Blizzard January 26-27, 2015 observation thread part 3

[sroc4]

Well here we are.  Def a huge bust it seems for our western coverage area.  That Mother Nature is a fickle B--ch.  We are looking at a bust of only about 100miles.  I guess for some of you it might as well been 1000miles.  The GFS/CMC seemed to be onto the track; whereas the Euro NAM seemed to nail the storm intensity.  

Let me be clear about something here.  THIS WAS NOT A HYPED STORM.   This was a system that is delivering everything it was forecasted to just not where pretty much everyone thought it would.  It had the potential to deliver very dangerous conditions to millions of people, and every proffessional and ametuer Met used very sound logic and science to do so in their forecasts.  The correct forecast was made it just didnt verify in most of the western regions.  Throughout the day yesterday and into early last night this system was right on track with the Euro/NAM soln.  There was no reason for deviation from forecasts.  So what happened?

There was a piece of northern stream energy diving into the back side of the trough that was going to force H5 to close off.  It did but about 2-3hrs hrs too late.  As a result the surface LP drifted just east of the BM rather than just west of the BM.  That left the heaviest bands East of NYC.  HOWEVER;

Currently as of 7am this morning the LP center is 40degreesN lat, 69.3degrees W long, just east of the BM.  This track still should have had more of the mod and heavier bands moving further west into NJ and E PA than what actually made it there.  So why didn't they make it?  Well until now I was not quite sure.  As they approached the NJ shore and NYC Longitude they seemed to just fizzle out. Well I read what  SoulSing posted in the banter thread from EPAWA, a very well respected group of Mets, and went back and looked for myself and it makes a lot of sense.  Throughout the night our Jersey peeps were commenting on precip to the east and precip to the west.  Here is What EPAWA had to say regarding that.  

" So what happened? Aside from the model guidance collectively failing on this one through the 11th hour, we also had another issue. An inverted trough axis set up over central PA - and robbed the snow totals farther to the east. An inverted trough provides rising motion of the air, and the same can be said about the storm itself offshore. Rising motion promotes moisture/snow. In between across eastern PA, New Jersey, and Delaware was sinking air. Sinking air promotes drying out of the atmosphere, and that's exactly what ended up happening through now.

So basically what that is saying is that as the bands were rotating in from the ocean to the west they were running into this region of sinking air which effectively stopped them in their track by drying them out.  As many of you know Inverted troughs are very hard to predict, and as far as my knowledge was not predicted to develop with this system by anyone, or any model.  

So where do we stand right now??  Below the first link is the current positioning of the surface low.  The second link is the 500mb wind pattern.  (You should open both links in separate windows so you can toggle back and forth and see what Im saying) As you can see the 500mb level is closed off(circular flow centered over eastern LI) and the wind direction on the eastern flank will likely cause the surface LP to retrograde a little back towards Cape Cod.  
Surface:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-74.81,39.68,3000
500MB:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=-74.81,39.68,3000

The result of this throughout the day should be to continue to produce moderate and heavy snow bands.  I think some of you who think you are done will prob get back into  it a little.  The best chance for the heaviest snow throughout the day will be points N and E of NYC involving LI (esp eastern sections), CT, RI, and Eastern Ma. but it would not surprise me to see the HV get a few more bands thrown back their way.  We shall see.

[RJB8525]

It was still blizzard like conditions and hazardous out no matter the amounts city and east

I don't lIke saying it..but yes bust LOL

[Yschiff]

Could the jfk area still get in to some heavy bands?

[sroc4]

Hey NOFO I am about half mile from Sound Ave. We def did well out here and should cont to add a few inches throughout the morning and early afternoon. I haven't been outside yet myself but I would say eyeballing it 20" seems reasonable.

[RJB8525]

I heard in the city Queens goy hit really good

[Yschiff]

I have not heard one plow thus morning yet

[docstox12]

Well here we are.  Def a huge bust it seems for our western coverage area.  That Mother Nature is a fickle B--ch.  We are looking at a bust of only about 100miles.  I guess for some of you it might as well been 1000miles.  The GFS/CMC seemed to be onto the track; whereas the Euro NAM seemed to nail the storm intensity.  

Let me be clear about something here.  THIS WAS NOT A HYPED STORM.   This was a system that is delivering everything it was forecasted to just not where pretty much everyone thought it would.  It had the potential to deliver very dangerous conditions to millions of people, and every proffessional and ametuer Met used very sound logic and science to do so in their forecasts.  The correct forecast was made it just didnt verify in most of the western regions.  Throughout the day yesterday and into early last night this system was right on track with the Euro/NAM soln.  There was no reason for deviation from forecasts.  So what happened?

There was a piece of northern stream energy diving into the back side of the trough that was going to force H5 to close off.  It did but about 2-3hrs hrs too late.  As a result the surface LP drifted just east of the BM rather than just west of the BM.  That left the heaviest bands East of NYC.  HOWEVER;

Currently as of 7am this morning the LP center is 40degreesN lat, 69.3degrees W long, just east of the BM.  This track still should have had more of the mod and heavier bands moving further west into NJ and E PA than what actually made it there.  So why didn't they make it?  Well until now I was not quite sure.  As they approached the NJ shore and NYC Longitude they seemed to just fizzle out. Well I read what  SoulSing posted in the banter thread from EPAWA, a very well respected group of Mets, and went back and looked for myself and it makes a lot of sense.  Throughout the night our Jersey peeps were commenting on precip to the east and precip to the west.  Here is What EPAWA had to say regarding that.  

" So what happened? Aside from the model guidance collectively failing on this one through the 11th hour, we also had another issue. An inverted trough axis set up over central PA - and robbed the snow totals farther to the east. An inverted trough provides rising motion of the air, and the same can be said about the storm itself offshore. Rising motion promotes moisture/snow. In between across eastern PA, New Jersey, and Delaware was sinking air. Sinking air promotes drying out of the atmosphere, and that's exactly what ended up happening through now.

So basically what that is saying is that as the bands were rotating in from the ocean to the west they were running into this region of sinking air which effectively stopped them in their track by drying them out.  As many of you know Inverted troughs are very hard to predict, and as far as my knowledge was not predicted to develop with this system by anyone, or any model.  

So where do we stand right now??  Below the first link is the current positioning of the surface low.  The second link is the 500mb wind pattern.  (You should open both links in separate windows so you can toggle back and forth and see what Im saying) As you can see the 500mb level is closed off(circular flow centered over eastern LI) and the wind direction on the eastern flank will likely cause the surface LP to retrograde a little back towards Cape Cod.  
Surface:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-74.81,39.68,3000
500MB:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=-74.81,39.68,3000

The result of this throughout the day should be to continue to produce moderate and heavy snow bands.  I think some of you who think you are done will prob get back into  it a little.  The best chance for the heaviest snow throughout the day will be points N and E of NYC involving LI (esp eastern sections), CT, RI, and Eastern Ma. but it would not surprise me to see the HV get a few more bands thrown back their way.  We shall see.

Well, Doc, something new I learned.I have never been "inverted troughed" before and now I understand why when I was looking at the radar from 6PM to 12 midnight last night, the snow hit a "force field" by the Hudson River and just stopped dead before getting here.That distance between East and West precip was the biggest dry slot I ever saw in my life!!!

[docstox12]

16.7, 87%, 29.79 F

Very light snow. Precip drying up over PA now.Storm must be slowly moving NE.

[nofoboater]

Hey doc, got kicked off the other thread, yes we got our share out here. Definitely got some good winds but not much over 40mph which likely saved some power outages.

Hey sroc, Sound Ave is a bitch for the towns to maintain during these storms. Nice writeup btw!

[sroc4]

Well here we are.  Def a huge bust it seems for our western coverage area.  That Mother Nature is a fickle B--ch.  We are looking at a bust of only about 100miles.  I guess for some of you it might as well been 1000miles.  The GFS/CMC seemed to be onto the track; whereas the Euro NAM seemed to nail the storm intensity.  

Let me be clear about something here.  THIS WAS NOT A HYPED STORM.   This was a system that is delivering everything it was forecasted to just not where pretty much everyone thought it would.  It had the potential to deliver very dangerous conditions to millions of people, and every proffessional and ametuer Met used very sound logic and science to do so in their forecasts.  The correct forecast was made it just didnt verify in most of the western regions.  Throughout the day yesterday and into early last night this system was right on track with the Euro/NAM soln.  There was no reason for deviation from forecasts.  So what happened?

There was a piece of northern stream energy diving into the back side of the trough that was going to force H5 to close off.  It did but about 2-3hrs hrs too late.  As a result the surface LP drifted just east of the BM rather than just west of the BM.  That left the heaviest bands East of NYC.  HOWEVER;

Currently as of 7am this morning the LP center is 40degreesN lat, 69.3degrees W long, just east of the BM.  This track still should have had more of the mod and heavier bands moving further west into NJ and E PA than what actually made it there.  So why didn't they make it?  Well until now I was not quite sure.  As they approached the NJ shore and NYC Longitude they seemed to just fizzle out. Well I read what  SoulSing posted in the banter thread from EPAWA, a very well respected group of Mets, and went back and looked for myself and it makes a lot of sense.  Throughout the night our Jersey peeps were commenting on precip to the east and precip to the west.  Here is What EPAWA had to say regarding that.  

" So what happened? Aside from the model guidance collectively failing on this one through the 11th hour, we also had another issue. An inverted trough axis set up over central PA - and robbed the snow totals farther to the east. An inverted trough provides rising motion of the air, and the same can be said about the storm itself offshore. Rising motion promotes moisture/snow. In between across eastern PA, New Jersey, and Delaware was sinking air. Sinking air promotes drying out of the atmosphere, and that's exactly what ended up happening through now.

So basically what that is saying is that as the bands were rotating in from the ocean to the west they were running into this region of sinking air which effectively stopped them in their track by drying them out.  As many of you know Inverted troughs are very hard to predict, and as far as my knowledge was not predicted to develop with this system by anyone, or any model.  

So where do we stand right now??  Below the first link is the current positioning of the surface low.  The second link is the 500mb wind pattern.  (You should open both links in separate windows so you can toggle back and forth and see what Im saying) As you can see the 500mb level is closed off(circular flow centered over eastern LI) and the wind direction on the eastern flank will likely cause the surface LP to retrograde a little back towards Cape Cod.  
Surface:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-74.81,39.68,3000
500MB:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=-74.81,39.68,3000

The result of this throughout the day should be to continue to produce moderate and heavy snow bands.  I think some of you who think you are done will prob get back into  it a little.  The best chance for the heaviest snow throughout the day will be points N and E of NYC involving LI (esp eastern sections), CT, RI, and Eastern Ma. but it would not surprise me to see the HV get a few more bands thrown back their way.  We shall see.

Well, Doc, something new I learned.I have never been "inverted troughed" before and now I understand why when I was looking at the radar from 6PM to 12 midnight last night, the snow hit a "force field" by the Hudson River and just stopped dead before getting here.That distance between East and West precip was the biggest dry slot I ever saw in my life!!!

This is why I love the weather. So humbling. In our mistakes we learn the most.

[Taffy]

Light to moderate snow
27°
Wind chill feels like 15°
NNW winds at 4 mph, gusts to 19 mph.

[elkiehound]

Are inverted troughs predictable in the models ? In other words, can you expect those to happen in advance ?

[docstox12]

Well, Doc, work has to be done on finding a model which would more accurately predict the development of inverted troughs which really busted this thing west of the City.

[RJB8525]

We need to get Chuck Schumer on this to advocate lol

[skinsfan1177]

Is their any sites to use to see amountd

[Frank_Wx]

Good post doc. The storm will gradually weaken throughout the day as it pulls away well to our northeast. By early afternoon the bands should break apart.

[jmanley32]

Unbelievable I can see outside that its well under a foot (meaning I got 6 inches probably the whole night), guys you did all you could to forecast this thats all I can say here, now to banter section lol. And of course, now the wind is howling after the precip?

[anthony joseph]

You guys did a great job as always. If you knew exactly where the bands would form and could tell the future then you would have been at the craps table in Vegas instead of here. Still getting moderate snows here in Massapequa with lots of blowing snow as well. Nothing on anyones roof or car, it all blew off. Hard to tell how much we have with the drifts and haven't gone out yet.

[New Yorker 234]

Well, I'm just a lurker here but I do love snow. I suppose my loss (not a lot of snow in Midtown Manhattan) is this area's gain (safety, economy, etc.) Certainly our prayers go out to all those east and north of here who bore or are bearing the brunt of Juno.

Gov. Cuomo just announced that New York State is setting up its own weather service. I think they'd do just fine watching this board. It'd save the state some money.

Thanks to Frank and all the others. This was a fun ride over the past 24 hours or so. On to the next one!

[essexcountypete]

About 7" in Bloomfield. Light snow just kicked up a bit to moderate snow over the last 15 minutes.

[RJB8525]

I'm getting a good thump of band snow right now

It may be a bust inch wide but a 17 Y.O died by sliding playing in snow into a sign..

[billg315]

Well ironically, the steadiest snow of the storm here in Somerville seems to be falling right now, probably a couple hours before it ends altogether. Not amounting to much, but nice to look at.

[tigernumba1]

Snowing very hard here. just measured an average of 19"!! hoping i can hit the 20" mark. hopefully everyone can get in on the snow with the future chances!

[Scullybutcher]

Snowing right now as hard if not harder then at any point last night. Not going to measure till it stops but looks like a solid 20+"

[WOLVES1]

Looks like the low is pulling away fast.

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