OT: First winter storm end of week?
- Thread starter mikemarc1
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Several whiffs in this forecast. Started later, slower to move out and the warmer air that was supposed to follow is taking it's sweet ass time getting here. At noon today they said it would be in the 40s by now and 47 by midnight. Neither will happen
Philly Int'l reported 3.6", Bensalem reported 4.5" and nearby Langhorne reported 5.2" (all trained spotters).
Oh wow sad! I was stuck on Union Ave forever. Finally turned around. A lot of cop cars and ambulances came racing through Damn.
Almost every forecast I've seen was a major whiff - one of the worst busts in recent memory and the worst "under" bust since maybe Jan-1987. Most recent major busts had been over-predictions (Jan-2015, March 2001 and a few more that weren't quite that bad, but substantial). I know you often think there are media hype issues (and there are), but an under bust is clearly not related to hype.
Funny plow story.
The local muni plow operators (who I'm pretty sure are drunk whenever they're out on the roads) made two passes up the street to plow the snowslush.
The plow blade somehow managed to roll the snowslush into 6' diameter boulders, which now are strewn along the middle of the road.
They have since given up. So... there we are. Snow-covered on either side of the street, with a clear lane in the center that is basically a slalom course of giant ice boulders.
The local muni plow operators (who I'm pretty sure are drunk whenever they're out on the roads) made two passes up the street to plow the snowslush.
The plow blade somehow managed to roll the snowslush into 6' diameter boulders, which now are strewn along the middle of the road.
They have since given up. So... there we are. Snow-covered on either side of the street, with a clear lane in the center that is basically a slalom course of giant ice boulders.
Go find a good Portuguese or Spanish Restaurant you can walk to. Have a great dinner and a few strong drinks. Go home early tomorrow. Very early.
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I call BS on Bensalem that so called trained spotter is always very high. Langhorne is a weird town. The area is very spread out borders Bensalem and goes all the way over to Oxford Valley Mall. On my return home on 95 there was also a section near 413 exit where you could still see grass. Had 4in at home in Washington Crossing when I got home but it was also raining
Think we're mostly saying the same thing - the brine melts the initial snow preventing ice from forming at the surface...which makes driving a bit easier for awhile and makes it easier to plow. But my bigger point was making it clear that there's no way in hell an initial brining is enough to prevent what happened today, as the brine will only melt a small amount of a 6" snowfall. The bigger issue seemed to be that municipalities weren't plowing for reasons I can't fathom.
Sounds picture worthy, lol. I know one of the Metuchen guys and he definitely meets your description, since I usually go to the local pub when it snows (just something I love to do) and I always see that guy there.
Sorry to hear that. Evidently there were other accidents on Union/Diamond Hill as traffic was backed up on Possum Way for hours. Total mess in this area.
Took me 3 1/2 hours from Fairfield to NP and my son over to hours from Bedminster to NP.
I don't know about up there, but around here they didn't start plowing right away because they didn't have the plow blades on the trucks.
I left Whippany at 0ne O'clock not a drop of snow on the ground, got to Edison 3 1/2 hrs later to 6 inches on the ground.
While driving, the interior of the car got too warm heating up my windshield, so I rolled down my window and it rolled down into
the door, so I drove in a snow storm for 3 hrs with my window open. The good news? Lady came to my house at 9:30 and bought my Purple pass for $150. So it made my the day a little better. But not great.
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$150 for a Purple Lot pass? You hit the lottery.
Shows how hard predicting the weather is, perhaps as hard as predicting how football games will come out. So don't be so hard on forecasters, just as you forgive mistaken score forecasts.
If you look at people predicting scores they barley hit 50% and they are trying to make you bet money. Why would I forgive them? Over hyping or missing miserably is bad either way. No sympathy from me. They both have a job to do and most are terrible at it.
My son is still sitting in his school at WO with no end in sight. 3 major rds still closed in WO. Daughter got stuck on a bus for 5 hrs. Walked in at 8:10pm from school. Took me three and half hrs to go from West Paterson (woodland park) to west orange. Normally a 25 min drive all back roads. Town Screwed the pooch on this one.
Do you get mad at the people who post predictions on this board when they get it wrong? I doubt it.
For the Gary Szatkowski fans, he's been as critical of the NWS-Philly as people tend to be publicly, IMO. Would love to hear what he has to say privately. I just made a long "what went wrong?" post on one of the weather boards, which I'll probably post here...
https://twitter.com/GarySzatkowski?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
https://twitter.com/GarySzatkowski?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
I was part of what was possibly the best group chat I've ever been a part of, earlier. My colleagues and I left school right at the end of the day (Normally about 3:30, but today approx. 2:45, as Principal announced that everyone should get going as soon as they could). This is in Essex County. I head west on 78, most others (mostly women) head to points east and north. 78 is moving slowly, until Exit 36, then it stops. It's about 1.5 hours to reach Exit 33 -- jackknifed TT, plus any number of cars off the road, turned in the wrong direction, etc. Meanwhile, over the course of that 90 or so minutes, the women haven't even gotten out of the Millburn/Springfield/Maplewood area. Roads are completely clogged. The BEST part was having them go back and forth about when and how they were going to pee. "Should I just do it in my pants? Should I pull over and get out on the side of the road?" "I can't believe I'm wearing a skirt, today!" "Guys, I really have to go!" "I have a waterproof Lulu Lemon bag." "Oh yeah, I have an empty Lysol wipes canister." This went on and on and on. I told them just open the window and go, as long as the wind isn't blowing back at you. I can't really do things justice. Very funny, and of course, very glad that everyone got home, safely. It was a complete mess.
Looking at the models and weather boards, my strong suspicion is that the NWS is predicting much less snowfall than we're seeing in many models due to ratios and sleet, mostly, plus some melting. It looks like it has to do with the models reporting "snow that falls" from the sky (without melting and accumulating at a 10":1 ratio) vs. looking at how much snow will actually accumulate on the ground, given poor snow/liquid ratios in what is falling, combined with possibly significant melting/compaction on the ground and assuming some of the frozen precip is sleet, which has a very high density (low ratio of frozen depth to frozen mass).
Looking at one model kind of shows this. Below is the snowfall graphic for the high resolution 3 km NAM model assuming 10:1 ratio, showing 6" or more of snow for I-95 and NW of there, whereas the next graphic shows the Ferrier algorithm for snow, which takes into account low ratios and sleet, but apparently not melting, which may be why the NWS numbers are even lower than the Ferrier ones in some locations. Huge difference in the snowfall maps from these two different algorithms and I'm pretty sure this is the main reason for the discrepancies between the models and the forecasts (and the low ratios/sleet/melting are very connected to the warm air aloft emanating from the warm ocean).
Keep in mind, however, that if we see 1" of sleet, that's the equivalent of about 3-4" of snow, so even if it doesn't look as pretty, it contains the same mass of frozen precip, so it'll be just as hard to drive in, plow and shovel as 3-4" of "standard" 10:1 snow/liquid ratio snow (except for the visibility, which will be fine in sleet). However, it's also just possible that the NWS and local forecasters will be wrong and the models will be more correct.
Here's what I posted on 33andrain in response to basically the same post I made above. Lots of good discussion about it going on...
So, in light of the massive bust from the NWS (and I love those guys, but a bust is a bust) and every major media source I saw, especially for the 95 corridro, I go back to this post and I say to myself, ok, I guess they missed badly on all 3 factors that might've made them underpredict the snowfall:
- Very low snow ratios of 4-5:1 (nope, they looked like 10:1 to me),
- Much of the frozen precip falling as sleet (nope, it was mostly snow)
- Significant melting of the early part of the snowfall (nope, it accumulated from the get-go - I know I got that one right)
The Euro is the best global model, as everyone knows, and the NAM has performed quite well in very energetic coastal storms over the past several years. If I recall correctly, only the GFS (the old one) was consistently showing only an inch or two of snow for the 95 corridor and we know that's not the best model (apart from Jan-15 - totally different setup, though). Did everyone really follow the GFS or was it simply a case of massive groupthink around climo, assuming it just couldn't snow that much in mid-Nov (despite recent history to the contrary on 10/29/11)? I'd just love to know. Wonder if the NWS will do an "after action review" to look at what happened. Thoughts? Maybe this should be a separate thread...
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Woman was killed on Union Ave, car hit by train at about 6PM. It took me 5 1/2 hours to get home from Clark. 5 hours were coming up from downtown Scotch Plains. New Providence Rd./Diamond Hill Road was a disaster, as several trucks got stuck going up even the little inclines. It's still a mess even at this hour.
sorry...he is not to blame..blame the forecaster and private mets...also the timing...the snow didnt start until noon..there was only an inch on the ground for the first two hours...then we got 1-2 inches an hour rates right when everyone hit the roads...made it impossible to plow the major highways. Was out around 6PM and a big cavaran of plows were coming down 206 and the road was pretty bad and snow covered...2 hours later it was clean and wet.....once all the cars got off the road the plows were able to do their work...stop blaming them and the governor..they pay people to tell them what the weather is going to be like..take it up with them
I’m having trouble buying this reasoning. Anyone who’s job it is to run either the state or a town should be aware of a best/worst case scenarios for weather events. I get the climatology that made Mets skeptical but in the last 36 hours anyone following the models could tell you there was a chance it could be worse than expected. As governor or head of your towns DOT you have to be better at being prepared.
I’m an amateur when it comes to this stuff. But I like the weather and I follow the models and forums. I made sure everyone in the house was home by 2pm today and we had (in this case since it was last minute) ordered enough food for late lunch and dinner
Peoples who job this is should have done better. Period
they have private forecasters who tell them the weather...they ****ed up...all of them did.
99% of people dont follow weather boards or pay attention to anything other than what Lonnie Quinn or Lee Goldberg tells them on the nightly forecast or a quick glance at weather.com
the peoples who job this is to have done better is the nws and other meteorologists
99% of people dont follow weather boards or pay attention to anything other than what Lonnie Quinn or Lee Goldberg tells them on the nightly forecast or a quick glance at weather.com
the peoples who job this is to have done better is the nws and other meteorologists
I live right next to where the accident was.
Was on the 506 train from Hoboken to Gladstone. I live around the corner from Murray Hill train station.
We got stopped at Summit around 6:30. After about 10 minutes they let our train go 2 stops to New Prov and MH before turning back and returning to Summit.
Union Ave is the next train track crossing so trains couldnt go past MH station.
My sister is still on her way to Rockaway from West Orange. She left at 330pm. It’s is now 1am
She did just leave her car for about a hour and half at one point to walk to a nearby restaurant for something to eat
Currently in a standstill on route 80
She did just leave her car for about a hour and half at one point to walk to a nearby restaurant for something to eat
Currently in a standstill on route 80
My mom works at a school in West Orange.
As of 11:16pm she was settling in to sleep at the school.
But the initial accident on the GWB which caused all this could have been avoided with the initial brine. Tractor trailers slid at 2 PM, right after the snow started, on the upper level. Brining would have stopped this and no, there definitely was no brine out on any road at any time today or in the morning. A lot of lies being told out there by both Govs and the Mayor.
No I only get aggravated when someone argues with me on how much snow I got when they are 50 miles away and I'm standing here.
My biggest complaint is never the forecasts on here, it is the hype of the media.
I agree they f*d too.
We’ve been talking about this threat for a week. We knew what was possible. I think the governor should have known as well
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