January 4, 2018 “The Big Bomb”

“Holy S@&@, it’s snowing hard out!”

That’s how my wife woke me up at 4:45 in the AM three years ago today on Jan 4, 2018. It snowed hard and even harder for the next 12 hours, dropping up to 18” over the entire Shore and LI before finally petering out around 7 pm. A true daytime blizzard!!! This was the strange storm which saw the low form basically in the straights of Florida and just STREAK straight up the coast until it bombed out to a record degree as it approached Beantown and the Cape.

This was a rare mega jackpot hit for the S and E folks on the board, but still delivered 6“+ to most of the coverage area and I believe the Godzilla banner was in fact hoisted as many board members ended up sharing in the riches.

This storm also served as the capstone of one of the coldest periods in recent memory. From at least Dec 26 ‘17- Jan 6 ‘18, the temps never cracked the freezing mark (I was shocked when Math mentioned in the zoom chat that some of you were sub-freezing for even longer than that. I can’t even imagine!!). This period was well advertised in advance as a very high potential period, and as I recall this was the only real system that emerged from the cold, which did disappoint the more N and esp the more W members on the board. It was a killer of an East-west gradient on that storm, and a lot of usually reliable areas came up short. Of course, most of those areas still had snowpack from Stella the previous March, but still, that was a tough one to miss out on for sure!

I know better than to try to chase the memory of that storm. Ha ha! I suspect I’ll see another quite memorable storm sooner than later, but I love to remember this storm for how absolutely perfect the Shore dynamics came together to deliver a real treasure trove of nature’s precious bounty: White Gold!! I’m not expecting a repeat of that anytime soon, but I do like the fact that I was acutely aware of how perfect the dynamics were as they unfolded, thanks entirely to you folk, of course!!

Thanks for joining me on my stroll down memory lane!!

Almost forgot about this one. I remember the models being wildly unpredictable in the days leading up to it which was very frustrating. I also remember that while I was somewhat disappointed that people just 35 miles south and east of me were getting over a foot of snow I was getting a few inches -- yet happy because I was getting a few inches when people to my west were getting flurries.

Wow great story! Thanks for sharing

I remember this one because I was traveling back from Hawaii and got stuck in Detroit for 2 days with no luggage.  It took 4 weeks to get it back. I remember I was so pissed when we landed in California at like 7am to find my flight into NY wasn't canceled.  I asked the stewardess how can we be taking off do you not see the radar?  LOL  I was like Ive been following this for days and there is no way we are landing there.  

If we didnt leave Cali I could have stayed at my inlaws place until flights home were ready.  No instead we got diverted to Detroit along with 3000 other flights supposed to land in the NE; as a result I had the luxury of going from a 5 star resort in Hawaii to a zero star Detroit airport motel with no heat in the hallways (it was -10* outside) and a broken heater stuck in the on position in my room so it was like 85* in my room, and no luggage all the while traveling with my wife and two at the time 7 and 8 yr old kids.  All other sleeping accommodations were full because all 3000 other flights also diverted to Detroit.  I left my kids at the motel and headed back up to the airport to try and pull our luggage so that we could at least get our coats since they were packed away in the checked luggage.  After waiting an additional 4 hrs in a lon airport line after traveling for almost 24hrs with no sleep they told me my luggage was lost and hopefully it would show up in NY eventually.  

We put in a claim for our 4 checked bags and slowly 1 piece at a time the airline delivered our luggage to my house, amazingly without anything stolen.  They started trickling in at the 2 week mark and I got the last piece a month after I arrived home.  

At first I was wondering why I couldn't remember this storm.  And I realized it was because I didnt get to experience any of it in person.  By the time I got home I was so done it might as well never happened.  There were so many other nuances about this traveling story that I wish I could share but I do not have the time.  

Ok one more that cracks me up every time I think of it.  At the time my son was only 8.  We literally just spent almost 2 weeks in Hawaii staying at my father in laws 5 star time share on the big Island.  When we arrived at the airport motel my son refused to shower in the bathroom because it was "too gross.  I want to go back to Hawaii dad."  LOL   Me too buddy, but beggars cant be choosers right now.  Get in the shower and get to sleep.  In his defense it had a dark ring around inside of the bath tub but at 8 he expects the finer things in life.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

SROC, I did remember that and truthfully imo it is full on part of the storm’s lore, but I respectfully omitted that fact from my recap- didn’t want to rub salt in any bad memories. Lol.