And the snows came down

We're currently in the waning hours of what will probably turn out to be the heaviest snow event of 2010-2011. A compact upper-low closed off directly over the mid-Atlantic this afternoon, triggering a small but intense region of precipitation that arrived in Annapolis about 3:30 p.m., changed to snow about 5:30 p.m., and has been snowing heavily since. I haven't measured my snow board, but I expect we have 3-4" on the ground now.

In addition to the snows, we've been treated to a rarity: thundersnow! I was outside shoveling the driveway about 7:15 and saw/heard 3 different flashes/claps of thunder, and then later about 8:15 saw another flash through the window. The only other time I've been in TSSN (to my memory) was in Chapel Hill in late January 2000, riding around (joy riding?) with Adam Cline about 10 p.m. at night- the snow was pummeling down, and we ended up with 20" in ~ 18 hours.

Here's the current radar image: notice the banded nature of the precipitation... that region is moving east/northeast and should be through our area by 11 p.m. (in the interim, we could get 2" more snow).