December 14th - Snow showers or Plowable snow?

[weatherwiz]

Definitely a D- or an F on my forecast for this. I also try to factor in the backend/reasoning to the forecast into the verification and weigh that much more than the outcome itself. For example, if I did a forecast somewhere of 3-5" and said that would come on the front end of a storm, and it turned out that happened on the back end with a CCB...well that would grade extremely low, but the reasoning was incorrect. 

The most incorrect aspect of my thinking here was a stronger band developing and impacting Long Island would cut back on totals farther north across CT (subsidence) but that did not happen. While I don't know what everything looked outside Saturday night in terms of snow growth and flake size, it was clear there was just enough lift, combined with a deeper DGZ, to utilize better ratios. I definitely underplayed that component. 

In terms of assessment, I don't think I would do anything different if I had to do this over. But what I would do is certainly go a bit more "aggressive" (putting aggressive in quotes because we were really dealing with 1.5-2.5") and maybe do a range of 1-3" over a larger area to cover uncertainty better. Or maybe even C-2" but that's a range I hate. 

[weatherwiz]

3 hours ago, The 4 Seasons said:

This is a preliminary first pass snowfall totals for CT. Once i get the totals from cocorahs/coop today ill update the map and be doing a full SNE one and Tri-State. I tried to include all the reports from here as well as filter out all the old reports. If anyone has any corrections, concerns or violent reactions let me know and ill take a look into it. There were a lot of reports from the same town or very close to each other so i had to leave some out. Thanks to everyone who sent me a report. I might change the ranges from 0-1/1-2/2-4/4-6 to 0-1/1-3/3-6 for the final map to make things a little easier and because there are a lot of 2"+ reports mixed in around the 1-2" reports. This is also the second 3"+ event of the season so it will make it into the WS Archive with radar/sfc/h5/snowfall maps when they come available. 

BDR-4.5, BDL-1.4, ORH-1.6, PVD-1.6, BOS-1.3

The forecast overall was pretty good albeit a little conservative. I'll give it a B+. We did highlight the possibility of 4"+ on the extreme S coast so that worked out well. All of the southern 4 counties verified advisory level snow with generally 3-6" and 1-3" mainly for the northern 4 counties. Lowest report was E. Hartland at 0.8" and the highest 5.5" in Norwalk. @Sey-Mour Snow

 

 

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

https://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2025/12/verification-for-festive-sunday-snowfall.html

B+

 

Great calls! Ryan had a great forecast for CT too. Edit: Looking back at some posts FXWX had a great call too. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Just now, weatherwiz said:

 

Great calls! Ryan had a great forecast for CT too. 

I only did one map for this....I def would have went 2-5" down there had I updated Saturday because almost did on Friday....but guidance was awful Friday, I got scared a bit....the 2-4" was still aggressive then.

[weatherwiz]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I only did one map for this....I def would have went 2-5" down there had I updated Saturday because almost did on Friday....but guidance was awful Friday, I got scared a bit....the 2-4" was still aggressive then.

I think what you put forth was pretty damn good as what did 4 Seasons and Seymour. I wouldn't even be surprised if some or a chunk of the snow reports were inflated a tad (by like 0.5"), if people measured in the grass when you also account for fluff factor. When I was driving along 84 yesterday, the stretches of median which are flat and grassy...you could easily see grass poking through. It wasn't until like towards Waterbury/Route 8 where that wasn't the case (especially closer to Seymour/Ansonia).  

But these maps are pretty damn good. There will always be some that end up along the upper end of the range or just over and some that end up along the lower end or just a tad under

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

I think what you put forth was pretty damn good as what did 4 Seasons and Seymour. I wouldn't even be surprised if some or a chunk of the snow reports were inflated a tad (by like 0.5"), if people measured in the grass when you also account for fluff factor. When I was driving along 84 yesterday, the stretches of median which are flat and grassy...you could easily see grass poking through. It wasn't until like towards Waterbury/Route 8 where that wasn't the case (especially closer to Seymour/Ansonia).  

But these maps are pretty damn good. There will always be some that end up along the upper end of the range or just over and some that end up along the lower end or just a tad under

I find myself challenged for time this year because the family is home and I have 4 kids aged 1-6, so sometimes my results will reflect that a bit. Not to make excuses....I still should have trusted my work and stuck to my guns more.

[weatherwiz]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I find myself challenged for time this year because the family is home and I have 4 kids aged 1-6, so sometimes my results will reflect that a bit. Not to make excuses....I still should have trusted my work and stuck to my guns more.

It's not an excuse...it's just a product of life. Even myself I wish I got to be a bit more invested with local forecasts. But I have to do forecasts for all over the country and its not really forecasting for people so I don't get to do specific forecasts like this (making snowfall maps/forecasts for example). I just do this for fun...but I am so tired after work stuff I barely have the energy to do these maps/forecasts/blog posts. I've been wanting to switch and do videos but I am not a technological person or meant to be heard (why I didn't pursue broadcasting lol). But for my severe weather class this past semester, we had to do a video presentation for our final project and as part of the class I got camtasia which is super easy to use...so I may switch from written blogs to video...might be easier/less time consuming. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

25 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

It's not an excuse...it's just a product of life. Even myself I wish I got to be a bit more invested with local forecasts. But I have to do forecasts for all over the country and its not really forecasting for people so I don't get to do specific forecasts like this (making snowfall maps/forecasts for example). I just do this for fun...but I am so tired after work stuff I barely have the energy to do these maps/forecasts/blog posts. I've been wanting to switch and do videos but I am not a technological person or meant to be heard (why I didn't pursue broadcasting lol). But for my severe weather class this past semester, we had to do a video presentation for our final project and as part of the class I got camtasia which is super easy to use...so I may switch from written blogs to video...might be easier/less time consuming. 

No doubt...I just do the blog because the writing keeps me sharp.

[weatherwiz]

3 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

No doubt...I just do the blog because the writing keeps me sharp.

That's precisely the reason I love blogging too. It help keeps my sharp and I kind of use it as a way of talking to myself to ensure I am understanding of what's going on meteorologically (under the hood). 

[40/70 Benchmark]

4 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

That's precisely the reason I love blogging too. It help keeps my sharp and I kind of use it as a way of talking to myself to ensure I am understanding of what's going on meteorologically (under the hood). 

I forget some stuff...especially over the off season. I find myself reading some of my old material to get reacclimated...no better way to reorient yourself with material than having it presented in a way that is uniquely tailored for your own understanding....I am probably best suited to author those works. haha.

[weatherwiz]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I forget some stuff...especially over the off season. I find myself reading some of my old material to get reacclimated...no better way to reorient yourself with material than having it presented in a way that is uniquely tailored for your own understanding....I am probably best suited to author those works. haha.

The other great part of blogging and posting your reasoning for forecasts is you have something to look back on. This is why I wish I was more active with blogging but really dropped off over the last several years. So I try to rely somewhat on memory which isn't always the best metric. But when I'm forecasting I will try to think of not necessarily similar events but I try and visualize what the response will be to certain things.

One thing I learned from Ekster way back to the eastern days was (and this is about thunderstorms) to try and visualize how a thunderstorm will respond to the environment it is in. But I try and extrapolate this concept across weather phenomena. With winter storms, I always try and paint a picture in my head of how the radar presentation will look at how it will evolve based on how the atmosphere is evolving. This concept has really helped me produce some solid snowfall forecasts over the years, but (in the cast of this past storm), if I am underplaying/overplaying certain aspects I will be way off.   

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

Probably 2” total from about 18 hours of snow.

Nice appeal, but I don’t want to be beaten down by everyone claiming I should be happy etc etc. it wasn’t a great event. Models beefed up until go time only to be way overdone here.

It’s nice for wintry appeal for a few days, but let’s not kid ourselves, this was a pedestrian event outside of the cape.

2” of snow to show for -10 departures for nearly 2/3 of the month is a fail in my book. I don’t care how early it is.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, weatherwiz said:

The other great part of blogging and posting your reasoning for forecasts is you have something to look back on. This is why I wish I was more active with blogging but really dropped off over the last several years. So I try to rely somewhat on memory which isn't always the best metric. But when I'm forecasting I will try to think of not necessarily similar events but I try and visualize what the response will be to certain things.

One thing I learned from Ekster way back to the eastern days was (and this is about thunderstorms) to try and visualize how a thunderstorm will respond to the environment it is in. But I try and extrapolate this concept across weather phenomena. With winter storms, I always try and paint a picture in my head of how the radar presentation will look at how it will evolve based on how the atmosphere is evolving. This concept has really helped me produce some solid snowfall forecasts over the years, but (in the cast of this past storm), if I am underplaying/overplaying certain aspects I will be way off.   

I love building a base of my own resources....I sometimes draw upon them when the situation warrants. It's also nice when some douche misquotes me, as I simply copy/paste my actual thoughts in short order.

[tamarack]

Only a few flakes here - too far north. 
Grandkids in SNJ had 4" of clingy beauty, their first snow of the season other than a flurry or two.