michsnowfreak

My phone woke me at 2am with the tornado warning alert. I ended up being up 2 hours. The storm was wicked but no tornado here. Possible one 3 miles north. Got 0.82" rain. Looks like quite a bit of damage noted in ann arbor, Dearborn, lincoln park. The constant lightning illuminated the black cloud overhead

Other than that one article that is shared over and over by the same people, we have no idea what went into measuring at every location pre-1950. I think actually 1948 is when the 6 hr started at airports. That is also when they started rounding up daily snow depth to nearest inch. I have done plenty of local research on past weather events and while human error was there in 1880 and is there in 2026, I am pretty confident in the snow record at Detroit (and most other 1st order stations) being quite accurate. Now, coops and NON first order, who knows and there are undoubtedly tons of error. Back in the 1800s and very early 1900s they would always say "10 inches of snow fell on the level" or something like that. They applied a 10-1 ratio usually. But it would make more sense to apply a 10-1 ratio to what you measured than to melt snow down for a liquid and apply the ratio to snow. Its a hell of a lot easier measuring snow than it is melting it down for liquid equivalent.

Again, to be clear, im only doubting super at this point. It would be unheard of so close. Definitely a nino is coming. Super would not be fun, but we always get winter in the great lakes. Thats a great thing about living here. You're rescued in the worst case scenarios. Our climate is less feast/famine. One thing that im liking is the persistent of the eastern trough in recent years.

Shortly after I posted that I discovered the dataset and I must say its very impressive to have an actual consistent record of snow/temp/precip pre-1870. I would kill to have that for my area. As for measuring snow...ive seen that link many times. I've also measured snow for 30 years. Pre-1950 we dont know how individual observers measured. Each station mightve had their own method. What i CAN tell you is that clearing at 6 hours mostly affects fluffy lake snow, double digit storms, or a very long duration snowfall. More run of the mill snowfalls without taint the effect is minimal.

Im anti hype. El nino coming nearly for sure. But to predict super so far out....totally skeptical.

Pre nino summers are often cooler than avg in the Great Lakes.

Id bet money its not a super nino. But yes, an El Nino is coming

1916-17, 1917-18, & 1919-20 were very cold winters and 1918-19 & 1920-21 very mild here. Of particular extreme was 1917-18 & 1918-19. The cold 1917-18 was extremely impressive and it likely ranks as one of the conus coldest winters on record (I concentrate on local & regional weather, not the entire conus, so idk the ranking). Then 1918-19 was a mild, snowless winter with a huge influenza pandemic. Newspapers at the time attributed the unusually warm winter weather to helping fuel "The Grippe".

I know you have a lot of pent up troll posting to do from us having a cold winter, but honestly this is a perfect example of why one year is never a perfect match. 1996-97 here had an average winter and a cold spring. 2025-26 had a cold winter and a so far warm spring.

Its funny youre being your usual smart ass self when I made one comment on an alleged newark dataset i didnt know existed and had never seen. Its funnier though that you always ridicule snow amounts from notorious low snow decades like the 1930s or 1950s when the weather bureau was well established and records detailed "there must be something wrong with how they measured". But a random snowy dataset with minimal info pops up from the 1850s and its gospel, no questions asked.

This winter was much colder in the Great Lakes than 1996-97.

I remember how they kept getting slammed in 2001-02. As warm as that winter was, we had a few food winter storms here. However, that winter was infamously nearly snowless in parts of the east coast.

I didnt say they lied. I was questioning the snowfall since NYC records began in 1869 and never averaged close to 40" (other then 2010s). However, I did not see this Newark list. When I clicked "Newark Area" it started in 1930. Usually "area" is the most comprehensive data set for an area. But in this case its not. Not sure where this old data suddenly came from, but I consider any old data pre-1870 to be fascinating because of it's rarity. Indeed that does avg low 40s. Very interesting and would wonder how accurate it is. Newark 1850-1870 average is near idential to present-day Detroit average snowfall, but Newark 1850-1870 DJF still averaged 2.2F warmer and over 4" wetter in winter than present-day Detroit. I wish we had those records for here (there are some sparse observations/journals, but not enough accuracy for a complete record).

Those were the nyc totals i posted btw, bc newark didnt start til the 1930s. I figured nyc was very close.

Im sure its random. After all, enso is just one piece of the puzzle. But the 1890-1957 timeframe still had plenty of up and down winters.