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Fall+Banter


Ginx snewx

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34 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

I know Sam Lillo ran some numbers for that 30 day snow blitz and found only 6 simulated winters out of 1,000,000 produced what we observed. That's a shade over 160,000 year return period. 

 

Part of me thinks that the rate of return is probably a bit more common than some of those numbers (though still ridiculously rare). You have a close parallel in 1717 and something not insanely far from it in Feb '69. Both of those fell short of the 2015 blitz (well except for parts of elevated Maine/NH in Feb '69) but seeing a few events in the same general ballpark lead me to believe the return is probably at least an order of magnitude more common...maybe 2.

It can be hard to judge though given that we can never assume a stable climate. (or we can, but reality is different)

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30 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Looking back it, BOS pulled that off with only 7 days with more than 3" of snow. Except they were hitting moonshots with those 7 days. 4 of them were greater than 12"

Only twice before did BOS ever record more than 1 12" snowfall day in a season. '60-'61 and '77-'78, each with 2 days. 

Pretty sure we did it in '13 between the blizzard and that weird firehose storm in March too. 

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2 minutes ago, Hoth said:

Pretty sure we did it in '13 between the blizzard and that weird firehose storm in March too. 

 

I think he meant days...not storms. The firehose storm in 2013 gave BOS 10.5" on 3/8...and 2.6" on 3/7. The total was 13.1" but neither day had over 12".

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7 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Part of me thinks that the rate of return is probably a bit more common than some of those numbers (though still ridiculously rare). You have a close parallel in 1717 and something not insanely far from it in Feb '69. Both of those fell short of the 2015 blitz (well except for parts of elevated Maine/NH in Feb '69) but seeing a few events in the same general ballpark lead me to believe the return is probably at least an order of magnitude more common...maybe 2.

It can be hard to judge though given that we can never assume a stable climate. (or we can, but reality is different)

I'm sure there were a lot of assumptions that had to be made too, so it wouldn't be surprising if the numbers were slightly different in reality.

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6 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

I'm sure there were a lot of assumptions that had to be made too, so it wouldn't be surprising if the numbers were slightly different in reality.

 

Yeah definitely. Snowfall is probably one of the toughest things to model anyway. If you ran just a straight statistical analysis rather than trying to run a more complex model, then our sample is probably a bit limited for something like that to discern the difference between 1 in 100k and 1 in 3k...especially when you account for the change in measuring technique which matters more for larger storms (which is what you need to get 30 day snow blitzes...maybe 100" in 30 days turns into 80" the old way with a bunch of 2 foot fluff bombs...and a majority of the record we're running on is the old way). It probably matters less on season totals in means, since during our dud years or years without blockbuster storms the measuring technique is negligible.

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12 minutes ago, radarman said:

Does anyone know if the old BOS PNS archive for snow events (dated back to the mid 00s IIRC) is still online anywhere?

 

No, I think it's gone...they actually had the PNS data back to 1997-1998 winter....but not all is lost, you can get stuff back to 2001 on this site:

 

http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/wx/afos/list.phtml

 

There's actually other sites too that can get it, but I think this one is the quickest.

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I actually just ripped this off that page:

 

NOUS41 KBOX 231626
PNSBOX
CTZ002>004-MAZ002>024-NHZ011-012-RIZ001>007-220400-

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAUNTON MA
1225 PM EDT WED OCT 23 2002

THE FOLLOWING ARE PRELIMINARY SNOWFALL AMOUNTS IN INCHES ACROSS
SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND.

THANKS TO SPOTTERS AND THE MEDIA FOR YOUR REPORTS.

THIS SUMMARY IS ALSO AVAILABLE ON OUR HOME PAGE AT
HTTP://WWW.NWS.NOAA.GOV/ER/BOX

...NEW HAMPSHIRE...

...CHESHIRE COUNTY...
WALPOLE   4.0
JAFFREY   3.0   (ELEVATION 1080FT)
RINDGE    2.2 
KEENE     1.9
WILTON    1.9   (ELEVATION 700FT)
MARLOW    1.2
SWANZEY   1.0

...HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY...
SURRY MTN  4.0
MANCHESTER 2.1
MILFORD    2.0
NASHUA     1.0
  
...MASSACHUSETTS...
 
...ESSEX COUNTY...
LYNNFIELD   0.5
NEWBURYPORT 0.1

...FRANKLIN COUNTY...
GREENFIELD 0.3
SUNDERLAND 0.2

...HAMPSHIRE COUNTY...
WORTHINGTON 0.4
AMHERST   TRACE

...MIDDLESEX COUNTY...
PEPPERELL 2.3
AYER      1.3
READING   1.2
WOBURN    1.1
BEDFORD   0.1
 
...NORFOLK COUNTY...
MILTON - BLUE HILLS OBSERVATORY 0.4

...WORCESTER COUNTY...
WORCESTER APT (ELEVATION 998FT) 3.0
AUBURN    3.0
GARDNER   2.0
CLINTON   1.9
WORCESTER (HOLDEN LINE) 2.0
WORCESTER (MILBURY LINE) 0.8
WEST WARREN 1.5
BIRCH HILL 1.0
BARRE FALLS 1.0
LEICESTER 1.0

 

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

 

No, I think it's gone...they actually had the PNS data back to 1997-1998 winter....but not all is lost, you can get stuff back to 2001 on this site:

 

http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/wx/afos/list.phtml

 

There's actually other sites too that can get it, but I think this one is the quickest.

 

Thanks.  The IA state site is just about the default archive for most NWS products these days...  Good they've taken the initiative.  That said, I wish the old Boston page was still up... if anyone sees this and it's kicking around on a server in Taunton I'll host it for them ;)

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9 minutes ago, radarman said:

Thanks.  The IA state site is just about the default archive for most NWS products these days...  Good they've taken the initiative.  That said, I wish the old Boston page was still up... if anyone sees this and it's kicking around on a server in Taunton I'll host it for them ;)

Looks like they're trying. They are back to 2009 at http://www.weather.gov/box/pastevents#

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Just now, radarman said:

Oh yeah.... nice, thank you for pointing it out.  This is pretty good.  Looks like they are setting up for some sort of smoothing/contouring as well in the future.  Cool.

The map is pretty cool, it will give you a read out of obs around the point you click on in the image.

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Highest snowpack I saw in a non-mountain setting down in SNE was ORH in March 2001...it was near 4 feet. 2015 got close but I noticed it wasn't quite as high using reference points....the only reason I think that March 2001 was higher was because there was already a glacial 15" base before the onslaught and the snow itself that fell in March 2001 was higher water content than most of the storms in 2015...so compaction potential was less.

 

2015 had more snow when you total the storms, but the water content was definitely less.

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16 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Highest snowpack I saw in a non-mountain setting down in SNE was ORH in March 2001...it was near 4 feet. 2015 got close but I noticed it wasn't quite as high using reference points....the only reason I think that March 2001 was higher was because there was already a glacial 15" base before the onslaught and the snow itself that fell in March 2001 was higher water content than most of the storms in 2015...so compaction potential was less.

 

2015 had more snow when you total the storms, but the water content was definitely less.

38 inches in Feb 15 with a w/e of 5.95, will never forget that day and the core I got. Pure weenie joy finally satiated after a lifelong dream.

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Just now, Ginx snewx said:

38 inches in Feb 15 with a w/e of 5.95, will never forget that day and the core I got. Pure weenie joy finally satiated after a lifelong dream.

 

I'm betting the Mar 2001 pack I witnessed had at least 8-9 inches of water in it...maybe even north of 10". That 15" glacier at the base probably had a good 4+ inches already and then the subsequent storms were packed with W.E.

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11 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

 

I'm betting the Mar 2001 pack I witnessed had at least 8-9 inches of water in it...maybe even north of 10". That 15" glacier at the base probably had a good 4+ inches already and then the subsequent storms were packed with W.E.

Mar 08 I measured something like 12-13" of liquid in my 43" pack.

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21 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

 

I'm betting the Mar 2001 pack I witnessed had at least 8-9 inches of water in it...maybe even north of 10". That 15" glacier at the base probably had a good 4+ inches already and then the subsequent storms were packed with W.E.

Yeah those were heavy QPF bombs....I bet most of CNE/NNE had 8-14" of SWE, with some spots to 20" in the northern mountains at 1,500ft+.

In NNE there never was a real thaw so it's basically an entire winter of solid QPF.

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9 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Mar 08 I measured something like 12-13" of liquid in my 43" pack.

 

Yeah that was an epic pack winter...even down here we had probably 6-7" of water in the pack at times. We just weren't able to avoid all worst of the thaws like you did up there so usually about 22-25" was the highest we could get it. That winter had some good transition events too which always solidifies the W.E. in the pack. Lots of IP/ZR after front end thumps and then FROPA freezes it into place.

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