michsnowfreak

Is this waterford?

A mix of rain, snow and sleet this evening. Hard to believe this is the 10th day this March snow has fallen at some point, despite only 0.4" on the month.

As tcc pointed out, there appears to be a very important M day in early December 1936. Now make no mistake about it, 1936-37 was an absolutely horrendous winter for snowfall in most spots, far worse than 2024-25. I cringe when I hear of it. It is Detroits least snowy winter on record (12.9"), Bostons least snowy on record (9.0") and ranks extremely high on the all time snowless lists in many if not most places. But I'm not sure it should be molines #1. Depending what happened that day in Dec 1936, the true #1 might be 11.1" in 1901-02. However, perhaps it was an ice storm that day, and not snow after all? Do you have access to any old local newspapers? I have access to all Detroit free press since 1837, but I wonder if anyone has access to all newspapers? It would be the best way to find out what happened that day.

Interesting info. While it can't be used for accuracy purposes, it DOES give you the feeling for what were the cold or mild winters, hot or cool summers etc. This combined with whatever newspapers noted at the time gives a rough idea of what the winters are. I'm going to work on a project this year to try and piece together these old years. Just at a glance I find it interesting that there was a heavier concentration of milder winters in the 1840s-50s and colder 1860s-70s, not unlike trends 100 years later.

Picked up a trace of rain with last night's severe threat. Then today's defo gave 0.10" rain and a trace of snow. Temps nearly 40° colder than yesterday at this time.

I found some really old weather data (1839-1872) and was curious if anyone knows or if there's any studies on this...temps were only taken 3 times a day (7am 2pm 9pm) and averaged. Clearly that is not going to be accurate like temps being recorded hourly, but I'm curious how much margin for error the end results would have. Also, does that error have a warm or cold bias or would it be a tossup?

No thank you!

You dont need a big dog to enjoy those conditions. Thats me whenever we get snowstorms.

Quite a turn around in Omaha. No big amounts, but multiple storms. They were sitting at an incredible 1.0" season to date thru February 10th, and they are now at 13.4" before whatever they get today. Although, I cant figure out what the other 2 blizzard warnings were besides today and March 4th. Since they are prone to crazy windstorms and blizzards in the plains, seems like the NWS's out there sometimes overdue blizzard warnings (in terms of how often they verify vs when they are issued).

Honestly I have no clue. New York is one of the only few cities I know of that has multiple "first order" stations. All NWS offices encourage plenty of spotter reports of precip and snowfall (in fact the NWS is in a big advertising spree right now to get more cocorahs), but most metros have one main "first order" station that does it all, precip, snow, snow depth, intra-hour obs as needed, etc etc. When Detroit switched from DET to DTW in 1966 everything "official" just moved to DTW. I wasnt even born so I cant say haha.

Ive never really dug into MLI data before, but now my curiosity is there, so ill play around later with some of their data and let you know if i find anything interesting. I always cringe when people discuss futility at northern locations in January...now, however, is a very legit time to discuss all-time snow futility for MLI.

They do have an ASOS at Midway, just as they have an ASOS at Detroit City Airport still. Problem is, these are no longer first order sites, so their accuracy is no better than any one of the other thousands of ASOS in place across the country. They dont have snowfall observations, they dont have near their equipment that their 1st order counterparts (ORD & DTW) have, and when theres errors it can often take a long time to fix them. (if theres any malfunctioning equipment at a first order site they are usually right on it).

Looks like it was still a solidly below avg year in MSP, but a late rally with 15.2" in March brought 2023-24 to 29.5". MSP only had 1.7" this Jan and 2.0" last Jan, but has already had 9.5" in Mar and 15.2" last Mar. In 2022-23, Detroit saw 15.8" of its 37.1" total come in March.

That's kind of how 2022-23 was here. A rockin' march made what had been a shitty snow season finish just a bit below avg.

Is this for MLI or DVN?

I think a majority of climate sites have moved over the years. Just how it goes. Why? No idea lol. DTW (detroit metro airport) has been the official climate station for Detroit since 1966. From 1934-1966 it was DET (Detroit city airport) and from 1874-1933 it was various places downtown Detroit. I personally like DTW best because it's closer to me but I still like looking at the old data. If you look at the climate summaries in ncdc it will tell you all of a stations site moves and corresponding dates. I know Chicago's moved from midway airport to ohare airport in I think like 1980.

I wonder who does the measuring? Central Park should be the easiest of the bunch. Measuring in a park should offset the wind issues that are common at most airports. Some first order stations measure at locals near the airport that are in a more user-friendly environment (ie a park).

Its really a very easy process. Snowfall and depth are reported every 6 hours, with the depth at 7am being the official depth for the day. However, measuring at the end of a snowfall is best too, so if you have 3 hours before obs time with no more snow coming, obviously measure then instead of waiting. Also theres a few common sense practices - if snow melts or is rained on before obs time, you have to do your best to account for what snow fell before this happened. Also we have all had times where our snowboard is scoured free of the snow that fell OR drifted over from the winds. In any of those cases, it should be obvious to the obsever to properly measure averages and not just go by whats on the snowboard. These are all common sense practices than any observer, especially ones for first order sites, need to be following. Side note - Speaking of depth...i know ive mentioned this before, but i cant believe BOS & ORH dont report 12z snow depth. They are literally the only first order sites ive seen that dont do snow depth. I wonder why?

Ive noticed the silver maples started budding this week here, just the color (probably the light angle) of that one pic made it look different. I usually expect the silver maples to start doing this in March, one of the earliest ones, then after a while those buds rain down everywhere making a mess on the street, then it still seems like a while after that before leaves pop. Long process. Meanwhile, other species of maples you can barely see the buds (unless you look closely) then theyll suddenly pop those lime flowers then leaves (of course this hasnt happened yet lol).

Unless I am a reincarnated weather observer who worked at the Weather Bureau in the early 20th century, I cant say anything for certain (none of us can) about any individual snowfall of the past. But what I CAN say is that I know the practice of measuring every 6 hours has been in place at Detroit since about 1950, and I assume the same for many other first-order stations. I highly doubt that 6-hour intervals didnt start in NYC til the 1980s. Airports began this in 1950. Also, one thing that sets apart snowfall around here vs the east coast is that we are a climate of smaller, more frequent snowfalls. We do not get big 18-24" storms that can inflate (or deflate) our totals in a 2-day period. Lots of T-1, 1-2, 2-4, 3-6" type snowfalls, then the occasional 7-12" type storms. Also, the old days of the weather bureau had to manually monitor weather hourly, so while most NWS offices have corrected the lazy measurement practices that took many places when the FAA took over in the 1990s, Ive heard countless complaints about observers calling a snowfall a T or something because it melted before obs time. That would NEVER have happened in the old days. Another thing I look at when analyzing old weather data for here is the liquid equivalent and snow depth numbers. Is the depth making sense (ie: is there some settling, or the following days snow depth always just the snowfall added onto the previous depth). For the liquid equivalent, are they just applying a 10:1 ratio or are they actually measuring liquid and snowfall separately? In the old days, 1870s-1890s, they usually (but not always) applied a 10:1 ratio to every snowfall. So, does this mean they measured snow and just applied 10:1, or even worse that the melted liquid but didnt measure the snow? No one will ever really know. In the end, my analysis of snowfall data for Detroit, which dates to 1874 but the NWS begins in 1880 due to some M data in the 1870s...my assessment is that data is very accurate from around 1900 - present. Accurate does not mean there likely werent flaws, but looking at all factors (temps, precip, snowfall, snow depth, following days snow depth, etc) the data makes very good sense. Snowfall measurement practices from 1950-present have remained unchanged. Im not happy with some of the data from the mid-1990s to early 2000s (when the FAA took over and before snowpaid observers were hired), although none of it affected the record books in a huge way. And of course with many different obsevers, wind, etc, snow is always subject to error. Always has been, always will be. Snowfall from 1900-1949 seems quite accurate as well. Its is only the snowfall data from 1874-1899 that I look at with a grain of salt. You can still create a great mental picture of when the big storms were, when the snowy/cold winters were and when the warm, bare, "open winters" were, but the actual measurments likely had much more error than today.

Thanks. Ill bookmark it. I like looking at the Ann Arbor data because they have a consistent record to 1880 and are only about 20 miles due west of DTW, with their weather observing site not changing since 1880. The only problem with that, and im sure its a minor one, is they are a coop site, not first order, so there are bound to be a few errors here and there. You really did pick a doozy 3-year time period to live in the region lol. That cold was brutal and not normal. At Toledo, the winters of '76-77, '77-78, '78-79 rank as 1st, 2nd, and 8th coldest (since 1874). At Detroit they rank 3rd, 6th, & 12th coldest (since 1874), and at Ann Arbor 4th, 10th, & 13th coldest (since 1881). Depending on the airmass, there are many situations where NW OH can actually be colder (esp at night) than SE MI, with more urban sprawl in SE MI and more rural areas in NW OH. Id suspect there were multiple instances of that in the late 1970s. These colder nights offset the days when warm fronts dont get as far north as Detroit, and you have Toledo & Detroit winter temp averages nearly identical (DTW just a TAD colder), despite the fact that Detroit gets noticebly more snowfall and snowcover.

I too am a huge wx stat fan. Its easily my #1 favorite aspect of weather. I have so many different charts/graphs/papers in folders detailing Detroits weather history from the beginning of record to present, much of which never comes up to be posted here. I also browse other areas stats as well, whenever something comes up that makes me wonder "I wonder how this compares to past events there". My #2 aspect would be actually observering the weather. Been a wx observer since 2004 and measured snow since 1995. A distant #3 is the favorite of many, the actual tracking with this often headache-inducing model data

I've never heard of these. Is there a link to look at this data? Not sure about loess curves. It implies starting 1896 with a mean of what, 23°? The mean temp from 1874-1896 was 26.9°, when there was literally only one accurate wayne county station. Regardless I don't dispute that winters have warmed. They've also gotten snowier and wetter. This is why I like looking at things like the "winter severity index" which takes all things into account. I have studied local winters extensively and certainly concentrate most heavily on snow and snowcover. I can absolutely tell you that 1970s-80s and 2000s-10s winters I'll take in a heartbeat. Hard pass on 1930s-50s winters. In the 1870s-1920s era I'd take majority of them but there are a handful of UGLY ones thrown in I'd need to ditch lol.

1917-18 ranks as the 6th coldest, and 1918-19 ranks 13th warmest. Quite a rubber band effect. 1877-78 is widespread known as "year without a winter" in the upper midwest. We actually did ok with avg snowfall here (43.4") but as I've said before temps and snowfall here don't always go hand in hand. Locally the winter of 1881-82 was the worst for warmth + lack of snow. That remains Detroits warmest winter on record. The period of 1875-1882 was absolutely wild here with every other year alternating between bitterly cold winters and very warm winters. Not just talking either side of normal. Talking all winters that still currently reside in the top 20 coldest/warmest list.

The Chicago to Detroit corridor was very screwed in 1995-96. Would've been even worse if not for a march 20th snowstorm. Of those winters mentioned, the other ones were much better winters. 1995-96: 27.6" 2000-01: 39.0" 2002-03: 60.9" 2008-09: 65.7" 2010-11: 69.1" 2013-14: 94.9" 2014-15: 47.5"