why was the eastern shore left off that nifty Google map?

FR: Because the Sterling forecast office, which produced the map, does not cover the Eastern Shore. The northern part of the Shore is covered by Mt. Holly/Philadelphia. The Southern Shore belongs to the Wakefield, Va. office. And Garrett County belongs to Pittsburgh. Somehow, the NWS managed to slice up this tiny state and serve it to four different forecasting offices like some kind of Cornish game hen. Go figure. I'll see if Mt. Holly or Wakefield have something similar.

I thought Alta ski resort always reports more. Is that because it's not a city?

http://www.alta.com/pages/snowhistory.php

FR: Yes. Not sure how they define a "city," though. Some of these places are really small.

I have to say, right before the sunset there was an eerie cast to the sky. Kind of creepy and even though it was snowing I just thought this is not a good thing.

Patty
Northern Baltimore county

captcha- Sept zito

I live in St. Paul, MN but grew up in Baltimore. I'm mildly envious of all the snow you guys are getting, even if it is an appalling hassle. The Twin Cities average about 50" in a typical winter. If Baltimore reaches 75" this winter, that would put it in the top-ten all time for the Twin Cities, which is damned impressive.

I think the snowiest town (more than 10,000 people) in the US is probably Marquette, Michigan, on the Upper Peninsula, which gets huge amounts of lake-effect snow from Lake Superior. I don't know what their averages are but I'll bet it's at least 150" a year. A couple ski resorts in the UP average more than 200".

I wonder if the folks at the NWS in Sterling keep an archive of maps like these for snowstorms that hit their watch area?

It is raining at midnight in NE Baltimore City. I don't know what to think!

Olympic games are in trouble...because of lack of snow.

I live in BC Canada and we are having the warmest winter I can ever remember.

It is usually peak snow season now, but they are trucking in thousands of truck loads of snow from higher peaks and laying it on a bed of straw for the games.

The 14 day trend, is increasing temperatures and no precipitation.

Racers won't want to leave the trail in the downhill...it could be a rocky landing.

Tim o'Bedlam writes: "I'm mildly envious of all the snow you guys are getting, even if it is an appalling hassle. The Twin Cities average about 50" in a typical winter. If Baltimore reaches 75" this winter, that would put it in the top-ten all time for the Twin Cities, which is damned impressive."

But, Tim, we're getting that 75 inches in just 5 days! Not spread out over a whole winter. Not even the Twin Cities, not Buffalo, not Syracuse, not any major urban area has to deal with that.

I keep seeing these comparisons made with other cities re snowfall totals over an entire season. This isn't an entire season for us. It's a whopping, incapacitating amount all at once. First on Feb 5-6 and now on Feb 9-10. There's no comparison.

And there's nothing to be envious about. People are without power, without heat, winds will be gusting to 50mph, the conditions for utility workers are incredibly dangerous. There's nothing fun about this. For those of us lucky enough not to have lost power yet -- well, we feel damn lucky.

Lisa S,

Take a deep breath! The guy is trying to pat us on the back for dealing with so much snow! He's acknowledging that we're getting a lot! That's better than calling us wimps, which is what people from snowy northern cities usually do. By the way, we're not getting 75" in 5 days. We're getting up to 48" in 5 days, which is a hell of a lot, but it's not 75. The rest is from earlier in the season, including the pre-Christmas storm. And by the way, I'm living it just like you are and I think it's fun.

You're right. We might be getting 60-68 inches in 5 days, not 75.

Great comfort.

If you want to express your frustration and have anyone care or take you seriously, you can't keep adding 28 and 20 and getting 68, or 75 or whatever. Follow along here: 28 inches over the weekend. 20 inches last night and today. That's 48, Lisa. If you want to talk about how we're getting 48 inches of snow in five days, then fine. If you want to make stuff up just to indulge in some extra doom and gloom, then go away.

Is there a website that posts seasonal snow totals for towns in MD? We are in Garrett County, far western MD, in the mountains and we are getting buried! It's like an old-fashioned winter here.. fun!

FR: No site that I'm aware of. The Wisp resort site does track local snow totals on their site.

Sorry, BK, I was thinking of Columbia and Laurel, which reported 38 inches in places, but maybe those totals aren't accurate. Then if we get another 24 inches tops, that would be a whopping 62. Again, it's not 75, you're right. But 60 or 62 is still enormous.

My point was only that it's an extraordinary amount all at once, and most densely populated urban areas, wherever they are, don't usually have to deal with this. Didn't mean to upset anyone.

I think it's hard to get accurate readings when you get that much snow. Like Lisa said, there are very few cities that could deal with 4 feet of snow in 5 days. That would pretty much shut everything down for at least two days anywhere. The one really huge storm I can remember in the Twin Cities was the Halloween Blizzard in 1991, where we got 29" over 2 days starting on Halloween, and things didn't get back to normal until 2 days after the storm stopped.

Try dealing with 120in in four days and try to tell me how hard it is. When you have to climb out your second story windows to get outside I'll listen. Besides I don't know why this is some sort of competition. It's just snow it will melt eventually especially in the the mid Atlantic enjoy it while it lasts global warming huh?? Lol