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Upstate NY/North Country + adjacent ON, QC, VT: Heading into December


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i think the niagara frontier is about done. Congrats to the Chautauqua Ridge which will probably pick up a foot plus. I knew this event was super precarious...reliance on Lake huron...garbage diluted 700mb deformation axis....wet ground and marginal precip rates. I should have spoke my mind. Oh well, at least it's snow.

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Definite Georgian Bay connection enhancing snowfall rates in southwestern Genesee, northern Wyoming, and even western portions of Livingston County...maybe a little southwest of where the NAM had been placing it on the image I posted yesterday. Should be some interesting totals here...

post-619-0-04630100-1356168758_thumb.png

Off to Logan airport now. Early morning flight FTL...

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THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BINGHAMTON HAS ISSUED A WINTER

STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY AND BLOWING SNOW...WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL

10 PM EST THIS EVENING. THE WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IS NO LONGER

IN EFFECT.

• LOCATIONS...ONONDAGA...ONEIDA...MADISON...CORTLAND...AND

SOUTHERN CAYUGA COUNTIES IN CENTRAL NEW YORK.

• HAZARDS...OCCASIONAL HEAVY SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW.

• ACCUMULATIONS...4 TO 9 INCHES OF SNOW.

• TIMING...SNOW WILL CONTINUE INTO TONIGHT. THE HEAVIEST SNOW AND

SNOWFALL RATES UP TO AN INCH AN HOUR WILL BE MOST LIKELY FROM 7

AM TO 3 PM. SNOW WILL TAPER OFF EARLY THIS EVENING.

• TEMPERATURES...IN THE UPPER 20S AND LOWER 30S.

• WINDS...WEST 20 TO 30 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 45 MPH...ESPECIALLY

OVER THE HIGHER TERRAIN.

There was 0.6" on my board this morning but almost another inch in the rain gauge.

We'll see how this pans out today.

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What a bust around these parts. Only about 1 1/2" in WS. Back at home I'm being told is about 3 inches but even that's still a bust. Highest report I've seen in Boston Hills is 5.5" which is a bust for them. Holiday Valley supposedly picked up 12.5" overnight but it looks more like 7-8" judging by their webcams. No one North of OP to EA even reached advisory criteria. Most everyone picked up 1-3" although I heard ROC picked up 4". Overall one of the more disappointing storms in recent memory even though I wasn't expecting much, I was still expecting a good 6-8".

On to the next one.

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Depth here near downtown Orchard Park is of course hard to determine because of all the wind. The ground is bare in places, but in other places the grass is completely covered. I measured about 1 1/2 inches on the top of my car, but I was parked close to the building so some of that may have been blowing off the roof. I'm guessing the actual depth is somewhere between 1 and 2 inches. Probably closer to 2 inches. I'm pretty confident it does not exceed 2 inches though. I have attached a picture.

post-8615-0-29210000-1356188864_thumb.jp

This is about what I was expecting as I described earlier in the thread that large snowfalls tend not to occur here when winds are strong. One can always hope, but the 10 inch amounts the models were spitting out for KBUF did in fact turn out to be fantasy as expected.

I had earlier in the week considered driving to see snow today. However, looks like the activity off Lake Erie is mostly over at this point. Snow continues east of Lake Ontario, but that is too far for a day trip and the magnitude of the event does not warrant staying overnight for me.

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Environment Canada is reporting 44cms, or 18 inches here in Ottawa. quite the storm...

AWCN11 CWTO 221501

Weather summary for all of Southern Ontario and the

National Capital Region issued by Environment Canada

At 10:01 AM EST Saturday 22 December 2012.

-------------------------------------------------------------

==weather event discussion==

A major winter storm affected Eastern Ontario Thursday night and

Friday and will end today. Significant snow amounts were reported

especially along the Ottawa Valley. Ottawa reported the most snow

with a total of 44 cm, along with several hours of freezing rain

Thursday night. Regions along the St Lawrence Valley were close to

zero degrees and had rain mixed with the snow, so less snow was

reported there.

The majority of the snow has already fallen, but a few more

centimetres are still possible today. The snowfall totals in the

table below are as of 7 AM today.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Location snow amount (cm)

Ottawa Airport 44

Gatineau Airport 14

Algonquin Park east gate 25

Kaladar 20 (climate station)

Brockville 16

This weather summary contains preliminary information and may not

constitute an official or final report

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Depth here near downtown Orchard Park is of course hard to determine because of all the wind. The ground is bare in places, but in other places the grass is completely covered. I measured about 1 1/2 inches on the top of my car, but I was parked close to the building so some of that may have been blowing off the roof. I'm guessing the actual depth is somewhere between 1 and 2 inches. Probably closer to 2 inches. I'm pretty confident it does not exceed 2 inches though. I have attached a picture.

post-8615-0-29210000-1356188864_thumb.jp

This is about what I was expecting as I described earlier in the thread that large snowfalls tend not to occur here when winds are strong. One can always hope, but the 10 inch amounts the models were spitting out for KBUF did in fact turn out to be fantasy as expected.

I had earlier in the week considered driving to see snow today. However, looks like the activity off Lake Erie is mostly over at this point. Snow continues east of Lake Ontario, but that is too far for a day trip and the magnitude of the event does not warrant staying overnight for me.

I live in those apartments bro! I can see my apartment in that pic you took. lol
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Earlier in this thread, OsuWx had posted that the top CIPS analog for this event was 4 December 2007. If you look back at NWSFO BUF's lake effect page, you can see that event only produced 1-3" for much of the Niagara Frontier...with the heavier amounts occurring well inland from Lake Erie. That ended up being a pretty good match, at least locally. I've never used the CIPS analog site as a forecasting tool before, but that should've raised a red flag that the beefy QPF amounts were not likely to verify in the immediate BUF area.

Good call by those who were expecting this to be NBD around here!

4 December 2007:

http://www.erh.noaa..../stormsumb.html

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Earlier in this thread, OsuWx had posted that the top CIPS analog for this event was 4 December 2007. If you look back at NWSFO BUF's lake effect page, you can see that event only produced 1-3" for much of the Niagara Frontier...with the heavier amounts occurring well inland from Lake Erie. That ended up being a pretty good match, at least locally. I've never used the CIPS analog site as a forecasting tool before, but that should've raised a red flag that the beefy QPF amounts were not likely to verify in the immediate BUF area.

Good call by those who were expecting this to be NBD around here!

4 December 2007:

http://www.erh.noaa..../stormsumb.html

Seems like a very nice analog although I'm very curious how Mayville and Perrysburg did in this event.
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25 December 2002 has been showing up as one of the top matches on the CIPS analog page for the Wednesday/Thursday event. Obviously we are still 4+ days out so things can and probably will change, but that was a real blockbuster for the I-88 corridor between BGM and ALB:

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/bgm/WeatherEvents/Snow/dec252002/

http://www.eas.slu.edu/CIPS/ANALOG/stats.php?reg=EC&model=GFS212&fhr=F120&flg=

Still thinking a widespread 1-3" snowfall is quite possible with the Christmas Eve/Christmas Morning event too...with the best chance of 3" amounts probably confined to the Southern Tier. Nice to have multiple snowfall opportunities to track in the days ahead.

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25 December 2002 has been showing up as one of the top matches on the CIPS analog page for the Wednesday/Thursday event. Obviously we are still 4+ days out so things can and probably will change, but that was a real blockbuster for the I-88 corridor between BGM and ALB:

http://www.erh.noaa....Snow/dec252002/

http://www.eas.slu.e...12&fhr=F120=

Still thinking a widespread 1-3" snowfall is quite possible with the Christmas Eve/Christmas Morning event too...with the best chance of 3" amounts probably confined to the Southern Tier. Nice to have multiple snowfall opportunities to track in the days ahead.

How did WNY do in the 2002 event?
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Earlier in this thread, OsuWx had posted that the top CIPS analog for this event was 4 December 2007. If you look back at NWSFO BUF's lake effect page, you can see that event only produced 1-3" for much of the Niagara Frontier...with the heavier amounts occurring well inland from Lake Erie. That ended up being a pretty good match, at least locally. I've never used the CIPS analog site as a forecasting tool before, but that should've raised a red flag that the beefy QPF amounts were not likely to verify in the immediate BUF area.

Good call by those who were expecting this to be NBD around here!

4 December 2007:

http://www.erh.noaa..../stormsumb.html

The GFS (off of which the CIPS analogs are based) ended up doing a pretty good job with the placement of the surface and 500 mb low at 96 hrs out.

http://www.hpc.ncep....012loopsfc.html

That's the one caveat to using the CIPS analogs, the GFS has to be right!

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I live in those apartments bro! I can see my apartment in that pic you took. lol

I've lived here for 9 years. The first two years after I moved to the Buffalo area I lived in Lancaster. Orchard Park was convenient when I was working at Fisher-Price. I've been working downtown Buffalo since 2007, but have not really had a reason to move yet since downtown is a reasonable commute from here. I know that the "in" place for professionals in Buffalo tends to be the North Towns (Amherst, etc.) but that's always too built up and too much traffic for my tastes.

If commuting to work wasn't an issue, I would probably live to the south, say in the Southern Tier, as far as weather is concerned. With the exception of the past two winters, there's usually enough snow here to suit me, so whether its 90 inches here or 130 inches to the south does not really matter a lot. However there is more difference in the summer. Near the lake, including at Orchard Park, thunderstorm activity is suppressed and drought is common. Seems like all the grass turns brown here just about every July. Whereas to the south of here there is considerably more thunderstorms activity especially severe. Only one year (2008) have I been happy with the thunderstorm activity in Buffalo.

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I've lived here for 9 years. The first two years after I moved to the Buffalo area I lived in Lancaster. Orchard Park was convenient when I was working at Fisher-Price. I've been working downtown Buffalo since 2007, but have not really had a reason to move yet since downtown is a reasonable commute from here. I know that the "in" place for professionals in Buffalo tends to be the North Towns (Amherst, etc.) but that's always too built up and too much traffic for my tastes.

If commuting to work wasn't an issue, I would probably live to the south, say in the Southern Tier, as far as weather is concerned. With the exception of the past two winters, there's usually enough snow here to suit me, so whether its 90 inches here or 130 inches to the south does not really matter a lot. However there is more difference in the summer. Near the lake, including at Orchard Park, thunderstorm activity is suppressed and drought is common. Seems like all the grass turns brown here just about every July. Whereas to the south of here there is considerably more thunderstorms activity especially severe. Only one year (2008) have I been happy with the thunderstorm activity in Buffalo.

I've only been here since May of this year but so far I love it. Cool to have another poster on here from the same exact area as I am. Looks like your in one of the upper buildings for sure as that's an awesome view you have. I'm in the "middle" floor of building 75 and I'm sure you could figure out which apartment is mine with the rain gauge I rigged up lol.

Looks like 4-8" on average:

http://www.erh.noaa....n03.htm#BUFFALO 25

Id take that!
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Both the 12z NAM and 12z GFS move that Christmas eve/Christmas day storm far enough north to bring more impact to WNY with the NAM more so than GFS. NAM paints .25" + QPF over all of WNY which would mean a solid 2-4" event. GFS has the storm a little further south with about .15" QPF for KBUF which would mean a solid 1-3" event with 2-4" falling in the NY/PA border counties. Either way at least its something for Christmas time. If we can keep what we have on the ground now till that event I feel confident that the grass will be completely covered by Christmas morning.

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I've lived here for 9 years. The first two years after I moved to the Buffalo area I lived in Lancaster. Orchard Park was convenient when I was working at Fisher-Price. I've been working downtown Buffalo since 2007, but have not really had a reason to move yet since downtown is a reasonable commute from here. I know that the "in" place for professionals in Buffalo tends to be the North Towns (Amherst, etc.) but that's always too built up and too much traffic for my tastes.

If commuting to work wasn't an issue, I would probably live to the south, say in the Southern Tier, as far as weather is concerned. With the exception of the past two winters, there's usually enough snow here to suit me, so whether its 90 inches here or 130 inches to the south does not really matter a lot. However there is more difference in the summer. Near the lake, including at Orchard Park, thunderstorm activity is suppressed and drought is common. Seems like all the grass turns brown here just about every July. Whereas to the south of here there is considerably more thunderstorms activity especially severe. Only one year (2008) have I been happy with the thunderstorm activity in Buffalo.

Thats so awesome you guys live in the same complex haha! Hope you continue to post in this blog as its not really active compared to other sub forums. Also like to thank OSU and KUL for there expert advise. I drove all over for this last night. Had like an inch here, 2 inches in Boston, 2 inches in EA, inch in Eden and North Collins. Overall pretty large bust with winter storm warnings in those southern regions calling for 8-14 inches. Even drove up to 1500+ feet to only a max of 3 inches. (Same total the airport received) Seems like the Chat Ridge was the only region to hit amounts forecasted in the warnings. Overall the pattern looks so much better then it has been. Several storms to look forward to, but I really hope we can get a decent Lake effect storm, because those are the storms where you really get the most snow around these parts.

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Steady light snowfall, with gusty winds in central NY. Closing in on 3 inches of snow for today.

Should add another 1-2 before we are done.

I really like that analogue to the 2002 storm for next week. We have been in a terrible synoptic snow drought here, dating back years.

Seeing the snow today has me optimistic that things are about to change.

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25 December 2002 has been showing up as one of the top matches on the CIPS analog page for the Wednesday/Thursday event. Obviously we are still 4+ days out so things can and probably will change, but that was a real blockbuster for the I-88 corridor between BGM and ALB:

http://www.erh.noaa....Snow/dec252002/

I mentioned the fact that that one was showing up as an analogue yesterday, and it's still looking like a good match today. I remember that storm well... was modeled to go out to sea 4 days before the event, then gradually trended closer and closer until it became obvious that upstate NY would be the jackpot.

Don't this we quite have the incredible dynamics of the 02 storm this time around to produce the 6"/hr rates seen in Otsego and Schoharie counties, but potential is definitely there for a heavy snow in those same places.

CBS6 Albany has a nice summary of that event:

http://www.cbs6albany.com/weather/features/historical-data/notable-storms.shtml

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The 12z GFS actually doesn't look too bad for ALB with about .50" QPF as snow before changing to light rain. The latest CIPS analogs seem to support this idea of a moderate snow event for the area. The top analog at 96 hrs is still 12/25/02 with 12/16/07 being second. The later event gave Albany around 8" of snow.

For the 120 hr forecast analogs, the best matches were 12/31/00, 11/16/83 and 1/4/03 each with a score greater than 11 out of 15. 11/16/83 had a much warmer BL than the GFS forecast, confining snowfall to the higher elevations north of ALB. The other two matches each had over 10" of snow at ALB and are closer to the current time of the year.

The 12z Euro is also supportive of the moderate snowfall scenario putting out between 6-9" for the Capital Region, with some mixing of rain.

If the eventual track of the low is further west than these solutions, the snow amounts will obviously be lower. We should know within a few days whether a more westward track is likely to occur.

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The 12z GFS actually doesn't look too bad for ALB with about .50" QPF as snow before changing to light rain. The latest CIPS analogs seem to support this idea of a moderate snow event for the area. The top analog at 96 hrs is still 12/25/02 with 12/16/07 being second. The later event gave Albany around 8" of snow.

For the 120 hr forecast analogs, the best matches were 12/31/00, 11/16/83 and 1/4/03 each with a score greater than 11 out of 15. 11/16/83 had a much warmer BL than the GFS forecast, confining snowfall to the higher elevations north of ALB. The other two matches each had over 10" of snow at ALB and are closer to the current time of the year.

The 12z Euro is also supportive of the moderate snowfall scenario putting out between 6-9" for the Capital Region, with some mixing of rain.

If the eventual track of the low is further west than these solutions, the snow amounts will obviously be lower. We should know within a few days whether a more westward track is likely to occur.

How far north of ALB is the rain/snow line for an all snow event?

-skisheep

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