RU848789

no words needed...

GFS much improved!

White rain for the past 30-45 min - at least it's nice to see. Nothing will accumulate with 35F temps unless we get some heavy snow and it's light to moderate right now.

Of course they are, but the point remains that the NWS said all rain and we have 3 models saying quite a bit of snow to fall, even if it doesn't accumulate...

The NWS says the 2nd batch should be all rain near/SE of 95, as per below. Just for the record, though, the NWS would not have seen the 6Z NAM, GFS or the 8Z HRRR, which show 2-3" south of 80 and along and SE of 95 down to the coast and for NYC/LI from 4 am to 10 am) when they wrote the discussion above - could they be this wrong (the NWS or the models)? This is why forecasting is so hard, lol. Most of the rain and snow has tapered off. However, as that system over northeast Pennsylvania passes through New Jersey, precip will ramp up again later this morning over northern New Jersey and southeast Pennsylvania. For areas south and east of the I-95 corridor, temperatures should stay warm enough for precip to be all rain. For the southern Poconos and far northwest New Jersey, precip will mostly be snow, and an additional 2 to 3 inches will accumulate. Will cancel the Winter Storm Warning for Monroe county, and will carry a Winter Weather Advisory for Carbon, Monroe, and Sussex (NJ) counties through this morning. For the Lehigh Valley and portions of northern New Jersey south of I-80 and north of the I- 95 corridor, precip should be a mix of rain and snow with minimal snow accumulation. Will cancel the other Winter Weather Advisories.

Surprised nobody posted the updated snowfall maps from the NWS with the significant cutbacks, especially along/S of 78 (i.e., my house sadly). Here's what I just posted elsewhere and to my email list... Well, the NWS-Philly cut back fairly significantly on snowfall forecasts along/south of 78, even dropping the advisories for the Lehigh Valley, Hunterdon and Somerset counties, decreasing their snowfall forecasts from 2-3" to about 1" and areas south of there to <1". So, unless we see some decent changes back towards more snow for areas along/S of 78, this will now very likely be a non-event for most of CNJ. It is worth noting, however that the 6Z GFS and Euro still show 1-2" for most of CNJ, while the rest of the models show <1" or nada, so the threat isn't 100% dead for CNJ. Advisories are still up for Morris/Warren/Sussex and the Poconos for 3-5" (but really only 1-2" is forecast for southern parts of Warren/Morris; and Monroe in the Poconos has a warning for 6-8"), while the NWS-NYC retained their advisories for western Essex, Bergen, Passaic and the Hudson Valley N of the Tappan Zee for 3-5".

Surprised it's so quiet in here, especially with the Euro bomb for areas just inland of 95; here's a sense of the 0Z suite (didn't think maps were worth posting this far out as they'll change so much). The 3/11-12 event is 4.5-5 days away and, as usual, we have very little consensus, although every model is showing a much more powerful storm than on Saturday. The Euro has a huge snowstorm north of 80 (1-2 feet of snow) and a huge rainstorm SE of 95 (2-3" of rain) and a lot of snow and rain in between on Mon/Tues (with major disagreement on snowfall between 195 and 80 on SV vs. Pivotal). The GFS has 1-2" just NW of 95 (with 1/2" of rain for the rest of us), but has several inches N of 80 and a major snowstorm for much of New England, while the CMC also has 1-2" just NW of 95 (and 1"+ of rain along/SE of 95) and 3-6" N of 80, but misses most of New England, and the UK has a few inches NW of 95 (and rain along/SE of 95) on Monday, but has a significant snowstorm for most of us (and 1" or more of rain along/SE of 95) from the coastal low on Tuesday (and a major storm for most of New England). More to track.

Also, the Euro was a bomb, just not cold enough, so the major snowfalls were well NW (Poconos, Sussex, mid-Hudson Valley and N of there) with lots of rain everywhere SE of there.

That's what I do in every storm and would do if I lived near CPK - I did this even when I was working 60+ hours a week for 31 years, lol - it is a little easier being retired...

Same with Mt. Holly, as they're not impressed with either potential system... .LONG TERM /FRIDAY THROUGH MONDAY/... The axis of the mid level and surface ridges are expected to pass off the coast on Friday. We should experience another day with generally dry weather conditions and seasonable temperatures. Guidance continues to come into better agreement with forecast for the weekend. The overall pattern suggests that a mid level low will progress from around Lake Erie on Friday evening to the waters off southern New Jersey and Delaware on Saturday afternoon. Meanwhile, an initial surface low is expected to weaken in western Pennsylvania on Friday night with a secondary low developing off the Middle Atlantic Coast. The secondary low is anticipated to deepen rapidly as it moves farther out to sea on Saturday and Saturday night. The system is forecast to bring our next precipitation event from Friday night into Saturday. The pattern is expected to keep any significant cold air from building into our region. As a result, the precipitation type should be mainly rain, with the potential for a wintry mix from the Interstate 78 Corridor northward. High pressure is expected to follow for Sunday. A mid level trough is forecast to drop over the Great Lakes on Monday, with surface low pressure approaching our region from the west and southwest. We will indicate a chance of precipitation for Monday. Temperatures should remain seasonable so we will carry mainly rain and allow for a wintry mix up north.

Does anyone from any weather board or elsewhere (Twitter?) who lives in Manhattan ever just walk into the park and measure the snow. If I lived nearby, I'd do that all the time, as it's a nice walk in the snow, and I'd then actually "know" how much snow fell in CPK.

Got another 0.2" in that ~6 am band that went through here - just woke up about 30 min ago and had wiped the board earlier, so my total is now 1.8" for the event, bringing the season total up to 4.05". Someone else in Metuchen reported 2.0", so 1.8" seems about right. Looking at the radar loop, we got quite lucky in northern Middlesex, as we stayed in the heaviest bands for most of the event, while folks just 5-10 miles south to us did not. Plenty of reports of 2-3" in Somerset/Morris/Warren...

As of 4:15 am, the snow has essentially stopped and the radar looks like it's about done, so my final measurement is 1.6" of snow for the storm. It's beautiful outside right now, as it's a very pretty snow, sticking to everything, especially with light winds. Great snowball snow. My guess is with temps around 33F here and not full coverage of paved surfaces, the roads will likely be fine by 6-7 am with the snow having stopped; areas well NW that are under 32F might have more issues. Up to 3.85" on the season and wondering if Central Park will get the 0.7" they need to get to 2.9" to surpass 72-73's record of snow futility (2.8") - they should, based on radar history and reports I've seen, but they're notorious for undermeasuring snowfall.

Up to 1.3" as of 3:30 am (only about 0.2" in the last 30 min) with maybe another 15-20 min of snow ahead, although we're getting some heavier snow again now. Down to 33F.

Up to 1.1" as of 3 am, as the intensity did let up over the last 20 minutes and judging by the radar, I'd guess we have another 45 minutes of accumulating snow, so maybe we'll get 1.5", which would be a major snowstorm for this winter, lol.

Huge flakes, heavy snow (better pic below) - already have 3/4" in the last 20 minutes, although radar shows things lessening a little bit soon. 2" is now possible if the band holds together for another hour or so. It's even coming down fast enough to accumulate on the street in front of my house, so things could be a bit slick for the am commute.

Big gorgeous flakes coming down now close to heavily and accumulating easily on the sleet as expected. This is 1" per hour snowfall. 34F.

Had about 30 minutes of fairly heavy sleet, which I'm actually very happy about as it was able to accumulate a lot better than snow would have at 35-36F (down to 34-35F now), since ice pellets have a far lower surface area/volume ratio than snow does. Now we have a coating of sleet on all the colder surfaces, so when it flips to snow (shortly I think), we should be able to accumulate.

Just started having sleet and snow mix in with the rain here, as it's down to 37F.

Dropped from 45 to 39F over the past hour here in Metuchen, as the rain started finally reaching the ground in the last 30 minutes. Hoping that that heavy slug approaching from Somerset/Hunterdon and seemingly aimed at us in northern Middlesex will get here as it changes to snow - would love to get 1-2" out of this even if it's just on the colder surfaces, but at the rates advertised for a couple of hours by the mesoscale models, I think the snow will even accumulate on paved surfaces. We'll see.

This is where we need better ptype algorithms or to at least have them explained better. This is a perfect example of how TT and Pivotal account for sleet (TT counts it as 10:1 snow, while Pivotal does not appear to count it at all). Look at those two vs. CoolWx graphic for EWR, showing 3" of snow and then 0.88" LE as sleet (about 3" of sleet) and a little rain. If this is right, this would be a major winter storm, just without the pretty snow falling (sleet is just as hard to plow as snow - same mass per inch of LE - and it melts more slowly than snow due to its much lower surface area per unit volume in each particle). And even though TT is showing about 0.3-0.4" frozen LE for EWR (vs. maybe 0.1" for Pivotal), that's a helluva lot less than the 1.14" frozen LE for CoolWx - so their algorithm for determining ptype must be a bit different. It's why mixed precip events are so hard to model/forecast. I don't have a lot of experience with the CoolWx model precip type representations...

I'd say this was one of the best snowfall forecasts ever by the NWS, which is pretty easy to see from the graphic of reported snowfall vs the NWS predictions above (reproduced the regional one, below, as it includes NWS Philly and NYC forecasts). Areas along 78 generally got 2.5-3.5" with little to no rain but some sleet as predicted, areas along/N of 80 generally got 4-6" with all snow as predicted (even including the Bronx), while areas south of about Ewing to Perth Amboy generally got 1" or less, as predicted. And their prediction for my house in Metuchen was 2" and I got...wait for it...2". The only area their forecast was a bit low was some of NYC and adjacent NENJ, where there were predictions for 2-4/3-5" and most got 1-3" (at least for central/southern NYC and eastern Union/Esses and Hudson); the LI and Hudson Valley forecasts were also quite good, with ~2" on the south shore of LI up to 5" on the north shore, as predicted and 5-7" for most of the Hudson Valley as predicted. I still think the Central Park measurement of 1.8" was quite low, given nearby LGA getting 2.7" and another report in Manhattan of 3.0", as well as the likelihood of compaction reducing their measurement.

We've had a minor dendrite miracle, as it just flipped back to a snow/sleet mixture 10 minutes ago and we now have 0.3" of sleet/snow mix since the lull (luckily sleet doesn't melt or compact nearly as quickly as snow, so the 0.2" of sleet we had didn't budge over the last hour of mostly rain with some sleet), bringing our total snow/sleet accumulation to 2.0". Not sure how much longer this will last, but it was a nice surprise.

After the lull, we've had a decent rate of mostly sleet falling since about 10:45 pm, with about 0.2" sleet accumulation through 11:30 pm, bringing our total snow/sleet accumulation to 1.9". Looks like the snow might be over as it's raining south of the Driscoll Bridge just about 5 miles SE from here, although if we get more intensity, it could flip back to snow as snow is only about 5 miles N of me, lol. It's 34F.

As of 10 pm, we have 1.7" OTG, as the snow let up a fair amount since about 9:45 pm; snowing lightly now and we have what looks to be an hour or so lull coming up before the next slug could hit and then another lull before the next big batch in EPA hits, unless the radar fills in. Hoping we can still squeeze some snow out of what's to come. Still 33F.