Greenland precipitation variability has important consequences for ice sheet mass balance and freshwater discharge. Winter 2002/2003 precipitation over southeastern Greenland was abnormally large and contributed to large melting in the southwestern precipitation shadow, where little seasonal snow accumulated to insulate glacial ice from summer melting. Much of the abnormally large accumulation arrived in distinct episodes, analyzed in terms of spatial structure and temporal development with Polar MM5 regional climate model simulations and observational data from automatic weather stations and coastal station data. Observations show abnormally large snow accumulation in the southeast and large summer melting in the southwest. Model simulations are tested using the in situ observations.