Yet Another Snowfall Disappointment

   In a winter full of disappointment for snow in New Jersey and Philadelphia, we have yet another bust for snow, or at least as much of a bust as you can have when there was so much uncertainty.  Contrary to the models and what was expected, the storm and main bulk of precipitation stayed south and moved east, rather than northeast.  This meant that a constant onshore, warm flow kept any precipitation as rain until late last night when the storm finally moved northeastward and rain showers changed to snow showers.  By the time this happened, it was too late for any snow accumulations, and we woke up to some snow showers and flurries scattered around our area.

  

   I believe that Cecily Tynan, of 6 ABC, summed up the thoughts of all meteorologists yesterday in her Facebook post about frustrations with forecasting this storm:

"Ok, I am waving the white flag & throwing out any snow maps completely! The track of this storm (more south and moving east , not northeast) is a RAIN and WIND storm, not a snowstorm. It is not out of the question that a few areas could see a BRIEF changeover to snow, but we are quickly running out of time for this to happen. Man, this has been a headache of a storm since last week! Bring on spring. I am done with this frustrating winter!"

   If you want to see how tough it was to forecast this storm and visualize the uncertainty among news stations in the northeast, here is a photo that somebody posted of snow total maps on the Rutgers Meteorology Facebook group...

   Although snowfall totals busted, the other aspects of this storm that were forecasted came to fruition.  Coastal flooding was a big problem along the shore points of NJ, especially from pictures I saw of Wildwood and many other photos that I saw of the ocean making its way up toward the boardwalks of several towns.  Furthermore, winds were also a huge issue all across our area, with the most impressive wind gusts naturally coming from the coast.  Here are some of the highest wind gusts recorded during the storm:

Harvey Cedars-64mph

Sea Girt-61mph

Atlantic City Marina-60mph

West Cape May-56mph

Philadelphia-46mph

Flooding Pictures from the "Jersey Shore Hurricane News" Facebook page:

Long Beach Island

Cape May County

Ocean City

North Wildwood

   The system will still affect our area today and into tomorrow, as some bands wrap around the low off the coast, bringing some snow and rain showers throughout the day and overnight tonight.  Any accumulations would be very light, the best chance for seeing snow on the ground in anyway would be as you head north in New Jersey.  The good news, though, is that this weekend is going to be beautiful with plenty of sunshine and highs in the upper 50's!