LibertyBell

wow -2 in February 2016 is exceptional, none of the city reporting stations were below 0 besides Central Park. Wait, was it in January 2016 or February 2016 when NYC went down to -1?

It's absolutely amazing that Montauk surrounded by water on 3 sides made it to 0 and none of the city stations did-- how often does Montauk make it to zero or below, Chris? From what I remember it's very rare for Montauk to get to either 0 or 100.

It's interesting that we had some historically cold months in the 00s (January 2004) and the 10s (February 2015) and yet we never got to below zero in those months like it was seemingly so easy to do in the mid 70s through the mid 80s. And it took a very strong el nino to do it in February 2016-- the one enso state that could not do it in the early 80s lol. Nature has a sense of humor!

January 1976 too?? Wow that wasn't even a cold winter.

Team Dominator ??

a second peak in fall too. I think they're more likely in la ninas.

Long Island had 8 tornadoes in one day, in November lol.

wow we had two out of three years of near 0 or below 0 temperatures..... will that ever happen again? January 1982, January 1984 and January 1985 NYC and JFK went below zero in two out of those three? (January 1982 and January 1985)? Actually when you think about it, it was three out of four winter seasons when we went below zero because it also happened on Christmas morning in 1980! So we were at or below zero in 1980-81, 1981-82, 1983-84 and 1984-85. The only winter in that stretch it didn't happen was in 1982-83 and that's because it was a very strong el nino (and the snowiest one in that stretch)..... ironic because the last time we went below zero, 2015-16 was also a very strong el nino.

They even admitted that overgrowth not being cleared after their last bout with excessive rainfall was a problem. Big picture here, if we don't fix the problem, nature will. The whole purpose of wildfires is to clear excessive growth. So either we do it, or nature will.

Overgrowth is a problem that experts all over the country admit to though, even the ones in California. They even publicly cited the boom in rainfall from a few years ago as a reason for massive overgrowth and the excessive wildfires back in January. They said because of the extremes of the pattern we are now in (excessive rainfall followed by extreme drought) big wildfires are now much more likely and are a year long threat not confined to one season. They also said that when California swings back to an excessive rainfall pattern there will be a threat of mudslides and landslides because of the burn scars.

wow thanks this is excellent data, I've been looking to compile a list of April snowstorms myself and I think you captured all of them, the only one I can think of that isn't in this list was a small event that occurred in April 1990, was that under 1 inch? edit-- Larry I think you missed April 1983 at JFK, it was JFK'S latest accumulating snowfall on record, they had 1.5" also looks like April snowstorms were much more common in the past.... during the 1910s we had them 3 consecutive years!

Funny how in dry years like 2002 we didn't have fires and now for some reason we do. Like I have said before, we have had overgrowth because of many years of too much rain, that growth needs to be cut off and removed.

I thought you were the one who said that years ago.... it was you or Will, I can't remember who.

But in late February 2008 we had a rare SWFE that worked out for us 6" of snow. Nothing like that this winter.

it's hard for ASOS thermometers to be wrong, unless it's a siting issue. Their temperatures (winter and summer) are very similar to mine, if anything it's a little warmer here in the summer especially.

that -13 in the 1980s is absolutely wild..... January 1985?

hell no, none of that dank 40s crap here, I'm hopeful of the westerly flow continuing....

you have a local downslope too!

It's interesting how 1995-96 is both our most snowiest and least windiest winter on record too!!

Yes this is what I wrote too, it's why 2010 had a hotter summer at JFK than at Central Park, there was consistent downslope. We need a dry downsloping wind to have a very hot summer here with many 90 degree temps (over 30) and even 100+ degrees. Which is why I think this summer will be hotter than the last few have been here. I didn't know about the highest average gusts wow. I hope those offshore wind farms are operational now to take advantage of all this wind power!

The funny thing about 1896 is that it had an extremely snowy back end of winter and holds the record for snowiest March on record with over 30 inches of snow (and that was the snowiest month on record and the only month with 30 inches or more of snow at NYC until February 2010 (36.0) and then January 2011 (36.9)

you can use a variety of metrics like number of cold (below 32 degree highs). The predominantly westerly wind is the reason, it's a downsloping wind so it's warmer here (we see this in the summer too when a westerly wind makes JFK hotter than the park.) Also, we haven't had any lows in the single digits or lower-- this is an important component of our colder winters.

Hey did you read about that super heat wave back in 1896? I was genuinely shocked to read about it, 1,500+ people died it was over 90 for highs every night and 72 or higher every night for lows both for 10 days consecutively including three days in a low of lows in the 80s. That must have been hell to live through before we even had electricity. I don't think just looking at averages is good enough either, we probably need something that combines both. That site I mentioned actually has a great way of doing it that measures both. This addresses some of your points and still preserves my memory of the summers I consider the hottest. There's a chart on this page too. The reason why concentration of 90 degree days addresses your point better, I think, is because if you have many days in a row at or above 90 this usually means that the lows are higher than 70 too (see 1896 as the first example of this.) https://thestarryeye.typepad.com/weather/2013/07/how-hot-is-hot-concentration-of-90-degree-days.html Looking at the number of 90-degree days as the sole criterion for gauging how hot a summer has been is a fairly standard measure, but it can be misleading. For instance, it doesn't take into account the fact that in some years 90-degree days are spread over considerably more weeks than other years. That is the subject of this analysis. For my purposes I'll be referring to the period between a year's first and last 90-degree day as the "window". New York's typical 90-degree window (based on 1980-2020) is a few days shy of 13 weeks, starting in late May and continuing thru late August. During this window, one in five days, on average, will see a high in the 90s or triple digits. Looking at records dating back to 1872, the most 90-degree days in a year has been 39 - and it happened twice - in 1991 and 1993. However, while 1991's occurred over a lengthy span of 23 weeks, 1993's were more concentrated, occurring over five fewer weeks. 1991's hot days, in other words, were more "diluted". While 1991 experienced 90-degree temperatures during 24% of its "window", 1993's corresponding figure was 31%. Yet, neither of these hot summers come close to 1999. Although that year had ten fewer 90-degree days, they were concentrated in a sixty-day window. That means that close to half of the days during its 90-degree window were in the 90s. And 1988 wasn't far behind, with 33 90-degree days over 77 days (43% concentration). Four other years with a considerable number of 90-degree days (24 or more) also had a higher concentration of 90-degree temperatures than either 1991 or 1993. So, you be the judge over which summer was hotter.

I was wondering where all this excitement about a March snowstorm came from. Maybe it's just his subscribers lol.

Isn't an early April snowstorm indicative of an el nino the following winter? April 1982 and April 1997 are examples.