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Early Winter Banter, Observations & General Discussion 2017


powderfreak

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If anyone is interested  ...

We are fast approaching the Silver 25th anniversary of a top 10 coastal winter storm event that unleashed it's fury spanning December 10th -12th, 1992.  

Not sure what this social media's demographic is, but...considering that age, there may be a lot of users that were not even born ...as there are also users who may annul that event among their more cherished, coveted memories as both enthusiasts and/or scientists in the field of Weather.  

I half wanted to start an appreciation thread, ...but honestly ...wasn't sure the attention span would make that worth while - it's not a knock. But 25 years is getting to be rather dated - us old salts of New England climate must grudgingly admit :/  

Anyway, what started out as a run-of-the-mill late autumn/early winter Nor'easter forecast, replete with some wind and coastal concerns, along with uncertainties for snowfall outside of elevations, turned out to be a historic tempest that unleashed snow amounts over 30 " in the interior, tapering to a foot or more on the coastal plain (AFTER those eastern zones had already registered some 3-5" of rain in the gauges!). As well, wind damage and massive coastal flood concerns and monetary losses incurred from New England all the way down along the NJ coasts ... This storm spanning up to two full days to completely run its course.  

Truly a top three lifetime event for this particular Meteorologist.  25 years ago ... beginning two days from now. 

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John, 

That is still my all time favorite storm. I was in 6th grade and we were coming off the worst 4 years stretch on record at ORH for snowfall. That was the storm that broke the streak of no double digit storms for 4 winters. What a way to break the slump.....

The storm started very early Friday morning on the 11th. I was actually staying at my grandparents place in Holden, MA just northwest of ORH. They were at 1000 feet. Woke up to wet snow falling and was disappointed to hear that school was not cancelled in Worcester. So my grandfather drove me in and as we descended elevation the snow turned to light rain around 700-800 feet. It poured rain for the next 3 hours...intensified. Then all of the sudden around 11am as I was falling asleep in social studies class to the drone of the old school radiators that blow hot air...I heard the wind picking up and noticed what looked like a little fog on the hill across from the huge school yard...as the wind blew I realized it was getting closer and all of the sudden it was a blizzard of flakes mixing in. Then it was gone again...this process repeated about 4 or 5 times over the next 15 minutes. Then all of the sudden on one of these "bursts", the flakes did not recede.  They stayed. It was very wet. By lunchtime, we had a translucent accumulation of about an inch. You could literally see through the snow it was so wet. Then it just kept intensifying and by the time school was dismissed at 230pm...we had about 3" of paste cakes to everything. 

We nearly didn't make it back to Holden. As we climbed elevation from about 600 feet to 1000 it got much worse. 

Of course the rest is history. 30 hours later we had 35 inches in Holden. 

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I was in a crappy apartment near Olsen Hall at UMass-Lowell at the time.  I don't recall it too well, other than helping to shovel out and push out cars that were stuck in our parking area.  Lots of beers were involved I would imagine.   I was not a huge weather weenie at the time.

Pretty neat winter between that and the March 1993 Superstorm, which I mostly missed because I was at Whistler

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10 hours ago, tamarack said:

Odd wx when central TX has more snow, season to date, than the Maine foothills.  (0.1" at my place, putting me way ahead of the local co-ops, which have recorded only traces.)

Areas west of Atlanta, Georgia have 6" accumulation and a guy doing snowboard-tally claims 9+ so far.  It's still lightly snowing, too, per my husband's texts.

Work sends me to MAINE in DECEMBER ... so of course that's when home in GEORGIA gets 6" snow.  Husband's sent me photos of our yard and woods and deck at about the 4" before it got too dark.

I can only think of a couple other times in the last 20 years that we've had 6" or more in one event ("we" = home, west of Atlanta).  I grew up in Florida; snow's not my Thing - family still can't believe I willingly took a gig in Maine in the winter.  Now I can tell them it's because if I go to Maine, their snow goes to Georgia on some kind of freaky exchange program.

 

 

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7 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

If anyone is interested  ...

We are fast approaching the Silver 25th anniversary of a top 10 coastal winter storm event that unleashed it's fury spanning December 10th -12th, 1992.  

Not sure what this social media's demographic is, but...considering that age, there may be a lot of users that were not even born ...as there are also users who may annul that event among their more cherished, coveted memories as both enthusiasts and/or scientists in the field of Weather.  

I half wanted to start an appreciation thread, ...but honestly ...wasn't sure the attention span would make that worth while - it's not a knock. But 25 years is getting to be rather dated - us old salts of New England climate must grudgingly admit :/  

Anyway, what started out as a run-of-the-mill late autumn/early winter Nor'easter forecast, replete with some wind and coastal concerns, along with uncertainties for snowfall outside of elevations, turned out to be a historic tempest that unleashed snow amounts over 30 " in the interior, tapering to a foot or more on the coastal plain (AFTER those eastern zones had already registered some 3-5" of rain in the gauges!). As well, wind damage and massive coastal flood concerns and monetary losses incurred from New England all the way down along the NJ coasts ... This storm spanning up to two full days to completely run its course.  

Truly a top three lifetime event for this particular Meteorologist.  25 years ago ... beginning two days from now. 

I lived in NYC at that time and I remember alot of rain and high winds. I skied Mohawk Mtn after storms end in knee deep powder

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13 hours ago, SharonA said:

Areas west of Atlanta, Georgia have 6" accumulation and a guy doing snowboard-tally claims 9+ so far.  It's still lightly snowing, too, per my husband's texts.

Work sends me to MAINE in DECEMBER ... so of course that's when home in GEORGIA gets 6" snow.  Husband's sent me photos of our yard and woods and deck at about the 4" before it got too dark.

I can only think of a couple other times in the last 20 years that we've had 6" or more in one event ("we" = home, west of Atlanta).  I grew up in Florida; snow's not my Thing - family still can't believe I willingly took a gig in Maine in the winter.  Now I can tell them it's because if I go to Maine, their snow goes to Georgia on some kind of freaky exchange program.

 

 

Saw reports of 12"+ in western NC.  We're supposed to get 4" or so from this one.

Our first Christmas - 1976 - when we lived in Ft. Kent (northern tip of Maine) we visited family in NNJ.  When we had 4" there on Christmas night, folks said we'd brought the snow with us from Maine.  Not hardly - between that storm and the one we drove thru the night of 29-30 (near zero visibility on a lonely highway at 4 AM was not the most comfortable feeling), the total was 36" and our old 2nd-car Beetle was just a lump in the snow.

Dec 1992 brought nary a flake at our (then) home south of Augusta, though south border sites in Maine got up to 8".  But we had 2 days of strong winds, which when coupled with a bumper crop of white ash seeds, resulted in a million seedlings all over the yard the next spring.

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31 minutes ago, codfishsnowman said:

he has had 2 legit 3 foot events since 2005 plus so many other footers and cape specials, he has seen single event totals and authentic blizzard conditions we will never see

so he takes a few early season events on the chin

trust me this winter he will be S++ while we are squinting under a streetlight looking for a flake of pixie dust

He did not get 3 feet in the January 2005 Storm.  I saw the official totals.  Lots of drifting down there with inaccurate weenie totals. The range was generally 20-30" with the 30" mark on the rim facing the Cape Cod Bay and just northwest across the cape canal was another 30" spot MYV and Nantucket got 24" a peice NOT 34".  The 30" was not wide spread as was reported.  The Juno Blizzard down there was also a 12-24" Not the 24-30" some may of heard Nantucket came in with 12" in that storm..

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3 minutes ago, Greg said:

He did not get 3 feet in the January 2005 Storm.  I saw the official totals.  Lots of drifting down there with inaccurate weenie totals. The range was generally 20-30" with the 30" mark on the rim facing the Cape Cod Bay and just northwest across the cape canal was another 30" spot.  The 30" was not wide spread as was reported.  The Juno Blizzard down there was also a 12-24" Not the 24-30" some may of heard.

Dude they had widespread 30-38", I was there after the storm, and it's on the PNS. I worked construction on the Cape. I had to dig a backhoe out and it was not a drift.

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6 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Dude they had widespread 30-38", I was there after the storm, and it's on the PNS. I worked construction on the Cape. I had to dig a backhoe out and it was not a drift.

The only places that jacked officially in that strom was Salem, MA on the immediate north sure and Plypmton, MA.  Any trying to wipe of the board every six hours in that was to inflated and tossed.  The weather people in Taunton said that.  Look it up if you don't believe.  It's in  the snow storms page.

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2 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Dude they had widespread 30-38", I was there after the storm, and it's on the PNS. I worked construction on the Cape. I had to dig a backhoe out and it was not a drift.

a weather weenie acquaintance of mine who lives up here went to the cape for the blizzard and said he never saw anything like it, he said 30 plus easy(33-34)

never ever did he see anything like that up here, he was so glad he went...he said it made our 20-24 feb 13 look like childs play

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Just now, Greg said:

The only places that jacked officially in that strom was Salem, MA on the immediate north sure and Plypmton, MA.  Any trying to wipe of the board every six hours in that was to inflated and tossed.  The weather people in Taunton said that.  Look it up if you don't believe.  It's in  the snow storms page.

I was there. I also have a met friend who is about as reliable as anyone who lived in Harwich and can back it up. Trust me, you'd be labia deep.

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1 minute ago, Greg said:

The only places that jacked officially in that strom was Salem, MA on the immediate north sure and Plypmton, MA.  Any trying to wipe of the board every six hours in that was to inflated and tossed.  The weather people in Taunton said that.  Look it up if you don't believe.  It's in  the snow storms page.

the whole wiping the board thing is a little suspicious anyways for any storm regardless of what nws says, i think up to a few inches is fine but like 1/15 eastern sne blizzard there were lots of 30 inch totals but peak depths 20-22 due to long duration and compacting....at what point does that get out of control??

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5 minutes ago, codfishsnowman said:

the whole wiping the board thing is a little suspicious anyways for any storm regardless of what nws says, i think up to a few inches is fine but like 1/15 eastern sne blizzard there were lots of 30 inch totals but peak depths 20-22 due to long duration and compacting....at what point does that get out of control??

They do that in official first order stations anyways. If anything, wiping in windy events probably makes it worse since the snow literally blows off the board.

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10 minutes ago, codfishsnowman said:

the whole wiping the board thing is a little suspicious anyways for any storm regardless of what nws says, i think up to a few inches is fine but like 1/15 eastern sne blizzard there were lots of 30 inch totals but peak depths 20-22 due to long duration and compacting....at what point does that get out of control??

I'm not sure what "out of control means really in this case. But if your dealing with a historic storm you want to be as accurate as possible.  Therefore you can have a few or so inches worth of differences around, that is fine. But with drifting from the 80 MPH winds, that make measuring virtually impossible.  You have no choice based upon the nature of the storm.  Meaning you should wait until the storm is complete, then take several measurements and average them.  And yes, the amounts at that time would be the settled amounts on the ground. NOT, what could have been if the snow had never settled.  That is caleed INFLATION. http://rightweather.com/2013/01/remembering-the-january-2005-blizzard/

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1 minute ago, Greg said:

I'm not sure what "out of control means really in this case. But if your dealing with a historic storm you want to be as accurate as possible.  Therefore you can have a few or so inches worth of differences around, that is fine. But with drifting from the 80 MPH winds, that make measuring virtually impossible.  You have no choice based upon the nature of the storm.  Meaning you should wait until the storm is complete, then take several measurements and average them.  And yes, the amounts at that time would be the settled amounts on the ground. NOT, what could have been if the snow had never settled.  That is caleed INFLATION.

There is no such thing as inflation in the wind. Trust me...I live near the water. Wind screws anyone. Stick to your wind hole.

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The irony is that the wind usually makes totals less for those who know what they are doing. Wind really compacts. And Greg is wrong about Plympton. They did not come close to jacking. I lived nearby. Look at the radar. The best stuff was SE of them. Plympton flirted with more banded stuff near dawn while the Cape got crushed. The Plympton dude needs to up his ruler a bot. I saw that total too.

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