Significant snow - ice or rain Feb 10-12

[HeadInTheClouds]

6 minutes ago, gravitylover said:

Really? The lowest air temp I've seen is -57°F. It's not much different from -20

Where was it -57? Barrow Alaska? The lowest I have been in is -23 back in 1994. It was brutal. 

[crossbowftw3]

1 hour ago, sferic said:

@crossbowftw3 @snywx think we get a fresh coating to whiten up the snow pack?

Pretty good bet 

[jm1220]

1 hour ago, mob1 said:

Snowing pretty good in Altoona PA now, snow doesn't need much of a northern trajectory to give most of us a light snowfall event. 

The snow will get almost to the NY border if not beyond. Question here is how much dry air will have to be overcome that will be coming in from New England. 

[Cfa]

36 minutes ago, CPcantmeasuresnow said:

It was -1 in NYC about five years ago to the day. 

True for Central Park but not at the other official sites.

11 minutes ago, gravitylover said:

Really? The lowest air temp I've seen is -57°F. It's not much different from -20

That’s insane. Fahrenheit nor Celsius even matter at that point.

[Tatamy]

0z HREF through 12z tomorrow

[Tatamy]

Steady light snow - 1 mile visibility - 28F

[gravitylover]

1 hour ago, HeadInTheClouds said:

Where was it -57? Barrow Alaska? The lowest I have been in is -23 back in 1994. It was brutal. 

In a deep valley along the river bank high in the Rockies of NW CO. 

18 minutes ago, Cfa said:

True for Central Park but not at the other official sites.

That’s insane. Fahrenheit nor Celsius even matter at that point.

They meet at -40 

[RU848789]

And so it begins.  Light snow started around 10:50 pm and we have a light dusting.  30F here in Metuchen.  

[RU848789]

46 minutes ago, RU848789 said:

And so it begins.  Light snow started around 10:50 pm and we have a light dusting.  30F here in Metuchen.  

As of 12:00 am we have 1/2" of pixie dust on the ground here in Metuchen at 30F.  Coming down nicely - 6 hours of this gets us 3".  

[chrisNJ]

1/2” in Hillsborough. Light to mod fluff falling. You can tell we’ve been spoiled lately with the quietness of the board today even with current and several future threats. 

[RU848789]

34 minutes ago, RU848789 said:

As of 12:00 am we have 1/2" of pixie dust on the ground here in Metuchen at 30F.  Coming down nicely - 6 hours of this gets us 3".  

Snow picked up in intensity significantly the last half hour and we now have moderately sized dendrites that likely will give 15-20: ratios.  Up to 1.0" at 12:30, which is a 1"/hr rate over the last 30 min.  Temp has dropped to 28F   

[ForestHillWx]

Everything is covered in a fresh coat of white. 25/23 with snow. 

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

Snowing nicely now on the uws. Looks like there could be a decent cutoff from north to south in the city. 

[RU848789]

43 minutes ago, RU848789 said:

Snow picked up in intensity significantly the last half hour and we now have moderately sized dendrites that likely will give 15-20: ratios.  Up to 1.0" at 12:30, which is a 1"/hr rate over the last 30 min.  Temp has dropped to 28F   

Just went for a Jebwalk - stunningly gorgeous out there right now in the absolute quiet of the middle of the night with a fresh blanket of white.  Up to 1.5" in Metuchen as of 1:00 am, as it's still snowing moderately with nice small/medium dendrites.  Seems pretty likely we'll make it to 2.5", but not sure how much more snow we'll get after about 2:30 am.  Would love to make 3-4" and could with even 3-4 hours of lighter snow after this band finishes coming through in the next 30 min or so.  

Not a single station in NJ (or even DE) above 32F, so I assume this is all snow for everyone which is nice for the folks in SNJ.  

 

[RU848789]

48 minutes ago, RU848789 said:

Just went for a Jebwalk - stunningly gorgeous out there right now in the absolute quiet of the middle of the night with a fresh blanket of white.  Up to 1.5" in Metuchen as of 1:00 am, as it's still snowing moderately with nice small/medium dendrites.  Seems pretty likely we'll make it to 2.5", but not sure how much more snow we'll get after about 2:30 am.  Would love to make 3-4" and could with even 3-4 hours of lighter snow after this band finishes coming through in the next 30 min or so.  

Not a single station in NJ (or even DE) above 32F, so I assume this is all snow for everyone which is nice for the folks in SNJ.  

 

As of about 2 am, we have 2.25" OTG at 28F in Metuchen.  That's 3/4" the last hour and radar/intensity have let up a bit, but I'd still guess we have 1/4-1/2" per hour snow.  Hoping we make it to my 3" prediction for my house, which we should as long as the precip from PA doesn't dry up - it's on the lighter side, but a few hours would do it.  

[weatherpruf]

2 hours ago, EpicHECS said:

I was very much around for the winter of 1993-1994. But when I said a "97" like event, I meant the one in Upstate NY and Canada. I don't know what you're recalling but the NY metro area and it's suburbs have not seen a multi inch ice storm. There was no 2-4" icing event here in January of '94. In fact, January of '94 was basically the coldest month like...ever here in the Northeast. Lots of snow. 

There were two ice events that year, but it snowed first; so the ice accrued on top of a couple inches of snow; so it wasn't pure ice, but it didn't matter, as the effect was the same; youcould not do anything except chop your way out or pour tons of salt on it to get some temporary grip ( I was teaching in Elizabeth at the time, and they were notorious for never calling snow days, but that changed that year ) which is what my employer tried to do. I believe the really bad one was near MLK day. 

[weatherpruf]

5 minutes ago, RU848789 said:

As of about 2 am, we have 2.25" OTG at 28F in Metuchen.  That's 3/4" the last hour and radar/intensity have let up a bit, but I'd still guess we have 1/4-1/2" per hour snow.  Hoping we make it to my 3" prediction for my house, which we should as long as the precip from PA doesn't dry up - it's on the lighter side, but a few hours would do it.  

Pleasant surprise; I think we will make it to 3.

[weatherpruf]

This should put my area around 36-37 inches or so for the season, roughly.

[RU848789]

29 minutes ago, RU848789 said:

As of about 2 am, we have 2.25" OTG at 28F in Metuchen.  That's 3/4" the last hour and radar/intensity have let up a bit, but I'd still guess we have 1/4-1/2" per hour snow.  Hoping we make it to my 3" prediction for my house, which we should as long as the precip from PA doesn't dry up - it's on the lighter side, but a few hours would do it.  

As of 2:45 am, we have 2.5" OTG in Metuchen at 28F.  Definitely lighter the last hour or so, although we have one more decent band coming through now and then it looks pretty light the rest of the way.  We'll see about whether we made 3" in the morning, as it's sleepy time.  

[RU848789]

12 minutes ago, weatherpruf said:

This should put my area around 36-37 inches or so for the season, roughly.

Same here - 3" more puts me at 33.25", which is above normal for the season as we both get close to NY's seasonal avg of 28".  

[weatherpruf]

5 minutes ago, EpicHECS said:

Which is already well above average for your locale, no? 

It's above average, RU counts 33.25, though there can be some variation between our locales, which are close; I'm estimating Dec storms was around 9, big daddy was around 19 here, then 6 or so Sunday, maybe 2-3 tonight. Still coming down here.

[RU848789]

4 hours ago, RU848789 said:

As of 2:45 am, we have 2.5" OTG in Metuchen at 28F.  Definitely lighter the last hour or so, although we have one more decent band coming through now and then it looks pretty light the rest of the way.  We'll see about whether we made 3" in the morning, as it's sleepy time.  

Woke up at 7 am and took a final measurement of 2.75", as we only got 1/4" since 2:45 am, which looks about right, looking at the radar history since then.  Very nice little storm.  Brings my seasonal total to 36.0".

[wdrag]

 

807AM Thursday the 11th. One event closing out this morning and the the OBS thread will have a CoCoRAHS post  around 11A, and a two day summary Saturday at 10AM.  Whats coming? 

I dropped the wind event from the original post on the 5th and also the coldest of the season NYC.  

Nothing the 12th (my prior concern but unmodeled).  13th.. appears snow or sleet develops late Saturday, probably after dark and ends sometime Valentines Day. Details to be determined. Current modeled warming aloft near 850 MB suggests mostly sleet/freezing rain south of I84 with any snow snow accums in the bulk of the forum under 1" (if anything more than two tenths inch); with 1-4" snow accumulations reserved for the I84 corridor. This is modeled as generally light and appears to be an advisory event due to the probableice mix southeast of I84.  My concern is that modeling of the warming aloft in our subforum I78 northward may be too much, which would allow for a little more snow than now modeled. Jury out. I'm awaiting further model cycles.  These impressions include seeing op cycles through 06z/11. 

[gravitylover]

In a way I won't mind if we get a (very) little bit of sleet. Adding ice layers to this snowpack will help it last longer. Big picture, I'd rather not because it sux to shovel and with 5' driveway banks it's even worse.

[jm1220]

4 minutes ago, gravitylover said:

In a way I won't mind if we get a (very) little bit of sleet. Adding ice layers to this snowpack will help it last longer. Big picture, I'd rather not because it sux to shovel and with 5' driveway banks it's even worse.

Yes sleet can definitely help. It’s annoying the day of but it adds a lot of water and freezes solid into the snowpack which saves it as the sun is getting higher in the sky now and melts some of the snow even with below freezing temps. 

[weatherpruf]

1 hour ago, jm1220 said:

Yes sleet can definitely help. It’s annoying the day of but it adds a lot of water and freezes solid into the snowpack which saves it as the sun is getting higher in the sky now and melts some of the snow even with below freezing temps. 

Our sleet events IIRC and ice events usually herald the end of snow events for the year. Can't think of a  good snow ( 94 excepted, which was anomalous in every respect ) that happened once we had a pure sleet or icing situation. Usually means a pattern change no? Anyway, if we close the books on snow this season ( I hope not right ? ) we can still say it was a winner, even if not a blockbuster. 

[MJO812]

Yikes

[winterwx21]

23 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

Yikes

I see UKMET gives us a couple inches of snow sunday morning. I wonder if that's a decent possibility, or if it's much more likely to be ice.

[wdrag]

Will recheck tomorrow morning ~7A; for now  now change to the 8AM updated thinking. Ice has to be in the mix and snowfall limited to the I84 corridor. Max amount 4" and quite possibly only 1-2" there with ice south of that in the subforum. Light, probably mixed sleet/freezing rain, snow event. 

[gravitylover]

7 hours ago, weatherpruf said:

Our sleet events IIRC and ice events usually herald the end of snow events for the year. Can't think of a  good snow ( 94 excepted, which was anomalous in every respect ) that happened once we had a pure sleet or icing situation. Usually means a pattern change no? Anyway, if we close the books on snow this season ( I hope not right ? ) we can still say it was a winner, even if not a blockbuster. 

The big storm I had 2 sleet periods. I had to dig a path across part of my front yard today and there are two layers in there.