Thursday, March 6, 2008

UPDATED: (Monday 10th) - MAJOR STORM - ROCHESTER

ONE FOOT OF SNOW IS COMING TO ROCHESTER. It's 11:30 Thursday night. I have just listened to all 3 local weather reports on the news. This is a brief summery of them...

There is a winter storm watch in effect from Friday afternoon through Sunday morning. Approximately 12 inches of snow is coming to Rochester. We will also have some frozen precipitation in the form of sleet and freezing rain. The snow fall total is difficult to predict because the more frozen precipitation, the less snow we will get. They think about a foot. N.W. Monroe county by the lake should get more snow. This storm is similar to the one we got around Feb. 27. This will be a prolonged event Starting Friday into Sunday. Saturday will be the worst day. Actually there are two snow storms in this time period. I have post the links to all 3 local stations below, but as of now they have not updated to reflect the latest forecast.

Local Weather Links
WHAM 13 Weather
Rochester Homepage.Net News 8
News 10 WHEC

Saturday 11:30 P.M. Update-

If you can stay at home please do so, the roads are treacherous. The official Rochester snowfall as of 5:00 p.m. is 9.1 inches at the airport, 8 to 20 inches across the area. Plus sleet, and freezing rain which makes for slippery road conditions. Winds gusts of 30 to 40 mph.with whiteouts add to the problem. Dozens of accidents have been reported, including 2 teens from Henrietta that died in a weather-related car crash.

The weather caused several cancellations at Rochester airport. We have had scattered power outages. Many local events have been canceled due to the weather. And the storm is not over. We are in the beginning of the next phase, or some say the next storm.

Rochester, and surrounding areas have been hit by all kinds of precipitation- hail, freezing rain, sleet, snow, even thunder, and lightning in the gates area. It just depends what area you live in. We either got hail, or freezing rain here. I could hear it pounding rapidly against the window. There are many weather alerts out, and they are changing all the time. It's best to click the links above for the latest. The worst of the storm is this evening into Sunday morning. According to WROC ch. 8 on T.V. we should get 5 to 8 inches MORE of snow in the Rochester area, 8 to10 inches more near the lake. The storm should taper off tomorrow, but it will be colder. Due to the wind there will be white outs making driving tricky tomorrow. Use extra caution.

When it's all over snow fall totals are expected to be 12-18" in the Rochester area. 18-24 N.W. near the lake, and 8-12 towards the finger lakes. That's according to WHEC news 10. Wow!

SUNDAY UPDATE: 15.7 inches is the official storm snowfall total at the Rochester airport. (Wolcott 15", Hamlin 21", Gaines 24"). Yes, it's over for now, but they say that another storm is coming Friday. UG!

STORM AFTEREFFECTS:
~16,000 in central and eastern N.Y. still without power. "Power has been restored to some areas. The situation is still bad." "Warming centers" are open.

~ Winter weather clean-up begins.

~ Students at Rush-Henrietta deal with loss of two classmates. Their deaths are thought to be related to the storm.

~ Tow truck driver encountered "quite a few accidents", ..."very, very, busy non stop."

Personal note- I've been very fortunate this winter. I have only had one power outage, and that lasted only a few hours. You might wonder why I'm so interested in storms. On March 3-4, 1999, Rochester had a blizzard. We had 24.3" of snow within 24 hours. It was the second greatest snowfall here within 24-hour period. The blizzard was not forecast. I went to work, and was snowed in at work for 36 hours. The facility was good to us, but I much rather have been home. It was no picnic.

cartoon credit

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The more the weathermen are panicked, the less likely the storm will be major. That's the pattern I've noticed for many years. The actual storm's strength seems oddly inversely proportional to the intensity of the precursor coverage.

Awake In Rochester said...

Hi dcr,

They are not panicked this time. In fact they have been slow to predict the snow fall amounts. I was just updating this post. The 11:00 news on all 3 local stations are now predicting that we will get about a foot of snow, more or less.

I remember when I got caught at work for 36 hours because of a blizzard, so I take it seriously. Yes, the meteorologists could be wrong, and they have several times this winter. But I would rather err on the side of caution, then to get stuck at work for 36 hours again. That was not fun.

Awake In Rochester said...

dcr,

I bet that you don't have Google Reader. My reader has been down for several hours. UG! This is the second, or third time in 2 months. I wonder what reader you are using?

Anonymous said...

Given that every single storm prediction they have made this winter (without exception) has been WAYYYY less than what was predicted, I'm going ahead with my plans to plant a garden tomorrow! LOL!

If they're saying 9-18" that means we'll get about 3 inches. I'm not even gonna dust off the shovel.

Anonymous said...

Pssssst

What, exactly, did dcr say?

I only speak dumbass and need his comment translated for me! LOL!

Awake In Rochester said...

Hi Pat,

"I only speak dumbass". OMG, you got me laughing out loud!

I had to read it twice before I got it. I can translate it into Klingon, but not English.

Pat, your smart, funny, have a huge heart. Do you have an unattached lesbian sister about my age? Give or take 10 years.

I don't know if we will get 12" but we will get some significant snow fall. It's over a 3 day period, so won't be as bad as it sounds. However, looking out my window it is snowing hard.

Now wait a minute... How can you plant a garden tomorrow? An indoor garden I hope. I mean all the plants will die. right? What will you be planting?