Conecutive summers with 100 degree readings

[nzucker]

How about 1950's + Neg. NAO"? Or 1955-6 repetitively?

55-56 had a very -NAO, but February 1958 blew it away. 57-58 was an insane winter with 80" falling in Dobbs Ferry including two huge Nor'easters in late March. Abnormally high heights moved into the Arctic in early February 1958 after a textbook sudden stratospheric warming had occurred around January 20, 1958. The favorable pattern included the famous February KU storm followed by highs in the lower teens (two days at 11F for Dobbs Ferry), and then the twin storms in March, one of which dumped 50" in Morgantown, PA.

[A-L-E-X]

55-56 had a very -NAO, but February 1958 blew it away. 57-58 was an insane winter with 80" falling in Dobbs Ferry including two huge Nor'easters in late March. Abnormally high heights moved into the Arctic in early February 1958 after a textbook sudden stratospheric warming had occurred around January 20, 1958. The favorable pattern included the famous February KU storm followed by highs in the lower teens (two days at 11F for Dobbs Ferry), and then the twin storms in March, one of which dumped 50" in Morgantown, PA.

Long duration storms too-- my favorites I believe Stroudsburg, PA had close to 10 feet of snow that winter-- it was bigger in the Poconos than even 1993-94 was, which is hard to imagine!

[nzucker]

Long duration storms too-- my favorites I believe Stroudsburg, PA had close to 10 feet of snow that winter-- it was bigger in the Poconos than even 1993-94 was, which is hard to imagine!

Stroudsburg is only at 450' in the Delaware River Valley...imagine what places to the NW at like 1500' or 2000' had, such as our vacation home in Lake Como, PA. Plenty of places had over 30" in that March storm that dumped 50" in Morgantown, and the February event was not bad for PA either as the banding penetrated pretty far inland. I would think somewhere near the NY border but higher in elevation probably jackpotted since it was a winter of coastals, not coastal huggers or SW flow events. There was also a moderate snowstorm in the first half of 12/57 before the pattern turned warm for the second part of the month.

[yhbrooklyn]

[Sundog]

There goes that myth.

[uncle W]

winters after two or more 100 degree days...

[A-L-E-X]

There goes that myth.

winters after two or more 100 degree days...

it's pretty hard to get a map where the only below normal temps are in south Florida! But I was talking about a specific case, and this doesnt really cover it. Take all our historically high snowfall winters (50"+) and find the type of summer we had prior to that, and in the majority of cases, it works out.

You also have to look at the patterns more deeply..... it seems like there was some kind of pattern switch in the 50s..... if you start with 1957-58 the averages are much higher. Remember, the reason behind 30 year climate averages? Looks like something similar is at play here.

[A-L-E-X]

Sample size = 8 winters

Mean = 38.8

Median = 47.7

If you start with 1955-56

Sample Size = 9 winters

Mean = 38.2

Median = 44.7

[A-L-E-X]

We can obtain a larger sample size if we include summers in which only one 100 degree temp occurred; that would bring in 1995-96 for sure-- not certain about 2002-03, that may have hit 100 at JFK but not NYC. Ultimately we may need to factor in a lower limit on 90/95 degree days also.

[A-L-E-X]

BTW, YH I looked up the 1955-56 snowfall figure and came up with 39.2 inches, don't know if that's right or not, but if it is, using the 9 year sample size beginning with 1955-56, we get a mean of 38.9 and the median remains at 44.7

If we use the conditional All winters following summers in which multiple 100 degree highs occurred OR summers in which there were 28 or more 90 degree days (28 days = 4 full weeks) since 1955, we can expand the sample size to include 1995-96, 2002-03 and 2005-06; unfortunately, that also brings in years like 1983-84 and 1988-89, but over the long haul I believe we have a well above mean snowfall signal with a larger sample size of 14 years. And then we can work on the strong ENSO years lol.

http://www.cpc.ncep....ensoyears.shtml

[yhbrooklyn]

BTW, YH I looked up the 1955-56 snowfall figure and came up with 39.2 inches

Where did you look it up?

This shows 33.5 http://www.erh.noaa.gov/okx/climate/records/monthseasonsnowfall.html

[A-L-E-X]

Where did you look it up?

This shows 33.5 http://www.erh.noaa....onsnowfall.html

The Weather Almanac. I guess they're wrong lol.

[A-L-E-X]

BTW it's interesting that this results in a snowy signal post 1955.... particularly since our snowfall averages have been going down over the last century or so.

Even more so that the median is higher than the mean, especially since the median is a better predictor of future activity. If we take out all the strong ENSO conditions (both el nino and la nina) we're back down to a 9 sample space and the median ends up around 51" (small sample sizes are an issue though.) The interesting thing is we just have two below average snowfall winters in that list, 1980-81 and 1983-84, with 7 well above snowfall winters in 2005-06, 1977-78, 1966-67, 1993-94, 2002-03, 1995-96 and 2010-11.

The winters removed from the list were 1955-56, 1957-58, 1988-89, 1991-92, 1999-2000 (strong el nino / la nina).

It's also worth it to point out there were no consecutive pairings in this list, so we don't have that going for us.

[tamarack]

Sure has been feast or famine over the past 50 yr - 4 yr 50"+ avg 54.4", and 3 yr under 20", avg 16.1". All seven yr avg 38.0", or about 43% above the avg for all years 1960 on.