RU848789

As of 9 pm, 6.5" in Metuchen, so 1.25" the last hour and it's down to 30F; snowing close to heavily but radar showed that really heavy looking band to my SE kind of fizzling to "normal" heavy snow. Just shoveled the end of the driveway, since the plows just went by and I hate letting that slushy mess freeze.

As of 8 pm, 5.25" in Metuchen and it's still 31F; snowing close to heavily but radar is showing a couple of SW to NE oriented bands moving NW towards us, which look really heavy, like maybe 2" per hour heavy.

I just noticed that the blizzard warnings from 1 pm from Mt. Holly backed off the snowfall amounts vs. their event total map. It has 13-21" for Sussex-Warren-Morris-Hunterdon-Somerset-Middlesex-Mercer, and 18-24" for Monmouth/Ocean, but the map always had much of NJ at 18-24" with parts of the coast at 24-30" Not sure how I missed that. They also have a new map up for "expected snowfall" but that is not "event snowfall" as a few inches have fallen and that map starts at 7 pm. That bugs me - they should always have an event snowfall map and if they want to add a "how much more from X time" map fine. Rant over. Back to enjoying the snow.

I just noticed that the blizzard warnings from 1 pm from Mt. Holly backed off the snowfall amounts vs. their event total map. It has 13-21" for Sussex-Warren-Morris-Hunterdon-Somerset-Middlesex-Mercer, and 18-24" for Monmouth/Ocean, but the map always had most of NJ at 18-24" with the coast at 24-30" Not sure how I missed that. They also have a new map up for "expected snowfall" but that is not "event snowfall" as a few inches have fallen and that map starts at 7 pm. That bugs me - they should always have an event snowfall map and if they want to add a "how much more from X time" map fine. Rant over. Back to enjoying the snow.

As of 7 pm, we have 4.0" of snow, so 1.5" last hour as it's been snowing close to heavily (not crazy heavy, but visibility maybe 3/8 of a mile. Temp still 31F. Just finished my first shoveling and it wasn't too bad - bottom snow layer was wet but snow falling now is somewhat drier, but still packs.

As of 6 pm, we have 2.5" of snow, so another 1" last hour it's snowing at moderate+ whatever that is. Temp still 31F. Very pretty snow coating everything including the trees since the first inch or so was pretty wet and it stuck, despite ~15 mph winds with gusts to 20-25 mph now.

As of 5 pm, we have 1.5" of new snow, so 1" the last hour and we're still at 31F. All roads now covered, as expected.

Yep, 2-parter...here's a short excerpt of my write-up on it (I have a way longer version, lol). Wow, what a freakin' snowstorm. Ended around 3 am here and our final tally was 5.5" for part 1 and 12.0" for part 2, for a grand total of 17.5" for the event. Puts it in the top 10 for the last 50 years in this area. Sounds like there was a general overall 12-20" in the Philly to NYC region, which is quite an overperformance vs. the forecast.

Folks - don't forget to go outside and enjoy this gift, as it's simply gorgeous out there now and about to go nuclear. If you need an excuse to get outside, do a measurement every hour and report back. Also, if you end up with several inches less than the NWS and others are predicting, don't whine - remember back to 3-4 days ago when we were worried about a whiff

So, as of 4 pm, we have 1/2" of new snow on the ground and the snow is just starting to accumulate on paved surfaces as temps are now down to 31F, so road conditions will start deteriorating quickly now.

Wow, this is exactly what I've been saying.

SIAP, but Tomer Burg just published his final call and he's very bullish on this storm with similar forecast amounts as the NWS as per the Twitter thread below.https://x.com/burgwx/status/2025657853998969116

NBM, which uses a combo of Kuchera and the Cobb method has overall ratios of 12-13 for the NJ coast and 15-17 NW of 95, which is part of the reason why the NBM is showing more snow per QPF than the 10:1 snowfall maps. I can definitely see this, since once we overcome the early melting, the snow crystal growth dynamics in the DGZ should be great for low density/high ratio dendrites, especially after about 7 pm with temps below 32F in the whole column. Only question then becomes how much crystal breakage do we see upon descent through a very windy column. Will be interesting to see. Also, measuring the snow accurately will be tough once we get past 9-10 pm and winds really pick up. Might have to use my technique of going to a huge field near me, which limits the "edge effects" one gets in most house properties with fences, trees, roads, etc. This was the only way I could get decent measurements for big storms with high winds like Jan-96, BDB and Jan-2016.

After a few hours of light rain/snow/mix with temps in the 35-36F range, the temp has dropped to 33F over the last hour or so and the snow intensity picked up then and accumulation just started on grass/cars/colder surfaces; paved surfaces might take another hour or so. If you're thinking of heading out now, you might want to reconsider - even if salted roads are ok for a few more hours, visibility is becoming an issue now. Also, here's our starting point for snowfall, as we still have 1-2" of snow/sleet on our property, which admittedly is on the shady side, but damn, that's about 35 days straight with <1" on the ground and that's going to go for at least another 7 days now. Sweet!

Just changed to light snow here as we dropped from 37F to 35F over the past hour.