LibertyBell

really undermeasured at Central Park, no surprise there, that was a 25" snowstorm at JFK

People would have been going crazy when they heard the crackle of thunder and saw the bright lightning. I actually want to see some radar images of that day, I remember turning on the TV and there was red everywhere! They did an emergency break in of whatever was on (likely a daytime talk show) because their prediction of 4-6 inches of snow and then a change over was going to be wrong lol. It did finally change over, but that was in the early evening when the snow had almost ended, and it went to drizzle. The second storm wasn't even supposed to make it up here but it kept trending more and more north. I had both the TV AND the radio on at the same time lol listening to updates from the noon news shows and Craig Allen on WCBS at the same time and Joe Cioffi on WOR. Weird thing about the second storm- it actually changed to sleet at its peak at JFK but JFK ended up with more snow than what NYC had where it stayed all snow. I think the totals here were something like 8 inches from the first storm and 13 inches from the second storm. The prediction for the first one was 4-6, so the 8 inches was a positive bust, and the prediction for the second one was 12-18 when it was done trending north, so that was right about on target. I think Newark jackpotted with the second storm, they had 17 inches. 31 inches on the ground at the end from both storms.

I wish I had a camera back then that first storm caused such high snowfall rates along with lightning and thunder that you could literally see the snow piling up! It went from nothing during the morning rush hour to a wall of white by 10 AM!

Wow I wonder what made that storm last for 75 hours? Was that our longest lasting wintry storm or did March 1888 last longer?

That and Feb 1920 would be amazing to have happen again. Or March 1888 or Dec 1947 but make it happen a day earlier lol.

my most memorable ice storm! What were the official measurements of ice that we got around our region? I think we all stayed below freezing, I know JFK was.

I'm pushing mine back to Jan 23rd. I dont want to mess up the eclipse on the 20-21!

I never saw any of these movies lol. Talking dolphins? Dolphins are too smart to talk lol When are they going to make a movie about a (real) snowstorm! They even made one about the Perfect Storm, which was a boring storm besides the high winds and the novelty of a backwards moving storm (at that time- there have been many since.)

I do that unless I'm at the beach but I also keep track of the heat. It's something I've always been interested in because it's the one historic thing we had back in the early 90s. The summers of 91 and 93 especially were amazing and reaching 100 degrees at the coast or higher felt like getting a 2 foot blizzard. 2010 was my favorite all time summer though and exceeded all of them, although my favorite heat wave came the year after that.

Could you imagine if that July 1936 heatwave had happened in summer now? It would have been widespread 110+ all across the city and metro NJ and maybe even western Long Island! Were you near JFK on that day?

lol I loved that too. Hit 104 here on the south shore that July. Down in Baltimore where the weather conference was happening it hit 105. And 108 in Newark! One of these years they'll hit 110 during a mega heat wave.

They must've had Juno confused with Juneau (as in Alaska lol).

SW Nassau has only been in the jackpot zone three times in my life that I can remember, Feb 1983, PD2 and Jan 2016. All were moderate or stronger el ninos. Wow what a storm that was to be in the jackpot zone for. I may never see a 30" snowstorm again in my lifetime. Crazy thing is we also pulled a 3.0" liquid equivalent, so it wasn't even one of those high ratio deals.

I cant help but think that storm set the tone for the next 5 weeks. Sometimes you wonder, does the pattern make the storm or does the storm make the pattern? In that case I think it was both. If that storm hadn't happened, I dont think we get our historic month in January either. As you might recall, the LR forecasts for that winter weren't for a lot of snow and we had already had the cold for a couple of weeks and whiffed on a couple of storms so people were frustrated and the "no December snow" analogs were being rolled out for how bad a winter can be in a La Nina when it doesn't snow at least 3 inches in December. And then look what happened- we blasted right past 3 inches lol.

They really were on target with having that blizzard warning ending at 7 am because thats right when the snow ended lol, we got that last lingering band that dropped a few inches overnight and it was clearing out right at 7 am perfect timing for the official measurement See thats one the people who measure snow should never get wrong, there wasn't a lot of wind (good enough for a blizzard, but not 78 or Boxing Day kind of wind to mess up snowfall totals or snow growth) or any mixing or changeover to mess them up and the snow even ended right at the time they're supposed to measure!

Thats right the NAM's winning streak began that winter!

Thanks RJ! Do you have the historic NWS message on Christmas in 2010 when they said they thought the GFS was having feedback issues but they'd give it one more run before jumping on its snowier solution? My favorite AFD since January 1996!

read my mind lol

Do you have the forecast for the Jan 2016 storm and then the final totals? That HECS was the antidote to the Jan 2015 "HECS" like the 2002-03 winter was the antidote to the 2001-02 "winter" lol.

Thanks! I just saw this and wow we were just talking about this storm. My verbal memory of the storm you posted about is that it came in two parts and we compared it to the Dec 2003 storm mid event. The first part dropped like 4-6 inches in the morning and we had a lull with a slight warm up in the afternoon and a change to drizzle and in the early evening the precip picked back up and changed from heavy rain to heavy sleet quickly and there was even a tornado or funnel cloud with hail reported just off the south shore and then it changed to heavy snow and the real fun began with 5-6 inch per hour heavy rates! Who said we cant get a big snowstorm in a la nina? WE HAD THREE BIG ONES THAT YEAR! That and 1995-96 were my two favorite la nina winters ever.

Might happen again next Friday

January 19 2019 We'll probably get a similar storm to what we had in November (6" or so) in December and that will make that month above normal snowfall, but that will be it for that month.

Wow this is a very late complaint but that is a huge undermeasurement if they expect to also represent the Five Towns area. We had at least 6 inches of heavy snow and it was really hard to shovel the next morning even though it was fluffy. Parts of Long Island had close to a foot. Temps definitely weren't an issue as it stuck to the roads right from the beginning- including on Broadway, where I happened to live. Temps were in the 20s the whole time. Nov 1995 was also a bit of an undermeasurement that was closer to 4" here. No wonder JFK was the only local area reporting site not to hit 70" that winter! JFK has data going back to 1949? I think they were Idlewild back then but I didn't know international airports existed around here back in the 40s lol. Did they measure snowfall going back to the historic 1947-48 winter, Chris?

Wow JFK's Nov 2018 is already #1 for snowfall? What happened to Nov 1989- I thought JFK got 6 inches of snow the night before Thanksgiving.

he's a bored denier lol. Honestly, who cares what was going in a different epoch? The causes and rate of warming are far different (and higher) now than they were back then. It has about as much relevance as dinosaurs living when the whole planet was tropical. How about we are in the middle of the greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet and it's humanity-induced? Because of human overpopulation, pollution and manipulation of the environment. That's far more relevant.