Winter Storm — Northern Grafton, New Hampshire

2022-12-16 to 2022-12-17 · Northern Grafton, New Hampshire

Event narrative

Light precipitation began early in the morning on the 16th, with snow in the higher elevations and a mix of rain and snow in the valleys. Steady moderate to occasionally heavy snow started relatively quickly after the onset, especially at higher elevations. Southeast flow upsloping into the White Mountains produced significantly more snowfall along the east facing slopes, while downsloping limited amounts near the Connecticut River. Precipitation tapered off during the morning of the 17th as upslope enhanced snow showers. Snowfall totals ranged from 10 inches near I-93 to as much as 30 inches in the White Mountains.

Wider weather episode

On December 16th low pressure develop near Chesapeake Bay and slowly moved northeastward along the coast to a position near Nantucket late in the day. Eventually low pressure moved into the Gulf of Maine on December 17th and continued towards Nova Scotia. Despite a climatologically favorable track for significant snowfall, the antecedent near surface air mass was marginal for snow south of the mountains. Temperatures aloft were cool and supportive of snow, but rain mixed in south of the foothills. There was a significant upslope and elevation component to snowfall totals when precipitation finally came to an end on the 17th. Due to the heavy wet snow, significant power outages occurred across parts of New Hampshire with 50,000 outages reported.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1065419. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.