March 2nd Nor'easter Update

Upstate New York was buried by the storm. The attached does not show final totals but many towns were over 30 inches even at this point. Cobleskill New York which I believe is near Oneonta Ended up with 39.3 inches. Amazing

http://www.newyorkupstate.com/weather/2018/03/updated_snow_totals_from_upstate_ny_storm_now_top_30_inches.html

My opinion on why the radar was showing snow but in fact it was raining at the surface is the simple fact that the radar can only detect the precipitation down to a certain elevation. I don’t know what that elevation is but apparently not low enough to detect the rain very near the surface during yesterday’s storm

WeatherBob wrote:My opinion on why the radar was showing snow but in fact it was raining at the surface is the simple fact that the radar can only detect the precipitation down to a certain elevation.  I don’t know what that elevation is but apparently not low enough to detect the rain very near the surface during yesterday’s storm

Minimum tilt level on the WSR-88D is .5 degrees such that..
h = (SR*sin(PHI)) + (SR*SR)/(2*IR*RE) with the following..
H = height of the beam center line above radar level in km
SR = slant range in km
PHI = angle of elevation in degrees
IR = refractive index, 1.21
RE = radius of earth, 6371 km.
With the following you can find the general height of the beam at your general location. Any flash backs to your college days lol

Quietace - no flash backs at all. When I was in school the NWS was still using 1950’s era radar. The meteorologist would literally draw on a piece of paper on top of the radar circle. He would then then send this picture as a single view of the radar with just VIP circles indicating the intensity of the echoes (1 being light precip up to 6 meaning intense signals ) at the specific time out to whomever. By the time we saw it, it was like an hour old . He would then do that the next hour. It was so insanely archaic compared to the radars of today. When I cooped at the NWS in Rockefeller Plaza in NYC, I use to watch them do it.

There was no concept of looking at the echoes to know if it was rain or snow. It did pick up flocks of bird sometimes and I did see it pick up the Watchung mtns one morning when the trees were loaded with morning dew . HAHA

Quietace - your funny, I was decent in math but at this point in my life, I would strain my brain to even try and figure out that formula let alone get an answer , HAHA

My brain is shot when it comes to that stuff , that’s why we have young brilliant people like yourself to figure that stuff out!