My elaborate thoughts on this snowstorm!

Last night, I made a snowfall measurement of 25" in Bellerose! And many surrounding locations had higher amounts, including JFK Airport, which measured 30.5"(!!!). I hope I can eventually do a full description of what happened, but it is amazing that I was tracking this snowstorm potential. For a while, it seemed that the storm may be suppressed in a way the February 5th-6th, 2010 storm did. Last Friday, I had four separate "WOW"/"OMG" moments, each one getting more dramatic. The first happened when I woke up around 6 AM when I got ready for work when I saw that the National Weather Service had issued a Blizzard Warning for my location. I then noticed that the EURO and ensemble models, which had shown snow amounts decreasing throughout the week for NYC, went up again. The second happened when I went on my break at work and I noticed the models, in particular, the RGEM, bring higher snow amounts. The third happened happened on the bus ride heading back to Bellerose when every model agreed on significant snow in NYC. The fourth happened later that evening when the RGEM model came out, and NYC getting two feet of snow! At this point, I had no longer questioned the idea of getting that much and my excitement level became really high.

Now, a good amount of credit goes to Frank. Wednesday night as some of the models showed the snow not getting into NYC, he saw the upper air features and wondered how it could suppress the storm as they did not match up. Sure enough, the surface features eventually corrected itself and brought the big snow into NYC by Friday.

Also, I have analyzed the 26 members of the SREF (Short Range Ensemble Forecast) and have taken the mean and median of the snow amounts for each run (it runs four times a day). From Thursday through Friday for LaGuardia Airport, it went from 5" to 7" to 10" to 12" to 15" to eventually over 20"!

So I ended up with a Roidzilla! This was a truly an extraordinary event and will have a special place in my heart, probably beating out other epic snow events, including the 2010 Boxing Day Blizzard the the Late-January 2011 heavy snowstorm. At this point there is no telling as to how much more snow we will get this winter, but if this is it, this will be enough to satisfy me. Any snow for me from this point forward is window dressing!

Nice write up. For me its kinda personal. My dad died last Friday. Sudden. We took the kids to Florida to see him 2 weeks prior. Perfect health. Anyway, tracking the storm, the ups and downs, thinking it will miss the north, then it coming back home on Wednesday night with the NAM ( I think I got the facts straight), was a great fun distraction. And what an incredible reward to truly enjoy a Hall of Fame Blizzard. Thank you!!!!!!!

Grselig wrote:Nice write up.  For me its kinda personal.   My dad died last Friday.  Sudden.  We took the kids to Florida to see him 2 weeks prior.  Perfect health.  Anyway, tracking the storm, the ups and downs, thinking it will miss the north, then it coming back home on Wednesday night with the NAM ( I think I got the facts straight), was a great fun distraction.  And what an incredible reward to truly enjoy a Hall of Fame Blizzard.  Thank you!!!!!!!

Sorry for your loss Grselig.

Yes, this was an amazing event that will fulfill the spirit of snow lovers.