Jan 16-18th Major Synoptic Snowstorm- Observation Thread

[96blizz]

Awesome event!!!  Still snowing. 

[wolfie09]

1 hour ago, 96blizz said:

Awesome event!!!  Still snowing. 

Nice neighborhood man..Reminds me of jersey lol

[96blizz]

14 minutes ago, wolfie09 said:

Nice neighborhood man..Reminds me of jersey lol

Lol. If we didn’t have our camp out on Skaneateles Lake I would NEVER live in a neighborhood like this. It was for my wife!

[wolfie09]

Looks like most of the CoCorahs fell in the 8"-12" zone which is what the NWS had..

[96blizz]

Back deck. 

[Syrmax]

3 hours ago, LakeEffectKing said:

2.5" Sun night

3" Yesterday 

3.5" overnight...still light snow...

9" Total in Cazenovia 

Great pics/videos from our WNY posters!!!

Picked up virtually nothing here overnight (past midnight). Looked like whatever snow happened in CNY had an elevation component to it? That's what radar looked like anyway IIRC.

[rochesterdave]

3 minutes ago, 96blizz said:

Lol. If we didn’t have our camp out on Skaneateles Lake I would NEVER live in a neighborhood like this. It was for my wife!

AND a place on Skaneateles lake…Oh boy. I bet that ends up one of the best investments of your life. 

[BuffaloWeather]

2.06" was the highest 2 day QPF I could find. The average across the area was around 1.75".  Matched up pretty well with the models. 

[rochesterdave]

4 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

2.06" was the highest 2 day QPF I could find. The average across the area was around 1.75".  Matched up pretty well with the models. 

It was a really well modeled storm. The big models had it for nearly a week. They had it locked in for several days. It did trend west a bit but more so with the precip field and ULL features that moved E-W. Big shout out to the LR NAM for being the first to see it. 
Mixing was well modeled and just about inline (as opposed to often worse). 
That Syracuse effect was really bizarre. It has to be that raging eastern jet hitting the mountains and then falling in elevation over that area. It was absurd. 

[Parsley]

Altmar NY storm total before I head back to PA today.

• 3-4 inches of snow/ice Sunday night
• 2 inches Monday
• 6 inches Monday night

Storm total: 11"-12"

[Sub_Zero]

18.8'' total for YOW, another 4''-6'' tomorrow.  Amazing week of winter weather.

[Toronto4]

13 hours ago, Ottawa Blizzard said:

Similar to this storm, then, in how YYZ reported bogus numbers. I seem to recall a bunch of us venting about it on this board, at the time.

Storm total at YYZ was 13.5” (34.4 cm)

5.2 cm/2.0” late in the evening on Jan 16

29.2 cm/11.5” for Jan 17

 

The automated station in downtown Toronto recorded a maximum snow depth of 36 cm/14.2”.

[Ericjcrash]

54 minutes ago, rochesterdave said:

It was a really well modeled storm. The big models had it for nearly a week. They had it locked in for several days. It did trend west a bit but more so with the precip field and ULL features that moved E-W. Big shout out to the LR NAM for being the first to see it. 
Mixing was well modeled and just about inline (as opposed to often worse). 
That Syracuse effect was really bizarre. It has to be that raging eastern jet hitting the mountains and then falling in elevation over that area. It was absurd. 

Eh, long range NAM had 0.5" here. Ended up with almost 10"

[Snowstorms]

30 minutes ago, Sub_Zero said:

18.8'' total for YOW, another 4''-6'' tomorrow.  Amazing week of winter weather.

I was in Ottawa a week ago. Seems like you guys needed the snow relative to your average too. So that's awesome. 

[Snowstorms]

26 minutes ago, Toronto4 said:

Storm total at YYZ was 13.5” (34.4 cm)

5.2 cm/2.0” late in the evening on Jan 16

29.2 cm/11.5” for Jan 17

 

The automated station in downtown Toronto recorded a maximum snow depth of 36 cm/14.2”.

Not surprised at YYZ's numbers anymore. I'm surprised with all the meteorologists in Ontario, they don't complain about YYZ's reporting and don't do anything about it. 

Regardless, Toronto will remember it as a top 5 or top 10 historic storm. 

[vortmax]

Pretty amazing for a south-to-north moving storm to drop over 12" from Cleveland to ENY. 

[BuffaloWeather]

Updated Storm Totals

KBUF at 20.6", highest synoptic storm since 2008 where 21.8" fell. Highest total was 25.5" in Niagara county, what a storm! 

Buffalo Airport              20.6 in   0700 AM 01/18   Official NWS Obs

...Niagara County...
Sanborn 4NE                  25.5 in   0700 AM 01/18   COOP

https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&product=PNS&issuedby=BUF

[rochesterdave]

1 hour ago, Ericjcrash said:

Eh, long range NAM had 0.5" here. Ended up with almost 10"

A few areas stayed snow longer. Earlier precip onset I suppose. 

[Roger Smith]

I also had a look at reports from YYZ and YTO (downtown Toronto) on the EC website. Using the same convention that I have used for any other recent Toronto snowfalls, the total snowfalls on 16th-17th will be recorded as 39.3 cm (from 10:1 conversion of 39.3 mm total precip). The site reports 25 cm snow depth at some point during the storm and tomorrow there will be another snow depth report. If that exceeds 39 cm then I would enter that amount adjusting the two conversions and retaining the precip numbers. I have never found a case like that since 2017, what has been more often the case is that the post-storm snow depth is just a bit below the presumed 10:1 conversion which is acceptable given compaction, but then again, the water equivalent implied from the YYZ obs indicate only about a 9:1 ratio which if applied to the YTO precip would give a slightly smaller snowfall of around 35 cm. As a previous poster indicated, the YYZ total snowfall was 32.4 cm and that came from a total precip of 34.4 mm (ratio then is 324/34.4 or 9.4 to 1). That assumes that none of the precip was rain, if any small amount was, then the ratio would be closer to 10:1. 

If the final snowfall estimate for downtown is maintained at 39.3 cm (the conversion of the two daily amounts is shown in the table and adds up to 15.5 inches) , then the storm will rank t-18 all time (since 1846 when daily snowfall becomes available), and 4th highest since 1930, highest since Jan 1966. Many of the top thirty storms in this list (first appeared here yesterday) are from the heavy snowfall era of the 1860s and 1870s when Toronto's average winter snowfall was closer to 80" and sometimes exceeded 100". March 1870 alone contributes three of the storms to this list and March 1876 two more. By the way the heaviest Nov storm was in 1950 (12.5") and the heaviest April two-day total from 1975, nearly ten inches. So no Nov or Apr storms make this list.

Rank ____ Amount (2d total) ____ Dates (with daily amounts)

_ 01 _____ 23.0 __________________ Dec 25-26 1872 (15.0 + 8.0)^

_ 02 _____ 22.5 __________________ Dec 11-12 1944 (19.0 + 3.5)

_ 03 _____ 22.0 __________________ Feb 20-21 1846 (18.0 + 4.0)

_ 04 _____ 20.0 __________________ Mar 15-16 1870 (10.0 + 10.0)

_t05 _____ 19.5 __________________ Mar 26-27 1870 (3.5 + 16.0)

_t05 _____ 19.5 __________________ Jan 24-25 1873 (4.2 + 15.3)

_t07 _____ 18.0 __________________ Feb 5-6 1863 (16.0 +2.0) (+1.0 4th = 19")

_t07 _____ 18.0 __________________ Feb 14, 1850 (18.0) _ one day

_t07 _____ 18.0 __________________ Jan 20-21 1867 (15.0 + 3.0)

_t07 _____ 18.0 __________________ Feb 24-25 1868 (12.0 + 6.0) (+1.0 23rd = 19")

_ 11 _____ 17.8 ___________________Feb 28-Mar 1 1900 (10.0 + 7.8) (1900 not a leap year)

_ 12 _____ 16.6 __________________ Jan 22-23 1966 (0.9 + 15.7)

_ 13 _____ 16.5 __________________ Mar 21-22 1867 (15.0 + 1.5)

_ 14 _____ 16.2 __________________ Mar 28-29 1876 (10.5 + 5.7)

_ 15 _____ 16.0 ___________________Dec 4-5 1898 (6.0 + 10.0)

_t16 _____ 15.7 ___________________ Jan 8-9 1884 (11.1 + 4.6)

_t16 _____ 15.7 ___________________ Jan 21-22 1902 (2.5 + 13.2)

_t18 _____ 15.5 ___________________ Mar 20-21 1876 (9.0 + 6.5)

_t18 _____ 15.5 ___________________ Mar 8-9 1931 (12.0 + 3.5)

_t18 _____ 15.5 _____________ Jan 16-17, 2022 (1.2 + 14.3) (msd 3.1 + 36.2 cm)

_ 21 _____ 15.1 (msd 38.4 cm)*___ Jan 2-3 1999 (almost all on 2nd)

_t22 _____ 15.0 ___________________ Dec 29 1855 (one day)

_t22 _____ 15.0 ___________________ Mar 12-13 1870 (6.0 + 9.0)

_ 24 _____ 14.5 ___________________ Feb 2-3 1910 (5.0 + 9.5)

_ 25 _____ 14.4 (msd 36.5 cm)*___ Feb 7-8 2013 (8.0 + 6.4) (msd 20.3+16.2 cm)

_ 26 _____ 14.3 (msd 36.2 cm)*___ Feb 27-28 1984 (4.7 + 9.6) (msd 12.0 + 24.4 cm)

_ 27 _____ 14.2 ___________________ Feb 21-22 1950 (11.0 + 3.2)

_ 28 _____ 14.0 ___________________ Jan 18-19 1864 (4.0 + 10.0)

_ 29 _____ 13.9 ___________________ Dec 27-28 1968 (2.6 + 11.3)

_ 30 _____ 13.5 ___________________ Feb 25-26 1960 (13.0 + 0.5)

_ xx _____ 13.0 or more __________ Feb 1845 (upper limit probably 18")

______________________________

* and ^ notes are explained in my previous post almost 24h back in the thread, * basically refers to fact that only four now post-1978 storms were measured in cms and converted, all the rest were originally measured in inches; and ^ the leading storm from Dec 1872 appears to be mostly from localized lake effect as synoptic pattern available suggests a much lower potential total from that component. That was not the case for any of the other old-time storms where the weather maps revealed strong low pressure systems tracking to the south of Lake Ontario usually from southwest. 

---------------------

So this storm would rank t-18 on the all-time list, but note that it is third highest January total just behind Jan 22-23 1966 which the author recalls as being no more disruptive than this one, and on a weekend, and marginally lower than a storm total from 1902 (Jan 21-22); the Jan 2-3 1999 storm was slightly lower in the table but its disruption increased after subsequent 8-10 inch falls added to the snowpack. Also while ranking t-18, the storm ranks third since 1940 and fifth since 1899. 

Open to suggestions about any revision of those estimates, I have just finished the update of the data base that you can find over in the climate change forum here (a link to a similar thread on UK net-weather where due to larger download limits I have stored the supporting excel files), and I have not contacted anyone at EC to inform them that this data base exists, but my plan is to do so, and to suggest that they fill in the few missing days from this location (most of which are after 2013) from hourly data which are often almost complete and would give reliable temperature and precip estimates, also it would probably be a good plan to merge the two concurrent reports that exist between 2003 and 2017 where one needs to go from one site to the other to blend temperature, rainfall and snowfall. If the downtown station was then maintained at the current service level (ideally with snowfall restored) then it would continue to provide an unbroken climate record from essentially the same location as at all past times, that is to say, geographically similar, a large city has grown up around the location which was originally near the outskirts of a small town. 

[WaistDeepSnow]

4 hours ago, wolfie09 said:

Looks like most of the CoCorahs fell in the 8"-12" zone which is what the NWS had..

 

Where can I find these maps?

[TugHillMatt]

5 minutes ago, WaistDeepSnow said:

Where can I find these maps?

They're connected with these. There's some fun layers you can do with these maps. Just zoom in and out, and change layers.

CoCoRaHS Maps

[BuffaloWeather]

One last thought on this storm. The GFS nailed the NW trend a few days ahead of every model and within 24-48 hours the NAM/RGEM nailed the placement of heaviest snowband. The GEFS were completely worthless and the OP GFS had a consistent track for 4-5 days before the storm hit. 

[CNY_WX]

Matt, what do you think of this?  Fortunately it’s 11 days out. 

[DeltaT13]

6 minutes ago, CNY_WX said:

Matt, what do you think of this?  Fortunately it’s 11 days out. 

Now thats a ****ing Miller A, whooo.  What a beaut.... if only.  lolz

[CNY_WX]

1 hour ago, DeltaT13 said:

Now thats a ****ing Miller A, whooo.  What a beaut.... if only.  lolz

Notice where the mixing takes place over NY. 

[TugHillMatt]

1 hour ago, CNY_WX said:

Matt, what do you think of this?  Fortunately it’s 11 days out. 

LOL...regardless, we won't be in the blue at the end of those 11 days.

[Ottawa Blizzard]

6 hours ago, Roger Smith said:

I also had a look at reports from YYZ and YTO (downtown Toronto) on the EC website. Using the same convention that I have used for any other recent Toronto snowfalls, the total snowfalls on 16th-17th will be recorded as 39.3 cm (from 10:1 conversion of 39.3 mm total precip). The site reports 25 cm snow depth at some point during the storm and tomorrow there will be another snow depth report. If that exceeds 39 cm then I would enter that amount adjusting the two conversions and retaining the precip numbers. I have never found a case like that since 2017, what has been more often the case is that the post-storm snow depth is just a bit below the presumed 10:1 conversion which is acceptable given compaction, but then again, the water equivalent implied from the YYZ obs indicate only about a 9:1 ratio which if applied to the YTO precip would give a slightly smaller snowfall of around 35 cm. As a previous poster indicated, the YYZ total snowfall was 32.4 cm and that came from a total precip of 34.4 mm (ratio then is 324/34.4 or 9.4 to 1). That assumes that none of the precip was rain, if any small amount was, then the ratio would be closer to 10:1. 

If the final snowfall estimate for downtown is maintained at 39.3 cm (the conversion of the two daily amounts is shown in the table and adds up to 15.5 inches) , then the storm will rank t-18 all time (since 1846 when daily snowfall becomes available), and 4th highest since 1930, highest since Jan 1966. Many of the top thirty storms in this list (first appeared here yesterday) are from the heavy snowfall era of the 1860s and 1870s when Toronto's average winter snowfall was closer to 80" and sometimes exceeded 100". March 1870 alone contributes three of the storms to this list and March 1876 two more. By the way the heaviest Nov storm was in 1950 (12.5") and the heaviest April two-day total from 1975, nearly ten inches. So no Nov or Apr storms make this list.

Rank ____ Amount (2d total) ____ Dates (with daily amounts)

_ 01 _____ 23.0 __________________ Dec 25-26 1872 (15.0 + 8.0)^

_ 02 _____ 22.5 __________________ Dec 11-12 1944 (19.0 + 3.5)

_ 03 _____ 22.0 __________________ Feb 20-21 1846 (18.0 + 4.0)

_ 04 _____ 20.0 __________________ Mar 15-16 1870 (10.0 + 10.0)

_t05 _____ 19.5 __________________ Mar 26-27 1870 (3.5 + 16.0)

_t05 _____ 19.5 __________________ Jan 24-25 1873 (4.2 + 15.3)

_t07 _____ 18.0 __________________ Feb 5-6 1863 (16.0 +2.0) (+1.0 4th = 19")

_t07 _____ 18.0 __________________ Feb 14, 1850 (18.0) _ one day

_t07 _____ 18.0 __________________ Jan 20-21 1867 (15.0 + 3.0)

_t07 _____ 18.0 __________________ Feb 24-25 1868 (12.0 + 6.0) (+1.0 23rd = 19")

_ 11 _____ 17.8 ___________________Feb 28-Mar 1 1900 (10.0 + 7.8) (1900 not a leap year)

_ 12 _____ 16.6 __________________ Jan 22-23 1966 (0.9 + 15.7)

_ 13 _____ 16.5 __________________ Mar 21-22 1867 (15.0 + 1.5)

_ 14 _____ 16.2 __________________ Mar 28-29 1876 (10.5 + 5.7)

_ 15 _____ 16.0 ___________________Dec 4-5 1898 (6.0 + 10.0)

_t16 _____ 15.7 ___________________ Jan 8-9 1884 (11.1 + 4.6)

_t16 _____ 15.7 ___________________ Jan 21-22 1902 (2.5 + 13.2)

_t18 _____ 15.5 ___________________ Mar 20-21 1876 (9.0 + 6.5)

_t18 _____ 15.5 ___________________ Mar 8-9 1931 (12.0 + 3.5)

_t18 _____ 15.5 _____________ Jan 16-17, 2022 (1.2 + 14.3) (msd 3.1 + 36.2 cm)

_ 21 _____ 15.1 (msd 38.4 cm)*___ Jan 2-3 1999 (almost all on 2nd)

_t22 _____ 15.0 ___________________ Dec 29 1855 (one day)

_t22 _____ 15.0 ___________________ Mar 12-13 1870 (6.0 + 9.0)

_ 24 _____ 14.5 ___________________ Feb 2-3 1910 (5.0 + 9.5)

_ 25 _____ 14.4 (msd 36.5 cm)*___ Feb 7-8 2013 (8.0 + 6.4) (msd 20.3+16.2 cm)

_ 26 _____ 14.3 (msd 36.2 cm)*___ Feb 27-28 1984 (4.7 + 9.6) (msd 12.0 + 24.4 cm)

_ 27 _____ 14.2 ___________________ Feb 21-22 1950 (11.0 + 3.2)

_ 28 _____ 14.0 ___________________ Jan 18-19 1864 (4.0 + 10.0)

_ 29 _____ 13.9 ___________________ Dec 27-28 1968 (2.6 + 11.3)

_ 30 _____ 13.5 ___________________ Feb 25-26 1960 (13.0 + 0.5)

_ xx _____ 13.0 or more __________ Feb 1845 (upper limit probably 18")

______________________________

* and ^ notes are explained in my previous post almost 24h back in the thread, * basically refers to fact that only four now post-1978 storms were measured in cms and converted, all the rest were originally measured in inches; and ^ the leading storm from Dec 1872 appears to be mostly from localized lake effect as synoptic pattern available suggests a much lower potential total from that component. That was not the case for any of the other old-time storms where the weather maps revealed strong low pressure systems tracking to the south of Lake Ontario usually from southwest. 

---------------------

So this storm would rank t-18 on the all-time list, but note that it is third highest January total just behind Jan 22-23 1966 which the author recalls as being no more disruptive than this one, and on a weekend, and marginally lower than a storm total from 1902 (Jan 21-22); the Jan 2-3 1999 storm was slightly lower in the table but its disruption increased after subsequent 8-10 inch falls added to the snowpack. Also while ranking t-18, the storm ranks third since 1940 and fifth since 1899. 

Open to suggestions about any revision of those estimates, I have just finished the update of the data base that you can find over in the climate change forum here (a link to a similar thread on UK net-weather where due to larger download limits I have stored the supporting excel files), and I have not contacted anyone at EC to inform them that this data base exists, but my plan is to do so, and to suggest that they fill in the few missing days from this location (most of which are after 2013) from hourly data which are often almost complete and would give reliable temperature and precip estimates, also it would probably be a good plan to merge the two concurrent reports that exist between 2003 and 2017 where one needs to go from one site to the other to blend temperature, rainfall and snowfall. If the downtown station was then maintained at the current service level (ideally with snowfall restored) then it would continue to provide an unbroken climate record from essentially the same location as at all past times, that is to say, geographically similar, a large city has grown up around the location which was originally near the outskirts of a small town. 

Awesome post Roger - thank you. Wow, Toronto saw a lot of snow in the 19th century. Tail end of the Little Ice Age might be a reason? The UK saw some big storms back then, as well, the great storm of 1881, and the deep freeze of 1895 being two example.

[Snowstorms]

6 hours ago, BuffaloWeather said:

One last thought on this storm. The GFS nailed the NW trend a few days ahead of every model and within 24-48 hours the NAM/RGEM nailed the placement of heaviest snowband. The GEFS were completely worthless and the OP GFS had a consistent track for 4-5 days before the storm hit. 

Would you say the Euro did well too? The NAM flip-flopped a lot run to run. 

[BuffaloWeather]

44 minutes ago, Snowstorms said:

Would you say the Euro did well too? The NAM flip-flopped a lot run to run. 

It did okay but didn't catch on nearly as quickly as the GFS did. The UKIE was by far the worst model and not sure how it ranks 2nd best in verification scores as its consistently terrible.