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Minor to moderate winter event M-Tue Dec 16-17, 2019


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3 minutes ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

This has been exactly my fear all day. The rest of my snow removal crew jumped ship because they think this is going to be nothing.

It's not a big deal in the Boros or LI, I personally love a nice sleet storm because it doesn't melt. Way less impactful than zr. Going to get washed away even if we get a more prolonged sleet than expected.

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I have to do this at least once a year, lol, but it's frustrating to see the inconsistencies in the model outputs that are available to the public.  I get that it's awesome to have a ton of great info, which is way more than we had even just a few years ago, but it would be even better if these inconsistencies could be addressed.  Specifically, Pivotal shows only snow (without sleet) and freezing rain, while Tropical Tidbits shows snow + sleet (with the sleet counted as 10:1, snow to liquid ratio vs. the ~3:1 actual ratio), but not freezing rain. 

And if you look at them vs. each other, say, for Morristown, the Pivotal maps appear to be counting a large amount of the precip as sleet, whereas the TT maps appear to be counting a similar amount of that precip as freezing rain, not sleet.  But which one is it, freezing rain or sleet?  Huge difference, obviously.  On the maps below (assuming the number in Morris County on Pivotal is Morristown), TT shows 12"+ of "snow and sleet" (at 10:1 ratios even for sleet), while TT shows 1.55" of freezing rain (15" of snow at 10:1) and 0.8" of just snow (not including any sleet). 

Again, which is it or is it some combination?  The 4th graphic, from Cool.Wx, shows Morristown getting 1.5" of freezing rain, after about 1" of snow and 0.2" of sleet, so maybe most of that precip is ZR and not sleet.  That would be catastrophic for much of NNJ, far worse than 4.5" of sleet (1.5" of liquid at a 3:1 ratio, equiv to 15" of 10:1 snow), which would be no picnic either.  And, of course, the GFS shows all rain for MMU, while the NAM3K is in-between the NAM and GFS - now I know why mets get paid, even when they're wrong, lol.  

For my own backyard in the Edison area, TT shows about 6" of snow/sleet, whereas, TT shows about 0.2" of ZR and essentially zero snow.  Should I assume the other 0.4" of frozen precip that TT shows is all sleet, which Pivotal doesn't show?  Of course, one can look at the soundings at specific timepoints to estimate p-type and then assume the next few hours are that same p-type for the total that falls in that interval and then add all of them up, but that's tedious and why we all like model maps.  Anyway, just a rant for today, as I try to figure out what's going to happen tonight.  The alternative is to just watch it all unfold and not worry, but it would be nice to have more insight...

 

namconus_asnow_neus_11.png

 

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57 minutes ago, Ericjcrash said:

It's not a big deal in the Boros or LI, I personally love a nice sleet storm because it doesn't melt. Way less impactful than zr. Going to get washed away even if we get a more prolonged sleet than expected.

I’m in the NW corner of Manhattan with a little elevation. I have seen time and time again In these marginal setups this area behave more like the near Nw burbs then the rest of the city. We shall see how this one does, but using the forecast for the city for this area will get you burned 

 

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He thinks that because im pointing out that we should be discussing ice, that i am not only rooting for that outcome, but that ice accrection on the roads will somehow burst my pipes inside my house lol. 
I deal with these idiots all the time when I chase storms. Weather fascinates most of us here. I love hurricanes and tornadoes. That doesn't mean we root for them.

Sent from my Samsung Note 8

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Here’s something for you guys on the island and the city to ponder.  I know that there have been reports of sleet in many areas out there.  I have a station right on Fire Island.  Temp / Dew is 33/29 now with a light East wind.  No sign of any warm air rushing in off the ocean so you may hold on to the frozen precip mix for a little longer than you might think.

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23 minutes ago, Tatamy said:

Here’s something for you guys on the island and the city to ponder.  I know that there have been reports of sleet in many areas out there.  I have a station right on Fire Island.  Temp / Dew is 33/29 now with a light East wind.  No sign of any warm air rushing in off the ocean so you may hold on to the frozen precip mix for a little longer than you might think.

That’s great info thanks.

Does your station have a website?

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13 minutes ago, Tatamy said:

Here’s something for you guys on the island and the city to ponder.  I know that there have been reports of sleet in many areas out there.  I have a station right on Fire Island.  Temp / Dew is 33/29 now with a light East wind.  No sign of any warm air rushing in off the ocean so you may hold on to the frozen precip mix for a little longer than you might think.

 

It's cooler there than at FRG lol

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27 minutes ago, Tatamy said:

Here’s something for you guys on the island and the city to ponder.  I know that there have been reports of sleet in many areas out there.  I have a station right on Fire Island.  Temp / Dew is 33/29 now with a light East wind.  No sign of any warm air rushing in off the ocean so you may hold on to the frozen precip mix for a little longer than you might think.

33.8 and sleet here

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This event is why I like to think down side and called it minor-moderate.  Snowfall algorithms were a bust s of I-90 as many have noted, but still this storm brought an icy mess to the regions just a few miles outside of NYC that forced numerous travel delays, school closures/delays, power outages with over 10000 customers having no power in NJ as of late today.   QPF in the freezing air was a little less than needed for more widespread power outages, and there wasn't a front end thump of snow.   On school closings while roads were seemingly just wet...  it differs when young adults are hanging out at hill town bus stops or walking to school in freezing rain, with sidewalks icy, especially rural areas.  Lots of liability concerns.  A little more freezing rain after they had gone to school, and trees/wires start closing roads and you're saying why did we risk it.   Snow was overstated but in the end, model guidance FAR FAR in advance pegged a winter event from CO to New England, and certainly knew something was coming for our area as early as the 00z/9 run (in a daily blog). Modeling will continue to improve.  I think it's magnificent compared to what we had in the 1960s. 

At 738PM/18 I've added the interpolated snowfall for this event.  It includes some lake effect off the  Great Lakes. 

Screen Shot 2019-12-18 at 7.33.56 PM.png

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