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Our snowstorm produced 16.5" of snow for the city of Utica. 13.0" of that fell yesterday, making February 25th the snowiest day since the epic Valentine's Day Storm of 2007. This also set a new daily snowfall record for the 25th.

The amount of liquid in the snow ranged from 1"-2" thanks to the Atlantic moisture feed for over 24 hours. From a meteorological standpoint it was just a fascinating and challenging storm to track. The Atlantic air mass was mild and made for a heavy wet snow. With such a mild air mass to work with, a tiny bit of sunshine was all that was needed to send the mercury soaring to 40 degrees on Friday afternoon - and that was with a very deep snowpack.

This evening our storm system remains in the vicinity of New York City. The storm has become cut off from the main jet stream flow - much like we typically see in a springtime weather pattern. The storm has been slowly weakening and that trend will continue over the next few days. As the storm weakens, snow showers and squalls will continue to stream across CNY. The snows won't be as widespread or intense as what we saw Thursday and Thursday Night - but any squalls through Saturday could be locally heavy at least briefly and some roadways will likely become slippery again for a time. The heaviest snowfall accumulations are likely to occur over the higher terrain, where a little extra lift will squeeze out a bit more moisture in the form of snow. Snow will also more easily accumulate on hilltops because of the marginal temperatures. Utica and Rome should see temperature readings climb above freezing over the next several afternoons with no really chilly air in sight.

This stagnant weather pattern is expected to last into early next week. By around Wednesday a new storm system will try to move up the eastern seaboard. Like so many storms this season this one at least initially appears to want to track well southeastward...potentially meaning more snow from PA, MD and NJ (maybe DC??). But of course these individual waves have a way of changing their minds especially this far out. We'll keep a close eye out for any changes. In the meantime - snow enthusiasts - enjoy! You've been waiting all winter for the big one and the heavy snowpack has finally arrived.

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Adam Musyt:

Snowfall forecast through 7 AM.

Posted February 26th at 8:40 PM
brian(edmeston cntr) (Edmeston):

btw 17.5 inches from last storm here in Edmeston.

Posted February 26th at 8:57 PM
Michael- (Dolgeville):

Village of Hunter, NY. 68” inches in the past 4 days with a settled depth of 55” inches. Oh yeah, this is right in the village too, not on Hunter Mountain, so you can only imagine what is on the peak. Unreal!

Posted February 26th at 11:45 PM
Anthony (N.Marcy):

Michael,

Great find! I was wondering how well they made out this week because I know they got hit with the Tues/Wed storm too! Thanks for sharing.

Adam,

I have been seeing a lot of different information of the storm down south combining with the storm we are currently still dealing with on Sunday/Monday for New England and maybe Eastern New York. What are your thoughts on it?

Also, I believe we really need to keep an eye on the storm that is crashing into the west coast right now for the middle/end of next week.

Looks like this could be a busy (stormy) March.

Posted February 27th at 12:46 AM
Anthony (N.Marcy):

Check out the estimated snow depth map. I think it is a little over done but …. just the shear amount of area with over a 2’ snow pack has to be great for the area ski resorts… http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/snow_depth.php

Posted February 27th at 12:50 AM
Adam Musyt:

4,

Bill and I have been keeping an eye on that Monday scenario. It reminds me of the setup in early January where again a coastal storm brought heavy snow to the Mid-Atlantic, shot out to sea and then retrograded back to the west.

This setup looks sort of similar. The new piece of energy will definitely “reignite” the old stacked low – but at least for now the models have been pretty consistent in keeping the really steady snows to the east. Downeast Maine, Mass. and maybe New Hampshire might be primed for another moderate snowfall. We’ll keep an eye out for any changes to the track.

One thing that is going against significant snows in CNY from this potential storm is that even if spokes of energy rotate back our way from the east, lake enhancement is going to be harder to come by than it was in January.

The overall pattern though is conducive for more storminess going forward – even if this next one is a miss.

Posted February 27th at 12:56 AM
Anthony (N.Marcy):

Adam,

I definately agree on both points. I just was looking for your take on it. No lake enhacement “should” keep signifcant snows out of CNY for Sunday/Monday. But the middle week storm needs watching (I believe).

Snowpack here is 27”...storm total was 22”.. I know I mentioned it before but I didn’t see it on the list, so I wasn’t sure if it just got looked over with all of the other posts on the blog.

BTW I emailed some storm photos to weather@wktv.com. Is that the right place to send them too?

Posted February 27th at 1:07 AM
Nate(little falls):

We got 20inches of snow from the storm

Posted February 27th at 9:38 AM
Becky (West Leyden):

Picked up one half inch overnight. So far this morning just a few light snow showers At this time, the potential storm next week looks to be more of a Mid-Atlantic storm. However, one thing it will do is pull down some colder air out of Canada. Looking out, I don’t see any pattern change that signals Spring is on its way. It looks to stay generally cold through the first half of March at least.

Posted February 27th at 11:37 AM
Jeff H (Sherburne Hills):

Another 2.5” yesterday and last night. Went out and scrape plowed the slush that is forming with these wonderful moderating temperatures!

Posted February 27th at 11:46 AM
Art (Oriskany Falls):

We picked up 2 inches of Fluff Snow last night. I had to plow the driveway again this morning. It needed it anyway.
The temp is 46* right now and it’s snowing.

My daughter wants to know how this can be?

Posted February 27th at 1:30 PM
Becky (West Leyden):

Art, as most of us know snow normally forms when the atmospheric temperature is at or below freezing and there is at least some moisture in the air. in fact most of the time rain start out as snow or ice high in the clouds. This is a process known as the Bergeron-Findeisen process , without getting into a lot of science this when The falling ice crystals that are now snowflakes will melt and become rain if they encounter warmer air, therefore if the temperature near the ground is at or below freezing the snow will reach the ground. However, under the right conditions snow can still reach if the ground temperature is above freezing but the conditions have to be just right, the snowflakes will begin to melt as they reach this warmer temperature layer; the melting creates evaporative cooling which cools the air immediately around the snow flake. This cooling hinders melting. however, normally snow will not form if the ground temperature at or above 41 degree Fahrenheit..

Posted February 27th at 3:32 PM
Becky (West Leyden):

Getting light snow flurries, I’ve picked picked up around one third of an inch this afternoon. The snowfall rate should increase a bit when the sun goes down.

Posted February 27th at 3:41 PM
Allen (Sauquoit):

Snowing at a pretty good clip right now. Coming down pretty hard!

Posted February 27th at 4:52 PM
Anthony (Oriskany):

This weather is beginning to strike a nerve. When was the last time we had appreciable sunshine?

Posted February 27th at 4:54 PM
Bill Kardas (WKTV):

Anthony,

I hear ya. I’m still not used to the cloudiness in CNY during the winter. We had some sunshine yesterday afternoon. I shovel snow in short sleeves (felt great!). This week should feature more sunshine than the past several weeks, though limited still. Perhaps we can get a few peaks tomorrow, Tuesday, with a better bet Friday and Saturday.

Heading into March, climatologically we get much more sunshine than November-February…so things will get brighter in time.

Posted February 27th at 5:43 PM
Tom :

Check out some of the cams up around Old Forge. Some areas up there have already have a foot so far today. And its still coming down hard….crazy

Posted February 27th at 6:17 PM
Nate(little falls):

Very heavy snow right now. Picked up an extra 2inches today

Posted February 27th at 6:48 PM
Tom (Richfield Springs):

Still light snow here this morning. Picked up 4.6” here since late yesterday afternoon. I’m ready for spring and sunshine!

Posted February 28th at 6:53 AM
Denys (E. Winfield):

Snowing lightly here, everything looks so beautiful in these hills around my house. 33 degrees. We picked up another 5 inches yesterday. I am with you Tom!

Posted February 28th at 7:03 AM
cedarville :

it is so beatiful up here on the hills this morning . are we in for more storms

Posted February 28th at 7:07 AM
Bill Kardas (WKTV):

Nickel and dime snows will be the rule over the next few days. Elevations will get more than the valleys.

Posted February 28th at 7:49 AM
Bill Kardas (WKTV):

Monday has the potential for widespread snow (couple of inches) as a storm system rotates in from the northeast. The next storm midweek heads south but we’ll get some northern fringe snows from that one too.

Posted February 28th at 8:30 AM
Art (Oriskany Falls):

We got 1/2 inch of fluff snow last night.

It was 46* yesterday and still snowing for the greater part of the afternoon.

Does anyone have any idea of the moisture content of the snow that was falling and melting as it hit the ground???
I guess I should have put my bucket out.

The temp right now is__35.8*__ and it was snowing a bit his morning.
Another oddity, The wind is coming from the exact oppsite direction than when the storm was on.

The Girls are right, It’s a Winter Wonderlland out there.

Posted February 28th at 8:50 AM
Art (Oriskany Falls):

Thanks Tom
I will check out the Old Forge Web Cams

Posted February 28th at 8:52 AM
MG(Point Rock):

Art —
For the last 24 hours I have 1.5” of new snow with a 0.16 water content. Some of that melted as soon as it fell yesterday.
Thermometers are very sensitive regarding exactly where they are placed — if it was snowing and your thermometer read 46, I’d guess that your thermometer was placed in an area that was affected by the sun. Even indirect sunlight, coming through clouds, can make a thermometer read too high, if the thermometer sensor isn’t properly sheltered.

Posted February 28th at 9:52 AM
Rob (Whitesboro):

Snowpack down to 15” here today.

Posted February 28th at 11:23 AM
Gary (east Utica):

Wow! The sun was just out 10 minutes ago and I went to take the dogs for a stroll around the block. Now the skies turned dark and its snowing at a pretty good clip.

Posted February 28th at 1:43 PM
Stacy (Stratford):

What the HAIL? WKTV, we have what appears to be tiny size hail falling at this moment. It isnt normal snow and it isnt sleet. Can you confirm this? I snapped a picture of it, and am sending it now. This is the strangest thing!

Posted February 28th at 2:41 PM
Amy (Salisbury):

We picked up an additional 5” from yesterday through this morning.

Posted February 28th at 4:59 PM
Cindy:

I noticed the blue tint on the inside of the snow the other day. Any idea what that is from?

Posted February 28th at 6:11 PM
Cindy:

I noticed the blue tint on the inside of the snow the other day. Any idea what that is from?

Posted February 28th at 6:11 PM
Adam Musyt:

Stacy,

Thanks for the picture. The precipitation you saw today was graupel, which is a form of frozen precipitation consisting of snowflakes or ice crystals and supercooled water droplets frozen together.

Typically graupel occurs when a strengthening spring sunshine works on a cold puddle of air aloft creating instability showers – and that’s what is going on today as last week’s snowstorm slowly continues to dissipate.

Posted February 28th at 6:21 PM
Adam Musyt:

Cindy,

I noticed that too. My best guess (and it’s just a guess) is that the snowpack is much more dense than what we typically see in CNY when we get a foot or more of accumulation. It sort of reminds me of those gigantic ice sculptures that also have a blue tint because of the way light is reflected off of them.

Posted February 28th at 6:31 PM
Chris ( HP Weather Observer ):

Picked up 1.5 inches of nickel and dime snows over the past 2 days. Seasonal snow total is now 86 inches.. We certainly caught up this week with snow and finally had a storm produce over 1 foot of snow in over 3 years. As we head into march we could catch and make it to our normal snow totals for the Utica area.

Posted February 28th at 8:42 PM
Jim (Whitesboro):

glad I’m not the only one that noticed the blue tint. I just figured it had something to due with the moisture content of the snow.

Posted February 28th at 8:45 PM
Gordon (Northwestern):

I’ll post my Momday snow totals now since I wouldn’t get a chance tomorrow. I had 20.8” of snow this past week for a seasonal total of 89.8”. I got 5.1” from storm # 1 last Monday night. 3.0” from storm # 2 last Tuesday night, and 11.1” from storm # 3 Thurday-Friday morning. 1.6” since Friday morning. Am interesting side note. I have not reset my minimum, maximum temperature since last Monday morning, and my high has been 36.2, and my low has been 29.2. That is only a 7 degree temperature change in a whole week. It is unusal to see only a 7 degree difference in 1 day, let alone 1 week,

Posted February 28th at 9:18 PM
Jimmy (New Hartford):

Seasonal Snow Total: 69.6 inches

Posted February 28th at 10:49 PM
Bill Kardas (WKTV):

Good Monday morning! If you’re interested in being on our seasonal snowall list, please send in your reports this morning before 11am. The list is updated once a week. Thanks!

Posted March 1st at 4:17 AM
Deb in Hartwick:

(1500’)
seasonal total snowfall = 74”

Posted March 1st at 6:28 AM
Mel (Westernville):

Seasonal total at 93.1”

Posted March 1st at 8:06 AM

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