January 24-26: Miracle or Mirage OBS Thread!

[EHoffman]

Looks like we have about 8-9" of snow/sleet on the ground.  Really something.  Seems like we got about 3-4" of sleet, which is absolutely unbelievable.  

[bncho]

5.9" of snow, 4.2" of sleet. 10.1" total!

[Terpeast]

Another inch of sleet had fallen since my last 8.5” measurement. Back edge about to clear my area. Calling it 9.5” total, 5.5” snow 4.0” sleet. Crazy storm

[winter_warlock]

 My neighbor just told me that a snow plow is stuck   about 2 miles away on one of the main roads here. And they had to get a  big tow truck to pull it out lol..u know it's bad  when snow plows get stuck in the ice and snow!!! 

[benjammin]

5.9" of snow, 4.2" of sleet. 10.1" total!

That glacier will last a long time even without new snow.

Sent from my Pixel 10 Pro XL using Tapatalk

[ravensrule]

I’m not going to lie, it’s impossible to measure but i believe I’m around 10.5”. I had 7.1” before the flip. 

[clskinsfan]

I know I ended up with over 10 inches. But I stopped scraping my snowboard late last night. Have 8.3 of compacted frozen stuff. We did go back over to snow at the end. But it didnt last long. My stair well to my basement has about 3 feet of sleet in it from it rolling off my roof. Crazy storm. 

[PrinceFrederickWx]

What are all these “amateur radio” obs in southern MD in the PNS reports? Never seen these before, but some of these obs seem a little too high.

[snowfan]

8.5" of snow and sleet w/compacting. The ruler wouldn't penetrate at first bc of the crust on top. 

[Demeter]

16 minutes ago, H2O said:

This sleet.  Ridonkulous.  And now we get some ZR on top.  When the hell do we get all 3 p-types without going over 32?

Tomorrow is going to be a straight up glacier. It’s kind of bad ass. 

[rjvanals]

16f w sleet in Potomac

10.5” snow/sleet total as the storm wraps up

Plow piles look like we easily had ~18” due to the density of the sleet  

[ErinInTheSky]

Ending at 6” of snow, 3.8” of sleet in Gaithersburg. Couldn’t break 10” total but what a phenomenal sleet bomb. One I will always remember. Can’t wait see what this looks like tomorrow. Curious if I’ll get a few little stray ZR drizzle or extra sleet.

[GreyHat]

Going to take time before they get I97 clean

[Ephesians2]

Precip shut off in Lynchburg, VA - snow/sleet depth measured in multiple locations is 4.3", mostly sleet. Probably got close to 2 inches of snow before the flip and 3-4" of sleet which pulverized the dry snow. Only a trace of freezing rain which is a welcome blessing. Certainly a memorable storm that will stick around for a while. 

[clskinsfan]

My daughter has light pillars down in the Strasburg area. I have never seen them before. Very rare. 

[Eskimo Joe]

 

 

[aldie 22]

I had just shy of 7" of snow when the sleet started around 8am or so. Steady moderate sleet with some snow mix all day until about 6pm. No clue on final total but I shoveled 4 times today and im beat. Let's do it again

[Ephesians2]

16 minutes ago, benjammin said:

That glacier will last a long time even without new snow.

Sent from my Pixel 10 Pro XL using Tapatalk
 

What was your total? I think that if I had been able to measure properly last night, it would have been close to 5-6 inches total, but it all just compacted into a glacier under the sleet. 

[Interstate]

Is it light snow behind this main line coming through?

[T. August]

21 minutes ago, ravensrule said:

I’m not going to lie, it’s impossible to measure but i believe I’m around 10.5”. I had 7.1” before the flip. 

Yeah I think I screwed up somewhere. I had like 6.7” of snow, and now we are at about 3.5” of sleet. But adding my hourly obs up I’m at 9.9” (including 6:30). Whatever lol.

[LordBaltimore]

10 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

My daughter has light pillars down in the Strasburg area. I have never seen them before. Very rare. 

I would give all my snow to see that as painful as that trade would be. That's a once in a lifetime kinda thing I believe. Never seen it in my life at least

[nj2va]

13 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

My daughter has light pillars down in the Strasburg area. I have never seen them before. Very rare. 

What are they caused by?  That’s super cool.

[IUsedToHateCold]

So what did we learn from this?

• NAM thermals are still king.
• GFS is a JV model that should just be tossed if it's on an island.
• Sleet isn't so bad if 4 inches of it falls. 
• Nina still screws up the northern stream
• Uccenelli knows what he's talking about 

[clskinsfan]

1 minute ago, nj2va said:

What are they caused by?  That’s super cool.

It's ice crystals in the air. Apparently it is relatively common in the arctic. Shows you what this airmass is all about. 

[nj2va]

2 minutes ago, IUsedToHateCold said:

So what did we learn from this?

• NAM thermals are still king.
• GFS is a JV model that should just be tossed if it's on an island.
• Sleet isn't so bad if 4 inches of it falls. 
• Nina still screws up the northern stream
• Uccenelli knows what he's talking about 

NAM QPF is a M’fing joke.

[winter_warlock]

 24.6 F. I'm now at  10.3 inches of snow/sleet and I actually have about .10. Ice accretion in my railing so. I now have mix of sleet and ZR  falling

[GreyHat]

32F

Winds NW 0

Pressure 29.53

Freezing rain .30 and still come down moderately. Some tree limbs have come down. I hope this stop soon

 

[jayyy]

So what did we learn from this?

• NAM thermals are still king.
• GFS is a JV model that should just be tossed if it's on an island.
• Sleet isn't so bad if 4 inches of it falls. 
• Nina still screws up the northern stream
• Uccenelli knows what he's talking about 

1) thermals sure, but absolutely whiffed on the QPF. The model is literally being retired for a reason.

2) the gfs was significantly closer in ground truth for frozen totals for most of our area, particularly the metros, despite having the thermals incorrect

3) Chicago didn’t get more snow than many of us. In fact, Baltimore saw 5x more snow/sleet as Chicago

Other than that, sure. Spot on.

[ravensrule]

5 minutes ago, IUsedToHateCold said:

So what did we learn from this?

• NAM thermals are still king.
• GFS is a JV model that should just be tossed if it's on an island.
• Sleet isn't so bad if 4 inches of it falls. 
• Nina still screws up the northern stream
• Uccenelli knows what he's talking about 

It’s very questionable about Uccenelli. Chicago got 3” and i got 10.5”. He definitely knows his stuff, but he wasn’t exactly right here. 

[IUsedToHateCold]

Oh yeah, NAM definitely whiffed the QPF. 

Maybe I don't remember correctly, but didn't GFS have a lot higher totals?

And yeah, Chicago didn't get more snow than most of us, but still actually got snow.