There's some awesome blizzards going on in the US right now thanks to a powerful nor'easter with some just-below hurricane winds on the coast pushing up a modest storm surge on Long Island communities. With snow up to 36" in Boston (three feet!) and 24" in parts of New England and Conneticut, the pictures and video coming out are fantastic. Portland is currently reporting a historic record breaking 29". Kinda puts into perspective the risible bleating in Cardiff when a 5cm fall comes down.
The storm is called 'Nemo', which the Weather Centre assures America is named for its Latin connection and not for the top, lovable Pixar fish. It's all due to a big mass of moist air coming in from the Atlantic, one of those winter nor'easters that Hurricane Sandy was a super-charged hybrid of. This one is far less destructive in its wind and surge, but thanks to a mass of cold air coming from a high pressure front over Canada, all that moist air is getting converted into ridiculous amounts of snow, all set to fall in one monster blizzard. The storms are whipped up by a hell of a pressure bomb too, with the Canadian air mass of 1035mb plummeting down to 975mb.
I love snow, me. Might be a bit too much in this case though. Just two inches for my auntie and uncle in Pennsylvania though, phew. And once again the media will no doubt be congregated in New York reporting on how things ain't too bad, despite NY's only being predicted to get 6-12". Look to the rest of the East Coast for the incredible near-farcical depths of snow. Snow-plows are getting stuck and having to be rescued by other snow plows.
Go here for weather nerd action-action-action...
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html
Go on, kid. Go build a snowman.
Hartford, CT.
You can get an idea for the blizzard nature of snow-meets-windspeed here...
I shall leave you with this frankly must see video, a time lapse of the snowfall. It's crazy.
Crumbs!
