OT: First winter storm end of week?
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Nice. Had a couple of friends who did the same thing, one on 18, like you, and one on Metlars Lane, which was near our house (my roommates parents owned it and rented it to a bunch of us) in P'way, who just walked to our place and became part of the Melody story...
It was a call by WeatherAl, he didn't put the DPW on Plow Alert.
It is a disaster out there. Do not remember a time when I saw more disabled vehicles on major roads.
"Positive bust" - meaning they missed badly by underpredicting, rather than overpredicting.
Finally a snowfall map from the NWS-Philly (but not from the website, lol) and an updated map from NYC. Basically 1-2" for the 95 corridor, as the NWS said earlier. Pretty consistent with NYC forecasts I've seen and TWC and others. Several models still showing more...
Also, here's DT/WxRisk's map - more bullish than usual, with 2-4" for the 95 corridor from just NW of Philly to Trenton to NB to NYC. That would only be a mild surprise, given what many models are showing.
So, last night I was looking around to see if I could find anyone with the chutzpah to forecast closer to what most of the models were saying (especially the Euro/NAM, where the Euro is the best global model and the NAM is a very good mesoscale model within 24-36 hours) and the only one I could find was DT/WxRisk, who had the 95-corridor at 2-4" and just NW of 95 at 4-7", which is pretty close to what we'll end up with. I had to post it since it just seemed so odd that all the forecasts were ignoring those models. Congrats DT!
Reminds me of the Married With Children episode where the family leaves for vacation on Labor Day weekend and gets stuck in traffic. Peg gets out of the car and walks home and comes back right where she found them.
Drove from Edison to Hamilton. Took about 2 hours. The turnpike south wasnt to bad. However getting to it was horrible. Rt 18 sucked. I'd estimate about 3" in Hamilton. It was heavy to shovel too. Im in for the night just cracked a Icarus Neon Fantasy beer. Drive safe everyone!!
Have been driving through the side streets of Jersey City for 80 minutes trying to get to the Pulaski skyway
Work in the City live in Howell. My wife said its mostly rain at home but the city is a mess. Port Authority is currently shut so will have to wait it out. Sounds like I will be WFH tomorrow.
7 inches in Kinnelon NJ so far. I’m a bit elevated but not a ton and I’m still at 24 degrees. Have a weather station on my deck so that is literally a IMBY temperature
I was the one that got 29 inches last year in that storm where many of you got 6-10. Amazing what being a little north and a little higher up can do
I was the one that got 29 inches last year in that storm where many of you got 6-10. Amazing what being a little north and a little higher up can do
Probably because there was never a rush hour in a storm like this, if they got the forecast correct a lot of people would have stayed home from work or if they did go in leave early, either way their would have been much less traffic on the highways. Also factor in road crews would have been out in full force clearing the roads for the few cars on it. Took me over two hours to get home when it usually just takes me 25 mins.
I was talking with a friend and we both had the same thought - maybe weathermen are relying on computer models too much because the last few years they really do seem to be more wrong than they use to be. But I also really have no clue what they do or how they go about it so better chance I'm talking out of my ass here.
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Definitely a warm layer in the upper atmosphere. I’m still sitting at 24 degrees with heavy snow but you can hear some sleet mixed in. Not sure if that is good or bad.
Did my first shovel since I don’t want to attempt 10 inches of snow and ice later
Did my first shovel since I don’t want to attempt 10 inches of snow and ice later
As of 6:45 pm, it's still just 30F here and we have gotten 1/2" of sleet in the 90 minutes since it started sleeting heavily (I cleared the board from the 6.25" of snow at 5:15 pm). That makes sense as sleet is usually a ~3:1 ratio, so 1/2" of sleet is equivalent to about 1.6" of 10:1 snow, which would translate to a little over 1" per hour rates for the last 90 minutes.
I didn’t even try to drive home from LSP. Went back to exchange via LR then path to Nwk. Nwk penn a mess. Couldn’t get on a RVL train so I got on a NEC train to Edison. Bad move. Traffic brutal. Wife couldn’t get to me so I walked to the Brickhouse in S Plainfield. Waiting for a lift
Sometimes yes, but not in this case. If they had relied on the models this time, they would've predicted several inches of snow for the 95 corridor and NW of there, which was being predicted by the Euro for days (the best global model) and by the NAM in the last 24-36 hours (where this mesoscale model is very good). Instead they were probably relying on climatology too much, since getting more than 1-2" in Nov in the 95 corridor is rare. Or some were relying on the GFS model, which consistently showed only an inch or two for 95 (but it's not a great model and mets should know that). Like I just said in another post, WxRisk was the only pro I saw predicting as much as 2-4" for 95 yesterday and I looked pretty hard. Going to be a pretty interesting after action review at the NWS and for every media outlet in this region.
People are always thinking things were better with Gary around. Maybe that Gary can be brought back as well?
This seems to be the other way around: the forecasters didn't believe what the models were telling them, and instead predicted for less than the models showed. RU#s has been tracking this ever since the predictions started.
Gary Szatkowski has retired. He's still pretty active on Twitter but so far hasn't critiqued the forecast - although there's a good chance that he will, at some point.
I’ve found GFS to be way to warm for most winter storms last couple years. I have really liked the NAM 60 hours in
I know Gary and he's a very good met, but I doubt he would've prevented this bust, as Mt. Holly still had some bad ones over the years under his watch (Sandy was the worst). Check the weather boards - some really great pros out there who are kicking themselves, since they saw the models but couldn't bring themselves to pull the trigger on more snow in the forecast - groupthink at play a bit, IMO.
6" in Central Park and it ain't over; this makes this the second snowiest November day in NYC history, only beat by 11/29/1882 when 9" fell. That record should still stand, I think.
It is really is a thankless job, if you're on the money, well that's your job, but if you're off the mark, it's open season.
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