Remembering Snowpocalypse -- 12/18-12/19, 2009

[Deck Pic]

On 12/18/2010 at 6:14 PM, Ian said:

it's coming!

Thanks Ian

[Eskimo Joe]

This storm was amazing. Just warm air advection snow for hours with no temperature issues. Will we ever have an event like this again?

[PrinceFrederickWx]

2 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Will we ever have an event like this again?

No. It occurred during our transition period to near-snowless hellscape.

[kingbaus]

The winters of 09-10 and 10-11 were epic. Wish we had another year like that.

[Jebman]

On 12/19/2015 at 12:05 AM, RDM said:

That was a great storm for us for many reasons.  The 18th of Dec is my birthday for one.  That aside, it was the best welcome home present our family could have hoped for.  We'd just returned to the US that Fall from a few years in Thailand, where I may point out it don't snow...  ever!  (except inside the snow house at the Dreamworld amusement park).  We'd just bought a new house on 30 Nov and moved in the first week of Dec 09.  Also bought a small Kubota tractor with a front end loader the week before the storm to go along with my two Gravely walk behinds (our driveway is 500 feet long).  The Kubota with loader, a blade on one Gravely and a blower on the other Gravely saved us and the neighbors.  What a Dec that was, only to be followed by the back to back fun in Feb 2010.  No snow this year for my b-day - darn it. 

Only old men use a Kubota to move snow.

You dig that snow! Pile it up high! Always use a Jebman Shovel.

[RDM]

4 minutes ago, Jebman said:

Only old men use a Kubota to move snow.

You dig that snow! Pile it up high! Always use a Jebman Shovel.

Haha - Indeed Jeb - when I plow the parking area by our house I see how high I can pile it up with the Kubota (see profile picture) to maximize how long the pile lasts (aka Midlothian Snowmaker in Richmond).  When the pile height exceeds the limits of the Kubota I blow more on top with the Gravely and the "snow cannon" (snowblower) which has the nickname of "dog eater" with our Gravely club because of it's tendency to eat things.  (just kidding, sort of).  

Last winter I never even put the front plow on Kubota even once out of fear it would jinx our snow chances.  Didn't make any difference as we struck out big time.  This year I'm taking the opposite approach.  Bought new radial tires for the Kubota, which are supposed to be superior in snow.  Just finished installing a second winch to pull me out of the deep drifts which are sure to come from the penultimate storms in JFM.  No doubt the entire sub-forum will soon be on long Jebwalks!  

[Jebman]

25 minutes ago, RDM said:

Haha - Indeed Jeb - when I plow the parking area by our house I see how high I can pile it up with the Kubota (see profile picture) to maximize how long the pile lasts (aka Midlothian Snowmaker in Richmond).  When the pile height exceeds the limits of the Kubota I blow more on top with the Gravely and the "snow cannon" (snowblower) which has the nickname of "dog eater" with our Gravely club because of it's tendency to eat things.  (just kidding, sort of).  

Last winter I never even put the front plow on Kubota even once out of fear it would jinx our snow chances.  Didn't make any difference as we struck out big time.  This year I'm taking the opposite approach.  Bought new radial tires for the Kubota, which are supposed to be superior in snow.  Just finished installing a second winch to pull me out of the deep drifts which are sure to come from the penultimate storms in JFM.  No doubt the entire sub-forum will soon be on long Jebwalks!  

Even better news to bolster Mid Atlantic snow probabilities.

It is raining hard at 8200 feet at Palisades Tahoe. 

Things are really starting to look up for snow and the Mid Atlantic.

Use the Kubota, then really push the snowpiles way over the top by getting a decent shovel and digging snow, pile it higher. Erect scaffolding if you have to! Get that snow piled up even higher!

You dig snow with enthusiasm, the snow gods will favor the Mid Atlantic. You'll get a captured storm that will pivot in place for days right over Washington DC and the greater region.

Always dig the snow, wherever possible! And take epic jebwalks! Slide for JOY on that ice! Yell woooooo-hooooo at the top of your lungs!

[Jebman]

I just SAVOR this topic so much! 2009-2010 was straight from Heaven! Who needs heaven with all that fresh snow that season! We were on one HELL of a HEATER, let me tell you! I got the damned BAJORKAS worked out of me digging the snow! All my neighbors on Greenwood Drive were demanding I shovel their walks! They blamed ME for all the snow lmao! That was the year I got to go to Charles Town Races and Slots and I got to see with my own eyes what must have been well over 30 inches of fresh snow on the ground in the Charles Town region! I took epic jebwalks and my late dad was so embarrassed he was in tears! Family never did understand. Route 9 had unbelievable drifts, that had been cut thru. I just gaped in awe! I had never, ever before, ever seen so much snow in real life! Some of the drifts were downright dangerous! The casino security just grinned as they watched me take hundreds of snow pics on their grounds, after I asked if I could. They already knew me all too well. Just ask them today about a guy called JD and the snow, and reading blogging PDF's for hours on end. I had everyone calling me JD at Charles Town. I was always walking around, jebwalking the place as I used to say years and years ago! I was always keeping records on paper, trying to beat the system. Ha ha never did. House edge always won. Boy I LOVED that place with ALL MY HEART, who needs heaven with a winter like 2009-2010 and a place like West Virginia! West Virginia gets more snow than many places in the northern Northeast Kingdom! 

We will in all likelihood, never see another season like 2009-10, for hundreds of years, and climate change is making it even less likely. The only way it would come close is an outright global ice age and a snowball Earth. No way. Not with the runaway heating going on and no way to ever stop it.

[gopper]

6 hours ago, kingbaus said:

The winters of 09-10 and 10-11 were epic. Wish we had another year like that.

I have a theory that for every blizzard we experience, we need to "pay" 4 years till the next one.  09-10 had 3 blizzards.  Therefore, we need to pay 12 years which would have taken us to 2022.  In 2016 we had a blizzard, so perhaps we will need to wait till 2026 for our next one.  No science or data to support this at all.  Just a sense that every big one only occurs at about 4 year intervals.  Hopefully, I am wrong and this year is our next big one!

Regardless, I have a feeling we will see several snows this year.  Hopefully a lot of small and moderate snows to keep us busy!

[Steve25]

3 minutes ago, gopper said:

I have a theory that for every blizzard we experience, we need to "pay" 4 years till the next one.  09-10 had 3 blizzards.  Therefore, we need to pay 12 years which would have taken us to 2022.  In 2016 we had a blizzard, so perhaps we will need to wait till 2026 for our next one.  No science or data to support this at all.  Just a sense that every big one only occurs at about 4 year intervals.  Hopefully, I am wrong and this year is our next big one!

Regardless, I have a feeling we will see several snows this year.  Hopefully a lot of small and moderate snows to keep us busy!

I like the "every 7 years" logic. It doesn't account for a winter like 09/10 with multiple historic storms, but in my lifetime, this area has had a MAJOR SNOWSTORM on winters almost exactly 7-ish years apart. 96, 03, 09/10, 16...

[Steve25]

Our climate definitely has entered an interesting place in the past 30 years or so. Our average snowfall per year has definitely declined, but the number of huge storms has increased in frequency. 4 of Baltimores top 5 two-day snowstorms were 96, 03, 10, and 16. 

For those in these forums who are old enough to have been tracking storms since the 90s, you've actually grown up in a golden age for big snowstorms. Unfortunately, it's come with the trade-off of having more dud winters to deal with. 

[Jebman]

1979, 1983, 1987, 1993, 1996, 2000, 2003, 2009, 2013, 2016. Those were years that Dale City got hit by massive snows.

This year you guys are OVERDUE!

What the Mid Atlantic needs are about 15,000 giant snow guns hooked up to various rivers, and fueled by gas, solar and electric, run them at full blast every night when it hits 32 or lower. We'd boost our snow totals per season to 1,000 inches or more easy. Run industrial fans for realistic drifts, then grab your Jebman Shovel and dig snow and pile it high in every place that is protected from the sun. We could even turn the entire Mid Atlantic Region into one of the largest ski resorts in the world! Maybe build a few casinos up in there too! Hell Yeah! We could have a HECS every week!

[Drewber]

My dad's flight on United going into Dulles from Frankfurt had to be rerouted to Chicago O'Hare due to poor visibility on the runway at the tail end of the storm.  The pilot decided to abort landing.  My dad was returning from one of his two trips to Kiev, Ukraine.  He wasn't happy about missing the storm.  My dad followed the forecast for the storm in Ukraine.  He reported that the ground was completely white from Chicago on his way home the following morning.  Following the weather was important to him.  He gave me a one year prescription to access AccuWeather's premium content for Christmas that year.  At that time it was a lot of fun to read through Joe Bastardi's content.  My dad asked me if I wanted to renew the one year prescription the following year and I told him I didn't need him to.  I had decided that I was proficient enough interpreting the models that I didn't need him to renew it.

[Jebman]

I found some notes about the Dec 19 2009 Blizzard way back in my IPB board notes, in the Archives. I am going to put a lot of that up in Google Drive. I added some modern formatting as well.

Posted December 20, 2009.

 

It's amazing that I could remember so much detail from my Midweek trip this week, writing it up at 2am TWO DAYS after coming home at 353am Friday Dec 18. This is 2am Sunday Dec 20. I got badly sidetracked by a 24 inch blizzard here that hit on Saturday all day long.

 

This is an extraordinary situation. Page M132 was originally designed to contain three days' worth of information. However, I spent two days at CharlesTown, from 413pm on Tuesday afternoon to 219am on early Friday morning, not arriving home til 353am Friday morning.

 

I managed to scrape 40 and Dad gave me a 50 bank.

One thing I noticed was that it was real hard to establish a ChinaBlack Interval profile on any SunMoon because people either played very long or in the case of the guy (Larry) playing the Lady slot in the RedZone Tuesday night, he had access to an additional 100 dollars of resources and so played the Lady slot thru to a bonus then another ultimately reaching 6000 then 8000 credits.

 

In addition, there was a tremendous amount of modeling going on at EUSWX and I was totally agog reading EasternUSWX threads from Monday on into Thursday, then Friday as well as it became obvious that N VA was in for a major snowstorm on Saturday. I ended up getting completely enthralled with EUSWX Friday morning from 430am to 7am no less before finally getting to bed, then sleeping til 120pm on Friday afternoon and reading EUSWX. From then on it was a downhill progression right into the snowstorm Friday night at 730pm and lasted on into this evening, Saturday night. I am only beginning to get back on Twitter and to address this situation as of 130am Sunday morning. Because of two feet of snow outside, I can not even get out of the frackin driveway, so am staying up tonight.

 

In fact I am having real trouble transitioning back to Twitter and social media from the storm. I had next to no trouble transitioning from CharlesTown to the impending storm though. I felt a few pangs about CharlesTown early Friday morning as I read EUSWX but those soon vanished as the impending snowstorm took hold during Friday afternoon.

 

I can still remember hearing the SunMoon slot songs in my head Friday evening as well as songs played in the casino including some Christmas songs, but the storm soon took completely over. Some intrigue associated with winter has developed at CharlesTown about the cold this week there and some snow I saw there last Tuesday night at 930pm that soon changed to rain.

 

Met Susan 10pm Wed night in RedZone at the Lady slot. She wins all the frackin time!

Saw Billie at the Dream slot from 615pm to 830pm on Tue night. She brought Jessica along. Billie wins all the time.

Saw Billie again for about two hours from 4pm to 630pm at the Billie slot and various SunMoon machines in the Central Grotto that Wed evening. Wed night while with Billie I played 9 bets and 18 bets on the Debo slot for 30 minutes, only to run low on money without getting the bonus, only to have another lady play a 9 bet a minute later and hit the bonus and win 120 dollars that I ached for so badly afterward. I only had about 40 dollars left at the time.

 

I also met Debbie and her mom at the Debo slot at 930 pm Tue night. 

 

I saw Jim again Thur afternoon about 5pm in the Cen Grotto. He said that after he won the 195 dollars at the ChinaBlack slot at 5pm last Thursday, he went to the penny machines where he won 900 dollars. That was the Thursday when I was so tired I had consciousness interruptions with dreams overlaid on wakefulness all afternoon and night. That Thursday was VERY DIFFICULT for me because I was so tired. Sleeping 5.5 hours (that is, I slept 630am to730am, ate breakfast for 1st time at hotel then slept from 8am to 1230pm!!!) this Tuesday night made a world of difference this Weds and another 4 hours sleep (5am to 9am, also ate sausage and yogurt for breakfast) Wed night made a good deal of difference on Thursday, especially when you consider that we stayed on as it turned out, to 219am Friday before finally leaving. The Dad let me play SunMoon at 1130pm with about 60 dollars. I was able to later build about 55 although before 630pm I had had zero, nada.

 

ChinaBlack slot and another SunMoon slot were offline from Tue night until about 6pm Thur night.

 

I noticed that people hit big on SunMoons in the Central Grotto from 3pm to 5pm on Thur afternoon. I played my 12 + 54 +20 dollars at 11am to 2pm and got nowhere. I realized that if I'd waited to play until 3pm-330pm on Thursday I might have hit well.

 

On Tue night, the Lady slot in the RedZone hit 8000 credits for this frackin guy. I managed to hit the tail end of that at 230am, hitting the bonus on a 9 bet and getting 60 dollars in the process.

 

On Wed Night a lady (don't know her name) played the Lady slot from 830pm to 130am, winning 12000 credits and hitting the bonus at least FIVE times! I finally got on it at 230am but nothing. While waiting for her to get done so I could play, at about 12 midnight I jebwalked over to the South Wing of the Central Grotto and hit up the East SunMoon with a 9bet, instantly hitting a Bonus. I got about 60 bucks. This illustrates why you should try to hit a Jim bet (18 bet) or a 27 bet for the first hit on a SunMoon, especially late at night, because sometimes you just may hit a Bonus.

 

Rm 227 last week

 

Dad got room 109 Tuesday AND Wednesday night. This greatly improved my wakefulness most markedly on Wed and Thursday.

 

I discovered a new place to recharge my iPhone, upstairs in the RedZone at 11pm on Thursday night. I was really using it to read EUSWX thread about insane NAM qpf totals for the HM Blizzard and I constantly had to recharge it. Also discovered several places to plug in and recharge the iPhone in the Central Grotto and west of it.

 

 

Used the shuttle a lot. VERY cold there this trip, highs only low 30s with 19 DPs and lows at night near 20 with breezes that cut right thru you.

 

First time trying out the computer at the CharlesTown Inn. Real fast computer. 

[Deck Pic]

I got 18.5” in NW DC.  Really the perfect storm. Amazing pivot. Cherish it. It doesn’t snow in December any more 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

4 hours ago, Deck Pic said:

I got 18.5” in NW DC.  Really the perfect storm. Amazing pivot. Cherish it. It doesn’t snow in December any more 

Yup...20.0" where I'm at not all that far away (Silver Spring, just over the DC line).  Amazing storm, and it was extra-special because it had been years since we last got a true HECS here.  It started Friday night (Dec. 18), like late evening, around 9-10PM, and accumulated rapidly.  I had 9" on the ground by Saturday morning (19th), and then 20" by the time it ended.  My daughter had just turned 6 in November of that year, and I have a photo of her on that Saturday in her pink winter coat with the snow up to her waist!

[Eskimo Joe]

2 hours ago, Always in Zugzwang said:

Yup...20.0" where I'm at not all that far away (Silver Spring, just over the DC line).  Amazing storm, and it was extra-special because it had been years since we last got a true HECS here.  It started Friday night (Dec. 18), like late evening, around 9-10PM, and accumulated rapidly.  I had 9" on the ground by Saturday morning (19th), and then 20" by the time it ended.  My daughter had just turned 6 in November of that year, and I have a photo of her on that Saturday in her pink winter coat with the snow up to her waist!

Yup. No dry airmass or temp issues. It just snowed.

[Jebman]

It was so heavy and it poured snow! I was beside myself with pure joy! I was blasting Elton John tracks, Billy Joel tracks, and many other 60s/70s/80s stuff that all reminded me of past snows like Feb 19, 1979, Feb 11, 1983 and others! I was digging snow and piling it so high it was embarrassing everyone in Dale City! I stayed up for several days, reconciling my recent Charles Town trip and the new snow experiences on my IPB board. Absofuckinlutely good times!

[mappy]

15 years! 

[aldie 22]

On 12/17/2012 at 9:57 PM, mattie g said:

I'm starting to tire of having to relive 09-10 in order to feel good about winter.

Boy do I have some bad news for you

[mattie g]

1 hour ago, aldie 22 said:

Boy do I have some bad news for you

I'm an even crankier person now. Give it to me...

[Interstate]

Does anyone have a radar loop... I believe that Richmond got more than us... but we got the biggest snowstorm ever later that winter

[Ji]

One of my favorite all time storms mainly because of the time of year. So rare to get a storm like that here in the mid part of December. Will we ever see a -NAO like that during the winter again...sigh.

No

[Ji]

Most memorable storm of my life because one of my best friends was getting married and couldn't cancel. I ended up having to drive him and a packed truckload of crap from Rockville to Columbia. Started the drive @ noon and got to the hotel @ 3. I have never in my life driven in such bad conditions. My suburban handled it like an absolute champ. 495 and 95 were a complete free for all. It snowed its eyeballs out the entire trip and there was 12-18 of snow on the interstate by the time I got on 95. I weaved around so many stranded people that it was ridiculous.
There were so many cars stuck that it was surreal. I plowed through every obstacle and got the groom there with enough time to relax before his big day. Honestly, I had a blast driving and loved every minute of it. Then I was treated like a celebrity the whole night at the wedding. Great storm!

Yes we know…your friends wedding

[mappy]

^ so salty

I personally love that someone else got married that day. Happy Anniversary to them @Bob Chill! 

[Eskimo Joe]

With many of the images in this thread falling by the wayside, here's a solid recap from Ray Martin's winter storm archive.

https://www.raymondcmartinjr.com/weather/2010/19-Dec-09.html

[WEATHER53]

And the winter got even better 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

12 hours ago, WEATHER53 said:

And the winter got even better 

Yeah, unreal to think that the December 2009 HECS was just the start (actually, it started earlier that month with a light amount of snow on the "famous" Dec. 5!).  I still have to say, that 12 day period from Jan. 30-Feb. 10, 2010 was the most concentrated snowy period I've seen, and I grew up in northeast Ohio where I've experienced a lot of snowy winters!  In that 12 days, we got two moderate events and two HECS-level storms, and I measured a total of 46.8" in that time.