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October 29/30 Snowstorm OBS thread


ChrisM

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Yeah, totally.

Friday morning I had 6-12 for HFD and NW areas... 3-6" around HVN and less in SE CT.

Just needed a 12-20 band :)

In retrospect though I'm happy with that forecast especially because I really focused on the huge impact even6-12 would have with leaves!!

Yeah, in the end as long as you hit the "impact" part of this it doesn't really matter how the forecast snow accums turned out.

I still think if that say solution were to happen again you still wouldn't see any public or govt forecaster showing widespread 12-24" in the interior in October (even though we know it can happen now). I just don't think you can really fault anyone on the NWS or Media broadcast if they were low on the impacts and snowfall of this event. It was just that anomalous that only us weenies on the forum can play the "I told you we'd get slammed" card, lol.

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Yeah, in the end as long as you hit the "impact" part of this it doesn't really matter how the forecast snow accums turned out.

I still think if that say solution were to happen again you still wouldn't see any public or govt forecaster showing widespread 12-24" in the interior in October (even though we know it can happen now). I just don't think you can really fault anyone on the NWS or Media broadcast if they were low on the impacts and snowfall of this event. It was just that anomalous that only us weenies on the forum can play the "I told you we'd get slammed" card, lol.

It was fun rubbing it in the faces of some of my friends and co-workers... lol

I told them some smart folks I know were saying be prepared for in excess of 12", maybe 16". I obviously can't make a forecast, I was just parroting model interpretations of various knowledgeable mets/posters.

They all laughed. I told them it was not exactly the most likely outcome, but that it could happen. Even my wife was doubtful.

20 inches later...

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It was fun rubbing it in the faces of some of my friends and co-workers... lol

I told them some smart folks I know were saying be prepared for in excess of 12", maybe 16". I obviously can't make a forecast, I was just parroting model interpretations of various knowledgeable mets/posters.

They all laughed. I told them it was not exactly the most likely outcome, but that it could happen. Even my wife was doubtful.

20 inches later...

Thanks to this forum I was not only able to warn friends and neighbors but also a Greenfield PD Sargent who told me he actually took me seriously and warned the force and DPW to be ready for more than the local mets were calling for.

:thumbsup:

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Drove over to my parents house in Foxboro from work in Wrentham. Wow, what a **** storm of trees all over the place. Worse than Irene, no doubt, for that area. Local utilities are saying general Nov 3rd for those without electricity.

Yeah... my brother, was without power for 5 days from I rene, is w/o it again.

He has a major coffee addiction so this is bad... real bad

But some folks think the Town Manager is clueless (see OT thread)

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I drove up to the top of Blue Hill and down Rt 109 through Medfield and back. Blue Hill still snowcapped with a few inches on top. Pretty cool to see from the highway. Once I got past I-95 in Dedham, the snow picked up in earnest. Westwood still id pretty much all snowcovered. Shady areas still have maybe 3-4" or so. Pretty impressive. Walpole up above 200' had the most snow it seemed with a good amount of tree damage. It's weird to drive around with snow OTG and leaves on the trees..lol.

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Eh, it's more a deep micro-physics research effort to know for sure - everything "sounds" plausible.

I remember parachutes in Ayer at 35F, with thicknesses of 552dm on October 17, 2009. Wasn't really a particularly impressive dynamical system, but a cool pool aloft nonetheless and some week DPVA to go along with engineered a low SE... The big key was timing in that event - there was an unusually cold slab of air in the 850 critical thickness level. The thing is, once you get to the 700mb level precipitating columns will have frozen content anyway, even in the summer (save perhaps in a hurricane's UVM core). That event was less certain looking than this one.

Scott makes a good point about the solar insolation. Yes I agree that the soil temperature is overrated, particularly at this time of year when seasonal obliqueness makes the surface prone to cooling. The preceding light snow event, and/or general 38F rains that encompassed most of the region just 2 days before the Saturday event (with an intervening night in the upper 20s to lower 30s at that) that was "priming the wick" so to speak. The area became a string just waiting to accumulate wax. In other words, even if there is validity to the soil temperature causality, it was probably irrelevant by the time Saturday arrived.

Hind sight is 20/20, sure - but I keep hearkening back to a few of those Euro modeling images (and NAM in late innings) and seeing a heavily backed wind in a -3SD thickness anomaly for late October; I was fairly certain there would be a high impact serious situation without really even talking exact accumulation numbers. I told Harvey Leonard I thought 10-12" would be good from ORH to Ayer, more west, less east. ... more or less that was a good call, but more importantly, there was really only the 3 synoptic factors contributing to that decision - I figure most other details get muted out by the giantness of those variables.

yeah - think that's why i said "posssible"

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I drove up to the top of Blue Hill and down Rt 109 through Medfield and back. Blue Hill still snowcapped with a few inches on top. Pretty cool to see from the highway. Once I got past I-95 in Dedham, the snow picked up in earnest. Westwood still id pretty much all snowcovered. Shady areas still have maybe 3-4" or so. Pretty impressive. Walpole up above 200' had the most snow it seemed with a good amount of tree damage. It's weird to drive around with snow OTG and leaves on the trees..lol.

:weenie: drive

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Well worth it.

can't believe MRG has almost matched BOS seasonal snow climo already...and has basically matched mine. LOL.

what's funny is, had that event been during mid-winter...it would have crushed everyone right to the coastline. but i guess the low level forcing probably wouldn't have been so intense...so DS would have been a bigger problem over eastern areas i think. it stayed basically mod/hvy rain out here then entire time despite the 7h features being the way they were.

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No power at the house but the office in Spfld. is OK. transformer on the pole outside exploded and looking at tomorrow or Wed. for it to be restored. Limbs down all over the place. KCEF had 15" ,14 in the City of Spfld. The morrning rag had 21" listed for Shelburne and 30" for Plainfield.

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can't believe MRG has almost matched BOS seasonal snow climo already...and has basically matched mine. LOL.

what's funny is, had that event been during mid-winter...it would have crushed everyone right to the coastline. but i guess the low level forcing probably wouldn't have been so intense...so DS would have been a bigger problem over eastern areas i think. it stayed basically mod/hvy rain out here then entire time despite the 7h features being the way they were.

I think I could have cashed in with the low level stuff if it were winter, or at least benefited from it. It looked like Ray would have been fooked..lol. It reminded me of Boxing Day in a way.

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One my co-workers (lives in NJ) parents live in Windsor Locks. I had asked where they were staying and if they had a generator. Here's the response from her I just got: I'm sure there are a gaillion similar ones.

"Nope, and they are still in their house – for now. They were supposed to head here today but the Merritt is closed and gas can’t be found. They made it past Hartford and had to turn around for fear of running out of gas."

Meanwhile, just got back from a lunchtime walk. Snow dropping off the trees, ftl.

43.8/27

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No power at the house but the office in Spfld. is OK. transformer on the pole outside exploded and looking at tomorrow or Wed. for it to be restored. Limbs down all over the place. KCEF had 15" ,14 in the City of Spfld. The morrning rag had 21" listed for Shelburne and 30" for Plainfield.

The 21" was me. Actually, I had reported 21.9, but that was a 10:45 measurement. We still accumulated a few hours after that, so I anticipate the total was over 24". But no measurement so it will always be an asterisk in my mind.

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Heard a pretty amazing account from a classmate of mine who was out in Chesterfield with friends and family. She had basically no clue that the storm was coming and was in complete awe of the storm. Luckily they were high enough up that they didn't lose power, probably much like MRG - the leaf drop and prior year storm damage helped limit tree damage. They had a good truck and drove around helping to pick up many many stranded passengers whose cars got stuck and also to pick up neighbors who had lost power. She said the ended up having a pretty full house because pretty much all the nearby valley areas had massive tree damage and power outages.

On the bus ride back she said it was bacially town after town with no power lights and complete desolation and tree destruction, kinda like armageddon. Once the posters who are in the extended power outages come back hopefully some can post their accounts of the storm.

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Have power back here, but many will be without it most of the week. There's so many things to look at with this storm its hard where to start. I'll probably do some sort of post mortem on the forecast around here. One of the more amazing aspects was that even areas not in the heart of the banding around here still picked up over a foot. In October, that is ridiculous....well even inside of banding to get over a foot is ridiculous, but the fact we are even discussing 17" snow totals in the same phrase as "I missed the heart of the banding" is mind boggling.

The thermal profiles just above the surface resembled a mid-winter storm in many ways.

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Darn

No work again Tuesday

Maybe I will hike Wachusett

no, we didn't get burried, only got 4" in Billerica.....but a damaging 4". 80% of the town has lost power and I don't see it getting restored for a while. Could be over a week. Trees down everywhere, lines snapped all over. Was funny on Sun morning trying to get a coffee, all the Dunks had lines out the door, easily 1hr lines. 10min drive to Woburn and no lines. LOL

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Have power back here, but many will be without it most of the week. There's so many things to look at with this storm its hard where to start. I'll probably do some sort of post mortem on the forecast around here. One of the more amazing aspects was that even areas not in the heart of the banding around here still picked up over a foot. In October, that is ridiculous....well even inside of banding to get over a foot is ridiculous, but the fact we are even discussing 17" snow totals in the same phrase as "I missed the heart of the banding" is mind boggling.

The thermal profiles just above the surface resembled a mid-winter storm in many ways.

I saved some good model images if you do write one up. Hard to comprehend what just happened.

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no, we didn't get burried, only got 4" in Billerica.....but a damaging 4". 80% of the town has lost power and I don't see it getting restored for a while. Could be over a week. Trees down everywhere, lines snapped all over. Was funny on Sun morning trying to get a coffee, all the Dunks had lines out the door, easily 1hr lines. 10min drive to Woburn and no lines. LOL

C'mon out here. Plenty of snow and coffee everywhere.

I had to listen to my brother in Foxboro about coffee... again (he got nailed in Irene, too)

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Have power back here, but many will be without it most of the week. There's so many things to look at with this storm its hard where to start. I'll probably do some sort of post mortem on the forecast around here. One of the more amazing aspects was that even areas not in the heart of the banding around here still picked up over a foot. In October, that is ridiculous....well even inside of banding to get over a foot is ridiculous, but the fact we are even discussing 17" snow totals in the same phrase as "I missed the heart of the banding" is mind boggling.

The thermal profiles just above the surface resembled a mid-winter storm in many ways.

Glad you are well.

Looking forward to your detailed analysis.

Kook apology?

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Have power back here, but many will be without it most of the week. There's so many things to look at with this storm its hard where to start. I'll probably do some sort of post mortem on the forecast around here. One of the more amazing aspects was that even areas not in the heart of the banding around here still picked up over a foot. In October, that is ridiculous....well even inside of banding to get over a foot is ridiculous, but the fact we are even discussing 17" snow totals in the same phrase as "I missed the heart of the banding" is mind boggling.

The thermal profiles just above the surface resembled a mid-winter storm in many ways.

drove to Worcester today to go sledding at Green Hill Park...awesome hill...but we exploded the tube on the 3rd run and had only a little plastic saucer left to use...which i did but my sledding buddy wouldn't use..i think he is sled/speed snob ;)

anyway, drove along rt 20 past Ski Ward...the trees and limbs down were amazing! it was as if 1 in 4 tress were damaged!

was chatting with a woman who lives at the top of Green Hill Park...she said they house a fleet of DPW trucks up at the top...and as they were bringing out the heavy trucks...one went into a slide down the hill, the truck turned perpendicular to the hill and acted like a bulldozer and went right into a neighbors rock wall and took out some povs along with it...she said the license plate of the DPW truck is still imbedded in the rock wall....

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