March 20/21 STORM Obs/Discussion- No Banter

[vastateofmind]

23 minutes ago, Kingstonian said:

I'm over on the Wegman's side of Kingstowne and measured 3.6" at 1pm, probably on the low side of what came down given both melting and compaction.  

You at least got out to measure, which I'm sure is more accurate than me eyeballing the back patio from behind a closed door several feet away! Melting in our backyard was also complicated by "beastly compaction," as depicted below. Regardless of the higher-end solutions some models showed yesterday, I'm pleased with where we ended up...especially for late March. Enjoy, all.

[Mordecai]

Here's my snowman from earlier this morning:

[aldie 22]

Just took my trash out...nice little light snow burst happening now

[Wonderdog]

I don't get the angst some on this board has when some are disappointed that totals or the timing of storm duration is overdone by the models Why take it personally when its the models that are being blamed.

[AdamHLG]

Sorry for those that did not cash in. On Chestnut Ridge in Northern Baltimore County we did pretty well. Below pic taken about 1 hour before snow tapered off. I'll call it 8.5. It includes wave 1 but I count it all.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[Fozz]

10 minutes ago, Cobalt said:

I agree. I'd rate this storm a B. Acceptable at any time of the year, pretty great at this time of year. Got to enjoy the snow, sled with my brother, and the snow is quite the scene. Too bad my alarm for 7 am didn't go off.. Missed some of the best rates! 

Yep, I agree. I’d actually give it a B+ or A- because that midday death band was amazing and I ended up with 8”, which would be impressive even in January or February, but is truly remarkable in late March. The only downsides are that it slightly underperformed compared to the most aggressive LWX forecasts, and yesterday I missed out on the good stuff by being just a few miles too far south, but it’s not a big deal.... honestly I can’t complain. It was a great event and a truly wintry day, better than anything since the big blizzard a few years ago.

I almost made it to climo so I can’t even call this a bad season, at least for my yard.

[Fozz]

1 minute ago, AdamHLG said:

Sorry for those that did not cash in. On Chestnut Ridge in Northern Baltimore County we did pretty well. Below pic taken about 1 hour before snow tapered off. I'll call it 8.5. It includes wave 1 but I count it all.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 

I think I’ll give it one last measurement if this is it, but I should end up very close to your total.

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

4 inches with compaction in Takoma Park, probably 4-5 fell in total.   Looks like the good rates for the day may be done and this will be about it.   Nice event.  

[Cobalt]

1 minute ago, Fozz said:

Yep, I agree. I’d actually give it a B+ or A-because that midday death band was amazing and I ended up with 8”, which would be impressive even in January or February, but is truly remarkable in late March. The only downsides are that it slightly underperformed compared to the most aggressive LWX forecasts, and yesterday I missed out on the good stuff by being just a few miles too far south, but it’s not a big deal.... honestly I can’t complain. It was a great event and a truly wintry day, better than anything since the big blizzard a few years ago.

I almost made it to climo so I can’t even call this a bad season, at least for my yard.

Glad you got a good event out of this. My benchmark was 3.6" anyways (to top 10" on the year). I only ever wanted more due to models getting bullish, but in the end the storm met it's quota, at least for me. Last 4" event since the Blizzard

[SnowtoRain]

32.2 at 4:40, still mod to heavy snow, closing in on 5 inches in Easton.  Good event for the midshore, esp. for late march.

[BlizzardNole]

2 hours ago, das said:

Just hit 3" here in Clarksburg at 2pm.  Since the start of the snow, it's been all light snow except for two 10+ minutes of moderate snow.  2m temp is up to 35F with lots of drip-drip-dripping going on.  10M temp holding steady at 29F.  March sun angle and low precip rates FTL...

Same here in Germantown.  A couple of days ago I doubted this because of late March and temps, but I got suckered in yesterday.  Turns out temps were fine but precip rates were poor.  Never saw heavy, and only saw moderate for a few minutes.  Forecast was 8-12 and had nearly 100% chance of seeing 6.  Got half that LOL.  Seeing the huge jackpot 30-45 minutes north, and warning criteria snow to my east is a perfect ending to this abomination of a winter.

I've seen less snowfall in other winters, but this will go down as my most hated.

[WVclimo]

This is just...    Snowfall in my yard the past two seasons:

2016-17
DEC:   0.8"
JAN:    2.3"
FEB:    0.2"
MAR: 10.0"

2017-18
DEC:   1.3"
JAN:    2.1"
FEB:    3.9"
MAR: 15.3"

[CAPE]

1 minute ago, SnowtoRain said:

32.2 at 4:40, still mod to heavy snow, closing in on 5 inches in Easton.  Good event for the midshore, esp. for late march.

I was in Easton this morning when it started. Pretty impressive off the bat. Close to 6 here and still snowing steadily. Temp is 31.

[Maestrobjwa]

So much for the additional "heavier bands" here in Balt. City...seems they never made it back across the bay. Probably between 3-4" inches IMBY...not warning criteria for my personal benchmark (5 inches), so I don't know if I'll count this one as a verified warning snow (probably at BWI, it may officially hit 5", so I suppose...)

[osfan24]

31 minutes ago, gymengineer said:

The 4-8” WSW worked out decently for the most part. Sure some parts of tge warned counties had less than 4” but eastern areas are pushing up towards the top of the range. Lots of 5-6” reports in the counties under the warning. Most forecasts were ok to good based on verification. I have no idea why you and others’ expectations were based on the craziest runs and therefore exceeded the actual forecasts. 

I wasn't expecting the Euro's 24 inches, but less than a fourth of that was a bit disappointing. And again, the fact that I woke up to nothing, then saw 4 hours of snow give me about 5 inches and then the snow stopped about 8-10 hours earlier than expected and started to melt was also disappointing. I think most forecasts worked out ok in the end in terms of final accumulation, but how we got there was a bit surprising, and forecasted snow totals are almost always conservative around here anyway, so when you expect more from a big storm. Also probably didn't help that you had people talking about 1958, thunder snow, huge rates, a CCB destroying us, etc. None of that happened.

[WesternFringe]

Ended up with 12" here in Augusta County.  Best I can tell is that the ULL pass just dumped on sw and western Virginia.  Models put us in the dark blue for hours and it verified.

Hasn't stopped snowing yet (snow tv), but rates, sun angle (lol), 36 degrees, etc so it is already compacting if anything.  Beautiful and doubles my season total to 24.5", which is climo for Staunton.  Given that least year we had 6" total, this season is a win.

 

[Jandurin]

So much for the additional "heavier bands" here in Balt. City...seems they never made it back across the bay. Probably between 3-4" inches IMBY...not warning criteria for my personal benchmark (5 inches), so I don't know if I'll count this one as a verified warning snow (probably at BWI, it may officially hit 5", so I suppose...)

It's winter on the first day of spring live a little

[psuhoffman]

2 hours ago, HighStakes said:

Moderate to heavy snow, mostly heavy snow all day until now where it's light but still steady and piling up. Temp stuck at 28-29 all day. Easily a foot plus .

A lot of drifting and compaction up here on the ridge. I measured 8" last night and cleared the part of the deck I measure and the driveway. This morning I measured 2.5 on both and cleared again. Just now I measured another 5. So thats 15.5" that fell but the depth is only around 12" in most places. Btw there is a noticeable difference in snow from up here to even in town right now. The few hundred feet really mattered this time I guess. 

27 minutes ago, Ji said:

this event had nothing to do with March..the storm never came together and we didnt get heavy rates. We could of scored easily...even in late March

There is some truth to this. I was shocked I did as well as I did yesterday. I thought with 8" last night already before the main event started I was  poised for a run at 20". With all the guidance showing another 1.25-1.5 qpf from 6z this morning on and 8" otg that seemed a decent shot. 

Turned out yesterday was the main event. Today was good but rates never reached a sustained level like yesterday here.  After everything ramped up part 2 yesterday I expected 10-15" or so from that up here. But rates never got that impressive. A few bursts but not sustained. Looks like I finished with about 7" from round 2. Yea that's a bit under expectations. The low ended up weaker and east of those runs yesterday so less moisture transport. 

But...I'm not complaing at all about a 15" snowstorm in late March. But for people that only had part 2...I can understand some disappointment. Round 1 saved it for me. Round 2 was a bit of a letdown.

You take it too far though. You end up not enjoying it when it snows because you always want more. 

[SnowtoRain]

3 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

I was in Easton this morning when it started. Pretty impressive off the bat. Close to 6 here and still snowing steadily. Temp is 31.

Yeah it looked like Wye Mills up to Chestertown and Goldsboro was sitting pretty most of the day.  Would like to know how the accums were up that way.

[osfan24]

3 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

So much for the additional "heavier bands" here in Balt. City...seems they never made it back across the bay. Probably between 3-4" inches IMBY...not warning criteria for my personal benchmark (5 inches), so I don't know if I'll count this one as a verified warning snow (probably at BWI, it may officially hit 5", so I suppose...)

BWI was 4.6 at 2 pm so they are going to come up short. I'm not far from there and all we've had since then was light snow showers that weren't really adding any accumulation because they were very light and snow was melting at the same time.

[BristowWx]

It’s coming down pretty solid here in W PWC.  After a lull that was just not fun

[Amped]

Just took about 5 measurements.  7,7,7,7 and 7.  Just missed haveing over 12" by less than 10 miles.

 

[osfan24]

The other thing I'd add is most guidance had us beginning as a mix today and then changing over to snow. That didn't happen and we still didn't get big amounts. One of the reasons Cranky was so low on totals was he thought so much of what fell this morning would be sleet and rain for many and so much qpf would be wasted on that and then just trying to get snow to start accumulating. That wasn't an issue at all. It snowed from the jump and accumulated from that point on. Ji is right. The problem had nothing to do with late March. It was a storm that didn't form the way models expected, which caused qpf to be cut drastically.

Frankly, many on here tried to point to the models with big totals and say they were overdone because of mixing but there wasn't any mixing today and those models were still way overdone.

[Maestrobjwa]

1 minute ago, osfan24 said:

The other thing I'd add is most guidance had us beginning as a mix today and then changing over to snow. That didn't happen and we still didn't get big amounts. One of the reasons Cranky was so low on totals was he thought so much of what fell this morning would be sleet and rain for many and so much qpf would be wasted on that and then just trying to get snow to start accumulating. That wasn't an issue at all. It snowed from the jump and accumulated from that point on. Ji is right. The problem had nothing to do with late March. It was a storm that didn't form the way models expected, which caused qpf to be cut drastically.

Yep, we pretty much had everything BUT QPF, lol (why did that happen, anyway? I'm guessing it was just one of those things of a bad shift in storm track)

[Eskimo Joe]

14 minutes ago, BlizzardNole said:

Same here in Germantown.  A couple of days ago I doubted this because of late March and temps, but I got suckered in yesterday.  Turns out temps were fine but precip rates were poor.  Never saw heavy, and only saw moderate for a few minutes.  Forecast was 8-12 and had nearly 100% chance of seeing 6.  Got half that LOL.  Seeing the huge jackpot 30-45 minutes north, and warning criteria snow to my east is a perfect ending to this abomination of a winter.

I've seen less snowfall in other winters, but this will go down as my most hated.

Yea just about every storm pulled a Charlie Brown.

[BristowWx]

No complaints about today.  SN and 34 right now  Snowed all day after a delayed start  I shoveled.  Can’t ask for more.  Would like it to last just a fraction of time after sunset.  

[Maestrobjwa]

7 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

A lot of drifting and compaction up here on the ridge. I measured 8" last night and cleared the part of the deck I measure and the driveway. This morning I measured 2.5 on both and cleared again. Just now I measured another 5. So thats 15.5" that fell but the depth is only around 12" in most places. Btw there is a noticeable difference in snow from up here to even in town right now. The few hundred feet really mattered this time I guess. 

There is some truth to this. I was shocked I did as well as I did yesterday. I thought with 8" last night already before the main event started I was  poised for a run at 20". With all the guidance showing another 1.25-1.5 qpf from 6z this morning on and 8" otg that seemed a decent shot. 

Turned out yesterday was the main event. Today was good but rates never reached a sustained level like yesterday here.  After everything ramped up part 2 yesterday I expected 10-15" or so from that up here. But rates never got that impressive. A few bursts but not sustained. Looks like I finished with about 7" from round 2. Yea that's a bit under expectations. The low ended up weaker and east of those runs yesterday so less moisture transport. 

But...I'm not complaing at all about a 15" snowstorm in late March. But for people that only had part 2...I can understand some disappointment. Round 1 saved it for me. Round 2 was a bit of a letdown.

You take it too far though. You end up not enjoying it when it snows because you always want more. 

Round 2 was indeed disappointing....Again, this would have been okay had most of us not gotten so screwed over the rest of the winter. But to have it end like this is bittersweet (probably more bitter than sweet). Just feels like so much mental energy spent tracking this thing...and to look so good up until about 16 hours before...it's terrible. I've been on my phone non-stop checking updates on this thing the last several days. When a storm like this doesn't produce it leaves a bit of emptiness because ya get not return on emotional investment! It's silly, but it's the mind of a snowlover...

[WVclimo]

8 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

A lot of drifting and compaction up here on the ridge. I measured 8" last night and cleared the part of the deck I measure and the driveway. This morning I measured 2.5 on both and cleared again. Just now I measured another 5. So thats 15.5" that fell but the depth is only around 12" in most places. Btw there is a noticeable difference in snow from up here to even in town right now. The few hundred feet really mattered this time I guess. 

There is some truth to this. I was shocked I did as well as I did yesterday. I thought with 8" last night already before the main event started I was  poised for a run at 20". With all the guidance showing another 1.25-1.5 qpf from 6z this morning on and 8" otg that seemed a decent shot. 

Turned out yesterday was the main event. Today was good but rates never reached a sustained level like yesterday here.  After everything ramped up part 2 yesterday I expected 10-15" or so from that up here. But rates never got that impressive. A few bursts but not sustained. Looks like I finished with about 7" from round 2. Yea that's a bit under expectations. The low ended up weaker and east of those runs yesterday so less moisture transport. 

But...I'm not complaing at all about a 15" snowstorm in late March. But for people that only had part 2...I can understand some disappointment. Round 1 saved it for me. Round 2 was a bit of a letdown.

You take it too far though. You end up not enjoying it when it snows because you always want more. 

I measured 15" also, and our totals paralleled each other's.  I had 8.2" through 6:30 p.m. yesterday with the first wave, 2.5" through 6:30 a.m. from persistent light snow overnight, and then 4.3" from the second wave this morning into the midday.  Not disappointed at all. Thrilled actually.  In 12 winters in WV, this ranks 5th in accumulation from an event, behind Jan 2016 and the 3 events in 2009-10.

[Miss Pixee]

An even 4 inches here in Hillcrest. Still snowing light but steady. 

[Maestrobjwa]

12 minutes ago, Jandurin said:

14 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

So much for the additional "heavier bands" here in Balt. City...seems they never made it back across the bay. Probably between 3-4" inches IMBY...not warning criteria for my personal benchmark (5 inches), so I don't know if I'll count this one as a verified warning snow (probably at BWI, it may officially hit 5", so I suppose...)

It's winter on the first day of spring live a little

Yeah I enjoyed it for a second...until the storm grossly underperformed. Now I'm feeling gipped, lol 5 days of emotional investment to still barely reach warning criteria...ack. But it was a treat to watch...just a bittersweet one!