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Winter Banter & General Discussion/Observations


ORH_wxman

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1 minute ago, USCAPEWEATHERAF said:

Really four offices?  Why so many?

The BOS office was the one putting out the forecasts but the other 3 had a lot of tasks like upper air, radar, and full time observations. Eventually they all consolidated to Taunton except for the balloon launches still in CHH. A random fact about the Boston office was that they issued hurricane and tropical storm headlines for the region in the 1950s and 1960s before NHC took over. 

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2 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

ACK was a first order site until it ceased in 1980 I think. The NWS had an office at the airport for several decades. There were actually 4 functioning NWS offices (weather bureau back then) at one point around 1970 in ORH, BOS, CHH, and ACK. 

There's probably a loaded with red tape answer for why certain sites aren't climate locations. Most are places you had WSOs back in the day, so you had an observer there to take obs. Once ASOS took over there is less excuse. We added MHT because SW NH associates with that location more than CON, especially prior to the merger from BOX. But it is a PITA to backfill obs to get normals and records for a site.

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1 minute ago, OceanStWx said:

There's probably a loaded with red tape answer for why certain sites aren't climate locations. Most are places you had WSOs back in the day, so you had an observer there to take obs. Once ASOS took over there is less excuse. We added MHT because SW NH associates with that location more than CON, especially prior to the merger from BOX. But it is a PITA to backfill obs to get normals and records for a site.

Yeah I think PSF was a first order station too until the early 1970s. A lot of it had to do with when the FAA quit taking obs I think. Some areas stopped a lot earlier than the ASOS days of the mid 1990s...or in the case of ORH, they actually had NWS staff taking the obs themselves until the office closed in 1994 and never had an FAA contract there so they just got stuck with their pants down when things closed down and ASOS took over. 

I'm guessing places like PSF and ACK didn't survive as first order stations since there was a big gap in obs there after FAA and/or NWS ceased obs and before ASOS took over....so they just discontinued it rather than try and fill the data in. There's probably other more complicated explanations too at other sites. 

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3 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah I think PSF was a first order station too until the early 1970s. A lot of it had to do with when the FAA quit taking obs I think. Some areas stopped a lot earlier than the ASOS days of the mid 1990s...or in the case of ORH, they actually had NWS staff taking the obs themselves until the office closed in 1994 and never had an FAA contract there so they just got stuck with their pants down when things closed down and ASOS took over. 

I'm guessing places like PSF and ACK didn't survive as first order stations since there was a big gap in obs there after FAA and/or NWS ceased obs and before ASOS took over....so they just discontinued it rather than try and fill the data in. There's probably other more complicated explanations too at other sites. 

The loss of FAA observers definitely hurt. You see the remnants, basically old WSO locations or state capitals. 

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IIRC I think SNE was basically covered by radars in CHH, BDL, and ORH before the WSR-88D went up in Taunton. I remember the three circles often visible on a regional shot. BOS could have had one but it doesn't ring a bell and it would seem kind of superfluous if CHH and ORH had them. 

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4 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

IIRC I think SNE was basically covered by radars in CHH, BDL, and ORH before the WSR-88D went up in Taunton. I remember the three circles often visible on a regional shot. BOS could have had one but it doesn't ring a bell and it would seem kind of superfluous if CHH and ORH had them. 

Yep, WSR74s in BTV, PWM, ORH, CHH, and BDL in New England.

Sorry CAR...

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2 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Yep, WSR74s in BTV, PWM, ORH, CHH, and BDL in New England.

Sorry CAR...

Ewww what a disaster for N ME...or even down east. Lol. 

Not that those radars were very good to begin with...the 2nd shade of green was like 1" per hour snow. 

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1 minute ago, ORH_wxman said:

Ewww what a disaster for N ME...or even down east. Lol. 

Not that those radars were very good to begin with...the 2nd shade of green was like 1" per hour snow. 

Even nowadays you could get a storm producing baseballs in the County and would be seeing the overshooting top from PWM. 

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6 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Even nowadays you could get a storm producing baseballs in the County and would be seeing the overshooting top from PWM. 

At least we are better than Williston ND. They had the last functioning NWS WSR-74 radar decommissioned in 2012. 

 

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2 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

At least we are better than Williston ND. They had the last functioning NWS WSR-74 radar decommissioned in 2012. 

 

Was the last WSO in the contiguous US. And might have been my first job in the NWS had DVN not offered me the job the day before my interview.

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4 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

You prob average around 1.5" of snow in November. So you have pretty unrealistic expectations. 

 

4 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

Your climo says rain is more likely on November 30th than snow. 

 

4 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

People have this perverted view of when winter sets in. HFD climo norm total snow up to Dec 11th is 4.1 inches

 

3 hours ago, OceanStWx said:

Yeah, I ran a graph on xmACIS that used the total threaded HFD history. So it's probably slightly off of the normal. The point is that it's definitely more likely to see less than 1" than it is to see more than 10" through mid Dec. 

 

3 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

I checked BDL for the period 11/29-12/1...3 days. Going back to 1949, there was a total of 68 days with measurable precip on those dates. 10 out of those 68 days produced measurable snowfall. Only 3 of those 10 days were an inch or more. 

Rain is the overwhelming favorite to occur when any precip of significance occurs. 

Well I didn't mean to cause an S storm in here but you all missed my point......I know climo works against me here but every year I hope that maybe this year is the grand daddy of winters where we go wire to wire snow......starting in early December and lasting until early March.....it's a dream of mine that has not happened yet in 12 yrs since we moved to New England.....I don't need or ask for the hate....what I need is just snow ok? Now GFY otherwise......

 

And Happy Birthday Fella.......who's seen so much more in his years than this impatient whipper snapper ever has......respect

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4 hours ago, ice1972 said:

 

 

 

 

Well I didn't mean to cause an S storm in here but you all missed my point......I know climo works against me here but every year I hope that maybe this year is the grand daddy of winters where we go wire to wire snow......starting in early December and lasting until early March.....it's a dream of mine that has not happened yet in 12 yrs since we moved to New England.....I don't need or ask for the hate....what I need is just snow ok? Now GFY otherwise......

 

And Happy Birthday Fella.......who's seen so much more in his years than this impatient whipper snapper ever has......respect

Drinking on a Wednesday results in posts like this. 

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