Bel Air tops area snowfall charts
The tallies are starting to come in this morning from Tuesday's snowstorm, and it looks like Bel Air, in Harford County, leads the early returns with one report to the National Weather Service of 4.5 inches of snow.
UPDATE, 1:45 p.m.: Some higher totals have now come in. CoCoRaHS is reporting a 5.5-inch measurement in Whiteford. The NWS map now includes a 5.3-inch measurement from Highland View, and 5.0 inches in Scarboro. All are in northern Harford County.
So, it looks like the 3-to-5-inch predictions from early yesterday have held up, at least for locations north and east of, say, Loch Raven Reservoir. One to 3 inches is more like it from Washington north and east to Baltimore, with less than an inch south of DC.
The official measurement for Baltimore, at BWI-Marshall Airport, was 2 inches, bringing the season's total to a whopping 3.5 inches.
While it wasn't much, the storm did bring area school officials to cancel classes, or delay openings for an hour or more. Here's the full listing. Just be thankful you're not living in Boston this morning, where the storm is intensifying and preparing to drop up to a foot of snow.
Our snow finally tapered off around 9 or 10 p.m. in most locations. Here is a preliminary rundown on some of the snowfall measurements around the region:
Bel Air: 4.5 inches
Lineboro, Baltimore County: 3.4 inches
Glyndon, Baltimore County: 3.0 inches
New Market: 3.3 inches
Hunt Valley: 3.0 inches
WeatherDeck, Cockeysville: 2.5 inches
Essex: 2.0 inches
Bowie: 2 inches
Columbia: 1.0 inch
Eastport: 0.9 inch
There are more measurements coming in to the CoCoRaHS Network, here. And here is the NWS snowmap.
Forecasters out at Sterling say the cold weather will continue through the weekend before temperatures move back toward seasonal norms. The next precipitation event, on Tuesday, is expected to be rain.
You'll find Eric the Red's port-mortem analysis of the storm on the jump, below.
(SUN PHOTO: Snow buzzards over the WeatherDeck, Frank Roylance)
"[T[here were a few surpises that I figured I should explain.
"First, what gives with the sleet and freezing rain we got? Well, that was the western low remaining dominant longer than I expected, which allowed warm air surging up the eastern side of the low (where we were) to change the pcp from snow to sleet and freezing rain.This nose of warmer air was several thousand feet above the ground.
"Second, the coastal low gave us next to nothing... it was responsible for a few northward-moving snow showers in the afternoon, but that's about it. The snow that fell in the evening was courtesy of a strong upper-air disturbance associated with the western low that swung thru. Had it not been for that little bonus feature, we would've gotten literally nothing.
"Third... snow did in fact end up being heaviest in northeastern MD, with reports over 4" in Harford County. We rec'd 3" in Jacksonville, and that was a pretty uniform number across most of central and nrn Baltimore County. To the south, it was closer to 1-2". A far cry from what the Northeast is getting, and certainly qualifies largely as another miss."
Comments
Thanks for the explaination. I understand weather can be difficult to predict (especially this year it seems!) and I enjoy understanding more on what "went wrong" in the forecast.
Posted by: Ben | January 12, 2011 11:06 AM
Got about two inches in northeastern Baltimore City, right near the county line.
Not a big deal, but I'm just glad it wasn't a total bust.
Posted by: Todd | January 12, 2011 2:37 PM