Historic Storm - Massive Bust

There will not be a wrap up for this historic snowstorm tonight.  That's because it is still snowing heavily in New England.  At this point I wouldn't be too surprised to see a town or two hit 40 inches.  Instead of the recap we get to look at what went so horribly wrong in areas that were forecast to see over a foot of snow.

These things happen.  I've learned to deal with them and not throw a hissy fit when things don't pan out.  It also helped that I mentioned numerous times in my post from Sunday that I was not convinced the particular area I am in (Reading) was going to see much.  We didn't.  If I lived in certain areas of New Jersey I think I might have been disappointed.

There is no doubt that as the storm continued to take shape the predictions changed with it.  That's understandable and actually quite smart.  Since I can't sit at work and make posts I am going to look at this from the perspective of what was put out Sunday night when I did my extensive post featuring all the maps.  It also places those maps roughly 24 hours ahead of the storm.  In most cases this would be more than enough time.  Not in the case of winter coastal storms.

The original plan before everything fell apart was to figure out who did the best at predicting.  Kind of hard to do that now.  As the forecast goes for local areas from Allentown to Philadelphia to the Jersey coast we get an F.  Some totals were closer than others but when it comes down to it there were too many numbers that never even came close to come to fruition.  I can give out a couple of attaboys.

I gave them a mention and they stepped up again or at least more than anybody else.  The Weather Channel map is actually pretty darn good comparatively speaking.  Central Park picked up almost ten inches.  Considering most had them close to two feet I'd say TWC did well with the low figure at 12 inches.  They also kept Philadelphia on the lower end with 5-8.  They ended up with just 1.2.  So much for Atlantic City.  TWC nailed that one calling for just 1-3 inches while every other map has them in double digits.  They ended the storm with one inch.

My totals were off but my instinct was right.  Berks currently has no reports but I live here and I'd say nobody had more than two inches.  The highest reported total in the Lehigh Valley was 4.5 inches and that is on the northern fringe.  Allentown officially clocked in 1.9 inches.  Hunterdon hit a high total of 5.0.  No pat on the back for those calls.  It's the following that are taken right out of the Sunday post that deserve a slight head nod.

"I have yet to see any indication that this storms greatly impacts our area."

When talking about the Weather Channel map - " I find this map far more realistic."

I'm really not convinced the storm does a lot from Reading westward.  Most of the total snowfall I see coming for those areas is connected to the clipper and the energy transfer.  All the models show an influx of moisture coming in from the east that almost stop right at the Berks border to the counties of the west.  If we are that close to the western edge I only sense two things.  It's more likely the moisture never makes it that far as opposed to pushing even further west, and the snow that does fall will be the lightest of the whole system.
 
Fortunately for me my call where I live ended up being accurate.  Had I detailed more of the Allentown area it would not have been as I thought more moisture would work in.

The statement in bold is where we can begin.    I made this for two reasons as it can help explain a little bit about these systems.  For starters there was only one model pushing for the western track.  That model was the EURO.  It happens to have a great record for this type of thing.  There is no reason to not to trust this model.  It excels in longer ranging forecasts and picks up storms much quicker compared to its counterparts.  I think the weather community latched on to this expecting it to once again show it was the best model.  This time it wasn't.  I decided to favor the majority regardless of their poorer reputation.  In the end they all ended up being too far west.  The second reason I said this was because there was never a time (that I saw) when this storm showed that it was going to hit our area.  When I posted Saturday I mentioned a surprise.  That was the first time I saw the storm come out of nowhere and develop into a nor'easter.  The location it hit was from Long Island to points north and east.  It ended up being just about right.

We did indeed see most of our snow from the clipper.  We did end up being too far west.  The problem was so were a lot of other areas.  I can't comment on the storm much because I really couldn't watch it take shape.  I saw tons of headlines about what went wrong but didn't honestly read any.  I don't care that much.  This is what happens.  I don't need an explanation.  But I can offer my amateur conclusion from the little I could follow.  I thought it took awhile to develop.  It didn't seem organized until it was already north of a point it was thought to start bringing back moisture.  By that time when it strengthens and the intensity picks up it is already too far gone.  In many storms there is an area I will now call the snow hole zone layer.  Many areas expecting to see snow ended up stuck in this middle area that saw a swath of snow to the west in central PA and a rotating wall of snow that seemed bounded by the coast.

Have no fear.  Snow will return.  Do you also like cold temperatures?  Sure you do.

  

The first is the GFS for February 2nd.  The second image is the GFS for February 5th.  The EURO is on board for the first one.  And we should see a possible inch Thursday night into Friday.

For those keeping score here is the current standing total for 2014-15 = 18.7 inches

If you have been also thinking that we've been getting off easy this winter you are probably still trying to erase last winter.  Plus after this last miss maybe we are.  Either way we are currently 3 inches ahead of average with more to come.