bristolri_wx

Back to moderate to heavy snow, huge flakes...

Big wet flakes starting to mix back in with the sleet...

Mix line definitely moving southeast again on radar... still sleet here but looks like Cranston/ Warwick May be switching back over. Still holding at 32.

Looks like on radar the sleet line beginning to pivot back southeastward.

Mostly switched over to sleet now....

Heavy sleet/snow mix at the moment. 32.

32 heavy snow, only about 1.5” on the ground. Having a tough time accumulating anywhere but grass at the moment...

Probably transformers blowing. I would guess limbs hitting the lines. I received a bunch of power alarms from our Work battery backup units.

33 moderate snow. Finally starting to stick now, it’s been snowing since around 7:30.

This has been the year of sleet. Can hear the occasional mix of pingers again. About 3” outside.

Updated BOX map...

We’ll see. I don’t have elevation here so if I end up 2-4” I’ll consider myself lucky. Was thinking 3-6”/4-8” earlier but the trends have not been our friends. NAM 3k seems to have me switching over to snow in the next hour or so, let’s see how accurate it is as the HRRR doesn’t have any sleet on the map near me at all...

Sorry - not necessarily calling you out. Just going back 24 hours on why they were worried totals were going to be low like they are trending now, and we were giving him h-e double hockey sticks for going against the modeling at the time. It’s also not snowing where I am...

Sleet, 33. Aka “The bird”.

I guess Sipprell does know something about this storm...

Overall in the grand scheme of things we always complain about modeling being off. But many times the parameters used for model verification are not necessarily QPF or snowfall predictions, so a lot of these “busts” are thrown under the rug. The models are tools to be used by meteorologists to use with their own knowledge, experience, and common sense to make a forecast. It’s been essentially meso vs global for the last 48 hours and the trends have not been good at all. BOX NWS might bust a little high but if you read their AFDs for the last 36 hours they haven’t liked this storm one bit. I’m sure at the end of the day someone will look at these types of model shifts in a forecast for such a large populated area as ours within the 12-24 hr timeframe on the global models but overall the higher res guidance has been sniffing out this outcome for at least 24 hours. That being said what a long strange winter it’s been...

Very true - and you would think a hi-res model would be all over that banding...

Snowfall output still isn’t great - especially compared to the other models...

Wow, my NWS forecast is now 0... I'm thinking 3-6"/4-8" for my area in RI... thoughts?

BOX 3AM AFD: “SHORT TERM /6 PM THIS EVENING THROUGH 6 PM SATURDAY/... Fast-moving, open-wave preference with low-mid level focus primarily within an anti-cyclonic branch of a warm-moist conveyor belt beneath support aloft brought via H3 right-rear-quadrant jet streak. Thus, greater weighting towards NAM / WRF solutions, some blending with EC. Why? Feel both the present upper OH River Valley and N Gulf impulse energy are slightly faster than global guidance has initialized. Also, the NW Atlantic remains wide open. While trends have a slower N Gulf impulse intercepted by E-Rockies lee cyclogenesis in vicinity of S New England, have lower confidence of slower, storm maturation given the synoptic pattern as of late. Again, preference to faster solutions, focus within the front-end thump however some back-peeling N/W of the precip-shield brought about via the neighboring H3 RRQ jet streak and lowering H5 heights / troughing parent with additional up- stream Pacific energy out of the Great Lakes. Non-GFS, keep the storm at or outside of the 40N / 70W benchmark on Saturday. NAM / WRF / EC solution preference. A slower, inside the benchmark solution just doesn`t feel right given recent synoptics. Not favoring a deeper grasp on the N Gulf impulse, trowaling moisture back and further N that would net higher snowfall amounts as the GFS suggests. Not like the GFS solution is being ignored, just not being weighted with this forecast. It`s certainly not out of the realm of possibility. So, altogether, when taking marginal thermal fields as is exhibited by forecast model thicknesses yielding a wintry mix and/or heavier, wet snow closer to the coast, out across the Cape and Islands, with lower snow to liquid ratios as a result, have generally a 3 to 6" event over RI and Southeast MA, up into the Boston-metro, while 1 to 3" over the Cape and Islands, as well as N/W of the 3 to 6" swath, while northwest MA sees a coating up to 1". WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY posted over portions of E/SE MA where confidence is highest of 3 to 6" amounts. This region coinciding with colder air and H9-7 frontogenesis / deformation N/E of the coastal low. Other things that come to mind: Will there be accumulation issues with a heavier, wet snow? Perhaps with marginal lapse rates and 2m temperatures around freezing during the daytime? Any issues with heavy, wet snow on tree limbs especially as we approach 6-inches? Think once we gain more confidence on snowfall amounts that we can answer these questions.”

BOX map doesn’t look quite right based on guidance...?

11” total in Bristol. If the first 6” was a higher ratio rather than cement we would have been over a foot.

Because they have 5-6”, and I have 9”. Probably wasn’t in the good band this morning as long. I was already at 5-6” by 10 AM.

I’m at 9” in Bristol. Unusually, we were in a good band for a while. Picking up again too. Confident we can get close to a foot here.