New England snowstorm memories.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Xmas '02 was a great storm. We didn't get the jackpot in ORH like further NW did, but we had 13.5" of snow...started around 6-7am and went all day into the night ending in the overnight hours. There was actually a lot of sleet not too far SE...down in NE CT, N RI, and up near metro-southwest Boston.

I turned to sleet and rain after about 5".

[tamarack]

I was just SW of the Albany area then...my last winter living there and it included 50" in 10 days.

 

This map likely isn't accurate outside the ALB area, as that's where this TV station focuses on.  

 

I remember we were all watching the news and they were doing live coverage as the state shut down the NY Thruway, counties were under states of emergencies, that deform band meant business.  Our town had 25" per the PNS.  In the core of the deform band west of us there were some pockets of 36-40" recorded.

 

 

 

My mistake - I had assumed you were in VT at the time.  I suspect your current locale got only a brush-dusting from that one.

 

Edit:  BTV 1", St. Johnsbury 1.5".

[ORH_wxman]

I turned to sleet and rain after about 5".

 

You would have flipped back to snow...there was a decent CCB ending in that storm.

[Modfan]

It's almost certainly March 7-8, 2013. You were in Windham County CT right?

Unless you were thinking of Feb 8, 2013 blizzard, but the timeframe doesn't line up as that was in early February and the peak snow there would have been in mid evening and not overnight.

I was Will;that March date sounds about right. I was just astounded as to the amount of snow that fell in such a short period. That event caught a lot of people off guard.

[powderfreak]

My mistake - I had assumed you were in VT at the time.  I suspect your current locale got only a brush-dusting from that one.

 

Edit:  BTV 1", St. Johnsbury 1.5".

 

My area in VT got destroyed that following December 2003, where some of the NOWData sites show 60-90" monthly totals.  

 

December 2003 was probably the closest thing to what E.Mass experienced this past winter, except there were several thaws mixed in, whereas last winter's blitz had no thaws.

 

12/2003 monthly totals were around 5 feet I think at BTV but some of the mountain Co-Ops got crushed. 

 

Jay Peak Co-Op...154" (1,800ft)

Eden Co-Op...86" (about 30 minutes north of Stowe)

Hanksville Co-Op... 78" (25 minutes southeast of BTV)

South Lincoln Co-Op...71" (45 minutes southeast of BTV)

Worecester Co-Op...70" (next town east of Stowe)

[ORH_wxman]

I was Will;that March date sounds about right. I was just astounded as to the amount of snow that fell in such a short period. That event caught a lot of people off guard.

 

That was the event we often refer to as the "Firehose Event".

 

 

This is the tail end of the event, but you can see how it was just pouring snow in from off the atlantic...it went like that all night long leading up to that too 

 

 

[powderfreak]

Actually looking at December 2003, I forgot what an obscene period that was for two weeks in VT.  

 

I need to live vicariously through these types of patterns for the recent drought of big storms, haha.

 

The Eden Co-Op had 72" in 13 days.

 

Jay Peak Co-Op had 124" in 13 days (this is hard to believe at an average of 10" per day).

 

Hanksville Co-Op had 61" in 13 days.

[powderfreak]

That was the event we often refer to as the "Firehose Event".

 

 

This is the tail end of the event, but you can see how it was just pouring snow in from off the atlantic...it went like that all night long leading up to that too 

 

 

 

Yeah that would've been the one that caught a lot of people off-guard that he's thinking of... I remember leading up to that event no one knew if it'd be feet or like 3-6" of slop.  Wasn't there a ton of model mayhem before that one, along with marginal temperatures?

 

There are a lot of WTF posts in that thread when people woke up that morning after getting pummeled all night....along with the posts from RI posters of dim moon showing through while it snowed 2-4"/hr in CT and MA.  That storm takes the cake for most obscene screw zone ever.  Never seen anything like that.  It was like a standing wave of air that was always descending right over the same area.  You can picture the massive lift in Mass as that moisture comes ashore, then huge banding over CT, but just like a stationary wave of sinking air over RI.

[ORH_wxman]

Yeah that would've been the one that caught a lot of people off-guard that he's thinking of... I remember leading up to that event no one knew if it'd be feet or like 3-6" of slop.  Wasn't there a ton of model mayhem before that one, along with marginal temperatures?

 

There are a lot of WTF posts in that thread when people woke up that morning after getting pummeled all night....along with the posts from RI posters of dim moon showing through while it snowed 2-4"/hr in CT and MA.  That storm takes the cake for most obscene screw zone ever.  Never seen anything like that.  It was like a standing wave of air that was always descending right over the same area.  You can picture the massive lift in Mass as that moisture comes ashore, then huge banding over CT, but just like a stationary wave of sinking air over RI.

 

 

Yeah that was a bad forecast by a lot of people. Models weren't too good...but once we got within 24 hours, it was becoming obvious that at least the ORH hills and interior SE MA would get hammered pretty good, and a lot of mets didn't bite. I had 10-14" for ORH hills and ended up waytoo conservative...and I was the most bullish at the time.

 

Respect the firehose.

[CoastalWx]

What a swan dive for RI.

[powderfreak]

What a swan dive for RI.

Yeah that's a whole other level of screw. That's not a "models showed big hit but we got fringed" or "the rug got pulled out 12 hours from start time."

That's a "perfect storm track that delivered 20"+ amounts all around us while we got 3-6 inches." That synoptic set up 10/10 times would deliver big snows.

[CoastalWx]

Yeah that's a whole other level of screw. That's not a "models showed big hit but we got fringed" or "the rug got pulled out 12 hours from start time."

That's a "perfect storm track that delivered 20"+ amounts all around us while we got 3-6 inches." That synoptic set up 10/10 times would deliver big snows.

 

That was a tough storm to forecast in Boston. I certainly did not think we would get that much on the coast, but when the euro was bullish on actual CAA from the NE at 925mb...I started to believe the day before. The deep 700-500 RH/VV also was another clue. Certainly a lesson learned on the coast. I will say that some OCMs went down with their ship right up to game time. Rip and reading NAM and GFS.

[ORH_wxman]

That was a tough storm to forecast in Boston. I certainly did not think we would get that much on the coast, but when the euro was bullish on actual CAA from the NE at 925mb...I started to believe the day before. The deep 700-500 RH/VV also was another clue. Certainly a lesson learned on the coast. I will say that some OCMs went down with their ship right up to game time. Rip and reading NAM and GFS.

 

That was the storm where the NAM brought the 0C 850 line all the way back to like Pittsfield.

 

Some mets were saying mostly rain for BOS up until nearly start time.

[nzucker]

Xmas '02 was a great storm. We didn't get the jackpot in ORH like further NW did, but we had 13.5" of snow...started around 6-7am and went all day into the night ending in the overnight hours. There was actually a lot of sleet not too far SE...down in NE CT, N RI, and up near metro-southwest Boston.

Picked up 11" down here in Dobbs Ferry from XMAS 2002. It was forecast to be mostly rain but changed over quickly to a heavy, dense snow. It took my aunt and uncle 6 hours to make the normally 2-hour trip from Albany to visit us on Christmas; they kept waiting for snow to change to rain as they drove, expecting a flip south of Poughkeepsie, but it stayed white to the coast. Hellish drive for them on I-87 but a great weather day. Still one of my favorite storms despite only receiving about a foot.

[ORH_wxman]

Picked up 11" down here in Dobbs Ferry from XMAS 2002. It was forecast to be mostly rain but changed over quickly to a heavy, dense snow. It took my aunt and uncle 6 hours to make the normally 2-hour trip from Albany to visit us on Christmas; they kept waiting for snow to change to rain as they drove, expecting a flip south of Poughkeepsie, but it stayed white to the coast. Hellish drive for them on I-87 but a great weather day. Still one of my favorite storms despite only receiving about a foot.

 

A huge positive bust on Christmas Day is pretty tough to beat in my book.

 

I remember even in NYC they had rain for much of the morning/midday but they flipped to wet snow and got a quick 5-6" on the deformation to end it. Parts of SW CT flipped over and recived like 10" in just a few hours at the end. Pretty dynamic storm.

 

The storm itself here was pretty routine as far as Nor' Easters go, but happening on Christmas Day made it special. Waking up to steady light snow was like you see in the movies.

[Damage In Tolland]

Xmas '02 was a great storm. We didn't get the jackpot in ORH like further NW did, but we had 13.5" of snow...started around 6-7am and went all day into the night ending in the overnight hours. There was actually a lot of sleet not too far SE...down in NE CT, N RI, and up near metro-southwest Boston.

Was sleet all day until late afternoon/early eve when it mixed and finally went to snow. Think we ended up with 7-8

[CapturedNature]

Was sleet all day until late afternoon/early eve when it mixed and finally went to snow. Think we ended up with 7-8

 

I had an early morning snow shower that left .1" and then sleet from 2-4PM but snow after that till about 3AM.  I had 6.6".  A lot of wind with that one too.

[ma blizzard]

def remember sleet mixing in during the afternoon / early evening of the Xmas '02 snowstorm. IIRC i measured just under 1' the next morning with most of the snow falling from 7-12 pm. 

[CoastalWx]

That was the storm where the NAM brought the 0C 850 line all the way back to like Pittsfield.

 

Some mets were saying mostly rain for BOS up until nearly start time.

 

LOL, yep..what a disaster forecast from the NAM.

 

That storm certainly had some red flags for a bust on the snowier side. As you said, respect the firehose.

[ORH_wxman]

LOL, yep..what a disaster forecast from the NAM.

 

That storm certainly had some red flags for a bust on the snowier side. As you said, respect the firehose.

 

It was like -4 to -6 at 900mb too...the warm forecasts were looking too much at surface outputs. Overlay a firehose on those 900mb temps and it's gonna be hard to get mostly rain or non-accumulating snow. You are hoping the rates will be pretty light in that type of forecast which is a dubious thing to pin your hopes on when we have that type of fetch in the mid-levels.

 

It was kind of the inverse scenario of what happened to DC in that storm...they had plenty of cold aloft at 850mb, but once down to like 900-925mb, it was getting pretty warm. So they got a white rainstorm at 36F.

[Damage In Tolland]

That firehose will always be in my top 3 faves. I remember worrying the whole time that the horrific dry slot over RI would make it here.. But instead we had some up slope component and kept pounding snow . I think it got very close to Central Windham county, but then filled back in relatively quickly

[ORH_wxman]

That firehose will always be in my top 3 faves. I remember worrying the whole time that the horrific dry slot over RI would make it here.. But instead we had some up slope component and kept pounding snow . I think it got very close to Central Windham county, but then filled back in relatively quickly

 

 

[CoastalWx]

It was like -4 to -6 at 900mb too...the warm forecasts were looking too much at surface outputs. Overlay a firehose on those 900mb temps and it's gonna be hard to get mostly rain or non-accumulating snow. You are hoping the rates will be pretty light in that type of forecast which is a dubious thing to pin your hopes on when we have that type of fetch in the mid-levels.

 

It was kind of the inverse scenario of what happened to DC in that storm...they had plenty of cold aloft at 850mb, but once down to like 900-925mb, it was getting pretty warm. So they got a white rainstorm at 36F.

 

In a way, a little mid level magic for that storm as well.  

 

It was certainly cold just off the deck. Those plots from the RAP that aftn were awesome. We were talking about those that day and they nailed it...even more than other guidance IIRC. Good storm all around, but man...that dryslot in RI. I think I remember Ekster posting an AWIPS graphic of the RAP and it showed a semblance of the subsidence zone. Must have been one of the deep easterly flow, standing wave features where the lift occurs along the coast and the exhaust is 40 or 50 miles downstream..only to pick up again further west. I think some of that snow in srn CT was also caught in a mini deformation zone in between s/w's. 

 

Anyways, not to make Ryan and Cory drive into the CT river...just was an interesting storm.

[Damage In Tolland]

?

[CoastalWx]

?

 

There was no upslope really. 

[Damage In Tolland]

There was no upslope really.

Maybe not in true sense.. But if you loop the radar from that storm.. It clearly shows the snow enhancing as that air hits the higher elevations of Eastern and then North eastern CT. Even over NW Ri a bit

[radarman]

3/8/13 was absolutely nooseworthy on the valley floor, but above 600' there was like 4-8".

[CoastalWx]

Maybe not in true sense.. But if you loop the radar from that storm.. It clearly shows the snow enhancing as that air hits the higher elevations of Eastern and then North eastern CT. Even over NW Ri a bit

 

That was really a firehose band though. I didn't notice any enhancement other than a mesoscale band that probably was nothing to do with low level processes. You are actually at the end of the higher elevations in NE CT so using your logic..you should receive less than Union. 

[ORH_wxman]

That was really a firehose band though. I didn't notice any enhancement other than a mesoscale band that probably was nothing to do with low level processes. You are actually at the end of the higher elevations in NE CT so using your logic..you should receive less than Union. 

 

 

Yep, his area had nothing to do with upslope (esp since he wouldn't get any with that wind direction)...any areas that received low level enhancement were east of him or northeast of him. But you can see that there is basically a hole in parts of RI where the terrain is already rising. The band and subsidence zone there was almost entirely due to some sort of mid-level process. The CT River shadow was probably more influenced by terrain than what happened further east.

[CoastalWx]

I know he hates when we say that...lol..but it is true.