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Sandy Snow Chase(rs) - Major Snow Event


BeauDodson

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Had an 1" of snow out at my WV place. Went on an at times low visibility road trip to Thomas, Black Water Lodge, Davis and Canaan.

Wanted to walk to the falls but road wasn't plowed and too deep for my 7 year old. Lots of power outages and broken trees.

Here are a few photos

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I love that photo of the buried cars and the sign... pigs will fly the day a hurricane turns into a blizzard... oh wait.

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PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PITTSBURGH PA

1115 AM EDT WED OCT 31 2012

..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...

..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....

..REMARKS..

1113 AM HEAVY SNOW PARSONS 39.09N 79.68W

10/31/2012 M12.0 INCH TUCKER WV EMERGENCY MNGR

10 INCH SNOW DEPTH AS OF 1115AM. SNOW HAD BLUSISH TINT

DUE TO THE HIGH MOISTURE CONTENT

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PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PITTSBURGH PA

1115 AM EDT WED OCT 31 2012

..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...

..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....

..REMARKS..

1113 AM HEAVY SNOW PARSONS 39.09N 79.68W

10/31/2012 M12.0 INCH TUCKER WV EMERGENCY MNGR

10 INCH SNOW DEPTH AS OF 1115AM. SNOW HAD BLUSISH TINT

DUE TO THE HIGH MOISTURE CONTENT

we saw that in the 2/6/10 bliz

first, and likely last, time I see that in my life in these parts

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Here's a short video climbing to Potts Mtn summit. Nothing much on the roads until the top where it was slush in some spots. It was about 30 degrees with easily 50-60mph gusts. ~3,500ft. I apologize for the shakiness and lack of scenery per say.

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Agreed. IF the NAM has the overall synoptic setup correct (which is a big IF), it does a very good job handling mesoscale banding and orographic enhancement.

pretty sure the euro dumped on that area for like 5+ days as well.

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pretty sure the euro dumped on that area for like 5+ days as well.

Pretty certain ALL the models showed nukage for West VA if you were looking for it.

I didn't think it was that hard to forecast either. I made a call of 4 feet for parts of W. VA by thursday pm and I feel really good about that. This whole set up = a lot of snow.

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pretty sure the euro dumped on that area for like 5+ days as well.

Pretty certain ALL the models showed nukage for West VA if you were looking for it.

I didn't think it was that hard to forecast either. I made a call of 4 feet for parts of W. VA by thursday pm and I feel really good about that. This whole set up = a lot of snow.

True, all the models did really well with this. But I think the NAM did particularly well. Check out this forecast from 6Z on the 28th, while Sandy was still at the same latitude as Savannah, GA. It even got the two mini-bullseyes over central Ohio! lmaosmiley.gif

post-378-0-60761000-1351704796_thumb.gif

nsm_swe_2012103105_Eastern_Coastal.jpg

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I'm wondering what the final total is at Canaan. I'm thinking about heading to Whitegrass this weekend if they can open up, however I imagine there are a lot of trees down on the trails. Currently their phone number is not working so I assume they don't have power.

Has there been any update on the total for Canaan today? My guess is that its still snowing and I know they don't have power but it would be interesting to hear what accumulated overnight and if they are over 40

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PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PITTSBURGH PA

1115 AM EDT WED OCT 31 2012

..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...

..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....

..REMARKS..

1113 AM HEAVY SNOW PARSONS 39.09N 79.68W

10/31/2012 M12.0 INCH TUCKER WV EMERGENCY MNGR

10 INCH SNOW DEPTH AS OF 1115AM. SNOW HAD BLUSISH TINT

DUE TO THE HIGH MOISTURE CONTENT

That's cool! I've seen that once or twice before. One storm in February of 2008, the other was a few winters before that. Both snowfalls were probably 8:1 ratio.

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Great pictures, guys!

The flooding is going to be bad up there in WV, I'm afraid. A heavy, wet snowpack and warming temperatures and rain in a lot of these areas is going to spell trouble. It seems like almost every somewhat decent snow event spells flooding, but that should be doubly the case with this one.

2" in my backyard at 700 feet elevation. Still snowing.

How much did you all end up with? I saw Charleston and Huntington got around 1-2", but I also read that places outside the cities got 4-8". Of course, Teays Valley/Hurricane is only around 700 ft. elevation, so that's not particularly helpful.

It's hard to find snow totals with the NWS CRW site being down.

I'm still bitter about never really getting any legit snow events when I lived in Teays Valley! biggrin.png

EDIT: Looks like 6-12" and 9" in Charleston according to the Weather Channel. I thought I hear 1-2" in Charleston, but maybe I was making stuff up.

EDIT #2: According to this, looks like around 8-9". More than I ever saw in my three winters there! axesmiley.png

4061H_MADIS_2012102706_2012110306_0_600_400_us_a__3072_3072_3072_0_3072_3072_3072_3072_3072_level.png

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Pretty certain ALL the models showed nukage for West VA if you were looking for it.

I didn't think it was that hard to forecast either. I made a call of 4 feet for parts of W. VA by thursday pm and I feel really good about that. This whole set up = a lot of snow.

Yeah, as we know from upslope snow in northern VT and northern NY... all you need is moist cyclonic flow and sub 0C H85 temps and its off to the races. Models will generally underforecast upslope/orographic snowfall due to grid constraints (though the meso-models are now much better at that) but anytime you have moisture like Sandy and 80kt NW winds pushing that moisture into terrain of 2-5,000ft+... its going to snow a lot.

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seriously , that is a legit question.

Right, I want to go on some snow chases in the near (and distant) future... the trick is not only finding the right spot with the most snow, but also getting out of there during the aftermath. I have a job and a family, you know.

And of course, I hope Beau and our fellow chasers are doing ok without power.

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Just Got back. What an awesome Chase. Probably got a little over 2x DC annual snowfall and it was still snowing when I left.

Lost power at Jonjons around 1pm yesterday. Should hear from Beau tomorrow and Jonjon in 7-10 days when he gets power back.

Pics to come

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Just Got back. What an awesome Chase. Probably got a little over 2x DC annual snowfall and it was still snowing when I left.

Lost power at Jonjons around 1pm yesterday. Should hear from Beau tomorrow and Jonjon in 7-10 days when he gets power back.

Pics to come

How was the drive? Did you need chains?

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post-673-0-59654500-1351719362_thumb.jpg

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Pics Beau has a lot more. 36" is my guess, but it was too drifty to measure. Snowiest October on record for the area by far.

Here's local reports I could find

10/31/2012 0700 am

Davis, Tucker County.

Snow m7.0 inch, reported by trained spotter.

Snow fell overnight. 28 to 30 inches on ground. No

power in city of Davis.

10/30/2012 1120 am

Davis, Tucker County.

Snow e28.0 inch, reported by 911 call center.

10/31/2012 0130 PM

NNE Selbysport, Garrett County.

Snow m24.0 inch, reported by NWS employee.

Snow water equivalent of 4.8 inches

Redhouse, Garrett County.

Heavy snow e29.0 inch, reported by trained spotter.

Storm total. Numerous trees and powerlines down.

Snowfall from 10pm to 7am was 20 inches

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Beau is heading out in the morning for the long trek back to Southern Illinois, SPoke with him on the phone earlier after they got the car dug out so they could charge the cellphone for a couple hours, he said it was still snowing

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37 inches smile.png

And they still likely will pick up some more today

Gonna head up to the airport in a bit, just to see

what they got (Hot Springs 3700 ft)

Here's a short video climbing to Potts Mtn summit. Nothing much on the roads until the top where it was slush in some spots. It was about 30 degrees with easily 50-60mph gusts. ~3,500ft. I apologize for the shakiness and lack of scenery per say.

Nice disc...

That is similar to what I found when I headed up to airport yesterday morning. Valley had a trace, about 3-5 on the top. Headed over to Beckley yesterday evening, you could tell a good amount of compaction/melting had occurred, but still a solid 10-14 inches there, and still snowing lightly when we headed home at 10 pm.

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