Dulles, on the other hand, checks in around 30 inches as do other places to our west and north. Here in Arlington, I recorded just over 20 inches as did Loran and Joan in Alexandria. Reports are still coming in.
We did, however, break a 110-year-old record for snow in a single day - even with National Airport's useless measuring system (I picture an NWS guy holding his hands in the snow, one at the bottom, one at the top, and then walking 200 yards back to the tower with his hands held apart to have a colleague measure the space between them).
Now for Tuesday. Models have a pretty good storm and this could be the one that New England has been waiting for all Winter. While we here in the Mid-Atlantic region have been unusually snowy, places from New York City northward haven't seen much - both relative to us and relative to their seasonal norms.
We're relatively close to this storm, temporally, so the models are already coming into line. Storm track, as always, is a factor. Below you can see a snapshot from this evening's GFS model at 84 hours (overnight Tuesday - morning Wednesday) showing a pretty good low pressure system on the coast, the DC area north of the blue freezing line (indicating that our precipitation would be of the frozen variety - probably snow) and showing about a half inch of liquid equivalent precipitation being tossed back over the area.
Since this is a snapshot, you can expect that there was a little precipitation on the model for us in the time frame before and after this snapshot.
At the moment, that argues for at least a 5-inch storm. But this time, the models don't agree all that well and some have a stronger storm, some have it closer to the coast.
It bears watching - especially since there are a couple of scenarios that could give us issues with precipitation type. We don't need any rain on top of this crazy amount of snow.
More to come on this next storm in an incredibly busy season.
Hope everyone enjoyed this storm and is safe and warm indoors!
Thanks for all your great maps and commentary before and during the Blizzard of 2010. You helped increase both our knowledge and enjoyment of this amazing storm. We're looking forward to your continued "Fernando explains it all" blogging!
ReplyDeleteThank YOU for reading it! Contrary to the preponderance of teenagers with blogs, it doesn't make much sense to write a blog if no one is reading it! :)
ReplyDelete** fist bump **
ReplyDeleteThis has been a fantastic blog to follow (I'm in Glen Burnie, MD) thanks! Any speculation as to why this year has been so heavy?
ReplyDelete@James: Thanks for reading! Your question would actually make for a great blog post. But to give a quick answer: it seems to be related to a weak El Nino event that is displaced in the central Pacific (when compared to "typical" El Nino events which tend to be found in the eastern Pacific off the coast of South America). Meteorologists study what are called "teleconnections" which is basically how pressure areas around the planet interact. More to come in a post!
ReplyDeleteThanks. A friend was telling me it was because the North Atlantic Current was shutting down, but I think she just watched The Day After Tomorrow too many times.
ReplyDelete