1/2 hour west of Boston. Expected wind but it was surprisingly quiet last night. What was a bare open deck yesterday now has 21" of snow, and it’s still coming down. No outages in my area. I think the Cape is getting the worst of it. For the rest of us it just seems to be tons of snow, which is very manageable.
It was funny to watch our golden retriever try to get through the snow to relieve herself in her dedicated bathroom spot. A few feet from the house she got stuck in snow up to her shoulders, gave me a plaintive, guilty look, squatted over the patio, and struggled her way back to the house.
@stevensmama, the main culprit is East Coast Weather Watch. I only learned about S&S recently, but let me tell you, that photo of them in sunglasses on their website convinces me that they know their stuff…
Eric Horst from Millersville University got it right from the beginning. This morning he said it would be interesting to see who takes ownership for the bust, rather than blaming the models, which he considers amateurish. That’s so funny because two of the “amateurish/hobbyist who think they are professional” weather outfits I follow on Facebook have already posted “ownership” by blaming the models.
But at least I have some entertainment while reading the comments.
A couple of the Boston forecasters were saying yesterday morning that it was possible the storm would shift further north than was being currently expected and skip much of NY, still hitting Boston with a wallop. It seems to be what has happened. On the other hand, can you imagine the ramifications had NYC been slammed and the city had not taken the threat seriously and prepared?
In central CT, we’ve got 12" according to a weather observer the local news uses I don’t know how you can tell with all the blowing and drifting. It’s still snowing here now. We’re still under a driving ban according to the governor, altho I wouldn’t be looking to go anywhere anyway.
Between 2:30 am or so when I went to bed and now we’ve had what appears to a foot, maybe more. Hard to tell because of the high winds and drifting. Still snowing heavily. It seems to be mostly powder, which is unusual for us, and may bode well for the electrical lines. The wind in the trees when a gust hits sounds like an airplane flying over. I figure my neighbor is getting lots of electricity from his windmill!
Our plow gal–the wife of our plow guy, who is not plowing this year…I suspect a DUI or the like–just plowed the driveway. Usually they try to keep it to once per storm, but this time that would not be practical.
So happy to wake up the morning and find we still had power!
“On the other hand, can you imagine the ramifications had NYC been slammed and the city had not taken the threat seriously and prepared?”
It would have been ugly and Andrew has been in that spot before when he didn’t shut down roads and cars & people were stranded. Happened with Nemo, one storm that hit the island pretty bad and then last November in Buffalo. It was a mess trying to get what they needed out to Buffalo quickly and having reports of people stranded in their cars for days. Then the Gov. said that it wasn’t predicted there would be that much snow - which the weather people had a field day with.
Whatever they had pre-positioned downstate yesterday they will just move them east to LI - where it’s been pretty bad. H has teams on stand by somewhere north of the city so they may be sent out to the island if needed.
Not responding properly to a natural disaster is the kiss of death for a pol and DeBlasio was also criticized during a storm last year.
The Euro was the model that forecast the track would be much further west than the NAM and the RPM and the models never came together, so the NWS split the difference between them and made their predictions for NYC/Western CT & Eastern NYS from that. That’s why the amounts went from 30" to 10-15" yesterday - but the Euro was completely wrong and the other models spot on so there was no middle track and so little to no snow the further west of the storm.
^And many other times, the Euro is considered the most accurate model. I don’t think it’s fair that some people are easily blaming those who “got it wrong”. It’s a science of probabilities. And there’s a definite, steep edge to the worst parts of the storm. Some small differences can create huge disparities in places not far apart.
I think those who chose right, should be more careful about denigrating professionals who saw the track a little differently.
Funny chit chat by NY Governor Cuomo on local TV this morning. They asked whether he thought the forecasts were flawed. He refused to criticized forecasters because he did just that after the Buffalo snowstorm a while back, when the forecast said minimal snowfall, but ultimately 7 feet of the stuff hit the ground. Cuomo said he got tons of angry emails from meteorologists. “I learned my lesson” and will never criticize weather people again. Mea culpa.
It’s still snowing here. The call to close the roads and schools, and businesses was a good one. The road crews will be able to clean this up more easily, and there is less likelihood for accidents because people need to go out and drive.
The storm didn’t yield as much as predicted here, but it sure has walloped a punch in eastern CT!
My sister lives in a newish neighborhood in Georgia, and on the rare occasion that they get snow, it’s a real treat for them. They never have to worry about power outages, because their power lines are all under ground.
Where I live in Dallas, we have all kinds of problems with power outages because of all the trees which fall on lines. The electric company tries to trim the trees near power lines at intervals, but they get huge push back from home owners, who of course are the first to complain when they lose power in these incidents.
We have all underground utilities. It’s the lines that connect TO these that cause power outages. Having underground utilities does not make one immune to power going out. We were out for 4 days during the October snow storm, and 3 during hurricane Sandy.
“They asked whether he thought the forecasts were flawed. He refused to criticized forecasters because he did just that after the Buffalo snowstorm a while back, when the forecast said minimal snowfall, but ultimately 7 feet of the stuff hit the ground. Cuomo said he got tons of angry emails from meteorologists.”
No, the forecast was never for minimal snowfall. That was only what Andrew said they said. So they played numerous of loops from the days before it started snowing proving their predictions were spot on. That was why the meteorologists were angry.
If Andrew said that this morning he is again re-writting history.
My town has a dedicated tree warden who is in charge of tree trimming. SInce he’s a town resident he does it carefully-none of those awkwardly lopped off limbs I see in a lot of places. We also have our own power company. Between the two we rarely lose power in our town, and when a section does go down power is restored very quickly. We had a couple of big storms, an ice storm and a hurricane, around Halloween in the last few years and in both the towns circling us had to cancel tick-or-treating due to downed power lines and dark streets, but we had no problems. In the 12 years we’ve had a generator in our home it’s come on for a grand total of 15 minutes. My brother, two towns over, loses power for days at a time every couple of years.
Well, I guess they’ve just had 15 years of good luck, coupled with the rarity of snow storms there.
Having trees everywhere near power lines does increase the likelihood for trouble, however. We lost power last year because trees fell onto the electric lines just outside our neighborhood. It took days to get it turned back on.
My report sounds like Consolation’s, since we live in the same town (our sons attended the same high school - it is a small world!). It looks like sand dunes around our house. Some areas are bare, others are at least three feet covered in snow. At the side of the house, there is a strip, about 4 feet wide, that is bare, and next to that is a wall of snow! Our Australian shepherd did his business quickly right next to the house, then ran up the steps to be let in.
We have garage space for two cars, so our third is in the driveway. After the plow guy comes the first time, we’re planning on digging it out and moving it to a public lot someplace.
My daughter’s high school sent a note asking the kids to NOT bring cars the rest of the week, because the town won’t clear the school parking lot until all the town roads are clear.
I love this! Growing up in Texas, I thought this kind of event happened all the time, ha!
Oh, Plow Guy just came! Venturing out in the snow now. It’s 7 degrees with a wind chill of -13. My husband spent four years on a commune in Alaska, so this is nothing to him.
