October 29/30 Snowstorm OBS thread

[nutmegfriar]

getting pissed solves nothing, if anybody read the warnings or paid attention they would have been prepared. I know many people that did not take me serious before Irene did this time. I think it's time for the state to have its own FM radio station to transmit info. I know that was our best way to hear what was going on. Adams station did a great job, all I hear from the Hartford stations is Ladyy Gagme.

A good meat suit might just come in handy.

[OHweather]

From an outsider’s perspective, this subforum has been an interesting read the past several days from the model runs leading up to the snowstorm, to the storm itself, and to the aftermath you folks are dealing with now and will be dealing with for some time. I do hope folks without power get power back as soon as possible, although that will be a while in the hardest hit areas.

Anyways, I hope this proves to be a learning experience for people from the general public to emergency managers, forecasters and power companies. Not just in New England but in other regions of the country where similar disasters may happen in the future.

First off, the storm was forecasted fairly well IMHO given the time of year and the return period of perhaps decades or more for a snowstorm this severe, in this region of the country, given the time of year. Although amounts forecasted ended up being too low until it was apparent this was going to be a beast that produced widespread amounts of up to a foot and a half with localized amounts of well north of two feet, a winter storm watch was issued easily more than 24 hours before snow started accumulating in the region—when it became undeniable that what historically has essentially never happened before in this region was going to happen, and about 36 hours before significant damage began occurring in the interior regions Saturday evening. It was apparent by Friday evening, perhaps the last time the average citizen watched the news before the event occurred that a major snowstorm would occur, and a watch was out Friday morning before people headed to work.

Given this, the public had well over a day to fill the car with gas, stock up on none-perishables and prepare for an extended time without power. The winter storm watch issued early Friday by BOX noted that the main impact with this storm would be heavy, wet snow bringing down trees/power lines, and I believe surrounding offices had similar wording. People should not be “surprised” that power is out; they should not say they were unprepared. It is not like the forecast was calling for rain showers until it started snowing. The only possible quibble people may have is that a storm of this nature appeared somewhat possible for most of last week, and that perhaps if warning was given earlier power companies could have had resources from out of the area lined up to come in immediately after the event, similar to Irene.

I sincerely hope that power companies in the region (I see CL&P has taken the brunt of the criticism here) evaluate what can reasonably be done to insure that the next time a major wet snow/ice storm or major wind storm occurs that week+ long outages are minimized. I also hope that power companies outside of the region see that events that can damage a large portion of their infrastructure are just as possible there as well and make similar evaluations/changes as needed.

Either way, “pissed off” members of the public need to realize that this event was unavoidable—significant tree damage was going to occur, and even if trees were better controlled (IE, trimming trees hanging right over wires) that widespread outages were going to occur. These said people should also realize that they need to be ready for a disaster of this type, especially since New England is vulnerable occasionally to hurricanes, ice storms, severe wx, and other events that can do a lot of damage. 24-36 hours should be enough time to do some last minute prep-work when it is known extended power outages are likely, if families have a plan, or a general idea, on when to do in these situations, and I hope this event increases awareness on how to prepare for future disasters.

Thanks for all the informative postings throughout the event, and good luck with the recovery!

[Typhoon Tip]

I'll tell you right now...if I saw that in front of me...I'd get out of my car and knock the guy out. You see the same sh*t in the burbs outside of the city. People are flying around in their Rovers and Escalades and nobody gives a crap about anyone else. Of course this isn't the rule of thumb, but in areas that have more of a "hurry up" lifestyle..you see it more often than not. It's the one thing that I don't like about people sometimes. Many of us our more concerned with ourselves, rather than people as a whole.

It's why some of those disaster movies that have become popular as of late depicting that sh*tty attitude and demeanor by people oblivious to the idea that the world is coming to an end, are so easy to believe. We gets small watered downed tastes of it here and there in real life, where we witness shameful, ...embarrassing entitled attitudes by people unclear on the concept.

I have this fantasy where I have the power to snap my fingers and upon doing so, said perpetrator of me'ism gets molecularly transported to the top of the Great Wall of China, with a note in hand explain why their douche bag existence is what it is - let them spend the next year of their life figuring out how to get themselves and their SUV extricated from the wall and back to the United States. Maybe, just maybe it will sink in.

I was in a Dunkin Doughnuts on Sunday during the aftermath ....line, 500 people deep. I saw a couple of examples of that crap. Reminded me of the Far Side cartoon, where the two dudes are near death in the desert, and they were fortunate enough to come up upon a drinking hole that was real (not a mirage) and the one guy says, "What - no cups !?"

People are just a-holes to the point where they are oblivious to themselves and the way it looks. Frankly, I think half the people out there are off the same ilk, so they don't really even perceive it as abysmal behavior. It's so disgusting to see a person be that way, too - you really do wish you could put a gun in their mouth, ease the hammer back, and explain to them why they are about to die. You don't really do it, but see if they start to "get it" - haha.

So we're waiting in line, swapping stories with strangers about the on-going crisis. Fact of the matter is, everyone there and my self included were kind of guilty to some degree - I mean, what a frickin' luxury it is to have a D&D on every street corner in the NE U.S. Exercising glut in a time of relative urgency - eh, anyway, this circa 58 year old looking woman got to the front of the line after the same 1 hour and 10 minutes waiting as the rest of us, and when they didn't get one of her chocolate glazed douhtnuts she started in with this look on her face....bitching to the overly stressed out 19-year old supervisor and the other barely English spoke Brazilians, as though an atrocity had just been committed so egregious that the entire scene was going to have to stop while, or hell halth no fury, this useless P.O.S. self-servitude not getting here f*ck*ng doughtnut stuffed down her throat b**ch got her way.

The other event that shined pretty badly on the scene was that this police officer came into the store and told everyone - some 200 packed in - and yelled that the power was 2 minutes from being cut while the utility crews attempted to bring the grid back on line for that end of town. I'd say about 70...maybe 80% took personal assault by that and start yelling obsenities at the situation - as though it were their god given right to get their coffee and fattening, bad for you breakfast goop in them at the expense of the entire society getting their electricity back. I really almost walked away from that place but I kept my mouth shut and stuck it out. I thought about that 58 year old "cee u next tuesday" and that horde of douches the rest of the day, though.

It's conditioning. I don't think ...or know if people are just like that, but I suspect it is taught behavior. Rather than going into a huge sociological diatribe, I think America's form of western culture is greedy, self-perpetuating, cooperative when convenient, only, and are like that because of their up-bringing. Self absorption is to some degree - probably - genetic, sure. But a good bit of it is probably nurture. It happens in non-crisis situations, too. I was in a Stop 'N' Shop on lunch break at the Deli last week. I walked up to the glass case and there was one other woman being served, so I stood there waiting. This other woman walked up behind me, then another, and they both took numbers from the ticket dispencer. I looked at the dispencer and OUT LOUD said, "Oops, I forgot to take a number".

Now....clearly, to both of these boxy-haired SUV driving oblivious self-centered socker moms, I was there first, but when the numbers were called out, they blithely stepped in front of me as if I were not there. They heard me say it. They saw me there first.

I wasn't raised that way... If I walk up to a scenario that way and take the number, I ALWAYS am cognizant of who was there first and/or who should be first served. If it is me, so be it, if not - "By all means, please go ahead of me". It's not such a big leap, but it is a leap that some people are just not capable of making because they have no classical, tribal/communal like sensibilities because they were raised - perhaps - to think of themselves first. For some reason our modern western civilization is wearing away the interconnective strings holding us all together. Living in relative affluence - compared to the early townships and homesteaders of hard working farmers and woodsmen ilk - has created a culture of self-indulgent crazed douches that are shocked and offended when there aren't enough chocolate sprinkles on their doughnut, when the grid was nearly irreparably collapsed and a state of panic narely missed.

[HIPPYVALLEY]

Preparedness is lacking by much of the general public. Scenarios can get worse than this. Blizzard followed by ice storm or vice versa comes to mind.

I'm not sure it is anything beyond hyped theory but Imagine the chaos if a direct hit from an X-class solar flare took down the major plants and substations on whatever hemisphere was facing the incoming solar hurricane. People would need to either help each other out or perish.

[Ginx snewx]

From an outsider’s perspective, this subforum has been an interesting read the past several days from the model runs leading up to the snowstorm, to the storm itself, and to the aftermath you folks are dealing with now and will be dealing with for some time. I do hope folks without power get power back as soon as possible, although that will be a while in the hardest hit areas.

Anyways, I hope this proves to be a learning experience for people from the general public to emergency managers, forecasters and power companies. Not just in New England but in other regions of the country where similar disasters may happen in the future.

First off, the storm was forecasted fairly well IMHO given the time of year and the return period of perhaps decades or more for a snowstorm this severe, in this region of the country, given the time of year. Although amounts forecasted ended up being too low until it was apparent this was going to be a beast that produced widespread amounts of up to a foot and a half with localized amounts of well north of two feet, a winter storm watch was issued easily more than 24 hours before snow started accumulating in the region—when it became undeniable that what historically has essentially never happened before in this region was going to happen, and about 36 hours before significant damage began occurring in the interior regions Saturday evening. It was apparent by Friday evening, perhaps the last time the average citizen watched the news before the event occurred that a major snowstorm would occur, and a watch was out Friday morning before people headed to work.

Given this, the public had well over a day to fill the car with gas, stock up on none-perishables and prepare for an extended time without power. The winter storm watch issued early Friday by BOX noted that the main impact with this storm would be heavy, wet snow bringing down trees/power lines, and I believe surrounding offices had similar wording. People should not be “surprised” that power is out; they should not say they were unprepared. It is not like the forecast was calling for rain showers until it started snowing. The only possible quibble people may have is that a storm of this nature appeared somewhat possible for most of last week, and that perhaps if warning was given earlier power companies could have had resources from out of the area lined up to come in immediately after the event, similar to Irene.

I sincerely hope that power companies in the region (I see CL&P has taken the brunt of the criticism here) evaluate what can reasonably be done to insure that the next time a major wet snow/ice storm or major wind storm occurs that week+ long outages are minimized. I also hope that power companies outside of the region see that events that can damage a large portion of their infrastructure are just as possible there as well and make similar evaluations/changes as needed.

Either way, “pissed off” members of the public need to realize that this event was unavoidable—significant tree damage was going to occur, and even if trees were better controlled (IE, trimming trees hanging right over wires) that widespread outages were going to occur. These said people should also realize that they need to be ready for a disaster of this type, especially since New England is vulnerable occasionally to hurricanes, ice storms, severe wx, and other events that can do a lot of damage. 24-36 hours should be enough time to do some last minute prep-work when it is known extended power outages are likely, if families have a plan, or a general idea, on when to do in these situations, and I hope this event increases awareness on how to prepare for future disasters.

Thanks for all the informative postings throughout the event, and good luck with the recovery!

Fantastic post

[ORH_wxman]

I didn't think the TV forecasts were the best in this event...I think everyone busted too low no matter TV or not...but I know that the NWS was hitting the interior pretty hard as were some of us on here here about 48 hours before the event when it became apparent that this was going to be just about impossible to miss. A lot of TV forecasts were extremely conservative until literally just hours before the event was going to start.

I always say its a good idea to approach extreme weather on the models with a sense of skepticism, but there comes to a point where you have to throw out the historical precedent and the calendar and go with what the data is best representing. I remember we said that there was just about zero chance that the interior elevated regions would get less than 8" based on what was being shown 36-48h out...it would have had to be a catastrophic model failure of thermal profiles. When you have -3C 900mb and heavy precip forecasted, its almost impossible for it not to snow in the elevated regions...and accumulate to boot.

[DomNH]

Just found out I can expect power by Friday at midnight...def could be worse.

[Modfan]

Just got my power back today!

[Ginx snewx]

Just got my power back today!

Congrats, if the fair was going on you would have had it Sun

[HoarfrostHubb]

Congrats, if the fair was going on you would have had it Sun

I keep forgetting it is the middle of Autumn

This snow is melting fast

Down to 10"

[Typhoon Tip]

Fantastic post

Not sure I agree with some of that though... I believe that the power outage and telecommunications issues would not have been nearly as pervasive if appropriate deforestation maintenance had taken place prior to the event.

From Clinton Mass to Ayer Mass, virtually every fallen article of timbre that was interfering with utility lines was leafed-out still. Most importantly, those leafed out branches were clearly intermingeled and or dangling precipitously over power lines prior to the storm even occurring.

That implies a lot of culpability toward the utility companies for lack of maintenance.

[dendrite]

I keep forgetting it is the middle of Autumn

This snow is melting fast

Down to 10"

I'm down to 4". I can't believe tomorrow will be the 7th straight day with some snow cover for many of us.

[powderfreak]

Just got my power back today!

Nice... how much snow did you guys get in Woodstock? I'm a little concerned for our lakehouse/camp there in North Woodstock near the town swimming pond...lots of trees around it, and I'm assuming at 750-800ft they got a decent wet dump.

How much did the center of Woodstock get up by the Academy?

[ORH_wxman]

I'm down to 4". I can't believe tomorrow will be the 7th straight day with some snow cover for many of us.

Yep, and some people will probably make 10 days straight. We'll def make 7 here...should make 8, but it will get iffy after that. We have about 6-7" left.

[powderfreak]

Not sure I agree with some of that though... I believe that the power outage and telecommunications issues would not have been nearly as pervasive if appropriate deforestation maintenance had taken place prior to the event.

From Clinton Mass to Ayer Mass, virtually every fallen article of timbre that was interfering with utility lines was leafed-out still. Most importantly, those leafed out branches were clearly intermingeled and or dangling precipitously over power lines prior to the storm even occurring.

That implies a lot of culpability toward the utility companies for lack of maintenance.

You can't cut down anything and everything that *might* pose a threat to power lines...just doesn't seem feasible. While I agree that there are areas that look suspect to begin with, there's only so much precaution one could take towards the fact that it might snow 12+" with leaves still on the trees.

I don't know, I just feel you can't really blame folks or companies for not being prepared for a 1 in 300+ year event. Some punches you just have to take on the chin.

[powderfreak]

Yep, and some people will probably make 10 days straight. We'll def make 7 here...should make 8, but it will get iffy after that. We have about 6-7" left.

These are stats that at this time of the year should be reserved for 4,000ft mountain tops, not populated regions of SNE/CNE... just insane stuff going down in the books.

[HIPPYVALLEY]

You can't cut down anything and everything that *might* pose a threat to power lines...just doesn't seem feasible. While I agree that there are areas that look suspect to begin with, there's only so much precaution one could take towards the fact that it might snow 12+" with leaves still on the trees.

I don't know, I just feel you can't really blame folks or companies for not being prepared for a 1 in 300+ year event. Some punches you just have to take on the chin.

Yup. that's life on a dynamic planet. Keeps it interesting too.

[ORH_wxman]

These are stats that at this time of the year should be reserved for 4,000ft mountain tops, not populated regions of SNE/CNE... just insane stuff going down in the books.

Its definitely pretty bizarre seeing snow banks high along the sides of the roads and solid snow cover on the lawns with pumpkins and stuff all in front of everyone's houses, lol.

[dendrite]

Yep, and some people will probably make 10 days straight. We'll def make 7 here...should make 8, but it will get iffy after that. We have about 6-7" left.

My great ratios from the storm are taking a beating compared to your snow pack. I saw on the 29th ORH had 11.4" on 1.14" w.e. for exactly a 10:1 ratio. What's the deal with the missing ASOS liquid for the 30th to go along with the additional 3.2"? What do they normally do with missing data like that? Estimate?

[ORH_wxman]

My great ratios from the storm are taking a beating compared to your snow pack. I saw on the 29th ORH had 11.4" on 1.14" w.e. for exactly a 10:1 ratio. What's the deal with the missing ASOS liquid for the 30th to go along with the additional 3.2"? What do they normally do with missing data like that? Estimate?

ORH ASOS shat the bed I think partway through the storm. For a while they only reported temps and pressure, and then it was just pressure and then nothing eventually. I think they estimate when its out.

The ratios def weren't very high...they weren't anything like what you had. They were probably 8 to 1 early on and then improved to like 12 to 1...in the final death band, they were probably pretty good like around 18 to 1. I think they actually under estimated that 10/30 total...that last band was hellacious and dumped like 4-5" in the final 2 hours. But maybe it wasn't. I was north which was def a bit better place to be...but I even measured like 14-15" at 600 feet versus 17" here.

I think the L.E. on the 30th could be pretty low because by then it was cold and that final band had good dendritic growth. That is quite the coincidence for 11.4" equaling 1.14" on the 29th, but it looks like it was real and not estimated based on the 6 hourly qpf.

[snowNH]

Just found out I can expect power by Friday at midnight...def could be worse.

Was out all day doing damage assessment.. one thing I noticed.. I know people like their trees, but CMON, you have to do some pruning to the ones that are old and falling over

[ski MRG]

I'm down to 4". I can't believe tomorrow will be the 7th straight day with some snow cover for many of us.

We're going to have snow cover for some time to come. I'm hoping facets not exposed to any sun will hold snow until the next snowfall. Still a lot of snow on the ground here,

[Ginx snewx]

Kevin says hi and he is OK, sounds frustrated as expected. He said to share this link. Http://t.co/SwQNX9yT[

[snowNH]

Kevin says hi and he is OK, sounds frustrated as expected. He said to share this link. Http://t.co/SwQNX9yT[

He wanted outages lol

[Ginx snewx]

He wanted outages lol

Asking me when the next snow is and about Dec. says it is worth it.

[HoarfrostHubb]

Asking me when the next snow is and about Dec. says it is worth it.

He must smell nice by now. 10 mile runs then no hot showers...

Wish him and his family well

[dan11295]

Hearing more and more cases of Carbon Monoxide poisoning today, including 2 deaths in W. Mass and 2 in CT. Seems are though people do not seem to be aware of where NOT to place a generator. A basement, garage, or even directly adjacent to a house is NOT a safe place for a generator. Part of the problem is many people in SNE have not had to deal with an extended power outage in a cold weather situation. Seems as though there has been less issues with this in Southen NH for example where they have dealt with more cold weather outages recently.

[weathafella]

Yep, and some people will probably make 10 days straight. We'll def make 7 here...should make 8, but it will get iffy after that. We have about 6-7" left.

Believe it or not I actually saw a patch of snow in my walk home from work earlier. It was right in Brookline Village behind a town parking lot on a grassy area.

[Ginx snewx]

Hearing more and more cases of Carbon Monoxide poisoning today, including 2 deaths in W. Mass and 2 in CT. Seems are though people do not seem to be aware of where NOT to place a generator. A basement, garage, or even directly adjacent to a house is NOT a safe place for a generator. Part of the problem is many people in SNE have not had to deal with an extended power outage in a cold weather situation. Seems as though there has been less issues with this in Southen NH for example where they have dealt with more cold weather outages recently.

Yea sad that and using bad alternative heaters. 32 cases treated at HFD hosp today

[Amped]

Hearing more and more cases of Carbon Monoxide poisoning today, including 2 deaths in W. Mass and 2 in CT. Seems are though people do not seem to be aware of where NOT to place a generator. A basement, garage, or even directly adjacent to a house is NOT a safe place for a generator. Part of the problem is many people in SNE have not had to deal with an extended power outage in a cold weather situation. Seems as though there has been less issues with this in Southen NH for example where they have dealt with more cold weather outages recently.

Or just read the ****ing directions on the genrator. I am sure there are giant red warnings everywhere not to run the unit indoors.