Snow bomb obs March 21

[tamarack]

1 hour ago, mreaves said:

I'm leaning more towards the C to C+.  As you say, we never completely melted out but any winter that contains a three week stretch like we had in February is hard to rate above average.

That's where I'd put things here.  A streaky winter, with 8 weeks of almost total meh bookended by greatness.  No sign of winter until Dec 8, but that next 32 day stretch was epic - A+ for temps and A for snow.  Then Jan 9-Mar 6, 57 days, ran 5.4° AN with 110% of avg precip but only 60% of avg snowfall, which is D/D- level, saved from F by the 9" storm in early Feb.  Even with this week's total whiff, these past 2 weeks are at least a B+, with A+ snow and C temps.

[CoastalWx]

21 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

The 1990s were way worse for forecasting than now...way worse, and it isn't even close....the only reason it seems more stable is because all the weenies couldn't see every run and every off hour run or ensembles like they can see now and they were probably only tuning into maybe 3 outlets for weather...TWC and a couple local channels.

Now we have discussions about every model run and how much it shifted. Back in the 1990s, the Euro didn't even run twice a day...it was one 12z run per day (didn't even start running at 00z until 2002-2003) and it didn't come out until evening. You had the ETA that went to 48 hours and the AVN that went to 72 hours....the extended AVN was called the MRF back then and it sucked 100 times worse than the current GFS beyond day 5. If you go back to our largest events of the 1990s, they were forecasted pretty terribly save for a handful. Jan 1996 was forecasted to be a whiff 36 hours out. Dec 1992 was forecasted to be 2-4 inches of paste in ORH 24 hours before the event started...maybe they meant 2-4 feet and got the units mixed up? April 1997 was a half-decent forecast but still underestimated by a lot even after the event was underway. February 1998 was one of the worst busts ever in interior SNE...the coast was never in the game, but we had a winter storm warning in ORH and a 12-18 inch forecast as the storm was already started...we then got 3" of snow and then a flip to rain which never flipped back and washed it all away....all the way out to Albany. I can't imagine the epic meltdowns that would occur now on here if that happened. December 20, 1995 had a blizzard warning out 24 hours before the storm and a 1-2 feet forecast....most of the area got single digits and about 4 hours of moderate to heavy snow. People would melt down worse than boxing day if that happened again.  December 23, 1997 had a forecast of 1-3/2-4" of snow as the event started. Much of interior MA got 12-20 inches in a span of 6 hours and even BOS got 7-10" after hours of rain in the beginning. Nice forecast that was. Feb 16, 1996 had a forecast of 10-16 inches as the event was going on...most of SNE got dryslotted horrendously and finished with less than 7" save an area of OES enhancement on the south shore. Another one that would make Boxing day blush.

 

We tend to forget the inaccuracies and the negatives as time goes on. The above are just examples off the top of my head that affected a huge portion of SNE...but empirically, every model parameter and every NWS forecast parameter has come a long way since those days. We are way more accurate now. It doesn't mean it's perfect obviously...there is still plenty of uncertainty. We haven't pinned down mesoscale snow very well yet....might be decades before we do.

It’s definitely perception these days, aided by data overload. Everything is so easily viewable. I think people don’t realize that it’s also the forecast busts that got many of us into weather. Oh how we remember the good positive busts and how euphoric it felt. Likewise we remember the epic busts that probably caused us to cry into our Albert’s almanac book lol. I wish those under 25 could remember the 80s and early 90s. 

[CoastalWx]

18 minutes ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

The gradient through SE Mass is pretty impressive this year, and shows how from down by the canal to up towards Taunton and Easton can basically be two different worlds in winter time.

I’d say we cashed in on 1 of the 4 storms as well. Even though we did a bit better with the second one it was still a good deal of rain.

Bay rd is probably one of the best weenie drives. From Taunton green to Sharon, sometimes you go from tropics to the North Pole. 

 

Anyways 2010-2011 likely is one of the greatest gradients seen down there. From Plymouth to Marshfield you went from little snow otg to 2’. Messenger always spoke of this. RIP buddy.

[CT Rain]

2 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

It’s definitely perception these days, aided by data overload. Everything is so easily viewable. I think people don’t realize that it’s also the forecast busts that got many of us into weather. Oh how we remember the good positive busts and how euphoric it felt. Likewise we remember the epic busts that probably caused us to cry into our Albert’s almanac book lol. I wish those under 25 could remember the 80s and early 90s. 

Even 15 years ago if we came on the air and said 12 hours before the storm that the storm was coming in much bigger and we doubled or tripled the snow forecast we would get kudos after the storm for getting the forecast right. Now if we change the forecast 48 hours out we're told we're a bunch of morons. 

Part of this is that we're victims of our own success. As we're getting better and better expectations are growing and growing. 

The problem for the next 10-15 years I think is that synoptic forecasts are really really good but the mesoscale predictability horizon is very short. I think this is going to be a very challenging thing for NWP to get right even in the next decade. 

[CoastalWx]

7 minutes ago, CT Rain said:

Even 15 years ago if we came on the air and said 12 hours before the storm that the storm was coming in much bigger and we doubled or tripled the snow forecast we would get kudos after the storm for getting the forecast right. Now if we change the forecast 48 hours out we're told we're a bunch of morons. 

Part of this is that we're victims of our own success. As we're getting better and better expectations are growing and growing. 

The problem for the next 10-15 years I think is that synoptic forecasts are really really good but the mesoscale predictability horizon is very short. I think this is going to be a very challenging thing for NWP to get right even in the next decade. 

Yeah it’s the mesoscale aspects that usually cause high impact events and that’s the hardest part to forecast. So as we get better overall, that part hasn’t advanced at the same pace. It is a shame how stupid people can be. The last storm really brought out the internet terds.

[ORH_wxman]

36 minutes ago, henry1978 said:

eastern Massachusetts gets more fun snow events but snowpack retention is better in springfield.

I think once you get west of 128, this statement is no longer true. The ability for the 128 and esp 495 belt to CAD helps their retention quite a bit...and the area tends to be more prone to clouds than a place like Springfield.

[Whineminster]

I feel like its always cloudy in my neck of the woods 

[henry1978]

The first half of the 1980s was better than the second half of the decade. 1989-1992 sucked outside of metrowest/Worcester December 1992 noreaster that is more memorable for the coastal flooding it produced in new jersey and the south shore of long island and high winds in NYC. The second half of the 1980s had a lot of busts where the big cities of the mid atlantic had some good snowstorms that took a sharp right that either barely scraped or missed just about all of new England. I'm thinking February 1987 and February 1989. There were also some moderate snowstorms that hit DC to Philly but took a sharp right hand turn during this era that were forecast to hit sne.  I remember many mornings watching Willard scott covered in snow on the today show broadcasting outside the nbc Washington bureau.  I remember many mornings during the Reagan era with the white house covered in snow and bare ground in SNE.

November 1987, veterans day was one of the few positive busts. Thanksgiving day 1989 didn't really materialize until the day before the holiday. It wasn't really until the March 1993 storm when the models were starting to get good at sniffing big events several days in advance.

[CoastalWx]

20 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

I think once you get west of 128, this statement is no longer true. The ability for the 128 and esp 495 belt to CAD helps their retention quite a bit...and the area tends to be more prone to clouds than a place like Springfield.

Absolutely. 

[henry1978]

15 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Yeah it’s the mesoscale aspects that usually cause high impact events and that’s the hardest part to forecast. So as we get better overall, that part hasn’t advanced at the same pace. It is a shame how stupid people can be. The last storm really brought out the internet terds.

This is why during spring snowstorms or snowstorms where cold temps are at a premium take the under with snowfall forecasts. And introduce the caveat that it is quite possible that some certain areas will experience heavier bands of snow and these areas will get more than forecast but these areas will be the exception as opposed to the rule.  If I'm forecasting for Channels 2, 4,5, 7, 11 and Craig Allen on 880 and accuweather on 1010 I'd rather forecast 6-12 in mid march, then go 12-18 or 18-24 and have 500 thousand people be mad at me in Bergen and Essex counties 10 miles west of EWR that got 2 feet in that small band earlier this month, as opposed to having 10 million people mad at me who fell in the 6-12 inch range, or less than that in the 5 boros and other densely populated suburban areas in the tri state that didn't get much outside that heavy north jersey band during the second noreaster this month.

[henry1978]

The NYC tv market never had top level on air METS like Boston.  For every Harvey leonard, dick albert, todd gross, barry Burbank, ron harris, tom Chisholm, new York always had fat likeable funny guys like al roker and ira joe fisher, smooth talkers with rudimentary weather knowledge like mr g and cosmetic performers like sam champion and Lonnie Quinn. Nick Gregory before lee Goldberg came around a decade later was pretty much the only Boston caliber New York on Met, and he usually forecasts below what Upton usually forecasts which is why he's been on for 30 years on New York's highest rated ten pm newscast.

[Amped]

On 3/22/2018 at 8:47 AM, Baroclinic Zone said:

This is brutal and I love the Euro. 

 

 

You mean this Euro?  

[henry1978]

15 minutes ago, Amped said:

You mean this Euro?  

we have a winner folks.  The Bronx verified.  6-8 inches.  

I saw reports around 6 inches in Baltimore City.

And not much more inside and just outside the capital beltway. less than 5 in the district, reports of around 6 in Montgomery and 7 or less in prince George's. Who had the best forecast in DC? I know Capital weather gang has a million twitter followers.  They pretty much punted and didn't bite on the euro, but didn't totally discount it.

I'm all for entrepreneurship.  But making a buck off these maps is FAKE NEWS folks and the purveyors of these maps are doing a disservice to weather forecasters who earn a living at this because these clown maps pervert the process and they're becoming more prevalent. drudge is the king of conservative media, he is a weather buff, a literal weenie, and on occasion he's posted maps like this.

[OceanStWx]

1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

The 1990s were way worse for forecasting than now...way worse, and it isn't even close....the only reason it seems more stable is because all the weenies couldn't see every run and every off hour run or ensembles like they can see now and they were probably only tuning into maybe 3 outlets for weather...TWC and a couple local channels.

Now we have discussions about every model run and how much it shifted. Back in the 1990s, the Euro didn't even run twice a day...it was one 12z run per day (didn't even start running at 00z until 2002-2003) and it didn't come out until evening. You had the ETA that went to 48 hours and the AVN that went to 72 hours....the extended AVN was called the MRF back then and it sucked 100 times worse than the current GFS beyond day 5. If you go back to our largest events of the 1990s, they were forecasted pretty terribly save for a handful. Jan 1996 was forecasted to be a whiff 36 hours out. Dec 1992 was forecasted to be 2-4 inches of paste in ORH 24 hours before the event started...maybe they meant 2-4 feet and got the units mixed up? April 1997 was a half-decent forecast but still underestimated by a lot even after the event was underway. February 1998 was one of the worst busts ever in interior SNE...the coast was never in the game, but we had a winter storm warning in ORH and a 12-18 inch forecast as the storm was already started...we then got 3" of snow and then a flip to rain which never flipped back and washed it all away....all the way out to Albany. I can't imagine the epic meltdowns that would occur now on here if that happened. December 20, 1995 had a blizzard warning out 24 hours before the storm and a 1-2 feet forecast....most of the area got single digits and about 4 hours of moderate to heavy snow. People would melt down worse than boxing day if that happened again.  December 23, 1997 had a forecast of 1-3/2-4" of snow as the event started. Much of interior MA got 12-20 inches in a span of 6 hours and even BOS got 7-10" after hours of rain in the beginning. Nice forecast that was. Feb 16, 1996 had a forecast of 10-16 inches as the event was going on...most of SNE got dryslotted horrendously and finished with less than 7" save an area of OES enhancement on the south shore. Another one that would make Boxing day blush.

We tend to forget the inaccuracies and the negatives as time goes on. The above are just examples off the top of my head that affected a huge portion of SNE...but empirically, every model parameter and every NWS forecast parameter has come a long way since those days. We are way more accurate now. It doesn't mean it's perfect obviously...there is still plenty of uncertainty. We haven't pinned down mesoscale snow very well yet....might be decades before we do.

I mean models still struggle with latent heat release downstream of developing cyclones (pumping up the ridge and creating a "NW trend"), and no doubt they sucked at it back then too. Just primed the area for some classic positive busts. And when you weren't running models as frequently, you couldn't catch a trend as fast. 12 hours later, was it a one run blip? Wait 12 more hours and the snow may have already started. 

Within the NWS, it was before my time, 15 years ago we were hand typing zone forecasts and that was really it outside of warnings. Now not only do those generate from gridded forecasts, but you can find a point forecast for your 2.5 km box (they aren't perfect by any means, but that's quite a feat in and of itself). 

[ORH_wxman]

3 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

I mean models still struggle with latent heat release downstream of developing cyclones (pumping up the ridge and creating a "NW trend"), and no doubt they sucked at it back then too. Just primed the area for some classic positive busts. And when you weren't running models as frequently, you couldn't catch a trend as fast. 12 hours later, was it a one run blip? Wait 12 more hours and the snow may have already started. 

Within the NWS, it was before my time, 15 years ago we were hand typing zone forecasts and that was really it outside of warnings. Now not only do those generate from gridded forecasts, but you can find a point forecast for your 2.5 km box (they aren't perfect by any means, but that's quite a feat in and of itself). 

The NGM was the premier model for inside of 48 hours back then. That's really probably the best way to explain how much worse the forecasting was to weenies who understand and have followed models for the past decade.

The ETA wasn't really trusted as a superior model until the late 1990s. Though I believe I recall from some talk with forecasters from back then that it was the first model to bring the Jan 1996 blizzard up into SNE. It went out with a bang in its final winter too as the OP NAM before being replaced by the WRF...it nailed the 12/9/05 storm while the Euro crapped all over itself.

[wxeyeNH]

1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

 

Now we have discussions about every model run and how much it shifted. Back in the 1990s, the Euro didn't even run twice a day...it was one 12z run per day (didn't even start running at 00z until 2002-2003) and it didn't come out until evening. You had the ETA that went to 48 hours and the AVN that went to 72 hours....the extended AVN was called the MRF back then and it sucked 100 times worse than the current GFS beyond day 5. 

 

This brought me down memory lane.  My memory sucks and I forgot how crappy those models were.  One interesting thing I do remember.  The Feb 1978 storm was well predicted.  I was in college and on the Friday before got a tour of the NOAA headquarters outside of DC.  I remember the Mets were going nuts looking at those old fax paper runs.  Don't know what models we had in 78 but they were all talking about New England.   A couple of days later I was in my dorm room at the U of Maryland listening to scratchy distant WBZ talking about what was happening up here.  I was so jealous.  

[codfishsnowman]

2 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

The 1990s were way worse for forecasting than now...way worse, and it isn't even close....the only reason it seems more stable is because all the weenies couldn't see every run and every off hour run or ensembles like they can see now and they were probably only tuning into maybe 3 outlets for weather...TWC and a couple local channels.

Now we have discussions about every model run and how much it shifted. Back in the 1990s, the Euro didn't even run twice a day...it was one 12z run per day (didn't even start running at 00z until 2002-2003) and it didn't come out until evening. You had the ETA that went to 48 hours and the AVN that went to 72 hours....the extended AVN was called the MRF back then and it sucked 100 times worse than the current GFS beyond day 5. If you go back to our largest events of the 1990s, they were forecasted pretty terribly save for a handful. Jan 1996 was forecasted to be a whiff 36 hours out. Dec 1992 was forecasted to be 2-4 inches of paste in ORH 24 hours before the event started...maybe they meant 2-4 feet and got the units mixed up? April 1997 was a half-decent forecast but still underestimated by a lot even after the event was underway. February 1998 was one of the worst busts ever in interior SNE...the coast was never in the game, but we had a winter storm warning in ORH and a 12-18 inch forecast as the storm was already started...we then got 3" of snow and then a flip to rain which never flipped back and washed it all away....all the way out to Albany. I can't imagine the epic meltdowns that would occur now on here if that happened. December 20, 1995 had a blizzard warning out 24 hours before the storm and a 1-2 feet forecast....most of the area got single digits and about 4 hours of moderate to heavy snow. People would melt down worse than boxing day if that happened again.  December 23, 1997 had a forecast of 1-3/2-4" of snow as the event started. Much of interior MA got 12-20 inches in a span of 6 hours and even BOS got 7-10" after hours of rain in the beginning. Nice forecast that was. Feb 16, 1996 had a forecast of 10-16 inches as the event was going on...most of SNE got dryslotted horrendously and finished with less than 7" save an area of OES enhancement on the south shore. Another one that would make Boxing day blush.

 

We tend to forget the inaccuracies and the negatives as time goes on. The above are just examples off the top of my head that affected a huge portion of SNE...but empirically, every model parameter and every NWS forecast parameter has come a long way since those days. We are way more accurate now. It doesn't mean it's perfect obviously...there is still plenty of uncertainty. We haven't pinned down mesoscale snow very well yet....might be decades before we do.

i remember a forecast for 2/16/96 of 4-8 inches in the Hartford area and got 8 inches of snow in Bristol CT....the rest are also all in Bristol CT

i remember a forecast for 12/20/95 of 6-10 inches and received just under 6 inches

12/23/1997 i remember a forecast for 3-6 inches and we picked up 6 inches

4/1/97 i remember a forecast of 10-15 inches the morning of, we received 14 inches

2/92 I remember Brad Field saying it was an elevation event until the low drifted more seaward and both he and NWS forecast 6-12, I had about a foot

I do not remember 2/98

I remember a huge signal for a massive east coast blizzard being discussed on TWC at least 6 days out for 1/96 

[ORH_wxman]

16 minutes ago, codfishsnowman said:

i remember a forecast for 2/16/96 of 4-8 inches in the Hartford area and got 8 inches of snow in Bristol CT....the rest are also all in Bristol CT

i remember a forecast for 12/20/95 of 6-10 inches and received just under 6 inches

12/23/1997 i remember a forecast for 3-6 inches and we picked up 6 inches

4/1/97 i remember a forecast of 10-15 inches the morning of, we received 14 inches

2/92 I remember Brad Field saying it was an elevation event until the low drifted more seaward and both he and NWS forecast 6-12, I had about a foot

I do not remember 2/98

I remember a huge signal for a massive east coast blizzard being discussed on TWC at least 6 days out for 1/96 

Maybe those worked out in Bristol CT but for every single one I mentioned up in MA there was def an equivalent or worse down in CT. I do think you are not remembering 12/95 correctly unless you are only remembering maybe the final forecast and not what it was a good day to 36 hours before the event. There was a belief that this would be a monster storm from NYC to BOS not too far in advance. 

The accuracy was so much worse in the 90s. We hold current forecasters to a ridiculous standard now. If having TWC mention that there could be a big east coast storm 6 days out is impressive for the 96 storm...we do that with almost every storm now. 

[henry1978]

26 minutes ago, codfishsnowman said:

i remember a forecast for 2/16 of 4-8 inches in the Hartford area and got 8 inches of snow in Bristol CT....the rest are also all in Bristol CT

i remember a forecast for 12/20/95 of 6-10 inches and received just under 6 inches

12/23/1997 i remember a forecast for 3-6 inches and we picked up 6 inches

4/1/97 i remember a forecast of 10-15 inches the morning of, we received 14 inches

2/92 I remember Brad Field saying it was an elevation event until the low drifted more seaward and both he and NWS forecast 6-12, I had about a foot

I do not remember 2/98I remember a huge signal for a massive east coast blizzard being discussed on TWC at least 6 days out for 1/96 

model guidance in advance of January 1996 was focusing on DCA.  New York didn't get in the game for a 1-2 footer until Saturday afternoon. It started snowing in the big apple on sunday morning. I don't remember forecasts of 10-16 for February 16, 1996.  Accuweather was forecasting very conservative for their northeast client radio stations. Craig allen was only forecasting 3-6 for NYC and bumped it up. New York's outer boros had around ten inches on average while parts of the south coast of new England had less than 10 with an average of 6-8.

December 20 1995 had a weenie report from LGA of 14, around 8 in the park, and most of southern new England as will alluded to was under 10 despite higher forecasts from providence and boston mets.  NWS forecasts were not widely distributed back then because hardly anyone had weather radios, and the internet at that time was barely anything.

However, these three busts were all cold, dead of winter events with cold air masses that preceded and followed the events. None of them had a rain/snow line although 1995 had a bit of sleet. It's easier for the public to tolerate a bust that produces 6 inches of snow that's not gonna melt an hour later even if double was forecast...as opposed to a spring March bust where a foot is forecast and only an inch or two falls that melts a half hour later. 

December 1997 was not a cold event. started as rain in most areas. definition of man snow. areas south of taunton and providence only had a couple inches, or less along the immediate south coast and cape.  If you love snow, and were driving along 128, you would take December 1997 over last weeks fluff job every day of the week. Big ole flakes are my lasting memory from that event. 1997-1998 was the worst winter ever for coastal southern New England and the 95 megalopolis. many areas of coastal CT,RI and MA had 5 or less for the entire winter and some areas only had a trace.

The lasting legacy of this past event is to adopt the pete bouchard rule.  I know a lot of you guys don't like him but he's right to be weary about march events.

with 1992 no one was forecasting the big totals for metro west, Worcester and northern rhode island just like no one was forecasting plowable snow in coastal Fairfield county which occurred.  Once temps cooled Friday night  There were horrible forecasts of 6-12 inches that Saturday am and a blizzard warning south of providence and only a couple inches fell there.

[weathafella]

Tom Chisholm sucked.  He was forecasting locally on the morning of 12/23 he on air said “don’t worry about this little bit of snow-the sun will melt it in not time..”.   Ron Harris was decent and a real snow lover.  Todd Gross was not that good either.  Here are the good ones over the years in Boston:

Harvey 

Dick Albert

mark Rosenthal 

bob copeland

Don Kent

Norm Macdonald 

John Ghiorse (Providence)

[ORH_wxman]

4 minutes ago, henry1978 said:

model guidance in advance of January 1996 was focusing on DCA.  New York didn't get in the game for a 1-2 footer until Saturday afternoon. It started snowing in the big apple on sunday morning. I don't remember forecasts of 10-16 for February 16, 1996.  Accuweather was forecasting very conservative for their northeast client radio stations. Craig allen was only forecasting 3-6 for NYC and bumped it up. New York's outer boros had around ten inches on average while parts of the south coast of new England had less than 10 with an average of 6-8.

December 20 1995 had a weenie report from LGA of 14, around 8 in the park, and most of southern new England as will alluded to was under 10 despite higher forecasts from providence and boston mets.  NWS forecasts were not widely distributed back then because hardly anyone had weather radios, and the internet at that time was barely anything.

However, these three busts were all cold, dead of winter events with cold air masses that preceded and followed the events. None of them had a rain/snow line although 1995 had a bit of sleet. It's easier for the public to tolerate a bust that produces 6 inches of snow that's not gonna melt an hour later even if double was forecast...as opposed to a spring March bust where a foot is forecast and only an inch or two falls that melts a half hour later. 

(December 1997 was not a cold event.) The lasting legacy of this past event is to adopt the pete bouchard rule.  I know a lot of you guys don't like him but he's right to be weary about march events.

with 1992 no one was forecasting the big totals for metro west, Worcester and northern rhode island just like no one was forecasting plowable snow in coastal Fairfield county which occurred.  Once temps cooled Friday night  There were horrible forecasts of 6-12 inches that Saturday am and a blizzard warning south of providence and only a couple inches fell there.

The blizzard warning in 12/92 actually extended all the way to Plymouth. They got nothing though not too far northwest in middlborough did get 5-6". My roommate from college who now works on WABC always tells me how much that stung (he grew up in Plymouth). The forecasts for Worcester never caught up to the actual amounts. Barry Burbank did call for 20-25" by the 5am wbz newscast on Saturday morning I believe but by that point we already had about 17-18". The 6pm casts from the night before as the storm was already raging only had 6-12" or so but I recall Harvey being a little heavier...and of course this is after 2-4" on the Thursday forecasts. 

The biggest difference I notice between the 1990s and now is the lead time on events. We thought it was amazing that forecasters tracked 3/93 from 5-6 days out. But that is pretty routine nowadays. There's still exceptions of course but most of the time the public catches wind of a storm threat at least 4 days out now. Back then they used to sneak up much faster....frequently ramping up from a vague threat to huge storm inside of 48 hours. The mesoscale busts still happen all the time since we just haven't gotten those down yet...so we're still almost on par with the 1990s when it comes to snowfall ranges. Can't really narrow them down to smaller ranges yet. 

[tamarack]

7 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Maybe those worked out in Bristol CT but for every single one I mentioned up in MA there was def an equivalent or worse down in CT. I do think you are not remembering 12/95 correctly unless you are only remembering maybe the final forecast and not what it was a good day to 36 hours before the event. There was a belief that this would be a monster storm from NYC to BOS not too far in advance. 

The accuracy was so much worse in the 90s. We hold current forecasters to a ridiculous standard now. If having TWC mention that there could be a big east coast storm 6 days out is impressive for the 96 storm...we do that with almost every storm now. 

Of course, there are always exceptions.  I recall the '93 superstorm being forecast nearly a week ahead of its arrival in the Northeast, as a "major nor'easter" rather than the monster it became.  And 2014-15 became the most frustrating AN-snow winter of my experience due to 4 WSW mega-busts, each verifying at about 1/8 of the forecast range's lower end.  (1:Nov 2, 4-8" became 0.5" while midcoast/BGR got 10"+ and DE Maine 15-20; 2:Dec 9-11, 12-16" verified 1.2" with 2.5" catpaws at 34° while elev 1500+ got 10-25"; 3:Jan 27 [SNJ] 12-16" brought 1.5" as we missed the 20" blizzard that hit our home area; 4:VD15 massacre - 12-18" with blizz warning became 1.5" while BOS got 16 and Machias 24.)

Also, 1980s snowfall depended muchly on location.  That decade was easily the least snowy of the going-on-13 decades at Farmington, but 81-82 in Ft. Kent brought 186" capped by the all-time greatest positive bust, the April blizzard.  83-84 had 171" of mostly high-LE snow and racked up over 5,700 SDDs.  86-87 in Gardiner featured the 5-storm 50" January with persistent pack that helped fuel the 500-year flood on the Kennebec.  Then 89-90 arrived with the pre-Thanksgiving thunderblizzard (only blizz-criteria event in 13 winters there) followed by 6 frigid weeks and 4 more snows 8.5-11" in early 1990 despite the much milder temps.

[ORH_wxman]

5 minutes ago, weathafella said:

Tom Chisholm sucked.  He was forecasting locally on the morning of 12/23 he on air said “don’t worry about this little bit of snow-the sun will melt it in not time..”.   Ron Harris was decent and a real snow lover.  Todd Gross was not that good either.  Here are the good ones over the years in Boston:

Harvey 

Dick Albert

mark Rosenthal 

bob copeland

Don Kent

Norm Macdonald 

John Ghiorse (Providence)

I thought Todd gross improved a lot by the time we got to the late 1990s. I'd throw Barry Burbank on that list of good ones too. 

There was a met on WBZ back in the late 1980s name Dave Murray who I liked too...explained things well. But he didn't stick around long. Ed Carrol came along a few years later and was a wet blanket for snow weenies...loved to downplay events. Burbank was relegated to weekends at that point...dark years for wbz. 

[dendrite]

46 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

The NGM was the premier model for inside of 48 hours back then. That's really probably the best way to explain how much worse the forecasting was to weenies who understand and have followed models for the past decade.

The ETA wasn't really trusted as a superior model until the late 1990s. Though I believe I recall from some talk with forecasters from back then that it was the first model to bring the Jan 1996 blizzard up into SNE. It went out with a bang in its final winter too as the OP NAM before being replaced by the WRF...it nailed the 12/9/05 storm while the Euro crapped all over itself.

Everything was a lot more coarse too. You didn't have the hires maps we have today showing an extra 2F cooler on Tolland Mastif nor 0.75" QPF bullseyes over Moosefart, VT. Those are the days where models loved to give us a few tenths every 6hrs as the resolution was good enough to somewhat sense the mountains, but not good enough to dry us out SE of there when the downslope kicked in. You basically just had the mandatory levels available too...sfc/1000, 850, 700, 500, 250/300. None of us even had ECMWF QPF in the early days so when the Euro became king it was solely based on H5/SLP. We were nowhere near Kuchera maps back then.

[henry1978]

where was tom Chisholm working at in 1997?  He left channel 7 in the late 80s, went to the weather channel for a time, and at some point wound up in Portland, Maine. 

I totally disagree about Todd Gross.  He was the best long range forecaster of his era with respect to sniffing out snow events. Great energy, loved snow.  He just wasn't very popular with his colleagues, and his social skills weren't all that great which is probably why he was escorted out of the building in 2005 after 21 years of service at channel 7.  But I wish he would've stayed on air in Boston instead of all the women all the boston tv stations hired over the years who failed to distinguish themselves.  Mish Michaels had a following because she was attractive but her forecasts were never really good, otherwise, except for Cindy Fitzgibbon women have not excelled in boston tv weather.

I liked John Ghiorse, but when gary ley arrived in PVD in 1984 he totally blew away John Ghiorse in every way during the 80s and 90s.

No one mentioned schwoegler.  Off air he wasn't always nice and he forecast gusts to 200 during Gloria.  enuff said.  If scooter invited him to his school I doubt he would've showed up like Dickie did. schwoegler got bumped twice.  A guy named dave murray who used to read his forecast off a prompter.  Lol. Late night model changes be damned. Then bruce got bumped for nancy russo, and later ed carroll.

I too liked mark Rosenthal and bob Copeland. Off air Mark wasn't particularly well liked either.  Probably why he got dumped in 2002, and never had a full time position.

[dendrite]

8 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Of course, there are always exceptions.  I recall the '93 superstorm being forecast nearly a week ahead of its arrival in the Northeast, as a "major nor'easter" rather than the monster it became. 

Mar '93 was such a large system it was practically more global scale than synoptic. I think that helped it be modeled so well at d5.

[weathafella]

12 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

I thought Todd gross improved a lot by the time we got to the late 1990s. I'd throw Barry Burbank on that list of good ones too. 

There was a met on WBZ back in the late 1980s name Dave Murray who I liked too...explained things well. But he didn't stick around long. Ed Carrol came along a few years later and was a wet blanket for snow weenies...loved to downplay events. Burbank was relegated to weekends at that point...dark years for wbz. 

I was typing Burbank but got distracted ordering lunch at LGA...lol.  The JJ Foley’s incident is legendary!

[weathafella]

9 minutes ago, henry1978 said:

where was tom Chisholm working at in 1997?  He left channel 7 in the late 80s, went to the weather channel for a time, and at some point wound up in Portland, Maine. 

I totally disagree about Todd Gross.  He was the best long range forecaster of his era with respect to sniffing out snow events. Great energy, loved snow.  He just wasn't very popular with his colleagues, and his social skills weren't all that great which is probably why he was escorted out of the building in 2005 after 21 years of service at channel 7.  But I wish he would've stayed on air in Boston instead of all the women all the boston tv stations hired over the years who failed to distinguish themselves.  Mish Michaels had a following because she was attractive but her forecasts were never really good, otherwise, except for Cindy Fitzgibbon women have not excelled in boston tv weather.

I liked John Ghiorse, but when gary ley arrived in PVD in 1984 he totally blew away John Ghiorse in every way during the 80s and 90s.

No one mentioned schwoegler.  Off air he wasn't always nice and he forecast gusts to 200 during Gloria.  enuff said.  If scooter invited him to his school I doubt he would've showed up like Dickie did. schwoegler got bumped twice.  A guy named dave murray who used to read his forecast off a prompter.  Lol. Late night model changes be damned. Then bruce got bumped for nancy russo, and later ed carroll.

I too liked mark Rosenthal and bob Copeland. Off air Mark wasn't particularly well liked either.  Probably why he got dumped in 2002, and never had a full time position.

Chisholm was up in Boston as a sub (maybe WBZ).  I only saw him on air in Boston that one time as I was in LA 1976-91.  I thought he sucked on TWC also.  

One of my favorite Todd stories is an event in February 1999 that buried the cape.  Todd goes on in the AM and declares “I’m an expert in these types of systems and we’re getting buried”. The he points out that ACK had heavy snow while we had flurries near Boston as validation.  Of course my concern when ACK flipped turned out correct as the cape got 18 and Boston struggled to 6.

[ORH_wxman]

3 minutes ago, weathafella said:

Chisholm was up in Boston as a sub (maybe WBZ).  I only saw him on air in Boston that one time as I was in LA 1976-91.  I thought he sucked on TWC also.  

One of my favorite Todd stories is an event in February 1999 that buried the cape.  Todd goes on in the AM and declares “I’m an expert in these types of systems and we’re getting buried”. The he points out that ACK had heavy snow while we had flurries near Boston as validation.  Of course my concern when ACK flipped turned out correct as the cape got 18 and Boston struggled to 6.

I think BOS got into a subby hole in that one...we had 10-11" back in ORH from the weenie band out west...then amounts dropped off to almost zilched in the CT Valley (sorry codfishsnowman)

 

The Cape got annihilated...I recall parts getting 24 inches.

[weathafella]

One thing about Todd I need to mention.  I used to go to the annual SNE wx conference every year.  I saw Todd Gross exhibit tremendous kindness to a special needs boy who was unrelated to him.  He rose big time in my book as a human after that.