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December 16-17, 2020 Winter Storm Obs/Nowcasting


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53 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Funny thing is from that crazy Canadian run is that the low pressure didn’t end up far from that.  It was the upper levels not letting this wrap up.

Tell ya this though ... we keep getting the storm track we’ve had for the past few months we are gonna be golden.

The trough was a tad too far north and negatively tilted(too soon), and with that the 850 mb low tracked overhead, and the surface low was tucked in real close. Had it evolved the same way, but a bit later/further SE, better outcome.

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3 hours ago, HighStakes said:

Total was 10.5. Got really windy so accurate measurements were difficult during part 2 overnight. May have been more because it snowed until 3-3:30 but I'll go with 10.5. Have to see how that compares to area reports.

My depth is a little over 8” because the initial 7” of powder compacted down to 5” of cement after the ice.  I measured an inch of sleet and snow mix during the mess period.  After that it was impossible to get an accurate measure but 2.5” seems about right. It snowed for several hours. It all blew into drifts up here. Your total seems right to me. This was a tough one to get an accurate total. 

59 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

That is a "right for the wrong reasons" post. I said we would not have huge HECS-level precip totals and we didn't. I never said that some place 400 miles away wouldn't get good totals. LOL I am not verifying my forecast across half the damn country like HM does...

The post I responded to 3 days ago and that I am referencing now was specifically about you implying guidance wasn’t showing enough moisture for 20” totals.  At that time most guidance was putting out 2”+ QPF across our area in the deform zone. That zone shifted north. The argument you were making was not that the deform was going to shift north due to a future model trend. You were specifically questioning whether the qpf on guidance AT THAT TIME supported big totals. They obviously did because that zone and the 2” qpf area shifted to northern PA and that area got 30”+. I doubt we get the ratios here they got even if it had not trended north but 20” in our area certainly wasn’t crazy had the storm not trended north. 

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have i mentioned how much i hate sleet? such a pain in the ass to shovel. There's a good 1/8 inch of ice on all the trees/cars. But at least the cars are dug out and cleared off. Neighbor will snow blow the rest of the driveway for us, and rest will melt. Very pretty out there! 

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10:00 am

Sharpsburg MD 420' ASL 29 degrees

Final measurement- 9 inches total. The wind last night blew quite a bit of drifting snow onto pur front from the NNW.

Hubby is digging us out. He says that layer of sleet is making it a miserable job. (He didnt clear b4 the sleet so he wouldnt have a layer of ice on the driveway to deal with) 

Main road is we are on is semi-clear. Side alley is snow covered. 

All in all a wonderful snow!!

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2 minutes ago, poolz1 said:

A few pics from yesterday...and today. The band last night was really awesome....

9" snow and sleet.  8" OTG this morning. 1.42 liquid

aK8bNlQ.jpg

4gHnFaJ.jpg

SBVuIp2.jpg

Elb0luS.jpg

Nice pics! 

I had 9" also. The band last night was a bit hard to measure but I'm thinking  I ended up with about 3" from it. Seemed to be high ratio stuff. Piled up easy for a few hours. 

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48 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

You all should go take a look at the obs thread from the Upstate NY forum. Looks like 2016 out here. Some 42" totals. Crushed up there for sure. 

One guy reported 40" in 17 hours. That is unbelievable. 

LES rates and probably ratios too.  

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2 hours ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

Funny thing is from that crazy Canadian run is that the low pressure didn’t end up far from that.  It was the upper levels not letting this wrap up.

Tell ya this though ... we keep getting the storm track we’ve had for the past few months we are gonna be golden.

It sucks to see 2' model runs vanish and 12-18" forecasts not verify, but a couple more events like this and it'll have been a good winter.

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2 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

My depth is a little over 8” because the initial 7” of powder compacted down to 5” of cement after the ice.  I measured an inch of sleet and snow mix during the mess period.  After that it was impossible to get an accurate measure but 2.5” seems about right. It snowed for several hours. It all blew into drifts up here. Your total seems right to me. This was a tough one to get an accurate total. 

The post I responded to 3 days ago and that I am referencing now was specifically about you implying guidance wasn’t showing enough moisture for 20” totals.  At that time most guidance was putting out 2”+ QPF across our area in the deform zone. That zone shifted north. The argument you were making was not that the deform was going to shift north due to a future model trend. You were specifically questioning whether the qpf on guidance AT THAT TIME supported big totals. They obviously did because that zone and the 2” qpf area shifted to northern PA and that area got 30”+. I doubt we get the ratios here they got even if it had not trended north but 20” in our area certainly wasn’t crazy had the storm not trended north. 

For the record, we got around 6.5" here in Glyndon/Reisterstown at 760 asl.   The roads were awful at 8 am with 23 degrees widespread.  Experience tells me that the NAM is quite useful but must not be taken literally.  Like the other models, it requires weighing its signals.  Sure, Camp David didn't get 50"  but 75 mile north of there got 40+   The NAM is great for sniffing out warm noses at 850.   Long story short, very few of these snow chances are consistently modelled into the fine details until 36 hours from the start.  People need to understand the probabilistic strength of a signal.  Some signals are flimsy and some are stiff-backboned.  When NAM pulls warmth above the MD line at 850, the probabilistic success rate seems robust.

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1 hour ago, BTRWx's Thanks Giving said:

That animation of the trees drooping is interesting.

Did you notice how the snow initially had a hard time accumulating on the deck while the yard just kept getting deeper? Must have been really cold and the snow sliding through the gaps in the deck boards 

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3 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

Over the years that Miller’s report a couple miles east of me (they are about 200 feet lower) aligns with my snow depth at the end of storms better then snowfall.  Sometimes the two are the same but sometimes when snow came in different parts with lots of mix and compacting they can be a bit off and their total almost always matches my depth. 

Went with 10.0 for final total for event. 10.5 may be slightly ambitious.

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4 minutes ago, HighStakes said:

Went with 10.0 for final total for event. 10.5 may be slightly ambitious.

Can’t argue. I’m sure I measured 6.9” exactly right before it flipped to sleet. Then I measured just over 1” of mostly sleet with some snow during the mix period. So we were at 8 going into the last band of snow at 10pm. But after that I have no idea. Way to windy to get a measurement.  But I doubt it was less than 2” so 10 is a good solid conservative #.  I’ll go with that. 10” snowfall. My depth is 8” in most places. The bottom 6” of that is a solid glacier. 

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5 hours ago, Herb@MAWS said:

While we/Columbia seem to do OK compared to many here, living in Columbia creates it's own sort of snow neurosis:  Too far south and east to benefit from the higher 400'-800' elevations and generally colder climo 30 miles to the N and W; too close to the Bay influences for situations like yesterday; and just barely west of the usual -- and seemingly very real - -"fault line and I-95" higher snow forecast cutoffs.   OTOH, we do sometimes get the MoCo-HoCo deathbands. 

Plus, it's a nice place to raise kids!

I noticed where I was in Ellicott City didn't make a huge difference yesterday. Elkridge got basically the same amount of snow and my changeover each time was basically just minutes ahead of Columbia. My elevation is about 450 feet, but at least with this storm, it seemed like it didn't matter. 

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Well I ended up making the trek back to State College for this one and it did not disappoint. We weren't quite Binghamton, but I estimate we got around 17-18" of powder. Going to be bittersweet heading back home to Maryland, but after missing out on the Blizzard of 2016, I am quite content.

Hope y'all that still cashed in enjoyed and hopefully we'll have more chances in the coming weeks. 

car state college.jpg

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