SNE Obs and Banter

[Baroclinic Zone]

Some nice totals coming out of NY.

http://www.erh.noaa....s/101203pns.htm

ERIE COUNTY...
  DEPEW 				42.0   800 AM  12/3 NWS EMPLOYEE
  BUFFALO   			39.0  1000 AM  12/3 SE CORNER BUFFALO
  ELMA                   	30.0   800 AM  12/3 NWS EMPLOYEE
  WEST SENECA   		30.0   800 AM  12/3 COCORAHS
  LANCASTER 			29.5  1059 AM  12/3 NWS EMPLOYEE
  LANCASTER 			29.0   800 AM  12/3 NWS EMPLOYEE
  WEST SENECA   		24.7   800 AM  12/3 COCORAHS
  MARILLA   		         23.0   800 AM  12/3 SOUTHERN PORTION
  LANCASTER 			22.0   800 AM  12/3 NWS EMPLOYEE
  BLASDELL              20.3   800 AM  12/3 COCORAHS
  BUFFALO   			20.0   800 AM  12/3 COCORAHS - FIRST WARD

[/font]

[Damage In Tolland]

Came home this afternoon to clean up the mess of branches, limbs in the yard thinking it would only take 15-20 minutes..took an hour

[cpickett79]

21/19,calm

nice period of snow sinking SSE into the NW berkshires now.....perhaps some flakes very shortly.

another band working south from saranac lake to waterbury VT south to about rutland and west into the upper mohawk valley.

[ski MRG]

29 w/flurries @ 2k.

[cpickett79]

29 w/flurries @ 2k.

i hope you get stuck under a freak moderate band for the better part of the nite/ weekend.

[weatherMA]

38.2/25, feels and looks like snow. Too bad it will be nothing more then flurries most likely.

[Tropopause_Fold]

29 w/flurries @ 2k.

just got a text from the wife...some flurries out this way as well.

[CoastalWx]

just got a text from the wife...some flurries out this way as well.

Starting to get that look at home as well. Check out the moisture starting to slowly develop over the GOM. This is the area that might back into eastern areas. Also cool little convergence feature moving sw from Augusta ME.

[Tropopause_Fold]

Starting to get that look at home as well. Check out the moisture starting to slowly develop over the GOM. This is the area that might back into eastern areas. Also cool little convergence feature moving sw from Augusta ME.

yeah nice wintry look outside.

not sure if you have, but check a composite scan...you get a good feel for what's going on.

[Damage In Tolland]

Starting to get that look at home as well. Check out the moisture starting to slowly develop over the GOM. This is the area that might back into eastern areas. Also cool little convergence feature moving sw from Augusta ME.

As we thought

[CoastalWx]

yeah nice wintry look outside.

not sure if you have, but check a composite scan...you get a good feel for what's going on.

Yeah that's what I used. It's a lot of virga, but gives you the feel anyways.

[CT Rain]

Yeah that's what I used. It's a lot of virga, but gives you the feel anyways.

I like the ring of snow around the radar site showing the virga well. Pretty cool.

[Baroclinic Zone]

18z NAM hits at it as well.

[Cold Miser]

Woodstock, CT:

39

Cloudy

[Tropopause_Fold]

Yeah that's what I used. It's a lot of virga, but gives you the feel anyways.

yeah a little frustrating too. there's about 270 other degrees the wind could blow from on the compass that would probably help moisten things up a bit around here

[cpickett79]

Starting to get that look at home as well. Check out the moisture starting to slowly develop over the GOM. This is the area that might back into eastern areas. Also cool little convergence feature moving sw from Augusta ME.

scott i hear alot of times that with these troughs and set ups there are sometimes suprises

when i look at the WV what is the feature moving NNE that was S of Long island this morning and moving N this afternoon and now almost NNW toward the cape? is this a possible feature to watch for some sort of suprise snow band setting up? i'm more just curious about the feature on wv?

[CoastalWx]

scott i hear alot of times that with these troughs and set ups there are sometimes suprises

when i look at the WV what is the feature moving NNE that was S of Long island this morning and moving N this afternoon and now almost NNW toward the cape? is this a possible feature to watch for some sort of suprise snow band setting up? i'm more just curious about the feature on wv?

That is one of the vortmax's that will move north towards the PSM/PWM area later tonight. That's probably going to be a little too far north for most of us, but could throw some flurries or very light snow to extreme eastern and ne mass. I don't we have the dynamics for surprise snow down this way, but maybe ne mass could squeeze a coating or half inch...just speculation. There might be some more flurries further west towards you late tonight, but we're lacking the lift to work on some of the RH hanging around. Still, perhaps some get the ground a little white.

[Damage In Tolland]

That is one of the vortmax's that will move north towards the PSM/PWM area later tonight. That's probably going to be a little too far north for most of us, but could throw some flurries or very light snow to extreme eastern and ne mass. I don't we have the dynamics for surprise snow down this way, but maybe ne mass could squeeze a coating or half inch...just speculation. There might be some more flurries further west towards you late tonight, but we're lacking the lift to work on some of the RH hanging around. Still, perhaps I'll get the fanny a little white.

[cpickett79]

That is one of the vortmax's that will move north towards the PSM/PWM area later tonight. That's probably going to be a little too far north for most of us, but could throw some flurries or very light snow to extreme eastern and ne mass. I don't we have the dynamics for surprise snow down this way, but maybe ne mass could squeeze a coating or half inch...just speculation. There might be some more flurries further west towards you late tonight, but we're lacking the lift to work on some of the RH hanging around. Still, perhaps some get the ground a little white.

sorry for the basic question but on the models what do you look at that depics lift? omega/ uvv's where is this depicated

[CoastalWx]

sorry for the basic question but on the models what do you look at that depics lift?

Well here is the ncep prog at 700mb. This is a very broad statement, but in general we like to look at 700mb for synoptic lift. More times than not...that's a good place to look for lift.

Notice the shades of green. That is relative humidity. You want the lift to be collocated with high relative humidity to get snow. Having lift occur in a dry atmosphere is just going to give you disorganized, showery, junky bands of snow. However, a saturated atmosphere does you no good if you can't get the air to rise, form clouds, and eventually precipitation. You can see here, that at 12z..we do have some saturation, but all the good lift is well north. Still, it only takes a little bit of lift to form snowflakes, and the commahead/deformation area is a good location for this. That area happens to be shown right at the eastern mass coast. The downfall, is that we have very weak dynamics and the result is little to no qpf.

[Damage In Tolland]

Cold day today..

High of 36.3

Low of 26.4

Currently 33.4

[ORH_wxman]

Cold day today..

High of 36.3

Low of 26.4

Currently 33.4

You torched pretty good there. Looks like high today was 34F here.

[weatherwiz]

It actually didn't feel all that bad outside today. I have actually yet to bring out my winter jacket, just been using the light weight Red Sox jacket and my Wolf Pack sweatshirt. Can't remember the last time I went this far into the season without pulling out my big jacket...probably since the mid 90's.

[ORH_wxman]

It actually didn't feel all that bad outside today. I have actually yet to bring out my winter jacket, just been using the light weight Red Sox jacket and my Wolf Pack sweatshirt. Can't remember the last time I went this far into the season without pulling out my big jacket...probably since the mid 90's.

You pulled out your big jacket by now in 2006?

[weatherwiz]

You pulled out your big jacket by now in 2006?

Well remember I was up at LSC this time in 2006...while it was still warmer than normal for them it was still pretty chilly, especially at night. It would get into the upper teens and 20's.

[ORH_wxman]

Well remember I was up at LSC this time in 2006...while it was still warmer than normal for them it was still pretty chilly, especially at night. It would get into the upper teens and 20's.

We've had a lot of warmer years late fall/early winter than right now.

2006, 2004, 2003, 2001, 1999, 1998....

[CoastalWx]

We've had a lot of warmer years late fall/early winter than right now.

2006, 2004, 2003, 2001, 1999, 1998....

I can't tell you how many times December was off to a warmer/snowless start only to improve after mid month. I think everyone has been spoiled over the last few years, plus the doomsday predictions of January and February not helping. It will come..and if anything..the GOA low fighting with the -nao block will probably increase storminess.

[weatherwiz]

We've had a lot of warmer years late fall/early winter than right now.

2006, 2004, 2003, 2001, 1999, 1998....

Maybe I didn't exactly wear my heavy winter jacket by now in 2006...I think I may have just wore a few sweatshirts although I can't remember. 2003 and 2004 I may have actually started wearing it right around now actually but I think I remember trying to hold off as long as possible just so I didn't have to carry it around with me in school, the only year I ever used my locker was my freshman year in high school.

1998 and 1999 was still the time when the cold really didn't bother me so I probably went through January without a heavy jacket.

[ORH_wxman]

I can't tell you how many times December was off to a warmer/snowless start only to improve after mid month. I think everyone has been spoiled over the last few years, plus the doomsday predictions of January and February not helping. It will come..and if anything..the GOA low fighting with the -nao block will probably increase storminess.

Dec '04 sucked pretty bad actually...until that storm at the end of the month. 1993 was similar.

[Cold Miser]

. . . Man, it just looks and smells like snow out there.