With every Winter storm, I like to do something that very few people do. I like to put all the observed snow fall totals and overlay them on my last published snow map and be fully transparent on how well or how bad my snow map actually did.
January 6th - 7th Verification Map
Below is my verification map, I used all the posted snow totals that were submitted to the National Weather Service and overlaid them on my snow map. I used two color schemes, green snow flake was within the range I projected for that region. Red snow flake was out of the projected range for that region. If you have issues seeing the map, please click here.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
This system, as with every Winter storm we encounter here in New Jersey, has a very step gradient between snow totals. From the start, I-95 corridor was going to be a battle ground, at least that's what I was thinking when I was making this map. I knew South of I-95 was going to be mainly rain with no accumulations and North of I-95 was going to be a battle ground of snow, sleet, and rain. It seems the true battle ground was way more North between I-78 and I-80. I thought maybe with the storm strengthening off the coast, it would pull down cooler air to the Northwest and we would get some frontogenesis, creating nice banding over Northern sections. However, the strengthening and cooler air never really paned out in time for Northern NJ and I believe I had the speed of the storm slower than what actually occurred. All of this contributed to sections in the 8-12" range (especially in the Northeast section) to bust on the lower end while extreme NW NJ was able to stay within range.
The Northeast side of this forecast busted high for the most part and the Northwest side generally stayed within forecast projections. Overall, it was an 'OK' forecast for this system. I will use everything that happened with this system and use it for tools for our future snow makers.
January 6th - 7th Forecast Grade
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What is Next?
We are getting ready for our next system, that looks to bring flooding rains, coastal erosion, and damaging winds that will be occurring early this week. To find out more, be sure to read our latest article, here
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