LibertyBell

2022-23 was the least snowiest winter here, so we beat you by one year haha. seriously this decade has been the least snowiest one so far.

1954 - Florida received its greatest modern-day snowfall of record, with 4.0 inches at the Milton Experimental Station. Pensacola FL equalled their 24-hour record with 2.1 inches of snow. (The Weather Channel) well I guess that 1954 record has been broken lol-- funny that it was originally set in March! and thanks for a fitting memorium for the March 1962 noreaster! 1962: The strongest nor'easter of this century struck the Mid-Atlantic Region on March 5-9, 1962. It is known as the "Ash Wednesday Storm" and caused over $200 million (1962 dollars) in property damage and significant coastal erosion from North Carolina to Long Island, New York. It was estimated to have destroyed or significantly damaged 45,000 homes in New Jersey alone. The Red Cross recorded that the storm killed 40 people. It hit during "Spring Tide." When the sun and moon are in phase, they produce a higher-than-average astronomical tide. Water reached nine feet at Norfolk (flooding begins around five feet). Houses were toppled into the ocean, and boardwalks were broken and twisted. The islands of Chincoteague and Assateague, Maryland, were completely underwater. Ocean City, Maryland, sustained significant damage, mainly to the island's south end. Winds up to 70 mph built 40-foot waves at sea. Heavy snow fell in the Appalachian Mountains. Big Meadows, southeast of Luray, recorded Virginia's greatest 24-hour snowfall with 33 inches and the most significant single storm snowfall with 42 inches. (Luray, Virginia reported 33.5 inches on March 2-3, 1994, making this later snow their maximum 24-hour snowfall total.) Roads were blocked, and electrical service was out for several days. Washington and Baltimore fell into the mixed precipitation zone. The Ash Wednesday storm is noteworthy for producing devastating tidal flooding along the Atlantic Coast and record snows and the interior of Virginia. The extremely high tides and massive waves caused tremendous damage -worst than many hurricanes that have hit the region. Along the Atlantic Coast, tide ran for 2 to 6 ft above average with 20 to 40 ft waves crashing ashore. National Airport received only 4 inches of snow with a liquid equivalent of 1.33 inches. However, close-in suburbs, such as Silver Spring, Maryland, and Falls Church, Virginia, received 11 inches of snow. Outlying areas such as Rockville, Maryland, received 19 inches of snow, and Leesburg, Virginia, received 20 inches of snow. Other snow totals included 15 inches at Richmond; 23 inches at Culpeper; 26 inches at Charlottesville; 32 inches at Winchester; and 35 inches at Fort Royal, Virginia, and Big Meadows on the Skyline Drive top the list with 42 inches of snow.

1872 - A cold wave hit the East coast sending the mercury plunging to 8 degrees below zero at Boston. It was the most severe March cold wave in modern history. (David Ludlum) wild, did it get near 0 at NYC too, Tony?

this winter actually had some things in common with both 1962-63 and 1967-68, namely less than 20 inches of snow in winters with below 32 degree average temperature.

I loved that heatwave in April 2002, some of the bluest skies I have ever seen as well as the summer that followed. And then our last beginning to end snowy winter in 2002-03. March 1998 was extreme like March 1990 was, but in the reverse direction, we went from mid to upper 80s in the middle of March to a small snow event (up to 1") in early April 1990.

2017-2018 was a wild but fun snow season. We had the cold blizzard in the first week of January on the anniversary of January 1996 centered around 2 weeks of very cold weather and a mild February (but it still snowed for Valentines Day) and then 4 snow storms in March and then the one in April that snowed out the Yankees home opener. I love those April snowstorms, because you enjoy them more knowing they are the last one for the season.

wow 1931-32 also sounds like 1997-98 and 2001-02 here. 1997-98 in particular had only 0.5 inch of snow (HALF AN INCH) through the vernal equinox and then we got a too little too late surprise wet snowstorm that dropped 5 inches after spring had already started that melted in 2 hours lol 1966-67 was similar here, it had one of our all time best Christmas Eve snowstorms with around 8 inches and then a big thaw in January but a major return to winter for February and March with over 2 feet of snow in each of those months including our latest single digit temperature on record near the first day of astronomical spring (and below 0 on Long Island).

wow you have a crazy amount of growth for such a cold location!

Are you sure this is AI writing all this? Sometimes it almost seems like a person wrote it and saved it into Grok.... and yeah I have a tough time believing AI would use colloquial phrases like this

AI is scary. The logic is sound: peak summer temperatures matter more for ice melt than annual averages, and orbital forcing excels at spiking those peaks. This is something I've thought for a long time and see it with our NYC temperatures here, high temperatures have peaked and instead it's the averages that are increasing via higher mins. But we actually had more peak heat in the 90s and in the first 4 years of the 2010s.

1988-89 had a suppressive pattern similar to this winter (remember the February 1989 bust that dumped all the snow in an area from Norfolk to Atlantic City and just missed us.)

Thanks, two things I see right away both our locations have in common: 1931-32 was a really really bad F grade winter for both of us. 1966-67 was a great A grade winter for both of us. I wish I had been alive to see that whole year, I love hot and dry followed by cold and snowy and the summer of 1966 and winter of 1966-67 were exactly that.

Looks like Minneapolis salvaged something with this 9.5" snowstorm they just had, maybe they can get another? March-April are prime snowfall months for them.

These -5 AO patterns must be very rare, it almost feels like we wasted a golden opportunity this season.

Philadelphia had a huge snowfall deficit similar to NYC. The snow seemed to have a cutoff point this season north of the Mason Dixon line. Maybe the pattern repeated itself?

But if you look at the 80s the same thing happened back then. I remember back in the 80s I got the idea that there are two predominant west-east tracks, one is to our south and the other is to our north. NYC does not generally see snow from west to east tracks we need coastals that go south to north or southwest to northeast. We had quite a few winters like this in the 80s too, namely 88-89 and 89-90. 1988-89 is a great match, especially since it was a la nina. And both of those winters are for having historic southern snowstorms. South Carolina's greatest snowstorm is from December 1989 and Norfolk had an amazing snowstorm in February 1989 that dumped over a foot there and even 20" at Atlantic City. It was a bust for us, a forecast of 6-8 inches and all we got was virga. We saw a similar bust in December 1989 in the opposite way, when we got rain and thunderstorms instead of our forecast of 6-8 inches. DC did better than us in both winters too. Storm track is more of a factor in our winters than average temperatures. December 1989 was one of our coldest Decembers on record but with very little snow.

I have pictures of that from 2003! It would fly over my house around 8:43 am every morning! I saw them parked near Rockaway Blvd too with their crooked nose! Who knows, maybe it will return one day.....

When it comes down to it, NYC made out pretty well with 7 inches of snow in February. That last storm that missed us did sting a bit, almost like March 2001 in the opposite direction....

not luck, it's a repeating pattern of a strong Pac jet like we had in the 80s.

Have we had an AO of -5 before in February in a la nina? Offhand, I can't think of any.

we've had an almost continuous westerly or northwesterly flow since last October which is why we got shut out for all precip in October and a historically dry January too.

it's like developing a probabilistic bell curve and you'd expect the eventual outcome to be somewhere between 86-87 and 14-15. The probability is highest it will be somewhere in the middle of those two. The suppression we saw this season did remind me of March 2014, except it engulfed more of the season.

this almost feels like a 2013-14/2014-15 couplet (obviously with much less snow than what 2013-14 had this season.)

Sounds good to me, 86-87 was a bit too far south for us, ended up being around average here with 25 inches of snow, while Jersey coast got 50 inches of snow lol.

what I like about CC modulation in this case is that the 60s were very dry and very cold-- taking NYC as an example we had two winters in there (62-63 and 67-68) that had an average temperature below 32 and also less than 20 inches of snow. In a CC modulated world, I would expect more snow even if the temperatures were 2-3 degrees warmer.