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November Banter 2021

George BM

By George BM,
in Mid Atlantic

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Kmlwx
Kmlwx

Didn't have time to setup anything fancy - and my telescope was poorly collimated. But here's mine! 

Scarlet Pimpernel
Scarlet Pimpernel

Dragged myself out of bed a bit after 4AM for the partial lunar eclipse.  A little later than I cared to, as the peak occurred a little before this photo I took.  But still worked out!

mappy
mappy

Happy Thanksgiving friends! Spending the day at home, hosting friends and dog sitting a giant English Mastiff. Makes my three look so tiny lol

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CAPE

CAPE

Posted
Posted
Just now, WxUSAF said:

Not sure how the ravens can replace his 0.4 yards per carry…

He seemed to fit in, team player, etc. But at some point production is required. Now maybe we will see what the deal is with Ty'Son Williams. If he doesn't get playing time now then clearly there is something they don't like about him.

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Scarlet Pimpernel

Scarlet Pimpernel

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, WxWatcher007 said:

What a fun one that was. 

It was, indeed!  I still think back on that and remember how exciting it was.  Both in advance of and during the event.  I recall the Saturday before the storm, sitting in a Starbucks in Rockville that was adjacent to a Barnes and Noble (sadly the bookstore is now gone from there!).  I was on my phone looking online here at the latest discussions of the 12Z model suite that day.  It's as if all models "clicked" to indicating a major event the following week.  Details were up in the air of course at that time, but it was clear we'd be in for a high-impact winter storm.  It was a weird feeling...like suddenly, "wow, OK, now we're in!"  The entire next week was a waste at work, following all the details as it approached!! :D

 

18 hours ago, mattie g said:

I flew out to LA for a 10-day meeting on the Saturday before. As soon as things started to look like we were really locked in, I started putting heat on the organizers to let the DC folks get back early so that we didn't get stuck out there. I took a redeye Thursday night and landed at IAD the next morning with cloudy skies and cold temps. The whole flight back I was buzzing, and that buzz didn't let up until the snow stopped on Saturday night.

I remember your somewhat controversial avatar of the animated "guitar player" that you put up during that storm!!!  Pretty funny!  That was a guitar player, right?!?! :lol:

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WxWatcher007

WxWatcher007

Posted
Posted
14 hours ago, MN Transplant said:

It was annoying to lull and have the reports from the normal spots to the NW.  Still, 24” and wind in the 2nd half was a win.

Amazing to have a dry slot like that and still produce a big event. The best chases are the ones you get to do in your backyard. 

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Eskimo Joe

Eskimo Joe

Posted
Posted
19 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

I’m not saying I just skimmed through like 200 pages of obs and disco from that storm but I’m not NOT saying it either.

Can't find the 2nd disco thread leading up to the event. My search skills on this site are worse than a baby boomer.

3 hours ago, mappy said:

Yay GIS Day! Like my own personal holiday. 

Happy God It Sucks day from a fellow GIS person.

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Scarlet Pimpernel

Scarlet Pimpernel

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Amazing to have a dry slot like that and still produce a big event. The best chases are the ones you get to do in your backyard. 

So true!  I was probably located on the western "edge" of the dry slot area here in southeastern MoCo, it lightened up for several hours that Saturday but never actually stopped snowing.  Then in the afternoon we got crushed with the deformation bands.  That was awesome!  I got 24" from that storm, and not too far to my northwest there were 30"+ reports.  So if that dry slot edge were just a bit farther east...oh hell, now I sound like Ji complaining about "only" 24" snow! :lol:

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Eskimo Joe

Eskimo Joe

Posted
Posted
16 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Right before the blizzard was one of those commuteagedon events right? We got like 1” right at rush hour with cold road temps?

Ah, the Wednesday night clipper. Left work in Gaithersburg, then got the call to come back and help figure out backfill for PD/FD on the 300+ calls pending in queue. My 8 hour day turned into a 20 hour day.

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Scarlet Pimpernel

Scarlet Pimpernel

Posted
Posted
26 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Right before the blizzard was one of those commuteagedon events right? We got like 1” right at rush hour with cold road temps?

Yeah I remember that all too well!  Not that I minded the mini-clipper with an inch of snow as a sort of "appetizer" before the big storm.  But the roads were awful, even main ones!  I dropped my daughter off at her ballet class (Wash. School of Ballet, down near the Cathedral).  No problems, but it had just started to snow on my return home.  I then got a call that the class was ended early due to the road conditions.  It took me an hour or more to get there from my place (normally took like 20 minutes).  Wisconsin Avenue was an ice rink.  Coming back home, it took literally 2 hours (!!!!) of white-knuckle driving in that mess.  It was after 11PM by the time we got home, and that's after leaving the ballet school around 9.  I was shocked at how apparently nothing was done to even the main roads before that...it's not like that light snow was unexpected.  But of course by then, all the focus was on the big event later in the week, so it may have (literally?) flown under the radar.

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Eskimo Joe

Eskimo Joe

Posted
Posted
8 minutes ago, Always in Zugzwang said:

Yeah I remember that all too well!  Not that I minded the mini-clipper with an inch of snow as a sort of "appetizer" before the big storm.  But the roads were awful, even main ones!  I dropped my daughter off at her ballet class (Wash. School of Ballet, down near the Cathedral).  No problems, but it had just started to snow on my return home.  I then got a call that the class was ended early due to the road conditions.  It took me an hour or more to get there from my place (normally took like 20 minutes).  Wisconsin Avenue was an ice rink.  Coming back home, it took literally 2 hours (!!!!) of white-knuckle driving in that mess.  It was after 11PM by the time we got home, and that's after leaving the ballet school around 9.  I was shocked at how apparently nothing was done to even the main roads before that...it's not like that light snow was unexpected.  But of course by then, all the focus was on the big event later in the week, so it may have (literally?) flown under the radar.

Two regional issues:

1.) With small storms, a 10% change in QPF makes a big difference. <0.1" QPF was forecast but around 0.15 - 0.2" fell so snow was "worse" on the road. We've studied this for about 7 years and found most of the big accident days occur when <6" of snow falls. Some of our fire and DOT folks think that if drivers can still kind of see lane markers, they think the roads are fine and don't adjust their driving habits. But once you get 6"+ the roads and grass are covered and it clicks in people's heads. There was a pivot table buried somewhere on my work PC that shows the number of accident calls in our 911 call center and the snowfall LSR from Sterling over time. Once the 5", 6", 7" reports starting coming in, accidents dropped off fast. We thought it had to do with the time of day, but then realized that we were seeing 7" reports during the height of rush hour.

2.) A lot of DOTs were prepping for the weekend event and lost sight of what was in front of them. Some jurisdictions were focused on prepping for big plowing operations so the trucks that normally would support the brine treatment were swapped over to V-blade or large capacity plows. 

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Scarlet Pimpernel

Scarlet Pimpernel

Posted
Posted
15 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Two regional issues:

1.) With small storms, a 10% change in QPF makes a big difference. <0.1" QPF was forecast but around 0.15 - 0.2" fell so snow was "worse" on the road. We've studied this for about 7 years and found most of the big accident days occur when <6" of snow falls. Some of our fire and DOT folks think that if drivers can still kind of see lane markers, they think the roads are fine and don't adjust their driving habits. But once you get 6"+ the roads and grass are covered and it clicks in people's heads. There was a pivot table buried somewhere on my work PC that shows the number of accident calls in our 911 call center and the snowfall LSR from Sterling over time. Once the 5", 6", 7" reports starting coming in, accidents dropped off fast. We thought it had to do with the time of day, but then realized that we were seeing 7" reports during the height of rush hour.

2.) A lot of DOTs were prepping for the weekend event and lost sight of what was in front of them. Some jurisdictions were focused on prepping for big plowing operations so the trucks that normally would support the brine treatment were swapped over to V-blade or large capacity plows. 

Interesting...thanks for that information.  I guess it makes sense that as you get ~6" snow there would be fewer accidents at least in part because people aren't daring to go out on the roads.  Unlike for small events like that mini-clipper.

Though it was frustrating at the time (and scary, but mostly due to some idiots thinking that you can drive normally on ice or spin their wheels hard if they're stuck or swerving!)...I certainly could see that a lot of focus and preparation was for the upcoming major storm.

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WxUSAF

WxUSAF

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

That was a good one lol

Pretty sure I remember that I left work early that day before it snowed to avoid the mess. My son had basketball practice that evening and I recall seeing the google traffic map disaster. Think that was the day that a lot of NWS warnings were hoisted so nobody was looking at the light event that night when the HECS was around the corner.

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Eskimo Joe

Eskimo Joe

Posted
Posted
21 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

Pretty sure I remember that I left work early that day before it snowed to avoid the mess. My son had basketball practice that evening and I recall seeing the google traffic map disaster. Think that was the day that a lot of NWS warnings were hoisted so nobody was looking at the light event that night when the HECS was around the corner.

Yup. The Blizzard Watch was issued at 10:13 by LWX (https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/wx/afos/p.php?pil=WSWLWX&e=201601201513). This was the last Blizzard Watch that was ever issued by LWX since the NWS Hazard Simplification (HazSimp) process ha since eliminated the Blizzard Watch product.

Later that day, the Winter Weather Advisory was issued for the region about an house later: https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/wx/afos/p.php?pil=WSWLWX&e=201601201614

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