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OT: 12/16/20 Snowstorm Thread: First Significant Winter Storm of the Season - Major Snow/Sleet/Rain

Mt. Holly WFO has really struggled this past decade overall with counties south of I-78 and I’m not sure why. They always seem to have a solution that flies in the face of general model guidance and local climo.

For my location in Somerset, we’ve been projected to get a foot or more (projected being 12-18, 12-20, etc) 7 times since 2012 when the first flakes started flying and we’ve only verfied once (2016).

I know a lot of you use 33andrain, personally I’m part of the wxdisco community (emerged from old accuweather boards) and we always end up with a concensus much more accurate than Mt. Holly. In our most recent storm the issue was their mindboggling insistence that there would be zero mixing and/or dryslot south of 78 in both PA and NJ when model concensus had suggested that for 48 hours up to that point.

There was model consensus on about 1" or so of frozen liquid equivalent (equiv to 10" of snow at a 10:1 ratio of snow to liquid) along and NW of the 95 corridor and that fell for most between 95 and 78 in NJ/E-PA. However, just go back and look at the model runs I posted over the 48 hours before the event, and there was no consensus on how much sleet might fall (or the dry slot). I got 6" of snow, then about 1/2" of sleet (1.7" of snow worth at 10:1), then 1.75" of snow on top of that giving me an official tally of 8.25" of snow/sleet, but 9.5" of frozen precip worth if it had all been 10:1 ratio snow, which is almost spot on vs. the precip predicted.

However, many others SW and W of me got either a bit more sleet (that sleet line punched in further N up past 78 earlier in the storm than it did for me, oddly) or a bit less precip, which is why so many reported 5-7" (which, with 1/2-3/4" of sleet would be more like 6-9", which is still a bit on the light side, precip-wise). But yes, Mt. Holly has had some bad misses over the past 6+ years (with Jan-15 being the worst since Mar-2001), although this one was not a "bad" miss, IMO, just a "modest" miss for some.

I'm pretty active on 33andrain and AmericanWx and used to be an occasional visitor to the AccuWeather forums - didn't realize that they moved - just read about the abrupt shutdown and move and signed up...
 
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Man the snow melted fast since last night. When I looked out back mid-morning, most of the snow in the woods was gone.
yep, mostly gone here too, except where there were drifts, so still some 4-6" pockets of snow with maybe 1" or even none elsewhere - with the rain it'll all be gone in a few hours.
 
By the way, took in some of the decorations before the storm, had to work out a way to set them back up. This worked pretty good:

kpqCusV.jpg


Been trying to post this since this afternoon, imgur has been down.

Man, the wind is howling like a freight train right now through the woods in the back.
 
Good morning and Merry Christmas! 6° up top here (Boone, NC). Wind howling. Snowing sideways. Today's high is 15° down in town, so maybe 9° up here. Snow expected to stop. But showers forecasted at anytime.
 
Snow is all gone already from the warm temperatures and rain.
Wonder if this will be like the last 2 winters in Central New Jersey with only one measurable Snowstorm early in the season and then nothing for the rest of the winter. Hope not.
 
Update.... Hard to tell how much snow fell here due to the strong winds. Sideways and swirling snow till early this morning. Let up around 8 am. Just cleared the access to our porch and firewood caddy. Looks like 3" in places and 18" in others. A White Christmas in any case. Residual snow showers throughout the day. Cold. But nice.
 
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You have my sympathies...
Yes drinking a martini in shorts, a
tee and flip flops..and sunglasses...best Christmas weather EVER!!

Heater has yet to turn on once.

you have my sympathies. 😎
 
Yes drinking a martini in shorts, a
tee and flip flops..and sunglasses...best Christmas weather EVER!!

Heater has yet to turn on once.

you have my sympathies. 😎
How did you become a meteorologist and have such poor taste in weather? I'd far rather have a wild rain/wind storm, followed by plummeting temps and a few flurries any day of the week and especially on Christmas. Been in FL for 90% of the last 15 Christmases since I have family there and I hate warm Christmases.
 
Could see a coating to 1/2" in spots this morning (6-10 am roughly). I'm hoping for at least mood flakes.

A more significant winter storm is being seen in the mid-range models for next Mon/Tues, but models are all over the place, which is not uncommon 6 days out. Right now models mostly show a storm suppressed to our south bringing snows to VA/MD/DE/far SNJ, but 12-18 hours ago, it was looking snowy for Philly-NYC, so the potential is still there. Not worth a thread yet - maybe Thursday if we see some models showing wintry precip for this area. No matter what, it looks like we'll see our first "cold wave" for Sat through mid next week with highs at or below 32F and lows in the upper teens/20s. Not brutal, but will be nice to get some chill in the air.
 
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Nice moderate snow showers now, big ass flakes.

Street even getting some sticking now.

Update: flakes had gotten smaller but now might just be a misty rain if anything.
 
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Here in Bound Brook we had a nice snowfall this morning. Coated everything and we've got a pretty winter scene to enjoy as I work from home for the 1,000,000th day in a row. Hopefully it melts off the streets by the afternoon so I can go for a run without killing myself.
 
Here in Bound Brook we had a nice snowfall this morning. Coated everything and we've got a pretty winter scene to enjoy as I work from home for the 1,000,000th day in a row. Hopefully it melts off the streets by the afternoon so I can go for a run without killing myself.
Well if you go for a run we will know who killed you so we will not have to spend time looking for the murderer .
 
Could see a coating to 1/2" in spots this morning (6-10 am roughly). I'm hoping for at least mood flakes.

A more significant winter storm is being seen in the mid-range models for next Mon/Tues, but models are all over the place, which is not uncommon 6 days out. Right now models mostly show a storm suppressed to our south bringing snows to VA/MD/DE/far SNJ, but 12-18 hours ago, it was looking snowy for Philly-NYC, so the potential is still there. Not worth a thread yet - maybe Thursday if we see some models showing wintry precip for this area. No matter what, it looks like we'll see our first "cold wave" for Sat through mid next week with highs at or below 32F and lows in the upper teens/20s. Not brutal, but will be nice to get some chill in the air.
How much are they saying for Maryland? I’m about 40 min nw of Baltimore
 
Could see a coating to 1/2" in spots this morning (6-10 am roughly). I'm hoping for at least mood flakes.

A more significant winter storm is being seen in the mid-range models for next Mon/Tues, but models are all over the place, which is not uncommon 6 days out. Right now models mostly show a storm suppressed to our south bringing snows to VA/MD/DE/far SNJ, but 12-18 hours ago, it was looking snowy for Philly-NYC, so the potential is still there. Not worth a thread yet - maybe Thursday if we see some models showing wintry precip for this area. No matter what, it looks like we'll see our first "cold wave" for Sat through mid next week with highs at or below 32F and lows in the upper teens/20s. Not brutal, but will be nice to get some chill in the air.
Come on, man!

And you know what I mean.😊
 
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You call this snow?When JFK was inaugurated,we had snow.So much fell overnight on Thursday,school was off for that day.I was able to see and hear JFK say:"Mask not."

I was in Hackensack hospital recovering from. Appendicitis , as a 10 year old......my parents were supposed to come and take me home, but the snow storm made it appear as though they could not get there.......was so happy when they made it and I got to go home
 
You call this snow?When JFK was inaugurated,we had snow.So much fell overnight on Thursday,school was off for that day.I was able to see and hear JFK say:"Mask not."

If you look at video, you'll see that JFK delivered his inauguration speech hatless, which was very unusual in those days when most men wore hats. Presumably, this was part of showing "vigah." Robert Frost tried to read a poem he wrote in honor of the occasion, but the snow prevented him from doing that, and so he read a poem by him that he had memorized.
 
If you look at video, you'll see that JFK delivered his inauguration speech hatless, which was very unusual in those days when most men wore hats. Presumably, this was part of showing "vigah." Robert Frost tried to read a poem he wrote in honor of the occasion, but the snow prevented him from doing that, and so he read a poem by him that he had memorized.
The poem he wrote for the occasion wasn't what Kennedy liked.
Kennedy was famous for using the last lines of Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
"But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."

The story below.

 
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Was snowing like crazy in Lawrenceville about a half hour ago. The snow was weird kind like styrofoam. All blue skies now. Hopefully we get some real snowstorms before winter is over.
 
Come on, man!

And you know what I mean.😊
Significant shift north with the snowfall in today's 12Z models, with the Euro, UK, and CMC all showing "significant" snowfall (4-8" or so) for much of the Philly-NJ-NYC region, but not all as this system will have borderline cold air (unlike the Dec snowfall, where there was plenty of cold air, at least inland of the coast), so rain will be very possible for some, but a complete whiff is absolutely quite possible still (GFS shows that). We're still 5.5 days out and it would be nice to see at least two runs in a row with a decent snowfall before starting a thread, IMO - so if tonight's models continue to show the snow, I'll start a thread. Fair? :>)
 
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