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Central PA & The Fringes - February 2014 Pt. VI


2001kx

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The storm was very impressive in my opinion (especially with the observed TSSN). Also, can't complain about a KU that dumps snow from Texas to Maine...

 

ScreenHunter_66Feb132104.png

 

I think the rating is a bit too low for the storm, but I still didn't think it would finish as a NESIS 4. I thought high end 3 was justifiable though. That being said, the impact the storm had for the whole east coast can not be denied. The one thing the NESIS does not take into account is other weather phenomena such as ice, severe weather and flooding. If you added those contributions to the mix, this storm was definitely top 15 worthy for any storm. Millions down south without power due to incredible ice. The squall line that rolled through Florida was pretty impressive as well. I don't know if any tornadoes were spotted during the line, but straight lines were pretty hefty. The total population affected by the storm was incredible. Not often you see 10+" of snow dumped from Alabama to Upstate NY. The widespread 20+" totals was a big reason why this didn't go much higher. I also completely forgot about how little Boston was impacted by the storm as well. That's a very large population that stayed out of the fray. 

 

Overall, this was a great storm. A lot of countless hours trying to read models and forecast based off of virtual depictions. In the end, the storm greatly over performed in snowfall across the Mid Atlantic and CPA. One lesson that could be taken away is southern stream dominant systems can and more often than not over perform on qpf to a degree. But when you are throwing around 12" snowfall projections and just a little more precip enters the fray, you start getting into big boy numbers. This will end up being a top 10 storm in my book. It takes a lot to get top 5 for me, so I'll place this at #7 in my book

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Meeeeeelting away.

Not much melting going on here at the moment. 34° currently.  Had a really solid refreeze with a low of 16° this morning. Unless we really warm up and manage an inch of rain tomorrow, I think we should hold on to 5-7" of concrete pretty easily.

 

I was working near Clarks Summit today, at around 1600', and the snow was easily up to my knees in most places, with a few drifts significantly deeper.

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Not much melting going on here at the moment. 34° currently.  Had a really solid refreeze with a low of 16° this morning. Unless we really warm up and manage an inch of rain tomorrow, I think we should hold on to 5-7" of concrete pretty easily.

 

I was working near Clarks Summit today, at around 1600', and the snow was easily up to my knees in most places, with a few drifts significantly deeper.

 

I was down to 13" yesterday, my remeasure early this evening was 11.5". Def a water heavy snowpack and I still have to drive my steel ruler through the frozen sleet layer near the bottom. With regards to melt, I'm actually eying Saturday up as a possible bigger melt day then what we may see prior to the frontal passage. We're progged to get around 50 on Saturday with a solid breeze and strong sunshine before the cold eventually settles back in at the end of the weekend. 

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I was down to 13" yesterday, my remeasure early this evening was 11.5". Def a water heavy snowpack and I still have to drive my steel ruler through the frozen sleet layer near the bottom. With regards to melt, I'm actually eying Saturday up as a possible bigger melt day then what we may see prior to the frontal passage. We're progged to get around 50 on Saturday with a solid breeze and strong sunshine before the cold eventually settles back in at the end of the weekend. 

I agree. Although tonight might make a dent in it.

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I was down to 13" yesterday, my remeasure early this evening was 11.5". Def a water heavy snowpack and I still have to drive my steel ruler through the frozen sleet layer near the bottom. With regards to melt, I'm actually eying Saturday up as a possible bigger melt day then what we may see prior to the frontal passage. We're progged to get around 50 on Saturday with a solid breeze and strong sunshine before the cold eventually settles back in at the end of the weekend. 

my sloped areas here took quite a hit today... some spots with only 2-3" depth... but still about 9" where it is more level... took another core sample where it is level and had 9" melted down to 2.27"... not much change from last night

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I think the rating is a bit too low for the storm, but I still didn't think it would finish as a NESIS 4. I thought high end 3 was justifiable though. That being said, the impact the storm had for the whole east coast can not be denied. The one thing the NESIS does not take into account is other weather phenomena such as ice, severe weather and flooding. If you added those contributions to the mix, this storm was definitely top 15 worthy for any storm. Millions down south without power due to incredible ice. The squall line that rolled through Florida was pretty impressive as well. I don't know if any tornadoes were spotted during the line, but straight lines were pretty hefty. The total population affected by the storm was incredible. Not often you see 10+" of snow dumped from Alabama to Upstate NY. The widespread 20+" totals was a big reason why this didn't go much higher. I also completely forgot about how little Boston was impacted by the storm as well. That's a very large population that stayed out of the fray. 

 

Overall, this was a great storm. A lot of countless hours trying to read models and forecast based off of virtual depictions. In the end, the storm greatly over performed in snowfall across the Mid Atlantic and CPA. One lesson that could be taken away is southern stream dominant systems can and more often than not over perform on qpf to a degree. But when you are throwing around 12" snowfall projections and just a little more precip enters the fray, you start getting into big boy numbers. This will end up being a top 10 storm in my book. It takes a lot to get top 5 for me, so I'll place this at #7 in my book

 

The NESIS scale doesn't even factor in anything snow wise outside of the Northeastern states, being strictly based on impact in the northeast. There's definitely some shortcomings to the scale since it only applies snow accumulation vs population. This storm did solidly beat Feb 5/6, 2010 on the NESIS scale (4.38 Cat 3), and I'm sure you south central and Lower Sus Valley guys know which one was better haha. 

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The NESIS scale doesn't even factor in anything snow wise outside of the Northeastern states, being strictly based on impact in the northeast. There's definitely some shortcomings to the scale since it only applies snow accumulation vs population. This storm did solidly beat Feb 5/6, 2010 on the NESIS scale (4.38 Cat 3), and I'm sure you south central and Lower Sus Valley guys know which one was better haha. 

BTW, Tombo over on PhillyWx posted the summary of the latest Euro weeklies:

 

"Weeklies were pretty cold/chilly throughout.. basically a summary of them... -epo forces pv south, -epo wanes, temps warm back to near normal. Then +pna fires up, drops the trof into the east again. +pna gives way to -epo again and another blast comes south...No real -nao at all, there is a -ao."

 

Maybe we'll get some spring in May.

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BTW, Tombo over on PhillyWx posted the summary of the latest Euro weeklies:

 

"Weeklies were pretty cold/chilly throughout.. basically a summary of them... -epo forces pv south, -epo wanes, temps warm back to near normal. Then +pna fires up, drops the trof into the east again. +pna gives way to -epo again and another blast comes south...No real -nao at all, there is a -ao."

 

Maybe we'll get some spring in May.

Probably during Finals Week...then the rest of May is cold and rainy, with a little snow thrown in because why not. :lol:

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The NESIS scale doesn't even factor in anything snow wise outside of the Northeastern states, being strictly based on impact in the northeast. There's definitely some shortcomings to the scale since it only applies snow accumulation vs population. This storm did solidly beat Feb 5/6, 2010 on the NESIS scale (4.38 Cat 3), and I'm sure you south central and Lower Sus Valley guys know which one was better haha.

Yeah, the ranking system has had some interesting final analysis #'s recently. As far as knowing which storm was of greater impact, Feb 5/6 2010 was downright insane. I was in Carney, MD for that one at my home. We had 32" of snow and our culdesac was paralyzed. People couldn't leave for 3 days. That storm could've easily pulled a NESIS 5 for MD area. I have never seen such widespread 30"+ totals since PDII and '96. That storm takes the cake for best storm I've ever been apart of at home.
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BTW, Tombo over on PhillyWx posted the summary of the latest Euro weeklies:

 

"Weeklies were pretty cold/chilly throughout.. basically a summary of them... -epo forces pv south, -epo wanes, temps warm back to near normal. Then +pna fires up, drops the trof into the east again. +pna gives way to -epo again and another blast comes south...No real -nao at all, there is a -ao."

 

Maybe we'll get some spring in May.

 

Ok, so we had a cold and somewhat snowy January. We had slightly milder, but still cold February, with lots of snow. Why does this pattern this winter have to be so persistent that we have to go through the same thing again? I know March is March, and anything can happen, but really...can't we just have NORMAL March weather?

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Ok, so we had a cold and somewhat snowy January. We had slightly milder, but still cold February, with lots of snow. Why does this pattern this winter have to be so persistent that we have to go through the same thing again? I know March is March, and anything can happen, but really...can't we just have NORMAL March weather?

I'll take normal March weather.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm fine with 10.2 more inches of snow :snowing:

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I'll take normal March weather.

I'm fine with 10.2 more inches of snow :snowing:

 

Thanks Jamie...you just killed my moment! :P

 

Yeah, we average 7.4" here, but many times we get less than that. For the most part, I want the TEMPERATURES to be normal. No more polar vortexes and single digit lows and mid 20's highs. Looking at the long range models there just seems to be no "light at the end of the tunnel", and for a person like me, who isn't a big fan of winter, it's quite depressing. Especially if you consider that winter started making it's presence known even before Thanksgiving.

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Ok, so we had a cold and somewhat snowy January. We had slightly milder, but still cold February, with lots of snow. Why does this pattern this winter have to be so persistent that we have to go through the same thing again? I know March is March, and anything can happen, but really...can't we just have NORMAL March weather?

Only 27 days till spring.

Had some melting going on yesterday but still have quite a bit of snow left.

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Thanks Jamie...you just killed my moment! :P

 

Yeah, we average 7.4" here, but many times we get less than that. For the most part, I want the TEMPERATURES to be normal. No more polar vortexes and single digit lows and mid 20's highs. Looking at the long range models there just seems to be no "light at the end of the tunnel", and for a person like me, who isn't a big fan of winter, it's quite depressing. Especially if you consider that winter started making it's presence known even before Thanksgiving.

Yeah, it's either a lot of snow in March or hardly any, it seems. But this March is loaded with snow potential. 

 

I'll join you about St. Patty's Day. I want to be able to get in my garden.

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Went from 14.5" of snow pack...down to 10" of snow pack when I measured this morning.

Jamie thanks for the heads up!  From what I can tell both storms are around a couple inches for ipt.

Yeah, thinking the same. My current snow pack is 11 1/2. Tomorrow is huge, I have a feeling we end up with 5-6" of cement but we'll see. 

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Had a brief period of heavy rain about 30 minutes ago.  Now just light.  Looking at the Wundermap temps you almost get the impression that the approaching front is occluding.  I'm not so sure we see the spike to mid 50's here later on.  Temps in western PA are all in the 30's.  Still 37 degrees here.  Washington, DC 67 degrees, Norfolk 71.  Temps along M-D line no higher than mid 40's. 

 

Yesterday was the first day I began to see the reemergence of the "ice layer".  I still have at least 6" sitting on top of it right now.  Even if we have 50's with sun tomorrow I doubt that ice layer melts much, if any. 

 

This winter really has acted a lot like '93-'94 in many ways.  Back then I'm pretty sure we had snow cover well into March.  I know the year earlier after the Superstorm we kept our cover until the end of March which was 2 1/2 weeks after the storm.  During the final week there were a couple of single-digit lows from radiational cooling.  Maybe someone can comment on when was the most recent winter in the CPA region (including LSV) that had persistent snow cover well into March?  I think it's been quite a while.

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