December 25th, 2002 Christmas Day Blizzard

I was trying to explain to my wife about that storm and how I never saw anything like that in my lifetime. I don't even remember snow being in the forecast that nite. My brother was leaving my house when it started. Usually it takes 20 minutes for him to get home but it took him over an hour. When I finally reached him, He sounded like he was happy to be alive. He saw accidents all over the place driving home. If someone can give me the details of this storm and what happened, I would love it. Because after I told my wife about it, she said...oh yeah...i remember that storm...it was the worst storm I remember...yet she doesn't remember it. All I remember is that it went from no snow to alot of snow in a couple of hours.

http://wnep.com/2012/12/26/the-christmas-blizzard-of-2002/

This remains the one and only time I witnessed thundersnow. Being 12 years old at the time, I did not even think that was possible. The next day we went to the Poconos for a three day trip we had booked months in advance. They said they had over two feet of snow from that storm up there (back when north and west areas really cashed in on the snow). This made for favorable snowtubing conditions (if there's no snow, they make their own, but who likes fake snow ). And several miles away, we went snowmobiling, which I thought was so cool (no pun intended). I had a good time there.

Frank_Wx wrote:http://wnep.com/2012/12/26/the-christmas-blizzard-of-2002/

The best Christmas Day ever.

Sleet changed to snow about 9am Christmas morning and it snowed like crazy into the evening. We ended up with a little over 18 inches. Christmas Day doesn't get any better than that.

A side note I believe the "official" and I use that term loosely, measurement in the park was 5 inches, but math can check me on that one as I'm doing it from memory. I believe it was actually closer to 7-8, but that's the norm around here.

CPcantmeasuresnow wrote:

Frank_Wx wrote:http://wnep.com/2012/12/26/the-christmas-blizzard-of-2002/

The best Christmas Day ever.

Sleet changed to snow about 9am Christmas morning and it snowed like crazy into the evening. We ended up with a little over 18 inches. Christmas Day doesn't get any better than that.

A side note I believe the "official" and I use that term loosely, measurement in the park was 5 inches, but math can check me on that one as I'm doing it from memory. I believe it was actually closer to 7-8, but that's the norm around here.

Yup, just like with the President's Day Blizzard two months later, my 12-year old self was very suspicious about that measurement. It wasn't until later that I found out about it, but knowing the snow's impact, when I heard it was a 5" snow measurement, I was like "That's it." It was actually here that I first became suspicious about snowfall measurements at Central Park. About eight years later, I was happy to know that I was not the only one that thought this when I first went onto the old 7-online chat board and saw you posts and of course your username "CPcantmeasuresnow"

the christmas storm of 2002 was great it started as a mix in the morning to rain then back to snow by late afternoon it turned out to be a best white christmas by night we had 5 inches