Praise the Lord! The DC Metro area is not divinely snow-cursed after all! : ) What a nice treat it was to
wake up early Thursday morning and see 14 beautifully, fluffy, and wonderful
inches of snow on my deck. After ~4
years of dismal, laughable, and downright pitiful “snowfalls” (if you can even
call them that) – not to mention countless snow teasers that passed by nary a
trace or as cold rain – the DC Metro area (Northern Virginia, western Fairfax
in my personal case) finally got a legit, true-blue dump of snow Wednesday
night into Thursday. And though I was
getting greedy and hoping for a bit more from Thursday afternoon’s “second
round”, a few inches over a foot is totally ok with me any day of the year!
Stick with me and you’ll be alright
So early Wednesday morning I made this forecast…
What you see above is the National Weather Service’s
(NWS) actual snowfall totals throughout the regions. Officially Dulles Airport (IAD) received 13.3” and Regan National (DCA) came in at an even 7”. Boom on my forecast…but very close. As for my desire
to see some more…well God heard my cries and blessed my home with ~14.75”.
Winter Wonderland
I loved the intense snowfall rates that came into our
area late Wednesday evening via “deathbands” (energetic “bands” of
precipitation that produce up to 1-3” or more of snow accumulation per hour!). It was beautiful and mesmerizing to watch.
 |
| Radar showing intense bands of snowfall! |
I even persuaded my awesome
wife to go through a drive in it at 2:30am!
Early Thursday morning revealed some beautiful white,
fluffy snow. This deteriorated a little as
the mixed precipitation and rain, as well as rising temperatures, came through
in the late morning and early afternoon, but early in the morning it was still
all cold and perfect. Here’s a taste of
what it looked like in the morning.
What I Didn’t Like
I was not a fan of the change-over in precipitation
in the late morning and continuing through the afternoon. Not only did it cut down on potential accumulation
totals, but just made things a bit ugly and slushy – not to mention miserable
for the kids to be out in. No kid, or
parent for the matter, wants to be out in wet, cold snow. The sad part is that though a changeover was
forecast during this time, it was forecast for mostly parts east of the
city. It was never thought it’d make it
as far west as Fairfax County and even Loudoun.
I was also pretty disappointed in the storm’s “Round
2” which was supposed to produce a
few more inches for the area in the late afternoon and evening.
The pieces were in place (you can see the “second”
part forming in the western Carolinas in the satellite picture above), but it
never really packed the knockout punch we were all expecting. I got about 0.75” out of it…maybe an inch.
Mostly Satisfied
Overall I had a blast with this storm…or at least
until the changeover occurred. A few
days leading up to it the forecast models were in disagreement and though we
knew we’d get snow, there still was great uncertainty whether it’d be major,
moderate, or just another garden variety like we’ve got the past few
years. Thankfully factors shaped up
nicely the last 36 hours and we ended getting a “boom” (low probability “upper end" forecast) scenario for the first part of the storm overnight.
Whether it takes another 4 years for a big storm to
hit us again remains to be seen. As for
now I’m content though. That said, when’s
the next storm?! As they say in Philly
about their sports teams…”What have you done for us lately?” -Ebb
Thanks for the post. Smowstorm is the sever cold. Nobody wants to go outside in this weather. Looking for the snow removal company to control snow in particular areas.
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