Central Ohio

Live Blog: January 20th Snow

Posted by: Buckey2745, 1:44 PM GMT on January 20, 2011

8:44am
It's time for our first live blog of the season, with our biggest storm to date. Just in the past 15 minutes or so, light snow has begun overspreading the area from the west. The latest discussions out of Wilmigton suggest an area right along the I-71 cooridor of heavy snow setting up later this afertnoon, giving 4-5"... with isolated areas of 6". I predicted 4", so lets see who's closest.

The regional radar shows a massive area of snow that stretches all the way back to Oklahoma... however we won't see the entire streak of moisture in our area. Two scenarios could play out: the snow could begin to ride over the low pressure in the Tennessee Valley and "train" over our area, or it could advance due east with the low...

Expect the latter. An advancing trough from the north will squeeze us between two systems, and the trough will win. That'll push the snow out of our area late this evening, and in effect keep snow totals lower than they could be.

11:06am
Snow has hardly accumulated in the past 2-3 hours. Snowflakes have been fine in nature, making it hard to pile up. The NWS still expects snow to pick up in intensity over the next few hours, before becoming very heavy in the afternoon/evening hours. That's when snowflakes should go from fine to very full and productive.

3:44pm
Well over 6 hours of snow, and honestly not a whole lot of accumulation to speak of. I just made it home early from work, measured and we're looking at between 1.5" and 2". Considering how long it's been at it, I'm not impressed with this storm at this point.

The NWS is still predicting snow to get heavier in to the evening hours. To reach the 4" I predicted, we'd need a pretty deep moisture event to get there before the snow begins to taper off. I expect snow to be out of the area by 10pm. Here's what the latest discussion out of Wilmington is calling for:

THINGS COULD BE INTERESTING OVER THE NEXT 3-6 HOURS HOURS OR SO
AS MODELS ARE STILL SHOWING A VERY DEEP DENDRITIC GROWTH ZONE ON
THE ORDER OF 2K-3K METERS PROGRESSING SOUTHEAST ACROSS OUR AREA IN
THE 21Z-03Z TIME FRAME. AS A RESULT...EXPECT THE SNOW RATES TO
BECOME MORE EFFICIENT AS WE HEAD INTO THE EARLY EVENING HOURS. BY
THIS TIME WE WILL ALSO LOSE THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF THE SUN AND
THIS COULD HELP ACCUMULATIONS EVEN MORE. IT WILL ALL BOIL DOWN TO
HOW QUICKLY THINGS ACTUALLY TAPER OFF FROM THE WEST. FOR NOW WILL
STICK PRETTY CLOSE TO ONGOING FORECAST AMOUNTS OF 4 TO 6 INCHES
ACROSS OUR CENTRAL FA...WITH SLIGHTLY LESSER AMOUNTS TO THE NORTH
AND SOUTH.

Snow is slowly becoming more and more steady. Flakes haven't gotten bigger, but they have become more numerous. If we don't see the heavier flakes within the next hour, I think totals will be on the low end of what NWS is calling for.

4:43pm
Snow has certainly picked up. We went from 1.5" to 2.5" of snow in the past hour. You do the math on that snowfall rate...

6:45pm
We're up to 3.5", but the back end of the precipitation is on its way. We're going to have to keep an eye on accumulation, because once this snow stops, winds will begin to pickup and measuring will be nearly impossible.

7:09pm
Snow Emergencies are popping up all over the area, with a Level 2 as close as Hocking County...

10:10pm
Well that's it for the snow. It's been a long day, with snow since roughly 8:30am this morning. I've been measuring and sending in my totals all day, and I think I'm ready to call it before the drifting gets too bad. I couldn't bring myself to rounding up to the nearest whole inch, so I've submitted our storm total here in South Bloomfield as 4.75" of snow. It's the biggest storm of the season, and honestly I feel like the worst is yet to come.

Winds are picking up and snow will begin to drift. With little wind today, we've already seen most Central Ohio counties go under some storm of Snow Emergency, with the closest Level 2 being as near as Fayette. Travel should be near impossible by daybreak. And with single digit lows overnight? Unbearable.

I'll have a full writeup tomorrow and an update on our Snow Emergencies and local storm totals.

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1. PugetSoundPost 6:04 AM GMT on January 21, 2011
Your estimate was quite accurate! Stay warm! Sounds fun, from a distance anyway! Member Since: October 8, 2001 Posts: 155 Comments: 612

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