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Son of Sandy Observations/ Nowcast Nov 6/7


Baroclinic Zone

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i got about 2.5 yesterday and i'm ecstatic.

this storm trended colder and colder all week and i'm thrilled that many on the board got see at least flakes, esp scott.

like how will call'd that band from kev to him last nite per kev's comments....tolland was sitting under some impressive returns (just N of 84) a good part of the nite

i'm glad kev got bomb'd much more so than the most weeniest forecast call'd for

and the poster in shelton,ct or the met in SW ct, looks like they took the cake with 12-15.

I cant help but feel that in storms like these forecasters make the mistake of letting climo effect snow fall accum's when model'd temps on say a euro show it's plenty cold. we didn't know where banding would set up , but outside of a met or two i didn't hear anyone call for 10 inches in jackpots and we did better than that

None of the guidance indicated any real potential for 10"+ amounts with the exception of a couple kookie NAM runs (which didn't verify anyway). There was some banding signal, but it wasn't off the charts or anything...common sense would have said maybe 4-8" amounts were the ceiling. I think guidance just did a poor job at handling this system as a whole. More than once in the past 36 hours, I did find myself wondering why the models had such little qpf with the storm ULL track taking the path that it did. We had potent mid-level centers tracking to the SE of New England which puts a lot of the area in a prime spot for conveyorbelt precip.

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None of the guidance indicated any real potential for 10"+ amounts with the exception of a couple kookie NAM runs (which didn't verify anyway). There was some banding signal, but it wasn't off the charts or anything...common sense would have said maybe 4-8" amounts were the ceiling. I think guidance just did a poor job at handling this system as a whole. More than once in the past 36 hours, I did find myself wondering why the models had such little qpf with the storm ULL track taking the path that it did. We had potent mid-level centers tracking to the SE of New England which puts a lot of the area in a prime spot for conveyorbelt precip.

Yeah even in the dryslots from hell like in 12/26/10, climo is at least 0.5" QPF. We even talked about that. I mean I suppose the change to a more erly track helped, but it was doing some funky things with the QPF. I suppose there was a mini DS in ern CT and NW RI, but nothing widespread or substantial.

Frontogenesis is a powerful thing. The one thing you can always bank on, is someone overperforming in a narrow area. You know it will happen with these systems, but small shifts mean everything, AKA-Hubbdave and ORH. West of that....it's chairlift noose time.

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None of the guidance indicated any real potential for 10"+ amounts with the exception of a couple kookie NAM runs (which didn't verify anyway). There was some banding signal, but it wasn't off the charts or anything...common sense would have said maybe 4-8" amounts were the ceiling. I think guidance just did a poor job at handling this system as a whole. More than once in the past 36 hours, I did find myself wondering why the models had such little qpf with the storm ULL track taking the path that it did. We had potent mid-level centers tracking to the SE of New England which puts a lot of the area in a prime spot for conveyorbelt precip.

yeah if anything i feel like gut instinct looking at the synoptics suggested there'd be snow and potentially healthy amounts (though nothing like this) but guidance was so meh it was hard to get too excited with consistently weak NWP signals. based on that logic i figured someone would overperform to the tune of 4" not 13" lol.

definitely an odd set-up though. i'm wondering if the hybrid evolution - there are clearly some warm core characteristics to this thing - maybe played a role in this being poorly modeled.

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Its too bad we are going to torch this weekend. This snow could have stuck around for a while. When I left ORH earlier, it was a driving sleet that had compacted the snow into a concrete slab. I think we had a bit of ZR in there too. Makes the snow depth less than what it once was, but the staying power is strong.

But oh well, it will all be a memory when we are relaxing in our hammocks with cold lemonade on Veterans Day. Someone will hit 70F on Monday.

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I mean some of the wind blown sections might have enough. You just have to find where the snow got deposited. I'll be out there later doing well testing lol

I might drive by there later this afternoon around 3:15pm depending on how much melts in the next few hours. If your around I'll be the one couple with my son and he has a green plastic snow disk. Im just going to watch.

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yeah if anything i feel like gut instinct looking at the synoptics suggested there'd be snow and potentially healthy amounts (though nothing like this) but guidance was so meh it was hard to get too excited with consistently weak NWP signals. based on that logic i figured someone would overperform to the tune of 4" not 13" lol.

definitely an odd set-up though. i'm wondering if the hybrid evolution - there are clearly some warm core characteristics to this thing - maybe played a role in this being poorly modeled.

This. I think the amount of convection around the storm's center when coupled with the storm's occlusion and the disruption of advective processes gave everything a meh look.

That was also coupled with thermal profiles that changed DRAMATICALLY over the last 96 hours. Every run got colder and colder and colder. It was almost as if we were playing catchup as the dry/cold high consistently overperformed.

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yeah if anything i feel like gut instinct looking at the synoptics suggested there'd be snow and potentially healthy amounts (though nothing like this) but guidance was so meh it was hard to get too excited with consistently weak NWP signals. based on that logic i figured someone would overperform to the tune of 4" not 13" lol.

definitely an odd set-up though. i'm wondering if the hybrid evolution - there are clearly some warm core characteristics to this thing - maybe played a role in this being poorly modeled.

Even in the areas that were modeled as the "best" potential for banding...usually you have a small hint at that in the QPF fields too. I did notice the GFS at times was hinting at this, I think the 00z and 06z runs were hinting at this, but the QPF shield was all messed up in this area.

If you go back to the more phase happy situations on Monday when the euro brought it east of NJ, it was definitely strong with the lead s/w and allowed more energy to dig down and capture the s/w to bring it back closer. In the end, the whole long wave trough was sort of stretched out to prevent any phasing. Also at the last minute, guidance got even further east with that lead s/w, which may have been tied to some crazy processes with the developing low. Lows will track to the greatest area of WAA and PVA so with this thing entraining so much warmer air, it's possible some processes led to a solution a bit more east. Maybe from WAA and diabatic heating.

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I will say a new tool I like is the SREF winter wx section on the SPC page. They did have a banding signal even the day before of 1-2" per hour, however it was too far west.

It is a nice tool. And just like the other tools, timing or location may not always be dead on but at least it tells you that banding (or whatever else you're looking at) is a strong possibility.

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Well I had about 4.2" as of a couple hours ago here in west Hartford....measure again in the morning....awesome storm....loving that it's 11/6 and I'm loving every minute of it

This morning I measured a few spots....high was 1.6" and the low was 1.2".....average was 1.4"....I'll go with that and say total storm snowfall IMBY was 5.6"....probably was a little more given compaction but meh.....nice storm

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Man this is ugly.

The plot is velocity spectral width pointing vertically with the radar. On the left is a heavy snow event in 2011. Low 'W' dominates the column all the way to the lowest level. On the right is from yesterday with the first band overhead. Looked great on Nexrad, but you see it hits a brick wall just under 2km AGL.

post-992-0-22795600-1352395048_thumb.png

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I will say a new tool I like is the SREF winter wx section on the SPC page. They did have a banding signal even the day before of 1-2" per hour, however it was too far west.

When in range, the SREF products are fantastic. I remember last year they came in handy, indicating the potential for banding (the New England superband last winter comes to mind).

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I like the max in SE MA on NE flow. They always have that.

I definitely did not think JFK would get 5-7" of snow so that was frustrating, but I changed my BOS forecast to indicate possible snow by evening and at least that happened. The appreciation I got from a client will probably match a few swear words for NYC..lol, although many flights were already cancelled based on the possibility of moderate snow. Still, never did I think 6 or 7" down there. These early season events are a PITA.

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