Blizzardnado a Dud?

[Ben]

While it looks like Boston and some other areas got their share, NYC and many other places appear to have escaped the brunt of "the worst blizzard ever". A couple of lessons learned:

1) Bill Nye and other "OMG AGW climate change!" acolytes should probably have waited until today to determine if they should talk about OMG AGW, instead of spouting off yesterday.

2) CNN will (maybe) think twice before doing something like this again:

[Hawkmoon]

They were predicting up to 3 feet in NYC and they got ... 6 inches. Bunch of alarmists. The head of the regional National Weather Service office apologized for missing the prediction so badly.

http://connecticut.cbslocal.com/2015/01/27/storm-fails-to-live-up-to-predictions-in-some-areas/

It never ceases to amaze me. When I was a kid growing up in the shadow of NYC, the late night weather man on one of the three big networks was a guy named Tex Antoine. His schtick was that, while he gave his forecast, he was drawing a portrait of his "Uncle Weatherbee" character, appropriately attired for the next day's weather. This was in the 1950s, long before all the digital doppler radars and computer modeling and such. Ole' Tex was generally a lot more accurate than all of today's high tech "meteorologists."

[Ben]

I actually don't blame the meteorologists. It's weather after all, so the models aren't always going to predict correctly. Had it been the other way around, especially when taking into account just how little the average American prepares for anything, all of the MSM would have been filled with "We've got to do something (for the children)!" stories today.

It's the people that build it into more than it is (weather) that get my goat. Plus the "Blizzardmobile" was just silly.

[TommyGunn]

I guess the eastern parts like Rhode Island, Boston and such got the deep end of the storm while New York City was spared the big problem.  
All the hoopla about snow....
As a kid I used to live in Westport Ct, right on Long Island Sound in the western part of the state.  I recall some nasty snowstorms....kept us kiddies home from school, and we had grand fun sledding and building snowmen and all.   Two....three feet of snow was GREAT!  

[Fly320s]

I have about a foot of snow so far. It is still coming down, so we might get two feet out of it, but I don't think it is a big deal. The snow is so dry that it isn't sticking to power lines or trees, so the risk of widespread power outages is low.

[never_retreat]

Juno, the great flurry on 2015.

I'm not quite sure what we got I have not been outside yet.
But maybe 5 inches since Sunday night. No where near the 18-24".

[KD5NRH]

They were predicting up to 3 feet in NYC and they got ... 6 inches.

They were calling for a half inch here.  I think we got 20 minutes of light sleet in 35 degree weather, so nothing stuck anyway.  The ice on New Year's morning was a heck of a lot worse.  (And even that mostly melted off by afternoon...if I hadn't already been on the road with another storm system threatening from the west, I probably would have camped out somewhere and waited it out.)

[MechAg94]

Isn't 2 feet of snow just a normal day up in the Frozen Wastelands? 

You ought to see the terrified screams down here when there is a chance of freezing rain.  The news goes nut and sand gets dumped everywhere.

[castle key]

Weather predictions twelve hours out are questionable, but we must believe global warming predictions fifty years out...

[lupinus]

I'm from NJ, and spent several years in eastern PA.

2 feet doesn't any worse than I remember getting dumped on by a good snow storm here and there.

[Hawkmoon]

Isn't 2 feet of snow just a normal day up in the Frozen Wastelands? 

You ought to see the terrified screams down here when there is a chance of freezing rain.  The news goes nut and sand gets dumped everywhere.

Back in 1967, I was stationed at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. I grew up in New England back when we actually had winter in New England, with multiple storms of several inches every year. I still remember the day we had a half inch of snow at Edgewood, and they CLOSED THE ENTIRE POST and sent all the civilian workers home. What a joke that was. People in Maryland apparently had never seen snow, so trafic was crawing at a snail's pace ... when it was moving at all.

[Ben]

Weather predictions twelve hours out are questionable, but we must believe global warming predictions fifty years out...

Yup. In this case (and I am again not blaming the meteorologists, who seem to be profusely apologizing for no reason, AFAIAC) it appears the storm moved around 50 miles East of where predicted, which made the brunt of it miss NYC. Other areas still got (are getting) the predicted weather. As I heard someone say though, it doesn't matter if the rest of NY got ten feet - if it missed NYC, then "they" were wrong, because NYC is all that counts.

[Scout26]

I was so hoping for a "Wrath of G-d" type snowstorm on NYC.

Does that make me a bad person?

[never_retreat]

I was so hoping for a "Wrath of G-d" type snowstorm on NYC.

Does that make me a bad person?

Not at all.

It cleans the jean pool.

[Ben]

Not at all.

It cleans the skinny jean pool.

FTFY. 

[Perd Hapley]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nyc-mayor-reconcile-yourselves-with-your-god-for-a,37850/

[RoadKingLarry]

We were in the low 70s here today. I grilled steak for supper.

[230RN]

Weather predictions twelve hours out are questionable, but we must believe global warming predictions fifty years out...

Smartass.

Ben reported,

As I heard someone say though, it doesn't matter if the rest of NY got ten feet - if it missed NYC, then "they" were wrong, because NYC is all that counts.

S/He's a smartass, too.

[Sergeant Bob]

We were in the low 70s here today. I grilled steak for supper.

I really hate you! 

[rcnixon]

That's why they are called "weather guessers".

Russ

[French G.]

The problem is that many of the preparations were made in a reasonable manner. If things had sounded a little less Chicken Little from DeBlasio that would be nice.  Now we get to wait for what happened with hurricane Sandy. The hurricane a year earlier was heavily hyped and a dud. So when Sandy hit many people had discounted the dire warnings.

[230RN]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nyc-mayor-reconcile-yourselves-with-your-god-for-a,37850/

The Onion.... what can I say besides  .

[Firethorn]

Back in 1967, I was stationed at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. I grew up in New England back when we actually had winter in New England, with multiple storms of several inches every year. I still remember the day we had a half inch of snow at Edgewood, and they CLOSED THE ENTIRE POST and sent all the civilian workers home. What a joke that was. People in Maryland apparently had never seen snow, so trafic was crawing at a snail's pace ... when it was moving at all.

When it snowed 'down south', my mother, who grew up in the Adirondack mountains, would call work up and tell them "I'll be in once the idiots are off the roads".  It wasn't worth it to deal with the others.

She was incredibly pissed one year in Nebraska when I was a kid and we had heavy Ice - they didn't close the schools, so had several injuries from kids trying to get to school in slick conditions.  Then in the face of improving conditions(IE it gets better the longer you wait), they cancel school early and send the kids home.  I fell down about a dozen times that day, none injuring(I knew how to fall).

[RoadKingLarry]

January 2011. The storm that brought us this was initially forecast for "a couple of inches". They did revise it upwards some before it hit.