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Feb 18/19 Disco/Obs


nj2va
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12 hours before the storm began, here's what the hourly forecast looked like. Not picking on the NWS here since this is what most were forecasting, but it's actually impressive how differently this storm ended up for a huge chunk of the forum. 

From winter storm warning with hours of heavy snow expected to a few hours of heavy sleet, quite the difference from forecast to reality. 

 

Screen Shot 2021-02-18 at 9.51.03 AM.png

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38 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I measured 5.5" of pretty much all snow when I first got up and shoveled off my "measuring spot".  Since then I got 2.5" of half snow/sleet mix for a total of 8" of frozen that fell but the depth everywhere is still only 6.5" due to compacting from the weight of the ice on top of the snow.    But lets assume the 5.5" had higher ratios so is like .45 qpf.  But the 2.5" since is VERY low ratio lets say 5-1 so best guess I was close to 1" qpf up here under that banding...which makes sense because that is what all the guidance said the qpf would be only they had that band along 95 near DC not up here.  

Agreed. We definitely did better than anticipated with banding early on, which saved us up here… big time. We verified, but definitely not in the way we expected to. Models showed that insane banding initially setting up near 95 (MoCo - HoCo death band type depiction) which is what gave those areas 3-6” before the flip on some guidance. However, the band setup shop about 25-30 miles north of the general consensus and those areas closer to 95 never quite got the jump start they needed to overcome that stubborn warm layer . Over 3” fell in roughly 90 mins to kick off the storm up our way (sorry you were asleep for that man, I was hoping to see your and @clskinsfan ‘s names pop up in the thread as that crazy band was parked over the area from Winchester to Manchester) This, of course, was a huge help in terms of verifying the warning. We had 6.25” of fluff when I cleared the board as sleet began mixing in more prevalently , then I measured 2.25” of snow / crust when precip finally shut off for a total of 8.5” of frozen. Roughly 7” remain due to compaction.

Such a shame for folks closer to 95. It’s just been that type of winter. Yet another storm where a 1 degree bust at the mid levels takes away a 6+” opportunity from the metros and immediate suburbs. It’s never anything big… but there’s seemingly always that ONE thing that hinders that area. Really hope the craziness that is March in terms of dualing air masses brings that area their biggie. They deserve a break. 

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6 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Watch the activity on the back end turn everything into an ice palace tonight and we somehow trip into an ice storm.

To be honest - seeing the ice up in the trees is always a cool sight. I know nobody wants the power outages and such and accidents...but that would be a cool "end" to the storm. 

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