ORH_wxman

Did Weymouth get that much? I thought 2 feet was more like Randolph to stoughton to Walpole/Foxborough and further east was more like 16-20.

Hence why I had to dig out the term "firehose" from the arsenal. That was like a 700 mile fetch from off the Atlantic out of the east.

I couldn't believe how low so many forecasts were even away from the immediate coast. BOS itself was definitely a tougher call...but those forecasts for the 128 belt down into interior SE MA were amazingly bearish.

I would be concerned about Codfishsnowman's well-being. I actually have a small error on my map I need to correct...I didn't extend the decent snow into elevated SE MA...Walpole had over a foot but it looks like they got about 5" on my map. My Woonsocket total is wrong too...not 20"...it should be 22.5". I actually like the Natick coop....4.5" of QPF and 18." of snow, lol. That is gross.

It was a syzygy...lunar eclipse the night before on Dec 9, 1992. One of the reasons the tide was so destructive.

Yeah any buckets in that storm would have been almost useless...the coops that melted a core sample (while also remembering to measure any rain before the changeover) are the ones that got accurate QPF totals.

You'll love the Woonsocket report...7.11" of QPF and 22.5" of snow, lol.

Both coops just south of ORH in Charlton and Southbridge had between 3-4" of qpf...even Ashburnham to the north had 2.43" and they were definitely on the northern preiphery of the firehose.

The ORH total was probably compromised by the fact it got all clogged with snow...they didn't melt down qpf there like at coop stations.

Torrington had 3.34" of QPF and 20" of snow.

1.38" at BDL.

The downslope definitely had an impact because low elevations to the east of ORH hills got big snow (until you got to SE MA). So it was not purely elevation-driven R/S line. If you were on the leeward side of the hills in a valley, the extra drying and warming prevented the snowfall totals that the coastal plain of MA got.

QPF amounts were generally 2-4" but some areas in the east had over 6". There was no cap or much turning of winds or anything. This was a vertically stacked firehouse out of the ENE. The BL was at like 50 knots. Lol. The combo of the strength of the BL winds (from a perfect direction) and marginal temps produced the huge snowfall gradients.

I didn't do the ALB area...but here is my map of the December 1992 snowfall

Parts of the CT River Valley had a trace...esp up toward CEF.

I have one for SNE that I made...but it's on my home computer. I'll have to post it later when I get back. I couldn't seem to find it doing a quick search.

You sure the wind wasn't SW? I feel like Westerly could get something on a perfect setup with a WSW flow off LI sound. Their version of BUF off Lake Erie. I do recall an event I think in 1994 where parts of the south coast of MA got a few inches on OES from WSW wind.

Your car back in the day...I could definitely see you driving one of these:

Ginx drove up to Tolland in his 1975 Malibu to take pics of drifts back during that event.

Yeah agreed. HFD needs to rip out of the ENE to really downslope. The shadow is more prominent on a regular basis up in CEF/BAF region where a NE wind comes off N ORH county and Monadnocks....even a NNE wind there is kind of nasty whereas it isn't that bad at all in HFD. The orographic components in SNE as a whole are not nearly pronounced anyway as they are further north except maybe the spine of the Berkshires and Taconics. So you normally need the right conditions to really bring them out to a noticeable level in the central regions. I actually most commonly see the orographic effects in ORH county during icing events more than snow events....since icing events often have pretty low mid-level forcing components and the BL is usually out of the northeast and capped fairly low below 3,000 feet...so we see that orographic "collecting" of cold/dry air on the east side of the ORH hills. You're right about that dry ageostrophic component from the N or NNW in some of those storms that try and "compress" a bit to the southeast. The hills can sometimes be more protected from that advection.

He cleans up in the Lakes Cutters.

The effects of upslope are almost nil where he is except for a wind with a good southerly component. He's pretty much neutral on an E wind and mild downslope on a NE and NNE wind. We've shown this map before...you can see the black circle is where Tolland is and how the terrain looks to the northeast. The real upslope that occurs in the central hills is clearly in ORH county and NW RI...Union, CT does ok too...esp on an ENE wind. You can see how he needs a southerly component to the wind to really get any meaningful upslope:

Yep, his area had nothing to do with upslope (esp since he wouldn't get any with that wind direction)...any areas that received low level enhancement were east of him or northeast of him. But you can see that there is basically a hole in parts of RI where the terrain is already rising. The band and subsidence zone there was almost entirely due to some sort of mid-level process. The CT River shadow was probably more influenced by terrain than what happened further east.

It was like -4 to -6 at 900mb too...the warm forecasts were looking too much at surface outputs. Overlay a firehose on those 900mb temps and it's gonna be hard to get mostly rain or non-accumulating snow. You are hoping the rates will be pretty light in that type of forecast which is a dubious thing to pin your hopes on when we have that type of fetch in the mid-levels. It was kind of the inverse scenario of what happened to DC in that storm...they had plenty of cold aloft at 850mb, but once down to like 900-925mb, it was getting pretty warm. So they got a white rainstorm at 36F.