Feb 22nd/23rd "There's no way..." Obs Thread

[WEATHER53]

8pm update

1.5” on full shade ground and snowboard still behind 

Its a heavy rate but flake size small 

34.2F 

[nj2va]

23 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

If you’re between the red lines, you’ll probably get the norlun jacks

Wooo! I knew I loved you

[midatlanticweather]

Wow! BOOM just east of Ashburn in Loudoun County near Georgetown Loudoun Campus, and just west of Cascades down near Dulles Town Center! Wow! 

 

[EHoffman]

That's gotta be it developing through far western MoCo, eastern Loudoun, and western Fairfax

[Weather Will]

About an inch on my car as I leave Frederick and head home.  Parking lot is a little slushy.  Mulch is covered.  Generous to say an inch on the ground. Very light snow falling.  Sad because that might be it for the year. But there is always hope next year!!!!!

[MN Transplant]

8 minutes ago, mattie g said:

What’s funny is that it’s still coming down pretty good here, but it’s melting almost as fast as it’s falling because it’s 33 degrees.

Surprised you are still that warm.  I’m 31.1.  Do have to say, this is still low ratio stuff.

[bncho]

@Terpeastwhat will the ratios be in the norlun trough? plus do you think both bands will be as potent as eachother, and has your thinking changed about where the jackpot totals will be?

[Snowman.]

Incoming here 

[grhqofb5]

Coming down hard for the last 3-4 hours in Odenton MD.  Not even an inch on my back deck.  Problem is it’s just too warm, it could snow all night like this and wouldn’t make a difference. Still nice though

 

[osfan24]

Rates are just so light. Have maybe an inch in like four hours.

[Chris_B]

A bit over 1" in N. Arlington.  Good stuff coming down now.

[psuhoffman]

17 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

Before the flip to snow, I picked up 0.27” and now I have over 2”. Perhaps 5 degrees colder would have put me at 5”. But 2-3 degrees cooler? More blurry. Maybe 3-4” or something like that. 

I think that’s a good estimate. I think some misunderstand when I say it’s hurting. Like last weekend. I didn’t think I should have got some 10” storm. But I do think 30 years ago that was a 2-3” snow instead of .4 qpf of slush bombs at 34-35 degrees.  It’s hurting on the margins. And it all adds up. Not saying some 3” storm should have been 20” or anything crazy. But you add a couple other minor events. Tack on an inch here or there and some of these years aren’t as dreg. 

[BlizzardNole]

23 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

 

The thing is we can get stuck on exactly how much colder it would have been in 2000/1970/1950… yes the 2f/3f figure is an average. But it would have been colder. And any colder would have helped. I can’t say how much. Would I have got 6” instead of 5?  Or 7 or 8. I dunno.
 

But I find it weird that people are getting stuck on that specific “we can’t say exactly how much it’s hurting” argument. Yes we kinda do. On the whole DC has gone from 25” to 14” over 100 years.  Maybe we can attribute some of that to the location change so let’s say the real figure is 25 to 17. That’s still a very significant decrease!   No we can’t say each storm exactly how it would have been different but we know we’ve lost about 30% of our snowfall. Same at Baltimore. Why get stuck on “well exactly how much did it hurt”.  It hurt. It is hurting. We are snowing less because it is warmer. Some storms it impacts more than others but when we’re borderline temps seems pretty obvious to me those are the most impacted. 

We had an 8" snow in Germantown on Dec. 5, 2003 with temps right at freezing, and when I got off the MARC in DC it was all rain.  That same storm today would be rain in Germantown.

Anywho, mod snow with 2" just NE of Germantown and 32 degrees

[mattie g]

3 minutes ago, MN Transplant said:

Surprised you are still that warm.  I’m 31.1.  Do have to say, this is still low ratio stuff.

I go by the closest weather underground reporting station, which is less than a mile away and always seems pretty reliable.

We piled up early on but it’s just not accumulating much right now.

[dailylurker]

26 minutes ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

For some reason my Hulu live gives me NBC and CW from NYC / Long Island.  Since @dailylurkeris not posting videos I'm watching live coverage and remembering how that used to happen here.

I can't post videos. I can't figure out how to do it. I'll post pics

[winter_warlock]

32.3F with moderate snow now here in Sparrows point MD. Got 3/4 of an inch so far on my deck  

[Terpeast]

Western norlun band is probably a mile to the east of me. Snowing but not heavily imby

[SnowtoRain]

Wind and snow pretty impressive in Easton even not under heaviest returns, must be whiteout right now in parts of Delaware where dark greens are

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

Right on the edge of the eastern norlun and it’s snowing and sticking but nothing crazy. 

[Solution Man]

Too far west gonna get Raleigh’d here in western Prince William 

[wxmeddler]

Picture I just sent to my met forecasting students at UMD. "How to Spot a Norlun"

The analysis way:

The cheating way:

[SnowenOutThere]

8 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I think that’s a good estimate. I think some misunderstand when I say it’s hurting. Like last weekend. I didn’t think I should have got some 10” storm. But I do think 30 years ago that was a 2-3” snow instead of .4 qpf of slush bombs at 34-35 degrees.  It’s hurting on the margins. And it all adds up. Not saying some 3” storm should have been 20” or anything crazy. But you add a couple other minor events. Tack on an inch here or there and some of these years aren’t as dreg. 

I think today was a great example of the margins we lose. I'm at around 2 inches of snow and waited till 2pm for snow to start mixing into the rain. We run that back 2-3 degrees colder and I'm below freezing a whole hour or two ahead of time which is probably around an inch extra of snow. Now, to truly get this storm further we would need 5+ degrees colder to get it all snow from morning onwards.

[LP08]

2” and getting windy with power flicking on and off

[psuhoffman]

8 minutes ago, BlizzardNole said:

We had an 8" snow in Germantown on Dec. 5, 2003 with temps right at freezing, and when I got off the MARC in DC it was all rain.  That same storm today would be rain in Germantown.

Anywho, mod snow with 2" just NE of Germantown and 32 degrees

Remember that well. I was in Herndon VA. For about 8” there too 

[SnowenOutThere]

The western and intensifying band is exactly 2 miles to my west. Still getting some good blowing snow but nothing crazy like it was from the 5-7pm hours. Hoping it slowly shifts east to get me in the goods. Either way not going to worry about it and hop on into the hot tub for a bit. 

[peribonca]

Getting into a bit of the norlun in Colonial Beach. Rates picked up, rates 1-1.5/h and roads caved. I loved getting norluned!

[winter_warlock]

16 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

About an inch on my car as I leave Frederick and head home.  Parking lot is a little slushy.  Mulch is covered.  Generous to say an inch on the ground. Very light snow falling.  Sad because that might be it for the year. But there is always hope next year!!!!!

It's only February dude. Still got March to get thru 

[bncho]

It looks like the main inv trof band is the eastern one.

[bncho]

there's isolated t-snow fyi, just got a report from central maryland

[poprock49]

1 minute ago, bncho said:

It looks like the main inv trof band is the eastern one.

Dumping here with winds picking up