"Don’t do it" 2026 Blizzard obs, updates and pictures.

[HoarfrostHubb]

37 minutes ago, Cold Miser said:

Who was it that drove around the cape a bunch of years ago to "debunk" the high totals?  I think they were totals from Phil, and maybe it was Messenger(RIP) who took the ride.  He pretty much just drove along route 6 and got out of the car every few miles and took a spot measure off the shoulder.

Yep.  That was Clinch Leatherwood, aka Messenger and some other names doing checks of Phil’s reports.    Pretty assholeish, god rest his soul. 

[Baroclinic Zone]

9 minutes ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

Yep.  That was Clinch Leatherwood, aka Messenger and some other names doing checks of Phil’s reports.    Pretty assholeish, god rest his soul. 

I remember that! 

[ChangeofSeasonsWX]

I know that there are obviously exceptions like 2005 on Cape Cod and the PYM area, and 1978 in far N Rhode Island, but overall, is it safe to say that this was the biggest snowstorm on record for the RI/SEMA area? Pretty widespread totals over 30 inches and a few close to 40. I'm just outside of Providence and I can tell you that we definitely got more than we did in 1996 and 2005, and I'm assuming 1978 also.

[Baroclinic Zone]

9 minutes ago, ChangeofSeasonsWX said:

I know that there are obviously exceptions like 2005 on Cape Cod and the PYM area, and 1978 in far N Rhode Island, but overall, is it safe to say that this was the biggest snowstorm on record for the RI/SEMA area? Pretty widespread totals over 30 inches and a few close to 40. I'm just outside of Providence and I can tell you that we definitely got more than we did in 1996 and 2005, and I'm assuming 1978 also.

Without question.

[Midlo Snow Maker]

1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

A few pics. I’m posting the pic I took Sunday morning too. The “before” pic for comparison.  
 

 

 

Awesome stuff will, and congrats to all! 

[Baroclinic Zone]

2 minutes ago, Midlo Snow Maker said:

Awesome stuff will, and congrats to all! 

What’s up Jamie?

[wxeyeNH]

I'm happy with my 1/4" of snow and more happy for the people who got 35 to 40".   I see lots of pictures of people posting snowbanks and drifts.  I'm looking for a video clip of someone who is able to drive and just video a neighborhood that got that much.  Cars and areas not plowed should be pretty much buried.  It is a good way to really judge.  Most social media posts want to show the highest snowbank or drifted area.  I just one to see a longer, honest video in the ground zero area.  If anyone has a link I would love to see it!

[SeanInWayland]

9 hours ago, Roger Smith said:

In the NYC forum, SACRUS has a daily post of historical weather events for each day.

Today there is an entry ...

1802 - A great snowstorm raged along the New England coast producing 48 inches of snow north of Boston. Three large ships from Salem were wrecked along Cape Cod. (David Ludlum)

Very likely he's drawing these from the list by dates of notable events in Ludlum's American Weather Book. It really should be more properly titled New England Weather Book, as most of the discussion, anecdotes, and history is centered on Northeast US weather.

It's a great read, and especially so for any budding weather enthusiast you might know.

[OceanStWx]

9 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

This, combined with the 50-75 shift south, is what killed me. This is a lesson that I'll take from this.....that band set up over ORH CO into S NH just like I thought it would, but it just wasn't very impressive. I think jan 2022 was like that , too. Could you provide a graphic to illustrate this?

Thanks in advance. I need to get better at band/fronto diagnostics. I am too weak with that.

In a typical developing (i.e. not peak intensity) storm your frontogenesis is going to be sloped towards the cold air. 850 is farther southeast than 700 mb, and so on. Lift tends to be maximized around 700 mb, hence congrats Dendrite.

This storm bombed out a little farther south, so one of the first things I noticed was the position of the forecast 700 and 850 mb frontogenesis.

While still sloped a bit, it's far more collocated/vertically stacked. That signaled to me that one major band would develop. And that look at 700 mb with a secondary band farther north suggested to me that it wasn't going to be a uniform precip shield. That a subsidence zone was possible between the two. I may have sent a text about toaster baths in the LWM area to @CoastalWx and @CT Rain Sunday.

I made a little gif too, so you can see how the forcing is overlaid.

I do think part of the problem with the secondary band was that it was advecting so much dry air into the storm. @dendrite posted somewhere along the line the map of RH, and 50% across central NH just wasn't going to get it done for that northern extent. It was like a dry wedge in the usually CAD spots. 

[ORH_wxman]

1 hour ago, Midlo Snow Maker said:

Awesome stuff will, and congrats to all! 

Yo, Midlo in the house....thanks man. 

 

My front yard looks like yours usually does now. 

[tavwtby]

13 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

In a typical developing (i.e. not peak intensity) storm your frontogenesis is going to be sloped towards the cold air. 850 is farther southeast than 700 mb, and so on. Lift tends to be maximized around 700 mb, hence congrats Dendrite.

This storm bombed out a little farther south, so one of the first things I noticed was the position of the forecast 700 and 850 mb frontogenesis.

While still sloped a bit, it's far more collocated/vertically stacked. That signaled to me that one major band would develop. And that look at 700 mb with a secondary band farther north suggested to me that it wasn't going to be a uniform precip shield. That a subsidence zone was possible between the two. I may have sent a text about toaster baths in the LWM area to @CoastalWx and @CT Rain Sunday.

I made a little gif too, so you can see how the forcing is overlaid.

I do think part of the problem with the secondary band was that it was advecting so much dry air into the storm. @dendrite posted somewhere along the line the map of RH, and 50% across central NH just wasn't going to get it done for that northern extent. It was like a dry wedge in the usually CAD spots. 

nice analysis, would explain why my area down to about DXR was seeing on and off SN+ while 15-20mi east of me was light snow, it really ripped here for a good part of yesterday morning, then would wave on and off as the dry air was trying to push east as it moved... but that band down there was relentless with the rates good Lord!

[Layman]

My unofficial stake showed a total increase of 3” from start to finish. Seems pretty disingenuous though as it plowed more like 6-8”. The drifting, existing snow and density made it feel like a decent amount. 

[codfishsnowman]

13 hours ago, Damage In Tolland said:

41” Fall River. Pics look legit 

https://x.com/snewengweather/status/2026098368804487556?s=46&t=dhcbvkjmRcyBVQtDxJ3lRg

That looks very legit to me. I think anything from 35 to 45 is acceptable there down through southern and central RI. That looks like a bit more than some of those Cape pictures from 2005 in areas where 30-38 inches fell.

[codfishsnowman]

I did watch Corys video a few times and there's no doubt his area got boned for whatever reason. He had to be in a narrow subby zone between the Goliath Central and southern RI band and the one just to his NE. That is just horrible luck. I totally believe it and kinda feel bad for him but that said his area should be well cleaned up and he should go out and look to see in different directions how long it takes to run into massive amounts. An inch or so of snow in nine hours is horrible in his area but sub zones can do that. If he had say peak depths of new snow in the teens then it tappered off for the next 8-9 hours hen that wind is going to do some serious compaction. I would buy him getting 14-18 inches allowing for settling and compaction etc.

[OceanStWx]

2 hours ago, dendrite said:

Yup…wind failed at TAN. Interesting. Still they had a stretch with frequent gusts over 40 before it crapped out. 1045-1252z…lame. I’d count it.

I wouldn't be surprised if post analysis counts it for Storm Data anyway. Some of it is a bit subjective, but if DAW, PSM, and PWM all hit blizzard up here how could I say coastal York wasn't also a blizzard.

[Warwick WX]

1 hour ago, ChangeofSeasonsWX said:

I know that there are obviously exceptions like 2005 on Cape Cod and the PYM area, and 1978 in far N Rhode Island, but overall, is it safe to say that this was the biggest snowstorm on record for the RI/SEMA area? Pretty widespread totals over 30 inches and a few close to 40. I'm just outside of Providence and I can tell you that we definitely got more than we did in 1996 and 2005, and I'm assuming 1978 also.

Yes I wasn't around for '78 but in talking with some work colleagues of a certain age this morning the big difference was the crushing up north of Providence to Worcester back then, with Woonsocket around the jackpot zone. The impacts were also exacerbated by the surprise arrival, so it took over a week to clean up due to all the abandoned cars amongst other infrastructure difficulties. For sure this takes the cake as far as SE MA is concerned which had 16-20 inches in '78 based on the old accumulation maps I found.  The firehose in '78 settled from the north shore through the western Boston suburbs through extreme northern RI over to around Putnam CT.  This time it was about the same shape but starting from the south shore instead.

[weatherwiz]

46 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

In a typical developing (i.e. not peak intensity) storm your frontogenesis is going to be sloped towards the cold air. 850 is farther southeast than 700 mb, and so on. Lift tends to be maximized around 700 mb, hence congrats Dendrite.

This storm bombed out a little farther south, so one of the first things I noticed was the position of the forecast 700 and 850 mb frontogenesis.

While still sloped a bit, it's far more collocated/vertically stacked. That signaled to me that one major band would develop. And that look at 700 mb with a secondary band farther north suggested to me that it wasn't going to be a uniform precip shield. That a subsidence zone was possible between the two. I may have sent a text about toaster baths in the LWM area to @CoastalWx and @CT Rain Sunday.

I made a little gif too, so you can see how the forcing is overlaid.

I do think part of the problem with the secondary band was that it was advecting so much dry air into the storm. @dendrite posted somewhere along the line the map of RH, and 50% across central NH just wasn't going to get it done for that northern extent. It was like a dry wedge in the usually CAD spots. 

Very annoyed with myself because that was a glaring signal on all guidance...extremely glaring signal but for some reason I didn't want to buy it and buy into exactly how bad the potential for subsidence would be in the valley. The signals were all right there, laid out right there and just totally overlooked. 

Great stuff on the differences in alignment regarding 850mb fronto and 700mb fronto and what happens when the two become stacked. Moving forward I am going to give stronger attention to this. Anytime there are situations where models are big with the 700mb fronto, I've disregarded what's happening at 850 in terms of fronto. I wonder if this stuff would be covered in my course this week focusing on isentropic analysis. 

The other challenging part when dealing with the potential for subsidence zone(s) is how to portray that on a snowfall forecast map without making the map look stupid (Speaking for myself here). I guess maybe one way to do this is don't go crazy with the ranges and then add some text or an outline indicating where max totals may be. It's much easier to highlight max zone versus min zone I think anyways

[NoCORH4L]

17 minutes ago, codfishsnowman said:

I did watch Corys video a few times and there's no doubt his area got boned for whatever reason. He had to be in a narrow subby zone between the Goliath Central and southern RI band and the one just to his NE. That is just horrible luck. I totally believe it and kinda feel bad for him but that said his area should be well cleaned up and he should go out and look to see in different directions how long it takes to run into massive amounts. An inch or so of snow in nine hours is horrible in his area but sub zones can do that. If he had say peak depths of new snow in the teens then it tappered off for the next 8-9 hours hen that wind is going to do some serious compaction. I would buy him getting 14-18 inches allowing for settling and compaction etc.

This is why although noreaster's are fun, it's often feast or famine and many are left disappointed.  MegaSWFEs like we had in JAN are our best events because it was snow all the way to Canada, with nice consistent accumulations. They also seem to stack dendrites better over a huge area, and often are longer duration.

[OceanStWx]

7 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

Very annoyed with myself because that was a glaring signal on all guidance...extremely glaring signal but for some reason I didn't want to buy it and buy into exactly how bad the potential for subsidence would be in the valley. The signals were all right there, laid out right there and just totally overlooked. 

Great stuff on the differences in alignment regarding 850mb fronto and 700mb fronto and what happens when the two become stacked. Moving forward I am going to give stronger attention to this. Anytime there are situations where models are big with the 700mb fronto, I've disregarded what's happening at 850 in terms of fronto. I wonder if this stuff would be covered in my course this week focusing on isentropic analysis. 

The other challenging part when dealing with the potential for subsidence zone(s) is how to portray that on a snowfall forecast map without making the map look stupid (Speaking for myself here). I guess maybe one way to do this is don't go crazy with the ranges and then add some text or an outline indicating where max totals may be. It's much easier to highlight max zone versus min zone I think anyways

Part of me kind of misses the days of broad ranges with highlighted zones for "locally higher amounts"

The problem these days is that you can try and forecast the band from PVD-GHG on this run. But then the next run it's ORH-BOS, so you increase the snow there. But you don't want to drop it from PVD-GHG just in case that was actually right. So the snow amounts are forever only going up until it's too late to recover from the messenger shuffle.

[bristolri_wx]

4 hours ago, NeonPeon said:

My best guess was 28 or so at the end, Newport ap says 32 but that's Middletown basically, and also tends high.

It's the all time storm for me living here, 14 years. It's storms like this that make me love the winter here. The floor is low, as we've seen in the last years, but the ceiling is high, and dramatic. 

What did you see around Bristol for downed trees?

In my tour around town yesterday I didn't see much wind damage. Downed branches, not downed trees. The trees weren't plastered as much as in 2013, and my power never went out. I also found the wind here impressive but not crazy in the context of Newport. They were also very straight line. 

 

Haven’t left my street yet. No downed trees in my immediate neighborhood.

[weatherwiz]

2 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Part of me kind of misses the days of broad ranges with highlighted zones for "locally higher amounts"

The problem these days is that you can try and forecast the band from PVD-GHG on this run. But then the next run it's ORH-BOS, so you increase the snow there. But you don't want to drop it from PVD-GHG just in case that was actually right. So the snow amounts are forever only going up until it's too late to recover from the messenger shuffle.

The broad brush ranges certainly makes things much easier lol. 

But I can understand why there has been more of a movement to include more ranges and place greater emphasis on max/min zones. If you're in say an emergency planning vertical or DOT, landscaping, etc. the broad brush ranges often don't serve a great value (this is where the private sector come in because you can pay for greater local detail). 

Anyways very impressive to see that the short-term guidance and mesos absolutely nailed how this would evolve...literally to a T, especially with the evolution of the two bands and what would happen in between and even more impressive, the timing this would begin. 

These large events (or really any event) so there is much focus and so much sweat on analyzing QPF and QPF trends, snow maps and snow map trends and comparing from one model to another and one run to another run...that's a pretty terrible way to assess storm trends and evolution, IMO. In fact, on one of my lecture slides the professor even has stated in bold...these products do not explain why trends in storm track or precipitation intensity are there. 

This shall be another fun case study storm

[acoolerclimate]

2 hours ago, ChangeofSeasonsWX said:

I know that there are obviously exceptions like 2005 on Cape Cod and the PYM area, and 1978 in far N Rhode Island, but overall, is it safe to say that this was the biggest snowstorm on record for the RI/SEMA area? Pretty widespread totals over 30 inches and a few close to 40. I'm just outside of Providence and I can tell you that we definitely got more than we did in 1996 and 2005, and I'm assuming 1978 also.

I feel left out. I'm on the southwest end of North Providence, and I measured 24 inches. I'm only 8 miles north of the airport as the crow flies, and only 3.5 miles west of downtown Providence. How did I get so much less? I had to wait until noon for my first measurement, so it probably compacted a bit. And it's funny. The last 2 inches I had on a cleared spot, did not actually increase the total depth of the whole amount. So I'm really guessing I had somewhere between 22 and 28 depending. But still, why so much less? 

[ORH_wxman]

2 minutes ago, acoolerclimate said:

I feel left out. I'm on the southwest end of North Providence, and I measured 24 inches. I'm only 8 miles north of the airport as the crow flies, and only 3.5 miles west of downtown Providence. How did I get so much less? I had to wait until noon for my first measurement, so it probably compacted a bit. And it's funny. The last 2 inches I had on a cleared spot, did not actually increase the total depth of the whole amount. So I'm really guessing I had somewhere between 22 and 28 depending. But still, why so much less? 

Northwest Providence was prob just outside the meat of that band. Difference between getting 1-2" per hour for many hours in a row verses like 3-4" per hour. That can quickly add up to a 10-15" difference. 

[ChangeofSeasonsWX]

8 minutes ago, acoolerclimate said:

I feel left out. I'm on the southwest end of North Providence, and I measured 24 inches. I'm only 8 miles north of the airport as the crow flies, and only 3.5 miles west of downtown Providence. How did I get so much less? I had to wait until noon for my first measurement, so it probably compacted a bit. And it's funny. The last 2 inches I had on a cleared spot, did not actually increase the total depth of the whole amount. So I'm really guessing I had somewhere between 22 and 28 depending. But still, why so much less? 

Yeah it most likely compacted a bit like you said. Also, I got 31 inches here in North Seekonk, but still not as much as TF Green or areas like Fall River which supposedly got 40. I think that the absolute jackpot zones were just south of us, from like TF Green eastward to Fall River and maybe northeast to Taunton. Your 22 to 28 inches is still within the expected range though, especially the 28 inches. Drifting, compaction, and being on the north edge of that band of crazy rates were all factors I bet.

[andyhb]

Did PVD not get additional snow after their 37.9" measurement? There were a couple of bands that pivoted through there that probably should've got them above 38" officially.

Central Park is obviously worse, they got 0.15" of liquid after their 19.7" observation at 1 PM. That is straight up shortchanging.

[acoolerclimate]

9 minutes ago, andyhb said:

Did PVD not get additional snow after their 37.9" measurement? There were a couple of bands that pivoted through there that probably should've got them above 38" officially.

Central Park is obviously worse, they got 0.15" of liquid after their 19.7" observation at 1 PM. That is straight up shortchanging.

I heard they are saying that the temp's were marginal so none of the snow that fell after 1pm accumulated at all. 

[acoolerclimate]

16 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Northwest Providence was prob just outside the meat of that band. Difference between getting 1-2" per hour for many hours in a row verses like 3-4" per hour. That can quickly add up to a 10-15" difference. 

Thanks. It seemed so odd to me. I'm dying to drive to downtown Providence to take photos, but I have to work and I can't get out of my driveway yet. I'd also love to go to Newport to take pics before warming starts, but that won't happen. 

[acoolerclimate]

19 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Northwest Providence was prob just outside the meat of that band. Difference between getting 1-2" per hour for many hours in a row verses like 3-4" per hour. That can quickly add up to a 10-15" difference. 

I heard you might have snowfall data for Providence from Feb of 1996 to Jan of 2021? It bothers me to my core that the LCD's stopped including snow measurements during this time. (Although not all months).