Phew! That was a pretty good storm we just got. The "Christmas Week Nor'easter" or what other name you want to call it, dropped a blanket of about a foot of snow in several towns. On the left side of this blog you'll find three pictures. They are all courtesy NOAA and show 1) 24-hour precipitation 2) 24-hour snowfall and 3) current snow depth. All this data is valid 7 a.m. Friday the 28th of December.
So as you see, there was a solid line of 12"+ of snow accumulation across northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Liquid estimates show that we had about .50-1.25" fall, which would equate to roughly 15:1 to 20:1 snow ratios. There were a few exceptions to that, mainly on the western sides of mountains where a "shadowing" effect happened and kept areas such as the Northeast Kingdom with about a 4-8" accumulation.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch this storm come into total fruition. I was on vacation, visiting family for Christmas as this storm was getting organized in the deep south. As a matter of fact, you could say that I brought this storm back home with me, because I flew out of Houston, TX Christmas Day as the storm was passing by that area. So you're welcome.
However I did get one to two days to try to get a grip on this system. I would like to recognize my fellow meteorologists Chelsea and Kerrin for a solid forecast leading up to this, as well as the National Weather Service offices and other media meteorologists in this market. I think it was a well-warned and well-forecast storm.
I haven't gone back and literally plugged in all of the numbers of observations to what we forecast, but I will do that. A quick evaluation shows me a couple of things. The low pressure center passed on the southern fringe of what forecast models projected. This kept our area colder than what I thought we were going to get up to. We also had very little wintry mix in southern Vermont, where I anticipated at least some rain and sleet mix with snow. However snow totals were pretty spot on, with a bulls eye over northern New York and northwest Vermont.
I hope you made it through the storm okay. I will let you know if I find any "groundbreaking" information in my verification process. Otherwise it's onto the next storm. The next one is going to pass by this weekend (Dec.29-30) with an estimated 2-4" accumulation and isolated amount up to 6" within the southern Green Mountains. Have a great weekend!
-Meteorologist Steve Glazier
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