Snow totals for Washington DC storm

RFK, Jr. 15 months ago: Global warming means no snow or cold in DC!
By: David Freddoso
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/RFK-79834057.html

O/T
@chris H (21:40:00) :
Thanks for the link to the Daily Mail story on the Met Office – I’m not a great conspiracy fan but this article clearly suggests that multiple government agencies colluded together, along with CRU, to prevent disclosure of embarrassing and, by any standards, important information. Whether it’s against any FOI law, I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer and no doubt that struggle will come next, perhaps with the Info Commissioner raising his hands in horror and saying there’s sadly nothing can be done about it (again). What it does show is how deeply embedded and ingrained the AGW myth is throughout our society. Getting the stain out is going to need an awful lot of thorough washing.
Orig linK
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249035/How-Met-Office-blocked-questions-mans-role-hockey-stick-climate-row.html

P Wilson (06:23:40) :
The pseudo religion has hedged it regardless of what happens. If its colder than average they blame Anthropogenic global warming. If its warmer than average they say it Anthropogenic global warming.
Which is why it is very important not to lose sight of the many changes they have made to their PR campaign.
For the longest time, they exclusively proclaimed AGW with forecast barbecue summers/droughts, disappearing snows/glaciers/Polar Ice, catastrophic Hurricanes and deadly rising sea levels.
The last few years, when it became painfully clear what was going on (and I assume that is what the Phil Jones erasure emails are chiefly about) the message changes to “Climate Change”. From Climate Change the newer spin of “Global Warming causes Global Cooling”.
The latest concoction is an absurdity by nature. It is deeply insulting to the commoner, to the point of boiling rage. A marketing failure no doubt spun by desperation. It worked at first, but then the damage started to roll in.
To make it work, one has to prop up ‘Xth warmest month” statements with maps that depict areas that have been modified into climate cooking insanity.
Running out of land masses to manipulate (news travelling by internet) we are down to the oceans. That game will not go on forever. Someone will find a way to debunk it, and that will throw the final shovel of dirt into the face of AGW and it’s proponents.
Cavalier & flippant quips about “Snowmageddon” will not let the deceptive out of the corner they have typecast themselves into.

RFK Jr. lamented the lack of snow in Virgina last year, and blamed it on Sarah Palin.
http://www.robertfkennedyjr.com/articles/2008_sep_Los_angeles_times.html

“barbarausa (07:32:08) :
See that VA county west of DC and just east of the tip of the WVA panhandle?
That one with all the little red thirty-somethings overlapping?
No wonder my neighbors and I are so sore today! lolol”
Loudoun County? I’m there as well. And yes, I am quite sore.
By the way, that 17.8″ at DCA (Reagan National) is creating an angry little stir in the local weather community. Most other area reports measured at least 20″, but, of course, DCA is the *official* site, and they measure markedly less snow. Hmmm….

“My wife’s father, an old tough mountaineer used to all kinds of weather, is complaining from Central Siberia (Krasnoyarsk): while rather extremely low temperatures are not a novelty there, this winter is exceptional in that the temperatures in Krasnoyarsk are constantly below -30 deg. C, mostly about -36, and often going down to -40. This is no joke: I remember going to school while it was -40 deg. C. You spit, it hits the ground as ice!”
Mr Feht: I was in Winnipeg recently at -40C and spit does not freeze in the air before it hits the ground , it is I’ll grant, rather chilly, and if you have too much water in your whiskey it can even turn to slush while you smoke your cigarette outside. Irritating, but easy to cure with a little more warm whiskey, or going indoors.
And -40C, especially with windchill on top does result in schools being closed for cold days ( a concept akin to snow days) there, and just like snow days the kids rush out to play. (in their spacesuits, I presume.)

When snow hits 30 inches on a roof, it’s time to consider using manpower to clean some of it off.
Consider a 40″ snow accumulation, which should have 4 inches of contained water. A 1600 sq ft home will have a roof (with eves) of about 1800 sq ft. With water weighing 62.4 lbs/cf, 4 inches of water would apply a weigh of ~20 lb/sq ft. 1800 * 20 / 2000 = 18 short tons of water. That’s almost what a loaded semi truck carries and now that’s perched on your roof!
I doubt it will cause the roof to collapse–generally what happens is stress cracks form in plaster and paint which never go away. But you just never know, considering what structural imperfections were there to begin with, and what has happened since.
Just be dadgum careful up on the roof while clearing it!

*******
BarryW (07:07:06) :
Here’s a new controversy for you. It seems that there are two snow totals for BWI airport 24 and 28 inches. Why? There’s more than one way to measure: at the end of the storm or hourly (and other periods).
*******
As you say, there are different ways to measure. One way & prb’ly the most consistent way is simply take a number of depth measurements in open areas after the snow stops, and avg them. I think this is the “official” number.
Another way is to accumulate snow in a rain gauge (typically 6″). When it fills, replace it w/an empty rain gauge, continuing until the snow stops. There prb’ly won’t be any melting at ground level this way, and no compaction at the bottom as in a ground-depth measurement, so this method will give higher amounts.
Even another way is to measure on an open, insulated cold surface like a roof or car. Again, this will give somewhat higher amounts.
My 35″ was measured on my roof. The ground depth is somewhat less, around 32″, so some melting/compaction occurred on the ground.
Funny about the above contour maps David Hyde posted — look at the hot air in downtown DC melting some of the snow.

The controversy with the BWI measurement is that some contractor screwed up the measurements and didn’t empty the snowboard every 6 hours (sorry, I can’t remember where I read that). The new total is a reconstruction taking into account compression of the snow under its own wieght and what not. It would be nice if they publish the method. However, the surrounding stations have markedly more snow. Nobody believes the BWI result. Our neighborhood got over 2′.
Compared to the 2003 blizzard, this one is not as bad, because, we already had snow on the ground before the 2003 one struck. What gets interesting is that we may get another foot of snow on Wednesday. Just this morning, one of our local weathermen, Justin Berk, refused to say on-air what he thinks the snow total will be from the coming storm. But from the diagrams & models (including the UK MET model), we should be getting a bunch more.
Downtown Baltimore main roads are passable but not great. Many restaurants and supermarkets are open. The Eddie’s supermarket stayed open during the 2003 blizzard with no resupply for 3 days. The downtown Superfresh was also open. I had a beer & dinner at the Brewer’s Art last night during my bike ride. Special props to Potbelly’s downtown for staying open during the entire event. They didn’t even change the store hours. We’ve had massive tree damage but only one building collapse has been reported. BGE (Baltimore Gas & Electric) only has 15k customers without power as of 9 hours ago. That’s not bad.
The real story is that we are going to smash the previous record for snow during a single season. The Wednesday storm, if it drops more than 4″, will put us over the top.

The negative AO has the flip-side effect of course of keeping temperatures warmer near the polar region as the cold air streams down and warm air is brought up on the backside, and with this action we could continue to see record warmth over the N. polar regions as we saw during the December negative AO event. The record tropospheric global warmth could indeed take a pause due to the negative AO event, but more likely, will only flatten, as global tropospheric warmth measures the total energy in the troposphere, the negative AO simply mixes the cold air futher south, but does not decrease the total tropospheric energy.

Things are about to get A LOT worse.
The new operational computer model guidance is showing ANOTHER
10 to 20 inches of snow, blizzard conditions, and EXTREME cold for
Washington/Baltimore this week.
Nature wins(again).