might fall is impossible. The bottom line is that these decisions are not just made willy nilly... Input comes from multiple sources and the final decision is made with those inputs in mind. We had a rotten tree bring down wires yesterday in an eastern CT district. Not weather related, but people still complained about it! I have been on conference calls and email chains for a few days now, and trust me people are trying to do the best they can knowing full well the inherent complicated nature of disruptive / dangerous weather events...

Ok... Agree with eastern Plymouth county thoughts. While many of the modeled maps are clownish, I think you are in a good spot to rip 55 to 60 mph just overhead; whether or not it will get to ground level is always the challenge. The the forecasted warming of the sfc & boundary layers certainly won't hurt!!! Probably will be able to hear the LLJ ripping by a few hundred feet overhead. Meanwhile folks with anemometers on a 10 ft pole attached to their deck will complain they never busted 25 mph.

As the crow flies, how far are you from the water?

I think so... At ~1,200', I expect to roar... Even better no trees near my property!!!