Millennial kid of April Fools obs and pics

[ORH_wxman]

49 minutes ago, Great Snow 1717 said:

Actually it snowed at a good clip during the day on Friday, but it melted as soon as it contacted the ground. In fact it snowed heavier during times of non accumulation than it did when  the snow began to accumulate. I did lose some accumulation to sleet, but I also lost a lot of sleet/snow accumulation to melting once it hit the ground on both Friday and Saturday.

The precip rates were not heavy during Friday..."good clip" is kind of a subjective term. When looking at the liquid equiv of what fell during Fri afternoon around here...it was pretty underwhelming...typically in the 0.05 per hour range. Yeah there were periods of moderate snow but it wasn't nearly as heavy as the precip that fell on Friday evening and early Saturday when the mid-levels had turned precip to mostly sleet.

 

The heavier snow forecasts were mostly dependent on heavy snow falling Friday evening and then again early Saturday morning...they weren't counting on Friday afternoon snow to stick all that well. Those forecasts were spoiled by mid-level warmth arriving sooner than expected and then cooling later than expected. Either way you slice it, the much heavier precip occurred when the mid-levels were too warm for snow, so by definition, the most potential snow accumulation was lost because of that phenomenon. So I will stand by my assertion that the mid-levels were far more of a factor in the lower snow totals in Northeast MA than the boundary layer temperatures. This is different han saying the boundary layer temps didn't matter at all...they did...they were just a distant second to the temperatures aloft.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, ORH_wxman said:

The precip rates were not heavy during Friday..."good clip" is kind of a subjective term. When looking at the liquid equiv of what fell during Fri afternoon...it was pretty underwhelming...typically in the 0.05 per hour range. Yeah there were periods of moderate snow but it wasn't nearly as heavy as the precip that fell on Friday evening and early Saturday when the mid-levels had turned precip to mostly sleet.

 

The heavier snow forecasts were mostly dependent on heavy snow falling Friday evening and then again early Saturday morning...they weren't counting on Friday afternoon snow to stick all that well. Those forecasts were spoiled by mid-level warmth arriving sooner than expected and then cooling later than expected. Either way you slice it, the much heavier precip occurred when the mid-levels were too warm for snow, so by definition, the most potential snow accumulation was lost because of that phenomenon. So I will stand by my assertion that the mid-levels were far more of a factor in the lower snow totals in Northeast MA than the boundary layer temperatures.

Exactly why I mentioned "anecdotal" and tried to steer the conversation in a more empirically-based direction.

[Great Snow 1717]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

It did not snow hard for very long.

You're wrong.

Do we need to extract airport obs to mull over vis reports?

 

I don't know why this concept is so difficult, but its a good sign that its probably time to leap into my seasonal hiatus.

No I am not wrong at all.  There were periods on both Friday and Saturday in which it snowed at a good clip with no accumulation.  The BL played a significant role in limiting the accumulation. Dig into the airport obs at LWM all you want to.  For one the temps at the airport have been wrong for years. And secondly so has the obs concerning precip.  The airport is not all that far from where I live.

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 minutes ago, Great Snow 1717 said:

No I am not wrong at all.  There were periods on both Friday and Saturday in which it snowed at a good clip with no accumulation.  The BL played a significant role in limiting the accumulation. Dig into the airport obs at LWM all you want to.  For one the temps at the airport have been wrong for years. And secondly so has the obs concerning precip.  The airport is not all that far from where I live.

You're right, regardless of the fact that a wealth of empirical data suggests otherwise.

I'm glad this is settled.

[Great Snow 1717]

Just now, 40/70 Benchmark said:

You're right, regardless of the fact that a wealth of empirical data suggests otherwise.

I'm glad this is settled.

It is not a matter of being right or wrong. It's a matter of what I observed during the storm. And there is no doubt in my mind that the BL impacted accumulation in Methuen.

[Damage In Tolland]

Seething anger from 1717 and Others here 

[40/70 Benchmark]

14 minutes ago, Great Snow 1717 said:

It is not a matter of being right or wrong. It's a matter of what I observed during the storm. And there is no doubt in my mind that the BL impacted accumulation in Methuen.

No, its a matter of your misperception of what you observed, and your misattributing of what you actually did.

The disregarding of empirical data enables this rigid line of "thinking".

Period-

[Great Snow 1717]

44 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Seething anger from 1717 and Others here 

I'm not the least bit angry. I'm not even sure how you can possibly even begin to think that I am angry. All things considered it was a good storm. My expectations for the storm were on the low side. I long ago learned to not get angry over things that I have no control over. And that includes the weather.

[powderfreak]

4 minutes ago, Great Snow 1717 said:

I'm not the least bit angry. I'm not even sure how you can possibly even begin to think that I am angry. All things considered it was a good storm. My expectations for the storm were on the low side. I long ago learned to not get angry over things that I have no control over. And that includes the weather.

Don't worry he's just casting out there and seeing what happens.  

Any time there's a debate on here some like to make it seem like everyone's angry haha.  

[40/70 Benchmark]

Just now, powderfreak said:

Don't worry he's just casting out there and seeing what happens.  

Any time there's a debate on here some take it as anger haha.  

In his defense, what else is there to do on a weather forum these days....and for the next 210.

[Great Snow 1717]

38 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

No, its a matter of your misperception of what you observed, and your misattributing of what you actually did.

The disregarding of empirical data enables this rigid line of "thinking".

Period-

There is/was no misperception on my part.  It's not difficult to determine that snow/sleet is melting upon impact with the surface. And plain and simple the melting of said snow/sleet impacted the accumulation in Methuen.  Read my original post again.. there wasn't any accumulation until after 6-6.5 hours from the onset of the snow.....in other words it melted!!!

[Great Snow 1717]

3 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Don't worry he's just casting out there and seeing what happens.  

Any time there's a debate on here some like to make it seem like everyone's angry haha.  

I'm not the least bit worried. He's just angling to see a forum "war". I've never understood the meltdowns over the weather because none of us have any control over the weather.  Former Yankee Mickey Rivers once had this great quote....

“Ain't no sense worryin' about the things you got control over, 'cause if you got control over 'em, ain't no sense worryin'. And ain't no sense worryin' about the things you don't got control over, 'cause if you don't got control over 'em, ain't no sense worryin'.” ..........more people on the forum would be better serve by following the sage wisdom of Mr Rivers....lol

[powderfreak]

I don't get why it can't be a combination of both mid-levels and boundary levels?  Why does it have to be one or the other?

Ratios were never going to be high and any time there's mid-level warming the ratios seem to suck (your classic 8:1) but the presence of sleet certainly hampered it a ton.  

Then once it went back to snow the low levels didn't really help it accumulate, same with the front end of the storm.  All in all it would seem like there was a lot of hostility in the atmosphere at both mid and low levels to prevent the big snows expected.  

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

16 minutes ago, Great Snow 1717 said:

There is/was no misperception on my part.  It's not difficult to determine that snow/sleet is melting upon impact with the surface. And plain and simple the melting of said snow/sleet impacted the accumulation in Methuen.  Read my original post again.. there wasn't any accumulation until after 6-6.5 hours from the onset of the snow.....in other words it melted!!!

Yes there is:

1) You insist that it snowed heavily most of the day.

It did not.

2) Your inability to understand that the hours of sleet as opposed to snow, as a result of the warming mid levels, is why the temps warmed early Sat AM.

 

In short, we failed to sustain heavy precip when it was snow early on, which reduced the capacity to undergo both latent and evaporative cooling.

And by the time that the precip did get heavy, the mid levels had warmed and it was sleet, again inhibiting the ability to evaporatively cool via melting snowflakes. It was actually replaced by latent warming because of the energy produced by the melting sleet.

[40/70 Benchmark]

10 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I don't get why it can't be a combination of both mid-levels and boundary levels?  Why does it have to be one or the other?

Ratios were never going to be high and any time there's mid-level warming the ratios seem to suck (your classic 8:1) but the presence of sleet certainly hampered it a ton.  

Then once it went back to snow the low levels didn't really help it accumulate, same with the front end of the storm.  All in all it would seem like there was a lot of hostility in the atmosphere at both mid and low levels to prevent the big snows expected.  

 

It was both, but the primary impetus was the mid levels.

[Great Snow 1717]

5 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Yes there is:

1) You insist that it snowed heavily most of the day.

It did not.

2) Your inability to understand that the hours of sleet as opposed to snow, as a result of the warming mid levels, is why the temps warmed early Sat AM.

 

In short, we failed to sustain heavy precip when it was snow early on, which reduced the capacity to undergo both latent and evaporative cooling.

And by the time that the precip did get heavy, the mid levels had warmed and it was sleet, again inhibiting the ability to evaporatively cool via melting snowflakes. It was actually replaced by latent warming because of the energy produced by the melting sleet.

I never said it snowed heavily most of the day on Friday. And YES RAY I do understand that sleet did have some impact in the accumulation,

[40/70 Benchmark]

4 minutes ago, Great Snow 1717 said:

I never said it snowed heavily most of the day on Friday. And YES RAY I do understand that sleet did have some impact in the accumulation,

We'll just leave it at that....but just understand, that in order to sustain a sufficiently cold BL under March 31 solar insolation, you need heavy snowfall rates most of the day.

[powderfreak]

25 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

It was both, but the primary impetus was the mid levels.

I definitely thought NE MA would do a lot better than it did...count me in that group that got burned.  I figured at least interior Essex County and northern Middlesex would see 12-20".  

[40/70 Benchmark]

3 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I definitely thought NE MA would do a lot better than it did...count me in that group that got burned.  I figured at least interior Essex County and northern Middlesex would see 12-20".  

Join the club...My first call was 8-14". I had one final call map out for 6-12", but ended up going 10-16" after the EURO came out Friday PM.

Usually late trends are telling, but not this time.

[Whineminster]

Enough about this storm, makes me sad

[ORH_wxman]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

I don't get why it can't be a combination of both mid-levels and boundary levels?  Why does it have to be one or the other?

Ratios were never going to be high and any time there's mid-level warming the ratios seem to suck (your classic 8:1) but the presence of sleet certainly hampered it a ton.  

Then once it went back to snow the low levels didn't really help it accumulate, same with the front end of the storm.  All in all it would seem like there was a lot of hostility in the atmosphere at both mid and low levels to prevent the big snows expected.  

 

I've stated it was both...but the overwhelming factor was the mid-levels. Steady light snow with roughly 2-3 tenths of QPF on Friday afternoon/early evening was not responsible for the lion's share of the underperformance of the forecasts. That's when most of the melting was going on during the snow. The melting maybe cost 2 inches of accumulation on Friday afternoon.

 

I'm not really sure how my explanation was that difficult to begin with. You can break down the storm into 3 parts. The first part where it was snowing prior to the mid-level warmth....the mid-level warmth that changed the ptype into non-snow...and then the flip back to snow late.

 

Literally 80% of the QPF fell in that middle section where it was non-snow falling. What causes the precip to be non-snow? In this case it was the mid-levels. At no point in the storm when the midlevels supported snow did some other ptpye occur except perhaps a few drops at the very onset early Friday in eastern MA. The flip back to snow occurred pretty late so by the time it occurred, the precip intensity was starting to slack off some. Only a 1-2 hour period of legit moderate to perhaps briefly heavy snow occurred (though not a single obs had heavy snow in this time, so heavy snow is probably a stretch)....instead of a 4-5 hour period of heavy snow with 0.1-0.2" per hour QPF rates. This "lost" 4-5 hour period probably conservatively cost areas in NE MA 5-6 inches of snow, and likely more...and it was purely the mid-levels that caused the late change back to snow.

[powderfreak]

I haven't read the whole conversation, just the past few posts but I should go back it sounds like.

Seems like a pretty valid point, Will.  

How was total QPF compared to models?  

[ORH_wxman]

2 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I haven't read the whole conversation, just the past few posts but I should go back it sounds like.

Seems like a pretty valid point, Will.  

How was total QPF compared to models?  

The total QPF by the models was actually pretty solid. BOS had over 2 inches and ORH was around 1.8"...very juiced storm.

[CoastalWx]

Over 3.5" QPF here. Juice bomb. It's too bad 850-800 wasn't  1C colder. 

[Ginx snewx]

1 hour ago, CoastalWx said:

Over 3.5" QPF here. Juice bomb. It's too bad 850-800 wasn't  1C colder. 

Could have been a contendah

Classic if the queen had balls she would be King.

Just a little bit outside.

[jbenedet]

On 4/5/2017 at 1:23 PM, Great Snow 1717 said:

You are 100 percent correct regarding the BL. Some people have debated this with you, but in the end you are correct. I live in Methuen. The snow started at around 9 AM. At times the snow mixed with sleet and/or changed to sleet, but for the most part it was snowing. The snow did not even begin to accumulate on the grass until around 3:30 that afternoon.  Which means the first 6-6.5 hours accounted for no accumulation at all. The snow/sleet that fell during those hours melted quickly once it contacted the ground. And at times the snow fell at a pretty good clip. Probably 2-3 inches of accumulation was lost during those hours.

During Saturday morning the sleet changed back to snow. Despite it snowing moderate to heavy for 2-3  hours I only recorded 2 additional inches of snow.  And most of that fell between 9-11 AM. Once beyond that it continued to snow for several hours, but there wasn't  any additional accumulation.

I measured 4 inches of snow/sleet at 7 AM on Saturday. Add in 2 additional inches on Saturday for a storm total of 6 inches. During both Friday and Saturday many hours of snowfall added up to zero accumulation.

Eric Fisher and Barry Burbank did a great job of forecasting for my area. They predicted 3-6 inches. They were on the low end of predictions for my area, but their reasoning was sound for their prediction/forecast. 

 

 

 

 

 

Yea. In terms of impact the BL was huge in areas that remained all snow/mostly snow. Plows didn't even need to really treat the roads...It was winter weather advisory impacts here, imo--we of course were under a winter storm warning.

We probably lost over 0.5" LE worth of snowfall on cold surfaces to white rain, and that was with moderate rates. On warm surfaces the losses were huge. Accumulations struggled to attain more than a coating throughout. And Saturday a.m. all warm surfaces were mostly wet/slush. Impact was very limited as a result. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Yea, once the mid levels went, the BL stayed crap.