FXWX

Not what I was hoping for???

Given the widespread hilly terrain induced snowfall differences across much of CT, including portions of Fairfield and New Haven counties, road conditions can vary tremendously across one town... Just another item in the mix that school districts try to determine the best course of action. I remember storms where you could literally have a normal school day on the south side of Wolcott, but it was a no go across the north side of town near the Bristol border. Unfortunately, there they don't cancel schools for just a certain number of streets. Tomorrow comes down to snowfall rates and whether or not DPW crews can keep roads mainly wet or a bit slushy if rates stay under 1" per hour. The answer should be yes, but if an area gets into solid banding for 2 or 3 hours then all bets are off...

While most on here understand, many folks forget how disruptive heavy sleet can be...

Euro qpf actually increased from 6z considerably across CT; back to just under an inch across srn CT... this is all about how quickly a flip to sleet occurs; miss that timing by an hour or two and snow amounts are back to 4+ inches... Could be a crap load of sleet & ice???

The convergence / divergence model plots are also indicative of maxing out qpf... both 300 & 250 mb model plots, as indicated in the 6z gfs run at 7 am Friday, show a strong signal for heavy precip totals..

Most, not all, of the snow removal / maintenance folks I deal with decided to go with a yearly fee this winter and are perfectly happy. I have discussions with my clients in Aug/Sept and discuss whether to play the odds of a yearly fee or a per storm contract. This year most decided to roll the dice with a yearly fee option, and are happy, so far with the winter tenor. As for the litigation side of things, I deal with many dozens of those case every year. Juries are quite open to siding with the snow removal guys, if they can show a well-documented work procedure. I always recommend an after clean-up brief video, or at least pictures with a logbook of times of cleaning and treatment applications. Most juries understand the nature of Northeast winters and fully understand it is impossible to clean surfaces to perfection; especially when dealing with parking lots / driveways and walkways that were being used during an event. The key is to document, take pics and/or video each storm. It might sound tedious, but it can make all the difference when it comes to lawsuits.

Agree... If you thumb through the KU book and use the MBY mentality as your guide, any one person could cross out about 70% of the events. We could rename the book from 'NORTHEAST SNOWSTORMS" to something like "NORTHEAST SNOWSTORMS FOR SOME; NOT SO MUCH FOR OTHERS?"

Maybe you should contact your local school board and volunteer your expertise to make the call about if and when road surfaces might become hazardous! And of course, give them 100% certainty about road conditions, sidewalk & parking lot conditions during the 2-hour window needed for a complete bus run on early dismissal days. Maybe also take on all the legal and insurance liability should you be off by a few minutes and an icing situation causes a bus accident... Make sure you coordinate with all other towns your town may share bus routes & programs with? Lastly, when they ask you about the WXA that is effect, tell them not to worry about it's just a NWS scare tactic. Of course, if travel becomes hazardous during the bus trips home, get ready for your phone to ring endlessly as parents scream at you that there was a WXA being in effect! Just some comments from a guy who has spent more than 30 years fielding questions and organizing conference calls with dozens (90 to be exact) of Superintendents at 4 am during potentially hazardous conditions. They all want to have normal days. But they will almost always err on the side of safety unless the confidence level of no chance of hazardous travel is high.

Yes, a handful so far; most within the group I deal with other than Region 1, Region 7, Winsted and Torrington have closed already; others I deal with are hoping that when we chat at 4 am there will be a slot to get in and get out before it gets bad ... Looks unlikely...

Weird how the Hudson Valley drain tries not to bodily spill eastward into western CT?

That's all I want... just to make the morning school decisions to be easier and not second-guessed!

Keep posting obs through the evening; big help to me...

We will see... The shame of this winter, in particular January, is that we put together a very decent cold month; generally -2.5 to -3.0 departure. And we will very close pattern-wise to a big snow month, but it just did not workout. Unless you count the first 3 or 4 days of January, it was an unusual January in that it did not feature the typical Thaw period.

While this winter has under-produced given the temperature layout, I've had snow cover since January 6th! That is an unusually long run or measurable snow for these parts of SNE. Even during many of my past well-above normal snow seasons, the ground would get bare within 2 weeks... Many folks don't realize how common it is to have bare ground during the winter here in SNE. We rarely have long running (more than 2 weeks) periods of snow cover. Also, my current snow cover is glacier like; it's not completely disappearing.

Very much so...

Does anyone know why the BOX PNS did not include any Hartford Cty totals, and for that matter none from Tolland County in their final issuance. Also, very few Cape totals even though there are many spotters there? Why post this map without any Cape data? When I review the PNS, it appears to be mainly CoCoaHS site reports, which usually state the distance to a nearby city center. Very few reports from just specific towns? Also, no longer a reference to trained spotter, media, etc...

My daughter lives about a mile from KFMH AWOS unit... I checked her ring cam every 30 minutes and for about 8 hours I could not see the house across the street. No doubt KFMH would have verified blizzard if visibility sensor did not fail.

Yep... With this setup and modeled differences, no need for anybody across SNE to suggest a confident forecast for a couple more days. At this time, I'm just running with the range of possibilities; suggesting a transition event, but pretty strongly staying away from an all or mostly snow event.

I would bet against a complete wipe-out; at least in this area snowpack is very dense.

From what I've seen over the years, Euro can be slow to the party in cold press events... If fact, historically, true cold presses with solid arctic high pressure involved, tend to press more than modeled unless associated with a much stronger low than modeled right now. Back in the day, the old retired NGM was the model of choice in cold press setups...

November 17, 2002 featured a very damaging ice storm that caused big time damage across northwest CT (Litchfield County), the higher terrain areas of western Hartford County and northern New Haven County... Tremendous tree and power pole damage. Started as rain during the afternoon on into the early evening before changing to freezing rain as cold air undercut the milder air sitting across the region; along Rt 69 heading from Bristol into Wolcott there was a stretch of about 10 poles snapped all in a row!!!

This is what it looks like after clean up at 1,160 feet in far western Hartford County (about quarter mile from Litchfield County line) after ~10 inches of snow and frequent wind gusts above 35 mph.

I'm guessing in a storm like this, under-reporting might be a bigger risk than inflated totals? (Assuming folks stay away from obvious drifting areas)

Yes... It had looked for a couple of days like there would be a secondary band further west; I really didn't get into the best part of it. I think srn Hartford, eastern New Haven and Middlesex County had much better rates than I did. The eastern CT band was the sweet spot for CT. Horrible storm to try to measure snow totals, wind and shredded flakes? My guess we are going to see if lots of under reporting due to conditions.