March 7th 2018 Coastal Storm thread (not obs)

[gravitylover]

1 hour ago, NJwx85 said:

How did I do?

Hit me spot on 

6 hours of being under a heavy band was more than I could have hoped for in a March storm. A few degrees colder leading up to and throughout would have been awfully nice though. This would have easily reached 2 feet if it hadn't started out so warm. I had some of the best snow growth I've seen in a few years, hours and hours of huge flakes without much mixing although even during the heaviest times there was some sleet mixing in.

Now it's back out for another round of shoveling, scraping the warm lowest layer of slush and moving a nearly waist high plow pile before they come by again and add to it.

 

[BombsAway1288]

4 hours ago, Juliancolton said:

There are people who devote their life's work to figuring out what makes mesoscale snow bands tick. If don't mind a little heavier reading, the NWS/SUNY Albany CSTAR research is pretty interesting: http://cstar.cestm.albany.edu/CAP_Projects/Project4/index.htm

Snow's tapering off here, which means the meat of the storm lasted about 7 hours. What I wouldn't give to see one of these dynamic bombs stick around a while instead of always wham, bam, thank you ma'am.

Thank you. I will read up. I agree with you regarding a crawling or stalled out storm. Had this storm been that way we would be talking about absolutely epic totals (probably 40in+) for people under those bands and better results everywhere else. One day. 

[jm1220]

30 minutes ago, BombsAway1288 said:

Thank you. I will read up. I agree with you regarding a crawling or stalled out storm. Had this storm been that way we would be talking about absolutely epic totals (probably 40in+) for people under those bands and better results everywhere else. One day. 

This was a very dynamic and powerful storm, I will give it that. I knew it would be producing big time for someone this morning when the lightning strikes were going off near ACY and we had the thundersnow in NYC. You don't get that unless there's powerful lifting and mechanisms to produce massive rates. But by the atmosphere's nature, intense lift has to be compensated by subsidence somewhere else. And often those areas move around so one location doesn't get totally shafted but this wasn't one of them. Subsidence came in at times on Long Island on 1/4 this year but it was brief. The last storm had a much better developed CCB around here but it was a few degrees too warm for snow for most. And the wind was crazy along with the coastal flooding impacts. I know it's IMBY but in terms of overall "storm" here this was mundane. Long Beach schools were closed for it, but I've seen it operate in a good bit worse. Winds were gusty but nothing over 40mph, and luckily not much flooding that I've heard of. 

The Millennium Storm analog also didn't work out since areas well east of me have a good amount of snow vs. little in that event in much of Suffolk due to the charging in of warm mid level air and the dryslot, the storm now tracking more NE and the late CCB development. That storm was much less banded and winners/losers in the cold part of the storm than this one. A better analog may be Feb 2006. 

[weatherpruf]

19 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

This was a very dynamic and powerful storm, I will give it that. I knew it would be producing big time for someone this morning when the lightning strikes were going off near ACY and we had the thundersnow in NYC. You don't get that unless there's powerful lifting and mechanisms to produce massive rates. But by the atmosphere's nature, intense lift has to be compensated by subsidence somewhere else. And often those areas move around so one location doesn't get totally shafted but this wasn't one of them. Subsidence came in at times on Long Island on 1/4 this year but it was brief. The last storm had a much better developed CCB around here but it was a few degrees too warm for snow for most. And the wind was crazy along with the coastal flooding impacts. I know it's IMBY but in terms of overall "storm" here this was mundane. Long Beach schools were closed for it, but I've seen it operate in a good bit worse. Winds were gusty but nothing over 40mph, and luckily not much flooding that I've heard of. 

The Millennium Storm analog also didn't work out since areas well east of me have a good amount of snow vs. little in that event in much of Suffolk due to the charging in of warm mid level air and the dryslot, the storm now tracking more NE and the late CCB development. That storm was much less banded and winners/losers in the cold part of the storm than this one. A better analog may be Feb 2006. 

We were closed and I know we have opened in worse; Dec 2003 we had 14 inches and worked the whole day. What we didn't have was a panicky media. We had 4 inches today and really, the bulk of the school day would have been done before there was seriously bad driving. We only had whiteout here for about 30 mins at noon. From 2-4 it wasn't that bad in town. Most of our teachers live down the shore or in town and wouldn't have been in too much trouble going home. But just to the west of us it was a beast. By the way, another March storm where the city didn't make it over 10 inches.

[Paragon]

4 hours ago, jm1220 said:

This was a very dynamic and powerful storm, I will give it that. I knew it would be producing big time for someone this morning when the lightning strikes were going off near ACY and we had the thundersnow in NYC. You don't get that unless there's powerful lifting and mechanisms to produce massive rates. But by the atmosphere's nature, intense lift has to be compensated by subsidence somewhere else. And often those areas move around so one location doesn't get totally shafted but this wasn't one of them. Subsidence came in at times on Long Island on 1/4 this year but it was brief. The last storm had a much better developed CCB around here but it was a few degrees too warm for snow for most. And the wind was crazy along with the coastal flooding impacts. I know it's IMBY but in terms of overall "storm" here this was mundane. Long Beach schools were closed for it, but I've seen it operate in a good bit worse. Winds were gusty but nothing over 40mph, and luckily not much flooding that I've heard of. 

The Millennium Storm analog also didn't work out since areas well east of me have a good amount of snow vs. little in that event in much of Suffolk due to the charging in of warm mid level air and the dryslot, the storm now tracking more NE and the late CCB development. That storm was much less banded and winners/losers in the cold part of the storm than this one. A better analog may be Feb 2006. 

Since NYC had all that thundersnow (all five boros did and supposedly it was near the south shore of Nassau County although I never heard or saw it) how come NYC didn't have higher totals though with all that thundersnow?

[doncat]

1 hour ago, Paragon said:

Since NYC had all that thundersnow (all five boros did and supposedly it was near the south shore of Nassau County although I never heard or saw it) how come NYC didn't have higher totals though with all that thundersnow?

I was thinking that could explain my higher total when compared to areas just to my west ...it was thundering on and off for a couple or so hours here.

[bluewave]

1 hour ago, Paragon said:

Since NYC had all that thundersnow (all five boros did and supposedly it was near the south shore of Nassau County although I never heard or saw it) how come NYC didn't have higher totals though with all that thundersnow?

The best mesoscale bands set up further to our west. The convective elements to the east of there were moving pretty quickly and didn't linger long enough for the heavier totals. Very challenging for the models when you combine such a convective system and dryslotting.