![]() ![]() A gusty wind ranging from 10-20 mph, briefly in gusts to 25 mph, occurred in the wake of the system through the early portions of the night causing blowing snow and wind chills to range from -10° to -20° at times. Snowfall rates briefly ramped back up again to 1"/hour for a couple of hours throughout the Capital Region before quickly decreasing through the evening.Ī weak Mohawk-Hudson convergence occurred during the evening due to a northerly flow coming down the Hudson valley converging with more of a westerly wind in the Mohawk valley to prolong some very fine light snow through roughly 10pm with the storm ending everywhere at that time. Additional moderate to heavy snowfall developed in the Mohawk Valley, Capital Region and Hudson valley area from the mid afternoon through the early evening as the upper level trough crossed the area, interacting with some moisture throwback from the now intensifying coastal storm near Cape Cod. Snow continued at varying intensity through the late morning and early afternoon with some drying working into the western Catskills and Schoharie County towards noon. Steadier and heavier snow developed between midnight and 3am with snowfall rates increasing to 1" and occasionally 2" per hour through the morning drive time when rapid accumulations of snow occurred in the very cold environment. The parent upper level low pressure trough driving the entire system remained open and quite progressive, coupled with a lack of any blocking at the jet stream level to the system's east, allowing the storm's quick eastward movement.Ĭonsiderable cold dry air over the region on Sunday February 1 prevented much of any snow from falling with the storm prior to midnight, although some nuisance very fine light snow did break out from west to east across the region between 8pm and 10pm leaving up to 1" of accumulation in some higher elevation locations west of the Hudson valley and a thin coating throughout much of the remainder of the region by midnight. ![]() The storm ultimately moved across central Pennsylvania early Monday morning on the 2nd to a position near New York City, crossing Long Island before finally redeveloping near Cape Cod and the Island before rapidly intensifying east of New England as it moved away Monday night. The system intensified along the temperature contrast zone, quickly moving east, passing south of Chicago on the 1st, where lake enhancement aided in producing a 19" snowfall there with blizzard conditions in wind gusts to 50 mph. This was a fairly unremarkable and standard "Midwest Flyer" type storm originating across the central plains states as a strong disturbance in the northern branch of the jet stream interacted with a baroclinic zone (temperature contrast zone) splitting a cold northern tier United States from a somewhat milder south. ![]() Photographer: WeatherNet 6 weather watcher Jim Meehan: Postcard scene in Chatham Center, Columbia County February 2, 2015 Had the thermal profiles with the storm been warmer, snowfall totals would have been less than the widespread 10"-14" which were observed as liquid equivalent precipitation with the system generally ranged from 0.65" to 1.00" To say the least, the snow was quite dry, light and fluffy. The degree of cold supported snow to water ratios of approximately 15:1, meaning 1" of liquid water would roughly translate into 15" of snow. Temperatures dropped to 5° at Albany early in the morning and only briefly climbed to a high of 12° before plunging to -1° prior to midnight as the storm moved away. It was a particularly cold storm, passing to the region's south, it effectively induced a strong northerly cold air drainage flow which the Hudson valley enhanced allowing low level arctic air over northern New York and New England to move into the region during the overnight period prior to and during the snowfall. This was the largest regional snow storm of the season to date with a widespread uniform snowfall distribution of 10" - 14" on average with some pockets of both higher and lower amounts with the snow largely falling on Monday February 2, 2015. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |