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The Big One - Observation


JoshM

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I ended up with 18-19" here about 20mi west of Martinsville (about 45min from Big Frosty).

Last EURO run before the event ended had me at 20.1" of snow.

It snowed heavily from 1:00pm-10:00pm yesterday before changing to sleet after 9" of accumulation. Sleeted all night, mixing with snow after 3:00am or so.

Then all snow arrived again from the ULL and absolutely destroyed us from 9:00am-4:00pm with the heaviest rates/biggest flakes/highest winds of the event.

Ended with 18-20" depending on where you measure, and we have some 4-foot drifts.

Overall, I thought the sleet would be a killer for this storm, but with the intense ULL snows today, it more than made up for it.

Robert nailed it here with his 10-15" with locally higher totals.

DT also verified with his gutsy 16-20" call.

EURO verified with its 13-20" run-to-run totals.

This was definitely the best, most intense winter storm I vividly remember for my area (I'm 25, so I was only 4 in March '93) Can't say that I'm ready for spring just yet, but I'm very happy with this winter. Only two events, but topped the 20" mark either way. :)

I'm surprised you switched to sleet so early man last night this was a wild ride for sure. It is an absolute mess out there never plowed my road people packed it down today all the 4x4 anyway and it is a sheen of ice on top
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Incredible event for the inland areas. Berkeley Electric still have over 20K customers out in Berkeley County alone. There's several entire towns without power. 10K are still out in Dorchester County, over 6K in Colleton with SCE&G. Almost 2,000 in Charleston County.

They said some areas may be out of power for another 4-5 days in the deep inland areas after it went out on early Wednesday morning. Ravenel Bridge is still closed down from 4AM on Wednesday morning because of ice.

 

Some of the inland areas far away from the coast with the most ice could be out 2-3 weeks.

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It's not going to drop below freezing. I've seen this game before. I don't know why it works, but it does. If the temps aren't dropping near the end of the storm, they won't drop overnight. It doesn't matter how many times the NWS forecasts them to drop, they won't.

You got a good point there, I don't know why? But my forecasted lows this morning for tonight was low 20s this evening they said upper 20s but I'm still above freezing right now 32.8...

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RDU made it down to 28 and didn't drop below freezing until 3 AM. Can a met chime in and explain what happened?

 

 

I didn't follow the wx over there this morning, but I did work the near term desk at GSP. The LAPS soundings were showing very shallow and steep sfc inversions due to the snow cover. This allowed little vertical mixing even tho the gradient winds stayed up. Proof of the nil mixing is the Td trace...notice it remained at -4.4 C during the time of the temp drop off, while TDDs were 4.5 C at 08Z. This means the near sfc layer was throughly mixed wrt mass, yet still fairly dry, which then allowed radiational cooling to have more of an effect since warmer air aloft was no longer tapped into.

KRDU 141151Z 24004KT 10SM CLR M02/M04 A2977 RMK AO2 SLP083 4/002 70012 T10221044 10017 21028 53018

KRDU 141051Z 22006KT 10SM CLR M02/M04 A2974 RMK AO2 SLP073 T10221044

KRDU 140951Z 22008KT 10SM CLR M02/M04 A2973 RMK AO2 SLP070 T10221044

KRDU 140851Z 23007KT 10SM CLR M01/M04 A2971 RMK AO2 SLP065 T10061044 53015

KRDU 140751Z 23005KT 10SM CLR 00/M04 A2968 RMK AO2 SLP053 T00001044

KRDU 140651Z 25007KT 10SM CLR 01/M03 A2968 RMK AO2 SLP054 T00111033

KRDU 140551Z 25006KT 10SM CLR 01/M03 A2967 RMK AO2 SLP050 4/002 60000 T00111028 10022 20011 51024

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Doesn't look like the forecast of "widespread snow/sleet amounts over 4" north of I-20" verified.

 

Keep in mind that these are often what is measured as opposed to what actually fell since they're largely based on observers who aren't paid/official. I called FFC and the met. told me that just a few minutes ago. If you just go by what is measured, you will often be too low vs. what actually fell due to melting and compaction. Example: this map shows ~3" of snow/sleet for my area. In reality, I already estimated 4" actually fell in Dunwoody (2.5" IP and 1.5" SN) even though I also measured about 3" on the ground.

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Keep in mind that these are often what is measured as opposed to what actually fell since they're largely based on observers who aren't paid/official. I called FFC and the met. told me that just a few minutes ago. If you just go by what is measured, you will often be too low vs. what actually fell due to melting and compaction. Example: this map shows ~3" of snow/sleet for my area. In reality, I already estimated 4" actually fell in Dunwoody (2.5" IP and 1.5" SN) even though I also measured about 3" on the ground.

Did they make a map that showed just snow total ? Without the sleet ? And also a map with just sleet and not including snow ? I should also point out that FFC said there would be widespread 4" amounts of snow with some sleet also possible. Seems like they should have been more focused on sleet than snow in most areas of metro atl. Even the local atlanta media seemed to be more focused on snow than sleet for areas north of I-20.

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Did they make a map that showed just snow total ? Without the sleet ? And also a map with just sleet and not including snow ?

 

Nope. Only sleet and snow, combined. They can't because the people calling in the measurements don't give then two #'s...just the one total depth.

 

Edit: Also, if there was any left on the ground from the 2/11 event (affected well north of ATL), it would supposedly be included in the # because it is depth.. But much of that had already melted in many cases.

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Per 12Z 2/9 Euro at two meters, the run Lookout and myself had decided to evaluate for warm bias at two meters when wedging strong (we both saved maps):

 

forecast for 12Z 2/12: verified 1 F too wam at ATL and 3 too warm at MCN

forecast for 18Z 2/12: verified 4 F too warm at ATL and was exactly right at MCN

forecast for 0Z 2/13: verified 3 too warm at ATL and also at MCN

 

 Evidence of Euro warm bias at two meters though later runs were colder.

 

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