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Light vs. Moderate vs. Heavy


famartin

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Its all about how far you can see...

Flurries: Visibility greater than 4 miles

Light snow: Visibility between 3/4 mile and 4 miles

Moderate snow: Visibility around 1/2 mile

Heavy snow: Visibility 1/4 mile or less

Thanks for posting this. I always chuckle when I see heavy snow posted over and over.

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Ray, is there an accumulation rate that can be approximated from a given visibility or vice-versa? Maybe ratios affect this, but for example, to me heavy snow is >=2" an hour or when I can't see trees/houses that are 800 -1000 feet away. I know it's not technical, and probably not accurate, but that's my approximate standard for heavy snow.

 

Or, from a different perspective, if visibility is 1/2 mile (moderate snow), how much snow should accumulate in an hour?

 

Here it snowed 2.0" in the 1st 2 1/2 hours after it started, which is 0.83 inches per hour. I just measured again, 1 hour and 15 minutes after the 1st measurement, and it's 3.0", which equates to 0.80  inches an hour since the 1st measurement, so the rate has been pretty consistent. To me that's moderate snow. Am I in the ballpark?

 

Thanks!

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Ray, is there an accumulation rate that can be approximated from a given visibility or vice-versa? Maybe ratios affect this, but for example, to me heavy snow is >=2" an hour or when I can't see trees/houses that are 800 -1000 feet away. I know it's not technical, and probably not accurate, but that's my approximate standard for heavy snow.

 

Or, from a different perspective, if visibility is 1/2 mile (moderate snow), how much snow should accumulate in an hour?

 

Here it snowed 2.0" in the 1st 2 1/2 hours after it started, which is 0.83 inches per hour. I just measured again, 1 hour and 15 minutes after the 1st measurement, and it's 3.0", which equates to 0.80  inches an hour since the 1st measurement, so the rate has been pretty consistent. To me that's moderate snow. Am I in the ballpark?

 

Thanks!

 

A specific snowfall rate has never been applied to snowfall intensity.  Perhaps at some point they'll do that when our automated airport systems can actually measure that, but so far they can't.

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i think that will be huge if you could put together vidoes to show the difference between light/moderate/heavy snow

Once I find the time...it will happen before winter is out. Unfortunately, most of the video is heavy snowfall. And Ray might even okay a "puking" classification I have from the boxing day storm. Less than two tenths of a mile visibility. Just awesome to see.

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