February 18th - President's Day Overrunning Snow Event Nowcast/Obs

[Ginx snewx]

16 minutes ago, weathafella said:

FWIW....I think BOS actually has a new spotter so we can use the airport number 3.6 vs Winthrop meaning we add 0.1  This if true is an excellent development!

Stunning night walk tonight with the full moon over a snowy landscape. This is why even the small storms matter. 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

5 hours ago, alex said:

4.75" here; probably total unless we get some upslope later. 133.8" for the season to date

3.5" in Glen 

[BombsAway1288]

41 minutes ago, weathafella said:

FWIW....I think BOS actually has a new spotter so we can use the airport number 3.6 vs Winthrop meaning we add 0.1  This if true is an excellent development!

I think you're right. They had an accurate measurement today for sure, finally!

[40/70 Benchmark]

Pretty good call. I explained in the final call rationale that the upper bounds of the 2-5" range north of the city was in the event that the mid level lows remained closed a bit longer, which did not happen.

https://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2019/02/presidents-day-verification.html

[Sugarloaf1989]

Clear skies and calm wind here with the current temperature at 7.6F.

[Sugarloaf1989]

Now 6F.

[CoastalWx]

Cold one. 12.8

[S&P]

.75 mixed frozen final Portsmouth RI , 1st time this season , frozen OTG for more than 24 hours 

[HoarfrostHubb]

8.1F this morning.  The trees still have snow caked on them.   Wish I was skiing

[dendrite]

2.6° this morn

[tamarack]

17 hours ago, OceanStWx said:

So we lock 27:1 ratios in for Thursday morning now? 

For  the 9 events bringing 3"+, top ratio is just under 11:1, average 8.3.  No 20:1s in sight, except for the itty bitty ones.

Down to -5 at sunrise this morning, might be a few ticks lower tomorrow.

[Great Snow 1717]

2.5 the final total in Methuen

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 hours ago, Great Snow 1717 said:

2.5 the final total in Methuen

I had 2"...close enough.

[40/70 Benchmark]

5 hours ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

8.1F this morning.  The trees still have snow caked on them.   Wish I was skiing

12.4 here.

[wxsniss]

14 hours ago, weathafella said:

FWIW....I think BOS actually has a new spotter so we can use the airport number 3.6 vs Winthrop meaning we add 0.1  This if true is an excellent development!

I hope so... but I'll believe it when I see it over time... we've been shafted by Logan measurements for as long as I can remember.

When even David Epstein thinks a measurement is too low, you know it's been bad...

[#NoPoles]

@Baroclinic Zone how do i find the official NWS Storm Total for Franklin, Bellingham, and Foxboro?

[Great Snow 1717]

20 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I had 2"...close enough.

When Dan76 lived in Methuen him and I often had similar totals. 

[OceanStWx]

1 hour ago, wxsniss said:

I hope so... but I'll believe it when I see it over time... we've been shafted by Logan measurements for as long as I can remember.

When even David Epstein thinks a measurement is too low, you know it's been bad...

I mean the Logan report is going to be the number for BOS climate purposes. But the observer is new from the old Winthrop coop. What kind of problems they are having with measurements I have no idea though. Either the site is super close to the water, or they've just messed up the measurements a few times.

Upon further review, it's not great guys. You thought Winthrop was a tough location to measure, just keep heading down the peninsula to the tip. 

[OceanStWx]

2 hours ago, #NoPoles said:

@Baroclinic Zone how do i find the official NWS Storm Total for Franklin, Bellingham, and Foxboro?

No official for Bellingham and Foxboro, but you can get Franklin from the coop data here: https://w2.weather.gov/climate/xmacis.php?wfo=box

[#NoPoles]

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

No official for Bellingham and Foxboro, but you can get Franklin from the coop data here: https://w2.weather.gov/climate/xmacis.php?wfo=box

How do you look up those texts that the NWS puts out that has the county, and town and then snow fall total?

[CoastalWx]

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

I mean the Logan report is going to be the number for BOS climate purposes. But the observer is new from the old Winthrop coop. What kind of problems they are having with measurements I have no idea though. Either the site is super close to the water, or they've just messed up the measurements a few times.

Upon further review, it's not great guys. You thought Winthrop was a tough location to measure, just keep heading down the peninsula to the tip. 

They won’t believe it. Unreal.

[OceanStWx]

17 minutes ago, #NoPoles said:

How do you look up those texts that the NWS puts out that has the county, and town and then snow fall total?

Best bet is to check Iowa State and change the WFO and date, then search for PNS.

The only issue with that is there is no guarantee that a spotter reported during a storm from Bellingham or Foxboro. Franklin will always have the coop data though.

[OceanStWx]

18 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

They won’t believe it. Unreal.

The good news is it's only 5.5 miles from the Common, but 15 miles from the harbor buoy. So it could be worse.

[OceanStWx]

[Ginx snewx]

8 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

At a sewer plant to boot, no UHI there lol. Wait until theres a 965 Nor'Easter when all the snow is blown off the Peninsula.  

[dendrite]

Better off just letting Kevin estimate the BOS total from Tolland.

[wxsniss]

2 hours ago, OceanStWx said:

I mean the Logan report is going to be the number for BOS climate purposes. But the observer is new from the old Winthrop coop. What kind of problems they are having with measurements I have no idea though. Either the site is super close to the water, or they've just messed up the measurements a few times.

Upon further review, it's not great guys. You thought Winthrop was a tough location to measure, just keep heading down the peninsula to the tip. 

Agree... the measurement is frequently an obvious low outlier compared to readings in the city center or anywhere else in the Boston area. Either the spotter is consistently lowballing measurements, or the micro-climate (on the peninsula on which the airport is built, or Winthrop beach immediately across) is not representative of anywhere else in the city.

The latter is almost definitely true. And probably attributes at least 50% of the deviation.

But many here have argued the former too. Multiple times, every year. There have certainly been events in which you would not necessarily expect Logan to be significantly lower than Boston Commons, but it consistently is. A randomly plucked example (of which there are many more, I just don't have these memorized):

Jan 2005:

   BOSTON COMMON         26.0   116 PM  1/23   NWS EMPLOYEE
   ROSLINDALE            25.5   305 PM  1/23   ST
   EAST BOSTON           22.5   700 PM  1/23   LOGAN KBOS

How much of the low deviation is attributable to spotter error vs. micro-climate, and if the latter, whether Logan should be the climate site representative of the city, are perennial debates here. We'll see if/how things change over time with a new spotter.

[OceanStWx]

5 minutes ago, wxsniss said:

Agree... the measurement is frequently an obvious low outlier compared to readings in the city center or anywhere else in the Boston area. Either the spotter is consistently lowballing measurements, or the micro-climate (on the peninsula on which the airport is built, or Winthrop beach immediately across) is not representative of anywhere else in the city.

The latter is almost definitely true. And probably attributes at least 50% of the deviation.

But many here have argued the former too. Multiple times, every year. There have certainly been events in which you would not necessarily expect Logan to be significantly lower than Boston Commons, but it consistently is. A randomly plucked example (of which there are many more, I just don't have these memorized):

Jan 2005:

   BOSTON COMMON         26.0   116 PM  1/23   NWS EMPLOYEE
   ROSLINDALE            25.5   305 PM  1/23   ST
   EAST BOSTON           22.5   700 PM  1/23   LOGAN KBOS

How much of the low deviation is attributable to spotter error vs. micro-climate, and if the latter, whether Logan should be the climate site representative of the city, are perennial debates here. We'll see if/how things change over time with a new spotter.

I mean there could definitely be an observer bias. A WWTP for instance is unlikely to have the same observer measuring every event (so some storms may be rounded to the nearest half inch vs others to the tenth).

But given that it's also on Deer Island wind and warmth are going to affect measurements. 

[CoastalWx]

What a disaster. That’s maddening to me. 

[Greg]

51 minutes ago, wxsniss said:

Agree... the measurement is frequently an obvious low outlier compared to readings in the city center or anywhere else in the Boston area. Either the spotter is consistently lowballing measurements, or the micro-climate (on the peninsula on which the airport is built, or Winthrop beach immediately across) is not representative of anywhere else in the city.

The latter is almost definitely true. And probably attributes at least 50% of the deviation.

But many here have argued the former too. Multiple times, every year. There have certainly been events in which you would not necessarily expect Logan to be significantly lower than Boston Commons, but it consistently is. A randomly plucked example (of which there are many more, I just don't have these memorized):

Jan 2005:

   BOSTON COMMON         26.0   116 PM  1/23   NWS EMPLOYEE
   ROSLINDALE            25.5   305 PM  1/23   ST
   EAST BOSTON           22.5   700 PM  1/23   LOGAN KBOS

How much of the low deviation is attributable to spotter error vs. micro-climate, and if the latter, whether Logan should be the climate site representative of the city, are perennial debates here. We'll see if/how things change over time with a new spotter.

I'm actually pleased you posted that from the Blizzard of 2005.  You and everybody can clearly see the deviation.  I always believed that the 26.0" amount was correct given the majority of the observations around the Boston area at that time.