Heavy snow, rain, and flooding for the Northeast U.S.

The winter of 2009-2010 continues its relentless onslaught over the U.S. today, as a powerful low pressure system intensifying along the East Coast brings heavy snow, flooding rains, and high winds to New England and the Mid-Atlantic. The storm has already dropped more than two feet of snow over Eastern New York near Albany, and surrounding regions of Western Massachusetts and Southern Vermont. These regions are now seeing rain mixed in with the snow, which will limit further accumulations to 1 - 3 inches. Farther east, flooding is a concern for most of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, southern New Hampshire, and portions of western Maine, where heavy rainfall of 1 - 3 inches on top of a snow pack with a high water content has created runoff that has already swollen many rivers to flood stage. Heavy snow is the main concern over southeast New York, northern New Jersey, and northeast Pennsylvania. The unusually slow-moving storm is expected to drop snow amounts of up to 18" in the Pocono Mountains of northeast Pennsylvania, and in northern New Jersey. New York City, whose 30.5" of snow so far this winter is 13" above average for this date, could get up to a foot of wet, heavy snow. Philadelphia's 73" of snow for the season will get an 8 - 12" boost from the storm, taking their record snowiest winter even further into record territory. Wind gusts of 30 - 40 mph in combination with the very wet, heavy snow will make power outages a problem over much of the region.


Figure 1. Visible satellite image at 9:30am EST Thursday, February 25, 2010 showing today's Northeast U.S. snowstorm. Image credit: NASA GSFC GOES project.

Some selected storm-total snowfall amounts, from Tuesday morning through 10am EST today, courtesy of the National Weather Service:

...CONNECTICUT...
BURLINGTON 10.0
NEW HARTFORD 3.8 W 9.0

...KENTUCKY...
OVEN FORK 1 NE 5.0
BLEDSOE 2 SE 4.0

...MASSACHUSETTS...
SAVOY 28.5
ROWE 25.0
CHESTERFIELD 24.0
ASHFIELD 23.6
HEATH 22.0
SHELBURNE 22.0
PLAINFIELD 21.5
PITTSFIELD 20.0
BECKET 19.8
CHESTER 19.5
BLANDFORD 19.0
ASHBURNHAM 16.8
LANESBOROUGH 16.0
NORTH OTIS 16.0
NEW ASHFORD 13.0
WORCESTER 10.7

...NEW HAMPSHIRE...
EAST LEMPSTER 20.0
WASHINGTON 18.5
PETERBOROUGH 18.0
RANDOLF 17.6
GREENFIELD 16.0
NEWPORT 15.3
WILTON 14.0
BENNINGTON 13.0
WAPOLE 12.9
WEST CHESTERFIELD 10.8
LEMPSTER 10.0

...NEW YORK...
ALTAMONT 26.5
WESTERLO 26.0
WILLARD MTN BASE 25.0
NORTH HEBRON 24.0
MEDUSA 23.0
MORIAH 22.5
TABORTON 22.0
DURHAM 20.0
PORTER CORNERS 20.0
ROXBURY 18.9
PHOENICIA 18.5
CHATHAM CENTER 18.0
SCHENECTADY 15.0
ALBANY 12.4
BINGHAMTON 10.5

...OHIO...
CARROLOTON 5.5

...PENNSYLVANIA...
PONOCO PEAK LAKE 13.0
HAWLEY 3.8 NE 11.0
WANTAGE 11.0
PLEASANT MOUNT 10.0
DINGMANS FERRY 3.9 WSW 9.2
MILANVILLE 1.5 SE 8.9
SAYLORSBURG 8.5
BEEMERVILLE 8.0
EAST STROUDSBURG 8.0
THOMPSON 8.0

...RHODE ISLAND...
BURRILLVILLE 6.5
WEST GLOCESTER 5.1
WOONSOCKET 0.3 W 3.4

...TENNESSEE...
APPALACHIA 3.0
ROAN MOUNTAIN 3.0

Update on this Saturday's major winter storm in Europe
Computer forecast models continue to forecast the development of a powerful winter storm that will rapidly intensify Saturday morning into a meteorological "bomb" that will bring high winds and flooding rains to Portugal, northern Spain, and possibly France. However, today's model runs are less aggressive in deepening the storm, and no longer call for the storm to be as intense as last year's Winter Storm Klaus. Klaus, which hit northern Spain and southwest France January 23 - 25, was Earth's most costly natural disaster of 2009, causing $5.1 billion in damage and killing 26. Klaus peaked in intensity at 967 mb, and brought wind gusts of 120 mph (193 km/hr) to Formiguères, France, 125 mph (200 km/hr) to Portbou, Spain, and 134 mph (216 km/hr) to Port d'Envalira, Andorra. Last night's 00Z (7pm EST) run of the ECMWF model and GFS model called for Saturday's storm to have 974 - 976 mb central pressure. Saturday's storm still has the potential to be plenty damaging, as winds of tropical storm force with gusts to hurricane force should affect a large swath of Portugal and northern Spain.


Figure 2. Forecast from the 1am EST 2/25/10 run of the GFS model for 18 GMT Saturday for surface winds. The GFS is predicting that Saturday's storm will peak in intensity at this time with a pressure of 974 mb. Sustained winds just below hurricane force of 60 - 75 mph (green colors) are expected offshore from Portugal. Image was generated using our wundermap for Spain with the "model" layer turned on.

Next post
My next post will be Friday.

Jeff Masters