OBS/Totals for 12/26-27 Storm

[HeadInTheClouds]

Finished with 9 inches, 18 for the season. It was a good storm up here. Anywhere between 8 and 10.5 according to reports. 

[NorthShoreWx]

23 minutes ago, eduggs said:

Nice f'in job by the NAM yesterday at go time. It nailed the jackpot zone, the 3-4" across NYC metro, 4-6 LHV, and less in NJ. It even showed the inv trof lingering into daylight hours today. 

Sure you can quibble about minor misses here and there (remember this is 3rd party estimated at 10:1)... like it had more sleet than snow overnight in NJ which slightly underestimated final totals there and SWCT might be a little low. But with snowfall forecasting, no forecast map is ever perfect. But the NAM was hands down the winner. GFS performed horribly. 

I cry on the inside when people post calls for its summary execution.  It's still usually deadly within 24 hours, although I'll admit it doesn't seem as good as it used to be and there have been one or two spectacular fails in recent times.

[Rjay]

23 minutes ago, CPcantmeasuresnow said:

So true RJ I just didn't want to go through the whole history of decades of under measurements for one disgruntled poster. You know my history all too well.  

I've known you for almost 20 years now

[ILoveWinter]

10 minutes ago, eduggs said:

It looks like officially NYC got more snow than BOS. But the greater Boston area received about the same amount of snow as the metro NYC area. It sure didn't look like that would happen 2 or 3 days ago.

It didn’t look like that with nearly all model runs even yesterday!

[wthrmn654]

1 hour ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Has anyone audited the Central Park measurement for this storm? Wondering if they really had 4.3 inches. This commenter claims she measured 1.8 to 2.8 just west of the Park.

 

Let's not forget,  they measure and clear the board each time measurement is made,  with how they had sleet and freezing rain, compaction was legit so if the got 4 it would likely not show 4 if any Joe smo stuck a ruler in the snow.  I maybe wrong but that's what my guess would be.  

[NorthShoreWx]

2 hours ago, NorthShoreWx said:

Smithtown, NY 5.3" (13.0" season total, 28.4" calendar year 2025)

I should add that yesterday's calendar day 4.3" ends our streak of not having a 4" daily total at 12.  Now we begin a new streak.

[Northof78]

Light snow/flurries continue to fall with a final of 3.2". Piles look as large if not larger than 12/13 storm when I had 7" though...11.4" for the season, 1st double digit December in at least 6/7 years I think...

[Islandersguy]

Still having some light mood flakes, it’s nice


.

[Snowlover11]

Was flurrying cleaning off the car.

[CPcantmeasuresnow]

11 minutes ago, Rjay said:

I've known you for almost 20 years now

Through several weather boards.  

[Bxstormwatcher360]

It's still flurrying outside. And cold.. 

[weatherpruf]

1 hour ago, winterwx21 said:

That's why I told you to look out the window late last night lol. It was odd that you kept calling it over when snow had moved in. Thank goodness for the back end of the storm to at least get our area to a respectable amount, even though it was still an underperformer. 

i couldn't see it; i went out during one of the dry slots and that was it. went to bed watching the revolutionary war series, turn. kinda slow, though jamie bell is a fine actor. woke up to do my morning walk and was surprised to see i had to dig out first. and it is still snowing lightly. gonna get some photos with the christmas decorations still up, though we had to ditch the inflatables with all the wind this year; that stuff just isn't good for these parts. i do remember telling my wife that damn snow plow keeps passing by and waking me up, what gives? then i went back to sleep. 

[Bxstormwatcher360]

That band over and east of trenton,nj is not budging. Talk about staying power. 

[ILoveWinter]

10 minutes ago, Bxstormwatcher360 said:

It's still flurrying outside. And cold.. 

Yea we've had a steady light snow practically all morning, wasn't expecting it to last this long!

[Bxstormwatcher360]

1 minute ago, ILoveWinter said:

Yea we've had a steady light snow practically all morning, wasn't expecting it to last this long!

Thats how my area got close to 5..it kept snowing and piling up fast@24-25 degrees.

[Northof78]

Light accumulating snow here, new coating since I cleaned car 20 minutes ago

[ILoveWinter]

1 minute ago, Bxstormwatcher360 said:

Thats how my area got close to 5..it kept snowing and piling up fast@24-25 degrees.

I'm pretty close to the Park and it's likely we've gotten an additional 0.5 since the 7AM observation.  I doubt it gets recorded at the 1PM observation.

[coastalplainsnowman]

52 minutes ago, Stormlover74 said:

So at the end of the day these models are only useful inside 12 hours like the hrrr. 72 hours out it was jackpotting Baltimore 

Naive question, I'm sure, but why is it that if there are common trending scenarios that virtually every pro on here seems to correctly recognize days out, how are those not better captured in the models by now?  It feels like there's been similar discussion on certain types of storms for decades. 

[CPcantmeasuresnow]

25 minutes ago, ILoveWinter said:

I'm pretty close to the Park and it's likely we've gotten an additional 0.5 since the 7AM observation.  I doubt it gets recorded at the 1PM observation.

I'll be shocked if it does but would be a great sign if it was. 

[Stormlover74]

20 minutes ago, coastalplainsnowman said:

Naive question, I'm sure, but why is it that if there are common trending scenarios that virtually every pro on here seems to correctly recognize days out, how are those not better captured in the models by now?  It feels like there's been similar discussion on certain types of storms for decades. 

Part of it is we all look at snow maps instead of soundings but yes the gfs and other colder models kept showing snow in areas that started as sleet and then got dry slotted 

[winterwx21]

53 minutes ago, weatherpruf said:

i couldn't see it; i went out during one of the dry slots and that was it. went to bed watching the revolutionary war series, turn. kinda slow, though jamie bell is a fine actor. woke up to do my morning walk and was surprised to see i had to dig out first. and it is still snowing lightly. gonna get some photos with the christmas decorations still up, though we had to ditch the inflatables with all the wind this year; that stuff just isn't good for these parts. i do remember telling my wife that damn snow plow keeps passing by and waking me up, what gives? then i went back to sleep. 

I just got done shoveling and wow, what a job. Very difficult due to the layer of ice under the snow. I had to scrape and scrape so hard with the shovel to get it up. In some spots I had to put salt down to loosen it up before getting it up. A total of only 2 and a half inches here, but it was a very high impact due to the ice. I am going to skip my workout today because I already got it with the shoveling, lol. Hopefully the next winter storm will be all snow for our area. 

[MJO812]

Still snowing

[RU848789]

5 hours ago, RU848789 said:

Well whaddya know?  We got another 0.3" since 3 am, bringing my total to 2.1", which somehow sounds like less of a bust than 1.8", lol.  Woke up once and saw some light snow and looking at the radar since 3 am I can definitely see another 0.3" (looks like it should've been more, but that's what I measured).  Snowing very lightly now at 25F.  

Again!  Crazy. Since my last measurment of 2.1" I had some errands to run and then I went to Oak Ridge Park and shoveled all the disc golf tee pads (29!), as I'm part of the club there and I enjoy being out in the snow shoveling and walking around. It was snowing the whole time and they went from 2.5" to 2.7" when I was done around 1:00 pm. So I got home and measured again and we got about 0.3" more snow as everything was covered again - bonus! Wife said it was snowing the whole time I was gone and the radar showed the snow - guessing that IVT some were talking about materialized. Anyway I think the final number is now 2.4" which brings my season total up to 10.1".  It's just beautiful out there and despite the bust for our area and most in NJ, I'm pretty happy with the result as it feels like deep winter out there - 28F at midday with snow falling - sweet! 

[TJW014]

Snowing harder now than it did during the whole storm 

[Nibor]

3.8 jersey city. More than half of that fell after 11 PM

[Roger Smith]

Can you get sleet from a column with a highest temperature below freezing? Does it depend on actual temperature or potential temperature? How much horizontal shift can there be in falling precip in a winter storm? Can the precip reaching the surface have originated more than a few miles west of where it reached the ground? I would assume it would be 10-15 miles max given wind speeds but I have never studied this detail, has anyone ever studied it? 

I am interested in what happened in pure physical terms, as I was watching hourly maps of temperatures at 700 and 850 mbs during the sleet phase (in NJ) and it seemed that temps were generally -2 to -4 C at 700 mbs and colder at 850 (and 925) mbs. So does that imply a warmer reading somewhere a little below or above 700 mbs? Or is it possible for sleet to occur from a lower thermal max? (I know what sleet is, that's not the question I am trying to answer, but how and where it forms). 

Glad to read so many positive outcomes and sad about the negative ones, in hindsight it appears that the GFS miscalculation originated with its track for the surface low, it failed to detect the potential for a double-centered low over w PA with a lingering northern component. As soon as that was absorbed into the southern center (which later transferred to the coastal) the sleet turned back to snow for some parts of n NJ. So I think that was the source of the false snowfall regional depiction at 18-24 hours lead time. 

[Intensewind002]

5 hours ago, jm1220 said:

SW Suffolk was getting hammered pretty good under those snow showers. Babylon has 7”. 

Yeah I reached about 6 here in Lindenhurst, the showers lasted on and off for a couple hours and were pretty heavy gave me an additional 2" from the initial 3.5", with about another 0.6" falling with the light snow overnight between midnight and 5 AM

[CPcantmeasuresnow]

5 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Has anyone audited the Central Park measurement for this storm? Wondering if they really had 4.3 inches. This commenter claims she measured 1.8 to 2.8 just west of the Park.

 

Newark airport measures 4.2 inches and LGA also 4.2 inches and right in between the two Central Park, for once, correctly measures 4.3 inches and now someone on social is suddenly concerned Central Park over measures. Amazing.

[Eduardo]

53 minutes ago, Intensewind002 said:

Yeah I reached about 6 here in Lindenhurst, the showers lasted on and off for a couple hours and were pretty heavy gave me an additional 2" from the initial 3.5", with about another 0.6" falling with the light snow overnight between midnight and 5 AM

Can confirm about an even 6 inches in Lindy. 

[Dark Star]

4 hours ago, Stormlover74 said:

Part of it is we all look at snow maps instead of soundings but yes the gfs and other colder models kept showing snow in areas that started as sleet and then got dry slotted 

I still contend that the lack of snow in areas such as Union county NJ was that the center for the storm was too far north.  Areas north and east of NYC got the jackpot.  Without enough lift in my area, the storm dynamics fizzled.  Had the storm been more intense, it would have easily overcome the "warm nose" and "dry slot".  To reiterate an earlier post, we are mainly disagreeing over semantics.