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The Valentine's Day Massacre Obs--A snow job or does it only blow?


moneypitmike

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It's really hard to get the pictures to truly tell the story, but the depth and sheer amount of the snow here is truly bordering on the absurd.  As Ray said, it's a landscape that is completely foreign.  Things that should never be buried are just gone.  Differences in the terrain don't exist.  No idea what kind of damage this is doing to things like air conditioning systems and generators that are under feet of snow, but I guess we'll find out some day.  I just took a bunch of photos and will post them as I can.  May take a few different posts:

 

This is the view out of my front door, looking off to the side.  Those covered mounds are the tops of the bannisters, and are normally 5 feet off the platform of the stairs, which itself is four feet off the ground.  The drifts are 8+ feet around it, and the walkway up to the front door is a minimum of 4' all the way from the driveway. 

 

t9w6si.jpg

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When people get to criticizing model performance I start thinking 'is it just in the micro that the criticism is warranted or are "the models" off on a bigger scale?'  Looking back over the last few eeks it seems that weather models are really pretty good in the big picture.  We get a better idea now than ever before what might happen in a few days or a week+ than most of us could come up with with the best education if all we had was dot matrix printouts, like we had when I was in college, of current conditions around the world.  We would sit there for hours analyzing what we saw and extrapolating potentials for a three day forecast and we were usually close but not as close as these models are at ten days.  

 

Do I expect the details to be really good within three days on the current crop of models?  Sort of.  I know what it takes to get really good results.  I think that the product we get now is fantastic but thinking that any computer model can suss out nuances to within 25 miles is too much to expect.  Within three days I'm happy to see that they show a storm within 100 miles to be honest, in 5 days 200 and ten days if they show a storm anywhere between Cape Hatteras and NS I feel obligated to learn more about it..

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It was like giving you a regionwide QPF max of like 1.00-1.25". lol

 

It was atrocious.  People are acting like a widespread 1.5" of QPF fell, it pretty much fell within the .4 to .7/.8 with probably 10-15% of all stations falling above that.    A couple of stations got jackpotted in those bands.   But that's a possibility with every/any storm and was stated multiple times even by me in this case.

 

Nobody mentions that winds busted way low.  Or that the storm busted horribly low north and also west versus many model runs. 

 

Here's the WE, not all data is checked yet and some are clearly contaminated high and will be QC'd.  Ratios appear to have been widespread 20 to 1, and pushing 30 to 1 in some areas.  Actually based on the official reports it looks like 25/30 to 1 was pretty widespread.

 

Based on the 100 or so stations on this grid about 5 went over .8 and 1 is clearly bogus (Falmouth).  Models were probably 25% light on QPF on average in EMA, but I don't see the epic bust unless we're expecting models to nail narrow, intense fast moving bands.

 

 

BXZl5Vt.jpg

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First picture is the side yard.  Those black spots on either side is the top of a 4' chain link fence.  The second picture is the side deck, which is basically non-existent.  It's 8 feet from the railings to the ground, and the snow on either side is now connected:

 

rv9glk.jpgaax7gl.jpg

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10F at 3pm on 2/15...damn sun angle.

 

LOL.  Now that you mention it......the angle (and subsequent duration of the day) is allowing the snow to melt on the streets a little better.  From December to beginning of February, snow on the roads stays on the roads.  At this time of year, that begins to shift a bit.

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It was atrocious. People are acting like a widespread 1.5" of QPF fell, it pretty much fell within the .4 to .7/.8 with probably 10-15% of all stations falling above that. A couple of stations got jackpotted in those bands. But that's a possibility with every/any storm and was stated multiple times even by me in this case.

Nobody mentions that winds busted way low. Or that the storm busted horribly low north and also west versus many model runs.

Here's the WE, not all data is checked yet and some are clearly contaminated high and will be QC'd. Ratios appear to have been widespread 20 to 1, and pushing 30 to 1 in some areas. Actually based on the official reports it looks like 25/30 to 1 was pretty widespread.

Based on the 100 or so stations on this grid about 5 went over .8 and 1 is clearly bogus (Falmouth). Models were probably 25% light on QPF on average in EMA, but I don't see the epic bust unless we're expecting models to nail narrow, intense fast moving bands.

You promised me 3ft

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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It was atrocious. People are acting like a widespread 1.5" of QPF fell, it pretty much fell within the .4 to .7/.8 with probably 10-15% of all stations falling above that. A couple of stations got jackpotted in those bands. But that's a possibility with every/any storm and was stated multiple times even by me in this case.

Nobody mentions that winds busted way low. Or that the storm busted horribly low north and also west versus many model runs.

Here's the WE, not all data is checked yet and some are clearly contaminated high and will be QC'd. Ratios appear to have been widespread 20 to 1, and pushing 30 to 1 in some areas. Actually based on the official reports it looks like 25/30 to 1 was pretty widespread.

Based on the 100 or so stations on this grid about 5 went over .8 and 1 is clearly bogus (Falmouth). Models were probably 25% light on QPF on average in EMA, but I don't see the epic bust unless we're expecting models to nail narrow, intense fast moving bands.

You promised me 3ft

Sent from my iPhone

 

:)  I did, did you get it or did I bust!

 

Did you get a measurement and core sample?

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next to cantore the station had .87 and 17"...so lower than others but still high fluff.

Those areas near Acushnet even better. But you also make my point in that models were really off in that 6hr timeframe. If that .87 is true, most of that fell in 4hrs. How did the .15" QPF after 9z work out?
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i knew deep down this would dissapoint snow wise here but i thought the winds and blowing snow would be brutal with temps falling to single numbers but that hasnt materialized either....its in the mid teens now...

 

I'm glad you said it and that it's not just me being down on the lackluster winter we've had.

 

This system was ho-hum from start to finish here.  I know my wind reports are always low due to my siting.  But the high 26mph gust is hardly noteworthy.  Who knows the wind may get better as we go through the afternoon so I don't want to be completely dismissive.  But so far.......

 

10.3/-3

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Those areas near Acushnet even better. But you also make my point in that models were really off in that 6hr timeframe. If that .87 is true, most of that fell in 4hrs. How did the .15" QPF after 9z work out?

 

Oh I know...I didn't follow the 0z run.  I do think there were some hints though - RGEM particularly had some "blobs" of higher QPF for a few runs on the western edge where the heaviest stuff fell.    For the most part it was two 3-4 hour bursts of snow, clearly the models will not excel in those situations we now know.

 

My point on the winds though - we didn't get them.  They were preparing for tens of thousands without power, out of 1.2 million it's now down to about 1000.  That's very good, but does speak to the overall 20% shave of max winds.

 

 

https://www.eversource.com/nstar/outage/outagemap.aspx

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Last one for now.  View to the neighbor's house.   Snow, snow, everywhere, snow.  Hopefully, people can really tell the volume of snow from some of these, but if this is what it looks like in the burbs, where we have space, imagine what it's like trying to move the same amount of snow in a massively condensed urban environment.  This storm may not have overperformed for some, but for the cities, like Boston, even 5-6" is more than they could have handled.  15"+ might be putting the final nail in the coffin.  This weekend and holiday couldn't have come at a better time, not mention February vacation:

 

az8h2p.jpg

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Oh I know...I didn't follow the 0z run. I do think there were some hints though - RGEM particularly had some "blobs" of higher QPF for a few runs on the western edge where the heaviest stuff fell. For the most part it was two 3-4 hour bursts of snow, clearly the models will not excel in those situations we now know.

My point on the winds though - we didn't get them. They were preparing for tens of thousands without power, out of 1.2 million it's now down to about 1000. That's very good, but does speak to the overall 20% shave of max winds.

https://www.eversource.com/nstar/outage/outagemap.aspx

i think, for us back here, you did the best analysis and even though it wasnt what we wanted to hear you were 100 pct spot on with calling gfs bluff on the high qpf amts nw with convective feedback issues...i respect you for that.
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