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March 13-14, The Blizzard of 2017: Obs


Rtd208

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Just now, weatherfreeeeak said:

Even though they're going to be using the new para NAM and no longer the 12km one any more, the 12km nailed this storm. Does anyone know if they'll be keeping it like if we'll still be able to use the 12km after the switch or will they get rid of it all together?

There is a para 12km

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4 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

The amazing thing to me is how bad the Euro blew it.  I think it's resolution isn't good enough in these events to see warm noses, although it's better than the GFS 

Agreed, the Hi-Res models seemed to perform best with this, and to an extent may have even under-estimated the mid level warmth somewhat. The NAM did for the most part a fantastic job with a great lead time relatively speaking for that model. The RGEM also seemed to perform quite well but was still hanging on to higher amounts too far south. The UKIE also did a great job. The HRRR seemed useful within its range for placement of surface features and QPF, however failed terribly at thermal profiling. The GFS performed poorly it seems both mid range and shorter range, as its thermal profiles were terrible and track placement was not good until crunch time when you would hand over duties to HI-RES Meso models anyway.

The bottom line is when there is mid level warmth to identify, and a mix line, you must take all models with a grain of salt along and near that mix line. We simply do not have the capability model wise yet to perform these tasks (even our new NAM failed at thermal profiling) and basic meteorology over modelology must be factored in.

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11 minutes ago, snywx said:

Looks like they jacked


..WAYNE COUNTY...
   DAMASCUS              30.0   148 PM  3/14  TRAINED SPOTTER
   WAYMART               27.0   136 PM  3/14  FACEBOOK
   BEACH LAKE            24.0   120 PM  3/14  TRAINED SPOTTER
   6 E HAMLIN            23.5   122 PM  3/14  STORM CHASER
   HONESDALE             23.2   120 PM  3/14  TRAINED SPOTTER
   HAWLEY                22.0   101 PM  3/14  TRAINED SPOTTER
   STERLING              21.0  1130 AM  3/14  TRAINED SPOTTER
   HAMLIN                20.1  1212 PM  3/14  TRAINED SPOTTER

Wow, Damascus is about 15 minutes from our house in Lake Como, PA. Honesdale is 21 miles to our southeast at lower elevation. 23.2" is a great total for them at only like 700-800'. Must have been a lot at the higher elevations of Wayne County. Our house is at 1600'.

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13 minutes ago, NJwx85 said:

Yeah I can't be far from him and I've got about 14" here.

 

21 minutes ago, BxEngine said:

Montvale was over 10" at 10 am on the pns. You sure you eyeballed while standing straight up? Lol

Yeah the next town south of measured 9.1" at 11:15.  So obviously that was a bad measurement. Maybe I need glasses or better yet, another location lol 

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1 minute ago, nzucker said:

Wow, Damascus is about 15 minutes from our house in Lake Como, PA. Honesdale is 21 miles to our southeast at lower elevation. 23.2" is a great total for them at only like 700-800'. Must have been a lot at the higher elevations of Wayne County. Our house is at 1600'.

23" in Albrightsville.  Mt. Pocono also has 23"  We're dry slotting right now but more snow to our west and east.

Meanwhile back on the south shore temps have been dropping now down to 30 degrees looks like I'll be coming home to an icy mess.

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5 minutes ago, JetsPens87 said:

Agreed, the Hi-Res models seemed to perform best with this, and to an extent may have even under-estimated the mid level warmth somewhat. The NAM did for the most part a fantastic job with a great lead time relatively speaking for that model. The RGEM also seemed to perform quite well but was still hanging on to higher amounts too far south. The UKIE also did a great job. The HRRR seemed useful within its range for placement of surface features and QPF, however failed terribly at thermal profiling. The GFS performed poorly it seems both mid range and shorter range, as its thermal profiles were terrible and track placement was not good until crunch time when you would hand over duties to HI-RES Meso models anyway.

The bottom line is when there is mid level warmth to identify, and a mix line, you must take all models with a grain of salt along and near that mix line. We simply do not have the capability model wise yet to perform these tasks (even our new NAM failed at thermal profiling) and basic meteorology over modelology must be factored in.

The tricky thing too is this is a track of a 975mb low that ordinarily would be mostly snow everywhere outside of eastern LI and CT, but many overlooked how late this organized and developed so that it was not even half way to vertically stacked when it was south of us.  Had it been I think nobody changes over west of the Nassau Suffolk border 

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10-11" here in Montclair.  Got 8" (3 in about 45 minutes) this morning, then a wicked wind driven sleet/snow.  Brought the depth to around 9... have no idea how much sleet fell so estimating the total.  

Perhaps we can grab another inch to bring us to around a foot.

Not a bad storm, but given expectations, it gets a C/C- from me.  Sleet is a total buzzkill.

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1 hour ago, ag3 said:

4" was at 8am.

LGA reported 5.9" at 8am as well.

 

46 minutes ago, ag3 said:

5" of snow and 2" of sleet/snow. Total 7.0"

 

23" in Albrightsville.  Mt. Pocono also has 23"  We're dry slotting right now but more snow to our west and east.

Meanwhile back on the south shore temps have been dropping now down to 30 degrees looks like I'll be coming home to an icy mess.

 

Latest totals I could find were NYC 7.2" LGA 7.2" JFK 4.7" EWR 6.4"  (as of 2 PM) Those sound about right to you guys- even though EWR is west of the city they got less?  If it's still snowing they might go up some.

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1 minute ago, SnowGoose69 said:

The tricky thing too is this is a track of a 975mb low that ordinarily would be mostly snow everywhere outside of eastern LI and CT, but many overlooked how late this organized and developed so that it was not even half way to vertically stacked when it was south of us.  Had it been I think nobody changes over west of the Nassau Suffolk border 

Reporters asked Diblasio if he regrets canceling schools today.  I think thats a dumb question to ask. If the NWS says a blizzard is coming with 12"+ with horrific conditions during the school commute why wouldn't he heed that warning.  Had he not canceled school and a blizz did happen all they would have said was "why didn't you heed the warnings".  

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4 minutes ago, Cfa said:

Snowing lightly again SE of JFK.

I just got an average of 2.2 inches. Deepest spot had 2.5 inches. Compaction? I'm just not seeing anything remotely close to what JFK has.

temp is below freezing again on the south shore

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6 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

The tricky thing too is this is a track of a 975mb low that ordinarily would be mostly snow everywhere outside of eastern LI and CT, but many overlooked how late this organized and developed so that it was not even half way to vertically stacked when it was south of us.  Had it been I think nobody changes over west of the Nassau Suffolk border 

That's why I was asking you to compare this to the Millenium storm- I guess that was a much stronger system.

Question, had this system occurred in January- much more snow at the coast?

Also- how does such a disorganized mess have so high snowfall rates and so much precipitation associated with it? It wasn't even a slow mover.

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5 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

The tricky thing too is this is a track of a 975mb low that ordinarily would be mostly snow everywhere outside of eastern LI and CT, but many overlooked how late this organized and developed so that it was not even half way to vertically stacked when it was south of us.  Had it been I think nobody changes over west of the Nassau Suffolk border 

Great points

The STJ energy being out so far ahead of the northern stream really prevented this from phasing in time for our latitude. This is why the dynamic cooling was not able to overcome the mid level warmth because as you said it was nowhere near vertically stacked and the storm was not able to "manufacture" any cold air at our latitude since the northern stream energy wasn't involved. This could explain why the reports were prevalent around CNJ/95 corridor of sleet even in the heavier bands, there simply was nothing above to tap into at that point yet. 

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2 minutes ago, Paragon said:

That's why I was asking you to compare this to the Millenium storm- I guess that was a much stronger system.

Question, had this system occurred in January- much more snow at the coast?

Also- how does such a disorganized mess have so high snowfall rates and so much precipitation associated with it? It wasn't even a slow mover.

Actually it was sort of the opposite.  It was a weaker system but it was taking a trajectory from further out from the SSE, so the warming wasn't going to come in over the metro.  Also it wasn't as rapidly deepening so less warming gets pulled west in that scenario.   If you are just barely north of a rapidly deepening low at 850 or 700 you will mix more than being in the same position of a low that isn't deepening as rapidly 

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The tricky thing too is this is a track of a 975mb low that ordinarily would be mostly snow everywhere outside of eastern LI and CT, but many overlooked how late this organized and developed so that it was not even half way to vertically stacked when it was south of us.  Had it been I think nobody changes over west of the Nassau Suffolk border 


Yes that's what killed me on this. I expected this to either correct 50-75 miles east or if it did comes as far west and amped as expected, to be cold enough. A low sitting at sub 980 just off acy while rapidly deepening with a strong hp to the N, would normally be a lock for obliterating most of the region. I expected if it did amp up as much as expected, it would crash the mid levels, despite the fact that many times even meso scale models have a hard time seeing the cold air in place. That said, this storm didn't come together as quickly as I expected, and actually came further north than even the nam or rgem showed (kisses the south shore from long Beach to kfok before lifting NE).
I took a look at h5 this morning around 0900, 13z, and it was neutral to perhaps slightly negative. Never quite phased near us and then kicked her east. Killed the tri state on both ends.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

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1 minute ago, USCG RS said:


Yes that's what killed me on this. I expected this to either correct 50-75 miles east or if it did comes as far west and amped as expected, to be cold enough. A low sitting at sub 980 just off acy while rapidly deepening with a strong hp to the N, would normally be a lock for obliterating most of the region. I expected if it did amp up as much as expected, it would crash the mid levels, despite the fact that many times even meso scale models have a hard time seeing the cold air in place. That said, this storm didn't come together as quickly as I expected, and actually came further north than even the nam or rgem showed (kisses the south shore from long Beach to kfok before lifting NE).
I took a look at h5 this morning around 0900, 13z, and it was neutral to perhaps slightly negative. Never quite phased near us and then kicked her east. Killed the tri state on both ends.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk
 

This was a rare setup I think.  This sort of issue burns Virginia and North Carolina often where a system over deepens just to their south but since it's not fully mature yet they mix too much.  

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1 minute ago, Paragon said:

That's why I was asking you to compare this to the Millenium storm- I guess that was a much stronger system.

Question, had this system occurred in January- much more snow at the coast?

Also- how does such a disorganized mess have so high snowfall rates and so much precipitation associated with it? It wasn't even a slow mover.

You raise some good questions and I like your intrigue into what makes things tick.

Had this occurred in January exactly as it is occurring now I don't think there would be much sensible difference in snowfall accumulations across the coastal plain to be completely honest. The mid level warmth can win no matter what time of year and it's especially easy when the phase doesn't occur before your latitude since there is no cold air transport yet to be tapped into by dynamic cooling.

To your next question, the coastal itself was and is an absolute bomb, its H5 that didn't work out for us in time and favored interior areas where mid level warmth didn't intrude as far so they were fine regardless. But the southern energy was juiced with a straight firehose from the Gulf/Atlantic. 

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