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Feb 8/9 Blizzard of 13' Images


TalcottWx

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I wish I took some pics for Ginxy back in 2005. Best drift pics ever.

 

 

I remember seeing pics from the Cape in Jan 2005...some of the craziest pics I've seen in New England...we've had storms with higher winds there before, but not with that amount of snow on the Cape to go with it. It was like hurricane force winds with 3 feet of snow...that combo hasn't happened there in our lifetimes before...and probably back to at least the 1930s/1940s. The Feb '52 storm dropped like 30 inches in spots there, but the winds weren't nearly as strong as '05.

 

Probably the closest for them was March 1960...but both the winds and snow were probably a notch below Jan 2005. 1978 had the winds even stronger there...but way too much taint to be even comparable for snowfall.

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I remember seeing pics from the Cape in Jan 2005...some of the craziest pics I've seen in New England...we've had storms with higher winds there before, but not with that amount of snow on the Cape to go with it. It was like hurricane force winds with 3 feet of snow...that combo hasn't happened there in our lifetimes before...and probably back to at least the 1930s/1940s. The Feb '52 storm dropped like 30 inches in spots there, but the winds weren't nearly as strong as '05.

 

Probably the closest for them was March 1960...but both the winds and snow were probably a notch below Jan 2005. 1978 had the winds even stronger there...but way too much taint to be even comparable for snowfall.

 

Yeah, I know I've said it a million times, but it was mind blowing. I saw it first hand. When you have to dig out a front end loader...you know it's serious sh*t..lol. I just remember seeing schools with drifts to second story windows, cars getting moved by front end loaders..etc. Just incredible.

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I remember seeing pics from the Cape in Jan 2005...some of the craziest pics I've seen in New England...we've had storms with higher winds there before, but not with that amount of snow on the Cape to go with it. It was like hurricane force winds with 3 feet of snow...that combo hasn't happened there in our lifetimes before...and probably back to at least the 1930s/1940s. The Feb '52 storm dropped like 30 inches in spots there, but the winds weren't nearly as strong as '05.

Probably the closest for them was March 1960...but both the winds and snow were probably a notch below Jan 2005. 1978 had the winds even stronger there...but way too much taint to be even comparable for snowfall.

I have a whole folder of pics, insane
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  • 2 weeks later...

These are some pictures taken Saturday after the storm ended. We were lucky enough to get plowed out by Saturday afternoon...unlike some spots in town where front loaders were required and weren't dug out until Wednesday.

 

I wish I had taken a video driving around on Sunday, a good 30 hours after the storm ended...it was nuts! I-95 was still only one lane and snow packed in spots. Lanes would end with no warning with big snow banks. Even secondary roads that had been plowed were typically no better than about 1.5 lanes wide and still completely snow packed. A plow would come from the opposite direction and you'd fear for your life as it was almost impossible to pass each other.

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Here's the radar image from KOKX at 00:30 UTC. There's a couple of really awesome dual-pol signatures visible at this time. The first are the radial spikes of enhanced Zdr (top-right panel) over RI and down to east of LI. These are depolarization streaks and they indicate a strong electric field is present which orients ice crystals at a preferred angle. This causes the horizontally polarized wave to be scattered by the ice crystals with both horizontal and vertical polarization, therefore "losing" their initial polarization down-radial of this point.

 

Spikes of low correlation coefficient (bottom-right panel) over eastern CT and RI are likely due a large gradient in the power and phase of the scatterers within those sampling volumes. As the beam propagates through the heavy band of precipitation over the LI Sound, it increases with height. As this happens, the lower part may still be sampling the heavier precipitation while the upper part of the beam is above or near the echo top, increasing the diversity of hydrometeors in the sampling volumes. This is usually seen in convective situations but the reflectivity in this case was so high that a large enough gradient was present to produce this non-uniform beam filling signature.

 

Also in that area is a very large enhancement in Kdp (lower-left panel) of about 1.5 deg/km. For an S-band radar like the WSR-88D, which is less sensitive to differential phase measurements, this is an extreme value for snow. Basically, there must be a very large concentration of oblate ice crystals to produce this enhancement. Dendrites and plates can grow with horizontal dimensions much larger than their vertical dimensions and therefore produce a larger phase shift for the waves of horizontal vs. vertical polarization. The greater the concentration of these particles within a radar sampling volume, the greater the Kdp enhancement.

 

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Really an amazing event and a great example of the new information that can be provided by dual-pol radar.

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I read about the depolarization streaks. It almost even more puzzling to me now that there were so few reports of thunder in that area. I guess nrn LI had a couple of reports, but I would expect a lot more. The only thing that I can think of, is that we had tremendous lift in the layer below -10C. In this case, that layer was relatively high since 700mb brought in a lot of warmer near nrn srn CT and LI. Most of the lift must have been just below the more optimum area for lightning.

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I read about the depolarization streaks. It almost even more puzzling to me now that there were so few reports of thunder in that area. I guess nrn LI had a couple of reports, but I would expect a lot more. The only thing that I can think of, is that we had tremendous lift in the layer below -10C. In this case, that layer was relatively high since 700mb brought in a lot of warmer near nrn srn CT and LI. Most of the lift must have been just below the more optimum area for lightning.

 

Interesting that there weren't many reports in SE CT. The streaks seem to originate somewhere over the LI Sound or the eastern end of LI where the waves first become depolarized. I guess that would suggest the strongest electric fields were more in that area and less into SNE.

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Interesting that there weren't many reports in SE CT. The streaks seem to originate somewhere over the LI Sound or the eastern end of LI where the waves first become depolarized. I guess that would suggest the strongest electric fields were more in that area and less into SNE.

 

I had two good claps of thunder in that with that band pivoting NW. Same feature (arcing mid level front), but the main forcing focused down by nrn LI and CT when those streaks occurred. I'm just amazed at how we had almost upright convection to force the ptypes that we observed. 

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