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1/2/14-1/3/14 SnowStorm Observations


anthonyweather

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I was just glancing at storm totals up and down the east coast, and it looks like this is one of those rare storms where nobody got screwed and nobody got an insane jackpot that makes us all jealous.  Looking south, it appears that from the northern DC burbs right on up through Baltimore got a solid 4" to 6" snowfall, and, even DC and northern VA appear to have gotten a nice little 2" to 4" storm.  The rest of the I-95 corridor from Philly to New York and right on up to Boston looks like a solid 6" to 10" with a few higher amounts out on Long Island and the Cape (and perhaps along the northern Jersey shore by the time the final flakes are added up).   

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Damn, just took about 50 measurements.

 

Averaged out to 10.2" for the final. The majority were within the bounds of 9" to 11". A handful sub 9" and 11"+ in the valleys and drifts in the yard.

 

Great storm!

Just went out again against my need for sleep and did another 10 measurements, surprisingly averaging out to the board amounts of about 11" even. (Thought the board was actually 10.9"). Awesome storm.

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Parents said about 11" in Marlboro. Monmouth on a good run lately.  Congrats.

quite possible depending on what side of town they live in. I'm in the extreme NW corner on the western side of Rt 9. Those in the eastern and southern sections might have gotten just a tad more, based on the obs in Colts Neck and Manalapan.  

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PHL reports 9.0 inches.

Should know this but what are the measurement guidelines at official reporting stations? I'm only about 3 miles from the airport and always seems to be a good 10-25% lower in totals. Granted I only got a chance to measure after all was said and done but I would have to be in an obvious drift to have measured 9". Same thing happened in the surprise December storm.

 

Sorry if off topic, feel free to move if so.

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Should know this but what are the measurement guidelines at official reporting stations? I'm only about 3 miles from the airport and always seems to be a good 10-25% lower in totals. Granted I only got a chance to measure after all was said and done but I would have to be in an obvious drift to have measured 9". Same thing happened in the surprise December storm.

 

Sorry if off topic, feel free to move if so.

 

Airport reporters (which are not always at the airport) report 6-hour measurements. The way its supposed to work is that a snow board is set on top of the snow, snow accumulates on the board, at the end of the 6 hours (or sooner if the snow stops), the depth is measured, the board is cleared and placed back on top of the fresh snow for the next 6 hours, cycle then repeated.

 

Its always hard to know exactly how an observer measures; the 6-hour method *should* (in my opinion) work well, *but* there are plenty of ways it can be messed up.  If the snow board placed in a location where it drifts too much, or is placed lower than the surrounding snow, or is subject to excessive roof blow-off.  This isn't a big problem usually (for inflation) at airports themselves, but there's the second catch:  Mt. Holly's airport snow observers are all removed from the airports they serve, because most don't have on-site observers anymore.  PHL does, but the FAA would rather not measure and so the PHL airport observer is actually located in National Park NJ.  Anyway, as I was saying, the 6-hour method tends to run into more problems in an environment with a high concentration of structures and trees, like your typical private, off-airport observer's property.

 

Now I say that it *should* work well because I have my parents using same method, and their numbers always seem to jive well with surrounding reports (which presumeably aren't using the 6-hour method).  But I strictly regulate their practices.

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So for those who were interested in how ratios really panned out...  I have my folks measure midnight-midnight for CoCoRaHS (rare but not unheard of) and this is what they got:

1/2 - 0.43" liquid out of 4.4" snow, a 10:1 ratio
1/3 - 0.22" liquid out of 3.3" snow, a 15:1 ratio

 

Overall for the storm, 0.65" liquid for 7.7" of snow, about a 12:1 ratio

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So for those who were interested in how ratios really panned out...  I have my folks measure midnight-midnight for CoCoRaHS (rare but not unheard of) and this is what they got:

1/2 - 0.43" liquid out of 4.4" snow, a 10:1 ratio

1/3 - 0.22" liquid out of 3.3" snow, a 15:1 ratio

 

Overall for the storm, 0.65" liquid for 7.7" of snow, about a 12:1 ratio

wow interesting. Very powdery snow too so I would have thought ratios would have been a bit better. Then again I think it was you and HM that mentioned that the first part of the storm would be closer to 10:1, which obviously turned out to be correct.

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wow interesting. Very powdery snow too so I would have thought ratios would have been a bit better. Then again I think it was you and HM that mentioned that the first part of the storm would be closer to 10:1, which obviously turned out to be correct.

 

I think I said this elsewhere, but it occurs to me that most of you don't really know what "fluff" snow is.  You guys get it SO rarely.  In fact, snow that's so cold that its "dry" is not all that common, so you probably are equating "dry" snow with "fluffy" snow.  Which isn't the case at all, as we've just seen.

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