December 29th Storm Obs

[512high]

1 minute ago, Allsnow said:

Snow flap and curb guards will make it that much more enjoyable. Best plow I ever had. The ability to throw snow and control it is amazing 

curb guards next week.......ty

[moneypitmike]

7 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

2" in the past hour. 

Nuking.  Visibility 1/4 to 1/8 sustained.  When the wind blows it goes to as close to zero vis as you can get in the parking lots.

 

Nice.  We've been reduced to just flurries after a heavier period earlier.

 

TIme to shovel.

[Sugarloaf1989]

Freezing rain here last night with about a tenth of ice.

[adk]

10 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

2" in the past hour. 

Nuking.  Visibility 1/4 to 1/8 sustained.  When the wind blows it goes to as close to zero vis as you can get in the parking lots.

As usual the synoptic event is going to be outperformed in VT by the mesoscale event. 

WRF showing .7" over next 12hrs along parts of northern spine. Should verify as 10" if those dendrites keep up. 

 

[Baroclinic Zone]

1 hour ago, Baroclinic Zone said:

27" in Naples.  LOL, we have a client currently building a house up there on Brandy Pond.  Guess they're shoveling out today instead.

 

1 hour ago, Lava Rock said:

I'm a bit skeptical of that. I got 21" and Sebago (town of) recorded 22". Naples sits somewhat is the middle of both towns. Also, Shawnee Peak just north of Naples on 302 coming in at 20".

Add Standish to the list reporting 27"

[dryslot]

26 minutes ago, Lava Rock said:

Let's just hope we don't get any big rainers in the near future.

I was surprised how much PWM ended up with. Not sure down by the water, but up here at work, near Riverside golf course, looks like 8-9". Wonder what PWMan got as he was raining till ~9pm.

You mean like the one next week?

[dryslot]

20 minutes ago, Baroclinic Zone said:

You get the the triple  award for this subforum.  Running neck and neck with James.

There may be a tie for top spot

[CoastalWx]

25 minutes ago, 512high said:

JUST WANT TO SAY THANK YOU TO , Coastal wx, 40/70,moneypitmike, dendrite, dryslot,baroclinc zone(for his humor!)met from Portland wx,domnh, chris(nas. met) and others, you all said hang in there it will change over, after torrential rains last night, before the rain I say a good inch, then out plowing, I would say another 4-5", I know I'm a pain in the A**, but you guys help me plan for snow removal operations etc, Happy New year to all..................I wait for the next one, and hopefully cash in better then this one!

Well sounds like you got the lower end of the range anyways. Thought you'd do better, but the subby hole, marginal low levels, and later development sort of added to the lower values. Did better than 3" that you were afraid of only getting. 

[Lava Rock]

10 minutes ago, dryslot said:

You mean like the one next week?

hoping we can avoid or minimize it.

[TheSnowman]

Just want to say - What an HONOR to have THE Jackpot spot, in what now is a Storm we must figure was maybe GREATER than 12/9/05 Dare I say..

 

I talked to Kocin last night, and his pants were off; he'll have a full description of it soon on its incredibleness compared 12/9/05...

 

here Right on the boards in MaineJayHawk.  We are all Jealous as Hell.... but what an Honor.  You need to do a full report for all of us!  8.1" Per Hoyr 18" in 6 Hours man!!  

[Amped]

From the NWs GRAY facebook page. Looks like a larger area of 20+ than anyone expected.

[Baroclinic Zone]

Looks like the top #s are just to the W of Lake Sebago.  

[512high]

7 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Well sounds like you got the lower end of the range anyways. Thought you'd do better, but the subby hole, marginal low levels, and later development sort of added to the lower values. Did better than 3" that you were afraid of only getting. 

till the next one....ty

[CoastalWx]

3 minutes ago, TheSnowman said:

Just want to say - What an HONOR to have THE Jackpot spot, in what now is a Storm we must figure was maybe GREATER than 12/9/05 Dare I say..

 

I talked to Kocin last night, and his pants were off; he'll have a full description of it soon on its incredibleness compared 12/9/05...

 

here Right on the boards in MaineJayHawk.  We are all Jealous as Hell.... but what an Honor.  You need to do a full report for all of us!  8.1" Per Hoyr 18" in 6 Hours man!!  

I think some sports had close to 6+/hr  in that event, but it had a ton of wind. This storm was nowhere near how dynamic 12/9/05 was. Between the MCS of TSSN, 100mph winds, and waterspouts...not comparable. However, this was more a nor'easter that features more prolonged heavy snow.

[klw]

Just about 6 inches here.  Beautiful out there this morning with the sun out and the base is deep.

[CoastalWx]

Pretty sure you can make our the cstl front in which the area of wet snow vs dry is easily seen. Vis satellite probably seeing the snow on trees giving it more of a whitish look in cstl Maine. Also a flaccid like feature of snow in NE CT. 

 

 

[OceanStWx]

1 hour ago, CoastalWx said:

The GFS really was way too warm in ME too.I just looked at 950 temps from the 6z run. Oye Vey. 

Quick mention on the GFS: it was in no way acceptable for our forecast area when it mattered (24 hours out). It would've dry slotted most of Maine. It may have been closer to NH snowfall but I would not argue that was related to the track of the GFS. If you used the Euro and kept in mind the tendency to over (i.e. amplify earlier) and cut back on forcing SW, it would have been a healthy match.

And I know it's disappointing for NH weenies, but I would rather nail the intense stuff in ME and be too high on snow in NH than the other way around. 8-12 for a lot of th eastern part of the state is still impactful. And we had a lot of outages in SE NH.

[OceanStWx]

Check out my post last night of Euro forecast vs reality at H7. It wasn't that close.

Edit: meaning the race with the GFS wasn't close.

[MaineJayhawk]

7 minutes ago, TheSnowman said:

  You need to do a full report for all of us!  8.1" Per Hoyr 18" in 6 Hours man!!  

Well, I dunno what to give for a report.  I came home to 4" on the board and didn't think much of it.  Cleared it off, shoveled the driveway and had dinner.  A couple hours later the big 'chutes were falling and I noticed it was accumulating RAPIDLY. I forget the numbers that I posted, but it was something around 2.5" in 20 minutes or so.  I'd shovel the driveway, and when I was done 20 minutes later I'd walk back to where I started and there'd be another couple of inches already fallen.  This went on for a couple of hours.  I was amazed at the duration of heavy snow, the 2"+/hr rates lasted a good 5 hours I think, maybe longer.

 I wish it happened during daylight so that I could see more - I live in the woods and the only light around was my front door light.   I'm sure visibility was down to 500' or so at times.  Absolutely no wind while it was dumping.  In the end I shoveled 7 times, stayed up til 2:00 a.m. which I never ever do anymore and feel like I could use a good massage.

[CoastalWx]

3 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Check out my post last night of Euro forecast vs reality at H7. It wasn't that close.

I looked for myself too. Big difference. 

[OceanStWx]

2 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

I looked for myself too. Big difference. 

I know we poke in at it, but that model does me no good if it figures it out once the snow it already flying.

[wx2fish]

14 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

ItPretty sure you can make our the cstl front in which the area of wet snow vs dry is easily seen. Vis satellite probably seeing the snow on trees giving it more of a whitish look in cstl Maine. Also a flaccid like feature of snow in NE CT. 

Think you are right. Its also probably an approximation of where the mix made it to in SE NH before crashing back south. Absolutely plastered on everything here. Mansnow you would definitely approve of

[CoastalWx]

1 minute ago, OceanStWx said:

I know we poke in at it, but that model does me no good if it figures it out once the snow it already flying.

Hopefully big Louis figures that out soon. Yet, we run the CFS 4 times a day. LOL.

[CoastalWx]

1 minute ago, wx2fish said:

Think you are right. Absolutely plastered on everything here. Mansnow you would definitely approve of

Wish I was there. 

[jbenedet]

17 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Quick mention on the GFS: it was in no way acceptable for our forecast area when it mattered (24 hours out). It would've dry slotted most of Maine. It may have been closer to NH snowfall but I would not argue that was related to the track of the GFS. If you used the Euro and kept in mind the tendency to over (i.e. amplify earlier) and cut back on forcing SW, it would have been a healthy match.

And I know it's disappointing for NH weenies, but I would rather nail the intense stuff in ME and be too high on snow in NH than the other way around. 8-12 for a lot of th eastern part of the state is still impactful. And we had a lot of outages in SE NH.

Maybe this is more a question concerning forecasting methodology. I like to think broad first and then gradually work down to the details. The GFS was instructive to me for UL evolution and SLP track--that's all. I think a blend of the GFS/Euro would get you to a similar forecasting result while disregarding GFS snow totals and boundary layer temps.  

I'd love to see the verification scores. I do know the mesos were completely out to lunch inside 24 hours with the track over kpsm and a 960 mb low. The real bust was with the mesos imo, and you got killed--forecasting wise-- if you relied heavily upon them.

[dryslot]

I was kissing the backside of that CF, It made a couple pushes trying to get here but never made it over us.

[dryslot]

I know a few tv mets up here were leaning on the GFS as they kept showing the graphic of the CF almost to the foothills and rain here.

[codfishsnowman]

5 hours ago, MetHerb said:

Downtown had at least 0.5" before the change over yesterday morning.  I would call that a "western" part of the city.  I have no idea what they picked up after it changed back.

well that is still a couple miles nw...maybe there was .1 or .2 before the rain but it really just looked like a coating and was gone an hour after the rain began....anyways amounts often vary quite a bit within the city limits

[dendrite]

57 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Quick mention on the GFS: it was in no way acceptable for our forecast area when it mattered (24 hours out). It would've dry slotted most of Maine. It may have been closer to NH snowfall but I would not argue that was related to the track of the GFS. If you used the Euro and kept in mind the tendency to over (i.e. amplify earlier) and cut back on forcing SW, it would have been a healthy match.

And I know it's disappointing for NH weenies, but I would rather nail the intense stuff in ME and be too high on snow in NH than the other way around. 8-12 for a lot of th eastern part of the state is still impactful. And we had a lot of outages in SE NH.

Yeah I just want to be clear that I think the GFS was horrible. My point was just that if some weenie used the GFS QPF/clown maps out here he probably would've been right for the wrong reasons. No one out here is praising the GFS...trust me.

It's a bit of a bummer, but a part of me always thought this was going to take a little too long to reach maturity to have a huge impact this far SW. I'll give credit to jonbenedet ramsey for sticking to his guns that this would be more east considering the models were trying to hook the sfc lows so far NW before closing off the mid-levels. It made sense to me too, but the models kept ticking a bit west so you get a bit sucked into the solutions that close in...even pounding PF for a few runs. I sorta knew I was toast yesterday morning with those HRRR runs and the ticks east at 12z. 

[ORH_wxman]

1 minute ago, dendrite said:

Yeah I just want to be clear that I think the GFS was horrible. My point was just that if some weenie used the GFS QPF/clown maps out here he probably would've been right for the wrong reasons. No one out here is praising the GFS...trust me.

It's a bit of a bummer, but a part of me always thought this was going to take a little too long to reach maturity to have a huge impact this far SW. I'll give credit to jonbenedet ramsey for sticking to his guns that this would be more east considering the models were trying to hook the sfc lows so far NW before closing off the mid-levels. It made sense to me too, but the models kept ticking a bit west so you get a bit sucked into the solutions that close in...even pounding PF for a few runs. I sorta knew I was toast yesterday morning with those HRRR runs and the ticks east at 12z. 

It wasn't an easy storm to forecast...that's for sure. Though I'm still a bit surprised that your area didn't pull solid double digits. I figured your area up to around Ossipee was pretty safe for that...the latter still did well (think they scored around 15"), but that western zone of the commahead really got compressed east and it cost your area a bit. I suppose the compact nature of this should have been a little more of a red flag for big totals in areas further west, but it was hard to really rely on that, especially since some of the model guidance was producing mid-level tracks pretty far west until the last possible second. This was a pretty poorly modeled storm overall...I'm sure the explosive and mesoscale nature of the development contributed significantly to the model errors. The Euro was by far the most consistent and correct model...but as you mentioned, it still had its warts in this one.