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The OFFICIAL March 13-14 Winter Weather Thread (This is the B1G 1)

A cool article about the improvements in models and forecasting since the 70s/80s, where forecasts now at 3 days are as accurate as they used to be at one day. Also has a section on how hard it is to predict the rain/snow line, appropriate for today...

http://www.33andrain.com/topic/310-winter-weather-forecasting-improvements-by-wes-junker/

When we had light snow for the last 2-3 hours of the storm near Sea Bright, was thinking how close we were (3-4 degrees F) to being all snow and having a much crappier day. No complaints here.
 
A cool article about the improvements in models and forecasting since the 70s/80s, where forecasts now at 3 days are as accurate as they used to be at one day. Also has a section on how hard it is to predict the rain/snow line, appropriate for today...

http://www.33andrain.com/topic/310-winter-weather-forecasting-improvements-by-wes-junker/
Having a 3 day lead time is definitely a whole lot better in terms of preparation rather than rushing everything into one day. Definitely gives me more time to think about what alcohol I wanna drink in case the roads are treacherous for a day or so. Haha
 
I'm dead. That was the worst shoveling ever.

Agree - this morning I feel like I just played in an old Ravens/Steelers game. We moved to a corner lot this year, and I have received the ok from the boss to get a snow blower - best news in a while as shoveling was brutal.
 
Agree - this morning I feel like I just played in an old Ravens/Steelers game. We moved to a corner lot this year, and I have received the ok from the boss to get a snow blower - best news in a while as shoveling was brutal.
Yesterday was my first ever time using a snowblower. And I feel GREAT today. You will not regret it.
 
Without question, the worst snow I've ever had to deal with in my 23 years as a homeowner. Heavy, slushy on the bottom and a hard layer of icy crap on top. The snowblower wouldn't bite in, it wanted to keep riding up onto the top. Took me 3 hours to do what usually takes an hour or so. Thought I was going to die.
 
Without question, the worst snow I've ever had to deal with in my 23 years as a homeowner. Heavy, slushy on the bottom and a hard layer of icy crap on top. The snowblower wouldn't bite in, it wanted to keep riding up onto the top. Took me 3 hours to do what usually takes an hour or so. Thought I was going to die.

Yea it was brutal, I need to go back out today and deal with the ice that formed overnight too.
 
how crazy is it that Metuchen is the highest total in Middlesex County..is that your public report?

No idea. We got 8.0" on the ground and I obviously post that multiple places, but I don't "submit" it anywhere - not sure where they get those (maybe AmericanWx?). Given that more precip fell as one went north, it's not unexpected that Metuchen would have close to the most in the county though. I think mine is pretty consistent with others nearby unless someone wants to quibble over 0.1-0.5".

METUCHEN 8.0 630 PM 3/14 PUBLIC
EDISON 7.9 500 PM 3/14 SNOW AND SLEET
SOUTH PLAINFIELD 7.5 357 PM 3/14 TRAINED SPOTTER
1 W EDISON 7.5 945 AM 3/14 TRAINED SPOTTER
 
Agree - this morning I feel like I just played in an old Ravens/Steelers game. We moved to a corner lot this year, and I have received the ok from the boss to get a snow blower - best news in a while as shoveling was brutal.

Ha! Great analogy 'cause that's how I feel.

Without question, the worst snow I've ever had to deal with in my 23 years as a homeowner. Heavy, slushy on the bottom and a hard layer of icy crap on top. The snowblower wouldn't bite in, it wanted to keep riding up onto the top. Took me 3 hours to do what usually takes an hour or so. Thought I was going to die.

Kind of proves my point that even though the snow/sleet depth was nowhere what was forecast, the impact of having the same mass of frozen precip as an 18" snowstorm was pretty similar, at least on shoveling (and plowing - my buddy who plows in town said it was one of the tougher storms to plow).

And I'd say the same about driving - holy crap, even after plowing, it's just sheets of ice still left in the towns I drove through this morning on any sidestreet (Metuchen/Edison/Rahway) - sure the main highways are fine but they always do a great job on them. Big difference when the snow accumulates on the roads - couldn't have a better example of that than this storm vs. Friday's storm, where 3-5" of snow was only on the grass and not on paved surfaces - essentially no impact other than visibility while driving.

I'll also add that the science simply isn't there at all to get the thermal layers from the surface to 20,000 feet up perfectly correct for an entire storm for an entire region. The sleet was the result of an under-modeled warm nose at about 5000 feet raising the temps at that level just warm enough to melt the falling snow, which then refroze in the sub-32F lower levels into sleet. Imagine how hard it is to get all of that correct. I will say, as I said yesterday and others have said, that I think the NWS could've done a better job highlighting the sleet risk for many and responded more quickly when it was obvious most of the I-95 corridor and even folks well inland were going to get a lot of sleet on top of their snow.
 
Cool map - easier to see the trends vs. the NWS tables of text. Would love to see one showing total frozen equivalents, too..

17342559_10210596769309473_3495607678239845799_n.jpg
 
Once again,we see that there are 2 Americas;Those with parking and those who have not.Snowstorms are a nightmare for the latter group.I'm fortunate to be retired with no particular place to go,but for those with jobs who must move from place to place until the snow can be removed,it beats all Stephen King novels.
 
its not the models that busted but the forecasters and mets...they are the ones who need to reflect and need to do better. Certain models had a lot true and they were spot on with qpf amounts...however mets and weenies are more interested in crazy snow maps lately and just regurgitate. Two models of the mesoscale variety NAM and RGEM were catching onto warming aloft...their snow amounts were way reduced. Also I realize climo isn't a thing but climo is important, there is a reason he do not snow alot in March, need a perfect setup and a reason that in March the best snows always seem to the north and west. Mets forecasting this storm just seemed to ride with the Euro because it has support from the Canadian and gasp GFS. That they doubled down in the morning was particularly egregious.

Its the Mets who need to step up and get better
 
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Cool map - easier to see the trends vs. the NWS tables of text. Would love to see one showing total frozen equivalents, too..

17342559_10210596769309473_3495607678239845799_n.jpg


Im just glad all our snowfall areas fell in the 4-6 inch snowfall range with of course sleet ontop of that. It wasnt until about 8PM last night that removal became more difficult because the stuff seemed to go to real frozen on top
 
That report is from the Mt Holly NWS office. Passaic, Bergen, Essex, Hudson, and Union counties are covered by the Upton NWS office. You can find their report here: http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=OKX&product=PNS



Upton NWS: http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=OKX&product=PNS

don't you think it's weird that River Vale is said to have had 9.9 inches, while Westwood, which is contiguous, got 13 inches? And both by trained spotters?
 
Im just glad all our snowfall areas fell in the 4-6 inch snowfall range with of course sleet ontop of that. It wasnt until about 8PM last night that removal became more difficult because the stuff seemed to go to real frozen on top

Well, I can tell you it was a bitch to shovel at 2-3 pm and my neighbors would agree, although, yeah, even worse, I imagine, after letting it all freeze solid.
 
don't you think it's weird that River Vale is said to have had 9.9 inches, while Westwood, which is contiguous, got 13 inches? And both by trained spotters?

You see that all the time, even in the same town. Sometimes it's timing - these were 90 min apart, so it could've still been snowing (but I'm pretty sure it was light at that time up there) or sometimes measuring later means more compaction. And other times, it's just variability/human error. One guy might've measured in a non-representative area (if there was drifting) or if there was an obstruction above or near a roof where snow gets blown onto the ground.

Last year, a guy in Metuchen reported 27" and it made all the media reports, but I know there was only 22" and I'm convinced this guy mis-measured. One, I went to the length of going to a football field and walking 50 yards out into it to ensure a relatively undisturbed area, since I simply couldn't get that in my normally good backyard, due to high winds. And two, nobody in the surrounding towns reported more than 23".

Bottom line is many of these numbers are a crapshoot and very few do what I do with ensuring the proper location and also averaging at least 10 measurement and doing a statistical variance assessment to see if the data are valid. Yeah, I'm that guy, lol.
 
Cool map - easier to see the trends vs. the NWS tables of text. Would love to see one showing total frozen equivalents, too..

17342559_10210596769309473_3495607678239845799_n.jpg
It's very easy to see the rain/snow demarcation line in that graphic.
 
Well, I can tell you it was a bitch to shovel at 2-3 pm and my neighbors would agree, although, yeah, even worse, I imagine, after letting it all freeze solid.
J had access to a plow so he used that to clear our driveway and the snowblower to do the walks.

Which was good because I appear to have either sprained, bruised or cracked something in my lower right rib-cage at some point on Sunday. Can't breath deeply without pain, let alone lift anything at the moment. So even running the snowblower was out of the question for me.
 
You see that all the time, even in the same town. Sometimes it's timing - these were 90 min apart, so it could've still been snowing (but I'm pretty sure it was light at that time up there) or sometimes measuring later means more compaction. And other times, it's just variability/human error. One guy might've measured in a non-representative area (if there was drifting) or if there was an obstruction above or near a roof where snow gets blown onto the ground.

Last year, a guy in Metuchen reported 27" and it made all the media reports, but I know there was only 22" and I'm convinced this guy mis-measured. One, I went to the length of going to a football field and walking 50 yards out into it to ensure a relatively undisturbed area, since I simply couldn't get that in my normally good backyard, due to high winds. And two, nobody in the surrounding towns reported more than 23".

Bottom line is many of these numbers are a crapshoot and very few do what I do with ensuring the proper location and also averaging at least 10 measurement and doing a statistical variance assessment to see if the data are valid. Yeah, I'm that guy, lol.

Thanks. You are trained in statistics -- another tribute to your Rutgers education -- and I doubt many other spotters are. They're probably taking only a very few samples.

My only comment on the mets' decision not to roll back their estimates is that sometimes one can be over-protective. I would rather they had said, "snow amounts are going to be lower, we think, but there's going to be a hell of a lot of sleet, which is as dangerous (maybe more so) than snow."
 
J had access to a plow so he used that to clear our driveway and the snowblower to do the walks.

Which was good because I appear to have either sprained, bruised or cracked something in my lower right rib-cage at some point on Sunday. Can't breath deeply without pain, let alone lift anything at the moment. So even running the snowblower was out of the question for me.

Yikes! I cracked a rib once - most pain I ever had, especially sneezing or laughing and even sleeping was tough for a week or two. And there's nothing they can do for it. I'm guessing soccer is out for you, even if the snow melts by Sunday (which I doubt) - hope you feel better...
 
its not the models that busted but the forecasters and mets...they are the ones who need to reflect and need to do better. Certain models had a lot true and they were spot on with qpf amounts...however mets and weenies are more interested in crazy snow maps lately and just regurgitate. Two models of the mesoscale variety NAM and RGEM were catching onto warming aloft...their snow amounts were way reduced. Also I realize climo isn't a thing but climo is important, there is a reason he do not snow alot in March, need a perfect setup and a reason that in March the best snows always seem to the north and west. Mets forecasting this storm just seemed to ride with the Euro because it has support from the Canadian and gasp GFS. That they doubled down in the morning was particularly egregious.

Its the Mets who need to step up and get better
Maybe all these fancy maps and imagery at everyone's disposal is distracting from the fundamentals. I just took a quick look back at some of the past model runs (yes, after the fact, I know...stick with me) and a couple things jump out:
(1) the 540 line...remember that one, mets? See how it is progressing north and west?
(2) 700mb winds. Advecting moist air at 700mb onshore in winter means what again?

Sure, everyone gravitates towards the model output that shows what the model thinks will happen at the surface, even spitting out snowfall totals. But does it make sense to the humans looking at the data? Or are just going with machine majority rule?
 
Thanks. You are trained in statistics -- another tribute to your Rutgers education -- and I doubt many other spotters are. They're probably taking only a very few samples.

My only comment on the mets' decision not to roll back their estimates is that sometimes one can be over-protective. I would rather they had said, "snow amounts are going to be lower, we think, but there's going to be a hell of a lot of sleet, which is as dangerous (maybe more so) than snow."

The thing is, they discussed all of that in their AFD, but most don't read those - they look at the map or forecasts and don't see that level of detail, but it is there. Here's their 4 am update, which is when I started getting very nervous, as I could see the sleet line moving north quickly towards 195 at that point.

What they missed on is that the sleet line didn't just make it through I-95 - it went all the way to eastern Warren through northern Morris to northern Passaic to the Tappan Zee, holding snowfall amounts down there - just look at the map above - anyone up north with less than 18" of snow had at least some sleet.

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Mount Holly NJ
406 AM EDT Tue Mar 14 2017

NEAR TERM /UNTIL 6 PM THIS EVENING/...
Major coastal storm will continue to track northeast along the mid-
Atlantic coast today. The 00Z models trended further west with the
track, and this is also verifying per WPC/MSAS analysis. Surface
observations coupled with 88D`s indicate the changeover line moving
north into the I-95 corridor, with snow changing to sleet in Philly
as of 07Z. This line is expected to straddle the NJ Turnpike/I-95
corridor through late morning, then move east into the afternoon.
This will lead to quite a variability in snowfall across our region,
with a sharp gradient in the vicinity of the NJ Turnpike/I-95. Our
latest forecast has reduced snowfall amounts south and east of here,
generally by 1-3 inches, with little change to the north and west.
As a result, we have converted the Winter Storm Warning to a Winter
Weather Advisory for portions of southern NJ/Delmarva. The Blizzard
Warning remains in effect for portions of eastern PA and northern
NJ, where a very high impact event is unfolding. Further east along
the Atlantic oceanfront, the High Wind Warning remains posted. The
snow will gradually taper down south to north late this afternoon
and into this evening.
 
Just heard from my buddy up in Binghamton: he said they had around 30" of snow up there.
Which was good because I appear to have either sprained, bruised or cracked something in my lower right rib-cage at some point on Sunday. Can't breath deeply without pain, let alone lift anything at the moment.
I told ya not to tangle with that ram for the last one!
 
The thing is, they discussed all of that in their AFD, but most don't read those - they look at the map or forecasts and don't see that level of detail, but it is there. Here's their 4 am update, which is when I started getting very nervous, as I could see the sleet line moving north quickly towards 195 at that point.

What they missed on is that the sleet line didn't just make it through I-95 - it went all the way to eastern Warren through northern Morris to northern Passaic to the Tappan Zee, holding snowfall amounts down there - just look at the map above - anyone up north with less than 18" of snow had at least some sleet.

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Mount Holly NJ
406 AM EDT Tue Mar 14 2017

NEAR TERM /UNTIL 6 PM THIS EVENING/...
Major coastal storm will continue to track northeast along the mid-
Atlantic coast today. The 00Z models trended further west with the
track, and this is also verifying per WPC/MSAS analysis. Surface
observations coupled with 88D`s indicate the changeover line moving
north into the I-95 corridor, with snow changing to sleet in Philly
as of 07Z. This line is expected to straddle the NJ Turnpike/I-95
corridor through late morning, then move east into the afternoon.
This will lead to quite a variability in snowfall across our region,
with a sharp gradient in the vicinity of the NJ Turnpike/I-95. Our
latest forecast has reduced snowfall amounts south and east of here,
generally by 1-3 inches, with little change to the north and west.
As a result, we have converted the Winter Storm Warning to a Winter
Weather Advisory for portions of southern NJ/Delmarva. The Blizzard
Warning remains in effect for portions of eastern PA and northern
NJ, where a very high impact event is unfolding. Further east along
the Atlantic oceanfront, the High Wind Warning remains posted. The
snow will gradually taper down south to north late this afternoon
and into this evening.

Most people don't understand the AFD, I would guess. The "bottom line" has to be stated clearly and concisely without any technical jargon. Yes, this is very hard given all of the caveats that must be in the forecast. Of course, this is not just a weather forecasting problem. In the environmental pollution field as well,, it is hard to make clear and concise matters that are prone to uncertainty.
 
Maybe all these fancy maps and imagery at everyone's disposal is distracting from the fundamentals. I just took a quick look back at some of the past model runs (yes, after the fact, I know...stick with me) and a couple things jump out:
(1) the 540 line...remember that one, mets? See how it is progressing north and west?
(2) 700mb winds. Advecting moist air at 700mb onshore in winter means what again?

Sure, everyone gravitates towards the model output that shows what the model thinks will happen at the surface, even spitting out snowfall totals. But does it make sense to the humans looking at the data? Or are just going with machine majority rule?

Good points, although the 540 thickness line wouldn't have been helpful in this situation from what I've read, but the relatively warm 700 mb winds screaming in at mid-levels were a big part of the sleet fest - the models were indicating dynamic cooling would keep them from penetrating much further inland from the coast, but in hindsight they were wrong. Any good met is spending a lot more time looking at the column than the surface, but even then there can be surprises. Pretty good post-mortem here:

https://www.nymetroweather.com/2017/03/15/new-york-citys-blizzard-go/
 
Most people don't understand the AFD, I would guess. The "bottom line" has to be stated clearly and concisely without any technical jargon. Yes, this is very hard given all of the caveats that must be in the forecast. Of course, this is not just a weather forecasting problem. In the environmental pollution field as well,, it is hard to make clear and concise matters that are prone to uncertainty.

People want a simple map/number, but that simply leaves out way too much detail. Not sure we ever get beyond that, since most people aren't well versed in probability and uncertainty. Half the reason my weather posts are so long is that I usually try to include that as an element in explaining what might or might not happen.

Hey - do you do/teach environmental law? Came close to going that route instead of grad school, but ended up doing an interdisciplinary PhD, combining chem/env eng'g (Bob Ahlert was my main advisor), environmental law (you might know Bill Goldfarb, who has retired, I believe) and public policy (do you know Mike Greenberg?). All good guys and it was a lot of fun (mostly, lol).

The dissertation was on looking at technical and policy/legal issues in remediating Superfund sites throughout the 80s, as well as a survey of the use of innovative remediation technologies, topped off with doing all of this in detail for the Lipari Landfill in Pitman, the #1 Superfund site in the US at the time - where I also did eng'g work evaluating soil-based sequential anaerobic and aerobic bioreactors for remediation of landfill leachates.

You're absolutely right that trying to explain environmental risk to the public is fraught with risk, itself. That hit home for me the most, when I was at some public hearings on cleaning up Lipari and scores of angry homeowners were literally screaming at the govt. guys about the horrific risks they were under from the landfill. And several of them were smoking cigarettes as they were yelling. Risk perception is fascinating (do you know Peter Sandman? - he was also involved a bit).
 
People want a simple map/number, but that simply leaves out way too much detail. Not sure we ever get beyond that, since most people aren't well versed in probability and uncertainty. Half the reason my weather posts are so long is that I usually try to include that as an element in explaining what might or might not happen.

Hey - do you do/teach environmental law? Came close to going that route instead of grad school, but ended up doing an interdisciplinary PhD, combining chem/env eng'g (Bob Ahlert was my main advisor), environmental law (you might know Bill Goldfarb, who has retired, I believe) and public policy (do you know Mike Greenberg?). All good guys and it was a lot of fun (mostly, lol).

The dissertation was on looking at technical and policy/legal issues in remediating Superfund sites throughout the 80s, as well as a survey of the use of innovative remediation technologies, topped off with doing all of this in detail for the Lipari Landfill in Pitman, the #1 Superfund site in the US at the time - where I also did eng'g work evaluating soil-based sequential anaerobic and aerobic bioreactors for remediation of landfill leachates.

You're absolutely right that trying to explain environmental risk to the public is fraught with risk, itself. That hit home for me the most, when I was at some public hearings on cleaning up Lipari and scores of angry homeowners were literally screaming at the govt. guys about the horrific risks they were under from the landfill. And several of them were smoking cigarettes as they were yelling. Risk perception is fascinating (do you know Peter Sandman? - he was also involved a bit).

I know Sandman, Greenberg and Goldfarb. Mike and I worked together on an unsuccessful attempt to establish an environmental sciences Ph.D. program back when Lawrence was president. Mike also showed that New Jersey had ceased being cancer alley -- that instead risk here has converged with risk in the rest of the country. I've used one of Sandman's short pieces for many years in teaching environmental law. It shows nicely that people are not concerned so much with the objective size of the risk, as with "outrage factors" such as whether the risk takes the form of a catastrophe, whether it is unfamiliar, whether it is involuntarily encountered. Thus people underestimate the risk of cancer from radon in their basements even though that is a far greater risk that is posed by superfund sites. And I had contacts with Goldfarb before he retired. A new person at Rutgers is Cymie Payne of SEBs.
 
Well, I can tell you it was a bitch to shovel at 2-3 pm and my neighbors would agree, although, yeah, even worse, I imagine, after letting it all freeze solid.
Wife and I both 64 started around noon yesterday in Monroe and took until 3 to finish after a 45 min break, it was about 6 inches of snow with 3 inches of sleet on top.The one stage blower i have struggled when going through places I had to originally throw the snow on top of other stuff till could get a path cleared to where I wasn't and then it worked OK. What was worse was the street didn't get plowed till after 11 last night while in bed and to tired and sore to bother with it so woke up this morning with a nice 10 inch pile of ice at the end of the driveway that took about 2 hrs to get rid of.......:angry:
 
I know Sandman, Greenberg and Goldfarb. Mike and I worked together on an unsuccessful attempt to establish an environmental sciences Ph.D. program back when Lawrence was president. Mike also showed that New Jersey had ceased being cancer alley -- that instead risk here has converged with risk in the rest of the country. I've used one of Sandman's short pieces for many years in teaching environmental law. It shows nicely that people are not concerned so much with the objective size of the risk, as with "outrage factors" such as whether the risk takes the form of a catastrophe, whether it is unfamiliar, whether it is involuntarily encountered. Thus people underestimate the risk of cancer from radon in their basements even though that is a far greater risk that is posed by superfund sites. And I had contacts with Goldfarb before he retired. A new person at Rutgers is Cymie Payne of SEBs.

Cool stuff. Greenberg's book was really good and he was an excellent teacher and researcher, while Goldfarb was an exceptional teacher - just loved the two semesters of environmental law I took with him. And I stilll use Sandman's "Hazard vs. Outrage" approach in teaching people about risk. Small world.
 
Yikes! I cracked a rib once - most pain I ever had, especially sneezing or laughing and even sleeping was tough for a week or two. And there's nothing they can do for it. I'm guessing soccer is out for you, even if the snow melts by Sunday (which I doubt) - hope you feel better...
Yup, soccer is out for at least a week or two and sleeping ain't happening at the moment. Whatever, it is what it is.

Just got back from a trip to the System tonight. Hopefully that doesn't have painful repercussions tomorrow. :)
 
So are we getting snow on Saturday?
Probably a little, i.e., an inch or less from late Friday night through Sat morning - more likely to see that inch north of 80 and could be very little south of there.

http://www.weather.gov/phi/winter

Edit: there is more potential for a more significant snowfall (3-5" range?) on Sat night into Sunday morning. If today's 12Z models start showing some consensus on that, could be time for a thread on that...

https://www.americanwx.com/bb/topic/49839-possible-light-snow-event-318-319/
 
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January 2015 was a worse bust than this...thing is people forget the busts rather quickly...i don't...i tried to dig up the snow thread for that bust but was unable to retreive it for some reason
You won't find it, unless you hack my computer, since I saved that thread - Rivals didn't do the upgrade of the site until April 2015, so we only have saved threads since then. Is there something you're looking for? I could try to find it.

And yes, Jan-2015 was a huge bust for anyone west of the Parkway (where only 2-4 inches fell vs. forecasts of 14-24") and a major, but not quite so huge, bust for folks at the immediate coast and just across the Hudson from NY (where people got 6-10" vs. the 20-30" forecast). Still nowhere near the bust that March 2001 was, where 12-24 were forecast for Philly to NYC and not more than an inch or two fell.
 
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