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December 1992 Nor'easter video


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I found a video that my brother and I shot of the December '92 Nor'easter and I wanted to share it for those that didn't get to fully experience it.  We drove from Stafford, CT through Union and then downtown Worcester before going to Hull and downtown Boston.  Outside of some goofball/awkward moments, it gives you a real sense of the conditions on that Saturday about 24 hours into the storm. 

 

You can tell by the comments that we had never seen anything like it and were really amazed by the conditions.  At one point you can can hear the NOAA weather radio guy and how impressed he is as well. 

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

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Still the best storm I have ever experienced. Had about 35" in Holden. The fact that like half of it was wet snow and tons of wind really made it unique and quite destructive. It really did a number on the coast too not much more than a year after the 1991 perfect storm.

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What amazes me is the change in technology since then.  Here we were driving around and only had a scanner and AM radio to know what was happening.  I remember stopping at a phone booth and calling a colleague to get some info which is why we decided to go to the coast.  The video doesn't do that justice because of the focus and the fact that the tide had started to go out by the time that we got there but I had never seen such a caldron before or since.

 

I kind of chuckled at the comment I made saying I had never seen anything like it but you have to remember that since my birth I had never seen a 2' snow storm and since it all happened in less than 24 hours the impact was even more impressive.  I've seen several storms since then and that storm seem to be a game changer as there was winters before that and winters after that in terms of storms.

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Great video John.. Brings back good memories. Which one is you? In the bomber Celtics jacket or the Russian hat?

 

lol....it's Dave (or as everyone hear calls me 'Herb') but I'm the guy with the hat.  I have no idea why I brought that hat because I remember it being really hot and you needed temps below zero to make it work.  I bought it in Canada when I was living in Lyndonville.

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lol....it's Dave (or as everyone hear calls me 'Herb') but I'm the guy with the hat.  I have no idea why I brought that hat because I remember it being really hot and you needed temps below zero to make it work.  I bought it in Canada when I was living in Lyndonville.

Lol Kevin has trouble remembering his own name, great video, really tells the story well.

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Digging up old wounds. That ride from Enfield to Union on 190 had about a 20 inch snowfall difference.

 

I was living in Somers at the time....had nothing Saturday morning and the drive up the hill by no more than a mile or so changed that to 13" of snow.  Union doubled that but that storm changed me from someone that would get upset at that to just accepting what I had.  A few years later there was a Norlun that dumped 13-17" over my house in a couple of hours and I missed it trying to chase it elsewhere....d'oh!

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Digging up old wounds. That ride from Enfield to Union on 190 had about a 20 inch snowfall difference.

 

That was the first storm that educated me on the CT Valley snow hole. I was young and ignorant back then, so I used to always think the further west you went, the more snow you got. Then we were out 2 days after the storm at the grocery store and this lady from Springfield made a comment on how they only got an inch or two of slush and I didn't believe her, but she insisted it was amazing driving from there to ORH and going from 1-2" to over 30".

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That was the first storm that educated me on the CT Valley snow hole. I was young and ignorant back then, so I used to always think the further west you went, the more snow you got. Then we were out 2 days after the storm at the grocery store and this lady from Springfield made a comment on how they only got an inch or two of slush and I didn't believe her, but she insisted it was amazing driving from there to ORH and going from 1-2" to over 30".

 

I was living at 290' at the base of an 1100' hill in Somers at the time and we did not turn over to snow until later on that Saturday.  BDL and western parts of the valley turned before we did and I think I was living in the last place to turn to snow in that storm!

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I was living at 290' at the base of an 1100' hill in Somers at the time and we did not turn over to snow until later on that Saturday.  BDL and western parts of the valley turned before we did and I think I was living in the last place to turn to snow in that storm!

 

 

You might have been getting worse downsloping in Somers than BDL. It seems just eyeballing that Somers would still be downsloping on a NNE wind as the storm progressed and winds turned...more than BDL would be. Perhaps that difference was enough to overcome the slight elevation advantage....esp with the winds being stronger and marginal temps.

 

It was a fascinating storm for mesoscale terrain effects.

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What amazes me is the change in technology since then.  Here we were driving around and only had a scanner and AM radio to know what was happening.  I remember stopping at a phone booth and calling a colleague to get some info which is why we decided to go to the coast.  The video doesn't do that justice because of the focus and the fact that the tide had started to go out by the time that we got there but I had never seen such a caldron before or since.

 

I kind of chuckled at the comment I made saying I had never seen anything like it but you have to remember that since my birth I had never seen a 2' snow storm and since it all happened in less than 24 hours the impact was even more impressive.  I've seen several storms since then and that storm seem to be a game changer as there was winters before that and winters after that in terms of storms.

I chuckled at the part where the driver takes a ticket from the tollbooth.   Those days are long gone for most folks with electronic tolling now commonplace.

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You might have been getting worse downsloping in Somers than BDL. It seems just eyeballing that Somers would still be downsloping on a NNE wind as the storm progressed and winds turned...more than BDL would be. Perhaps that difference was enough to overcome the slight elevation advantage....esp with the winds being stronger and marginal temps.

 

It was a fascinating storm for mesoscale terrain effects.

Somers has very high points on the Tolland/Ellington line. In fact Soapstone Mountain which is less than 10 minutes from me is near 1,000k. It's crazy though..how fast you lose elevation as you go down into the center of Somers twds Enfield

 

That wxradio Herb/David had on in the background used to get signals from a transmitter on top of Soapstone. there's some great running/hiking trails there and a fire tower at the top with great views

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Mass Pike still has the ticket so does Maine Turnpike

sure they do (for now), but only about 20% of folks use them, most have EZ pass now and sail through without picking up a ticket or fumbling for bills/coins on the other end.

 

I just switched to EZ pass lol.

Got sick of waiting 30 minutes to pay a toll in high peak times?   I got it when it first came out-shortened my trips to Philly by a good 20-30 minutes.

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Somers has very high points on the Tolland/Ellington line. In fact Soapstone Mountain which is less than 10 minutes from me is near 1,000k. It's crazy though..how fast you lose elevation as you go down into the center of Somers twds Enfield

 

That wxradio Herb/David had on in the background used to get signals from a transmitter on top of Soapstone. there's some great running/hiking trails there and a fire tower at the top with great views

 

Northern Tolland County & a little north into Mass. is a decent plateau compared to surrounding areas.  The center of Somers is already down to under 300' and you're under 20' at the Connecticut River.  I'd rather be where I am...

 

They still transmit the NOAA weather radio from Soapstone but the old BDL weather radar is no longer in use.  I think they just use it as a transmitting tower but you're right about the views. 

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Somers has very high points on the Tolland/Ellington line. In fact Soapstone Mountain which is less than 10 minutes from me is near 1,000k. It's crazy though..how fast you lose elevation as you go down into the center of Somers twds Enfield

That wxradio Herb/David had on in the background used to get signals from a transmitter on top of Soapstone. there's some great running/hiking trails there and a fire tower at the top with great views

Was just up there last week. 1075 ASL is what the maps say. Beautiful view right on the edge of the valley. The escarpment is real sharp right there. . Its about 18 minutes from my house.

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Northern Tolland County & a little north into Mass. is a decent plateau compared to surrounding areas.  The center of Somers is already down to under 300' and you're under 20' at the Connecticut River.  I'd rather be where I am...

 

They still transmit the NOAA weather radio from Soapstone but the old BDL weather radar is no longer in use.  I think they just use it as a transmitting tower but you're right about the views. 

 

Definitely...the lower elevation probably makes it a bear for downsloping on a NNE wind...you get the already larger scale shallow downslope wind from the ORH hills to the NNE and then a more severe local effect being in a relative low spot compared to east and northeast in the same town.

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sure they do (for now), but only about 20% of folks use them, most have EZ pass now and sail through without picking up a ticket or fumbling for bills/coins on the other end.

 

Got sick of waiting 30 minutes to pay a toll in high peak times?   I got it when it first came out-shortened my trips to Philly by a good 20-30 minutes.

i thought about it but the 2 times a year I use toll roads I didn't bother

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That video was just great. I made a similar weenie ride from the RI ocean up to Foster RI a 20 minute ride, incredible diverse storm, the power of the Ocean was something, coming on the heels of Bob, Perfect storm and followed by Superstorm 93 perhaps the best year and a half  of storms in decades, then came Sandy the worst yet in my life for the RI south coast

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sure they do (for now), but only about 20% of folks use them, most have EZ pass now and sail through without picking up a ticket or fumbling for bills/coins on the other end.

Got sick of waiting 30 minutes to pay a toll in high peak times? I got it when it first came out-shortened my trips to Philly by a good 20-30 minutes.

I never needed to pay a toll really given the roads I use.
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i thought about it but the 2 times a year I use toll roads I didn't bother

 

We got into EZ-Pass thanks to the Garden State Parkway, which used to have the EZ-Pass lanes far right at one toll plaza then far left at the next, with the crush of waiting traffic making lane switches nearly impossible, leading to heartburn.  Having the grandkids in Illinois (now in SNJ) also makes the electronic version preferable.

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One thing that's always stood out in my memory as interesting about that '92 storm was all the consternation before hand regarding p-type and where....  Yet, when all was set and done, not only did snow win out in most places (given time and dynamics depending) but the temp was into the upper teens in a lot of those some areas of interior eastern zones.  

 

That's not just a p-type and subsequent snow amount bust... that's busting with some serious panache!   17 F ??!!  hello -

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