January 24-26: Miracle or Mirage OBS Thread!

[rjvanals]

7 minutes ago, wxmeddler said:

As I think someone previously mentioned, if you are seeing snow. That snow was formed below the melting layer (~8,000ft-ish). So sleet that you see formed above that, and flakes formed below. For you VA folks, if you stop seeing the tiny flakes, good chance you're gonna go to FZRA within a few hours.

Great explanation and a pretty rare set up! 

[TSSN+]

I just cleared 1/2” sleet in the last hour. Very well might end with 3-4” of sleet here. Woof. 

[Bob Chill]

Still 100% sleet down here. Comes in waves. Lulls have tiny sleet that are more like snow than sleet pellets. Holding at 18 degrees. Prob in the 3.5" range of total snow and sleet. Grass is covered so I'll pretend it's a foot deep. One thing for sure, all of us are going to have snow-covered ground for a long time. Deep winter

[mappy]

6” with sleet and snow, compacting quite a bit. Just did a shovel of driveway and cars 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Heavy precip all the way back to Nashville. This thing has a lot of time to go still. 

[BTRWx's Thanks Giving]

The rate of sleet accumulation has been impressive!

[wxmeddler]

4 minutes ago, rjvanals said:

Great explanation and a pretty rare set up! 

There hasn't been this kind of CAD Wedge / Storm combo in this region since 2007 (Valentines Day), and even then, this dwarfs that for the depth and strength of the cold air. You'd have to find some really old timers to remember when something like this occurred. 

[katabatic]

What a strange storm. Still only 6 degrees with heavy sleet. I shoveled a bit and except for a tiny bit of snow underneath the sleet, it's been all ice here. I'm estimating 4" otg and the plows are keeping everything clear - even went to the gym and there were plenty of folks there, too. Hopefully we will flip back to snow as the system moves north. Regardless, this stuff will be around until April.

[high risk]

1 hour ago, WxUSAF said:

@high risk your 13-14z call for the mix time was spot on.  Was about 1330z for MBY.  But this mix of sleet and needles is interesting.  Visibility is way lower than normal for a predominant sleet precipitation event.  I'm curious how this will accumulate.  I think @csnavywx and @Terpeastwere suggesting we're getting snow to crystallize below the inversion to mix with the sleet that's coming from higher up?

               I'd like to take credit for a call, but I rode the NAM Nest.    If I had a dollar for every "LOL NAM" and "the NAM sux" posts in the past 3 days, I could have retired early.   I completely understand the skepticism back on Thursday and Friday, but once we got inside of 36 hours and it didn't budge, I thought it had a high likelihood of verifying with p-type, even if it did a poor job with QPF prior to the flip.

[clskinsfan]

This is driest sleet I have ever seen in my life. Almost powdery. Wild. 

[mappy]

10 minutes ago, mikeg0305 said:

Parkton before the flip to sleet. I’d cal it 75/25 sleet/snow at this point.

Seems high? Lot of drifting so my usual measurement spot isn’t accurate. I had 6” on my driveway 

[mattie g]

15 minutes ago, wxmeddler said:

As I think someone previously mentioned, if you are seeing snow. That snow was formed below the melting layer (~8,000ft-ish). So sleet that you see formed above that, and flakes formed below. For you VA folks, if you stop seeing the tiny flakes, good chance you're gonna go to FZRA within a few hours.

Dude…it’s sleeting so hard that you can’t even tell if there’s snow mixed in.

[Kay]

14 minutes ago, ThePhotoGuy said:

 

Don't miss hitting play on this y'all.

[Bob Chill]

Just now, clskinsfan said:

This is driest sleet I have ever seen in my life. Almost powdery. Wild. 

Same down this way. Sleet "dust" has blown through our screened porch and it looks like somebody dumped a bag of flour on the floor. Not sure how the big slug of precip is going to break in a few hours. Hoping it's a sandstorm and not zr.  So far there are no icicles on anything (which is a big relief)

[ravensrule]

5 minutes ago, wxmeddler said:

There hasn't been this kind of CAD Wedge / Storm combo in this region since 2007 (Valentines Day), and even then, this dwarfs that for the depth and strength of the cold air. You'd have to find some really old timers to remember when something like this occurred. 

Paging @mitchnick

[AACOUNTYMD]

shovelling the driveway was like shoveling sand  

 

[T. August]

A little late measuring - 7.6” at 12:00pm. Pack getting obliterated, depth is struggling to hit 7”.

[mdhokie]

3 minutes ago, mattie g said:

Dude…it’s sleeting so hard that you can’t even tell if there’s snow mixed in.

Yea its basically a driving rain storm but you don't get wet. Not sure I've ever seen sleet this hard. 

[rjvanals]

4 minutes ago, wxmeddler said:

There hasn't been this kind of CAD Wedge / Storm combo in this region since 2007 (Valentines Day), and even then, this dwarfs that for the depth and strength of the cold air. You'd have to find some really old timers to remember when something like this occurred. 

We had some events like this back in 1994 w sleet/freezing rain w temps in the teens in the DMV and heavy snow north of the M/D (I was only 9 at the time so I don’t have a great synoptic memory of it)

[mitchnick]

Sleet up to Harrisburg per the Central PA forum. Didn't think that would happen.  Nam humiliated all the globals, and probably some mesos too.

[Bubbler86]

Just now, mitchnick said:

Sleet up to Harrisburg per the Central PA forum. Didn't think that would happen.  Nam humiliated all the globals, and probably some mesos too.

And some posters. 

[Steckstacks]

Nam needs to not go into retirement lol


.

[Bob Chill]

6 minutes ago, wxmeddler said:

There hasn't been this kind of CAD Wedge / Storm combo in this region since 2007 (Valentines Day), and even then, this dwarfs that for the depth and strength of the cold air. You'd have to find some really old timers to remember when something like this occurred. 

Feb 07 was a top 3 analog from 5 days out to game time. There were some decent snow events in the analog mix too so a simple analog blend nailed the outcome pretty good. 

[Chris78]

Up to about 7" now with the sleet Accumulating nicely

[mattie g]

2 minutes ago, mdhokie said:

Yea its basically a driving rain storm but you don't get wet. Not sure I've ever seen sleet this hard. 

I walked outside like 10 minutes ago and there f’ing CHUNKS of sleet coming with diminished visibility.

I’m guessing that there are small flakes/needles in there, which is bringing the viz down and helping with accumulation just a bit.

[LongRanger]

yes, brings back memories of 1994's sleet, IIRC one morning around that time temps near BWI dropped to -15

[snowfan]

3 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Sleet up to Harrisburg per the Central PA forum. Didn't think that would happen.  Nam humiliated all the globals, and probably some mesos too.

NAMs placement of the mix line up there seems pretty good. If you get NW of Harrisburg past the 322 and 11/15 interchange further up into Perry County, you should be OK. 

[Kmlwx]

Radar looking a bit more splotchy recently. Definitely a sleet bomb out there for sure.

[Chris78]

2 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Sleet up to Harrisburg per the Central PA forum. Didn't think that would happen.  Nam humiliated all the globals, and probably some mesos too.

I posted a few days ago I've seen the Nam do this in previous set ups like this.

I was concerned but hard to take it seriously when everything else was colder including the Euro.

I guess I'm not going to reach the 12"+ the euro was still giving me last night lol

 

[mitchnick]

6 minutes ago, wxmeddler said:

There hasn't been this kind of CAD Wedge / Storm combo in this region since 2007 (Valentines Day), and even then, this dwarfs that for the depth and strength of the cold air. You'd have to find some really old timers to remember when something like this occurred. 

Can't forget 2/07. Not because of the storm, but because the guys that replaced my water lines the summer of 2006 hit the one side of the power line to our house, so we lost 1 leg of the 240 power to the house of all days but the day of the storm. Which meant no heat pump without 240 volts. Froze for 2 days before it was fixed due to many BGE crews having been sent to other parts of the country from storm the week earlier.