Winter Of 59-60 Before Epic March Weather

[Northern Foothills Snowman]

The March 1960 winter was before my time, like others here,i'm corious how the winter leading up to the epic March was.Was it like this winter so far,or lake there of,or what ?We've heard about sun angle in March but that was serious cold and snow for that time of year.

[Joe75]

Maybe this will give you some insight? http://www.erh.noaa.gov/gsp/localdat/cases/2010/Review_Feb-Mar_1960.pdf

[NCBlizzard]

Maybe this will give you some insight? http://www.erh.noaa....eb-Mar_1960.pdf

Interesting read, thanks for the link.

[FoothillsNC]

The March 1960 winter was before my time, like others here,i'm corious how the winter leading up to the epic March was.Was it like this winter so far,or lake there of,or what ?We've heard about sun angle in March but that was serious cold and snow for that time of year.

I did a study on the period of mid February to mid March a few years ago...it was the ultimate Winter storm pattern for the southern Appalachian and surrounding regions, roughly a line from ATL CAE RDU and points north and west the snow piled up quickly further inland...never has been matched in my area. Since my study I've found a lot more info on specific cities, and turns out on the edges of the Apps, like Statesville for example, there was a massive sleet and snowstorm in one instance. For Boone, I think it was the snowiest Winter on record, the same here. In short, excellent blocking in Alaska, and another in Canada, that forced the flow to be abnormally far south and supressed for about 4 to 6 weeks. The southeast and East coast was ground zero for a parade of storms out of the southwest and Gulf, with plenty of cold air in place nonstop.

http://www.easternuswx.com/bb/index.php?/topic/158346-looking-back-at-march-1960/page__fromsearch__1

[Joe75]

Foothills not to hi-jack the thread , but could you post were we could see the maps. I can't remember my password to eastern.

[FoothillsNC]

Foothills not to hi-jack the thread , but could you post were we could see the maps. I can't remember my password to eastern.

I'm afraid the whole study is still on eastern. I have all the info and pics, etc. The Konrad paper , and I think another paper, covers it well too.

[GaffneyPeach]

I've heard this story for the past 52 winters. I was born in January, 1960. We lived in Charlotte but Mom's family lived in Blacksburg, SC. Every Sunday we all got together for lunch...except that year. My mom hates the thought of snow to this day because of that winter. I guess that's why I love it so much.

[griteater]

I think I post this everytime I see something on this timeframe, but here's a photo from Boone in March of 1960.

[John1122]

That was the snowiest winter for a ton of SE locations. Especially upslope areas. According to my grandfathers records we picked up over 70 inches that season, from Mid-February to Late-March here on the Northern Plateau area of Eastern Tennessee.

Even lower elevations areas like Knoxville set it's all time record with 56.7 inches. almost all of that falling between February 13th and March 28th. I am pretty sure it had been a somewhat mild December and January that year.

The high mountains of Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina were buried with over 100 inches and it snowed nearly every day from February 13th to March 28th due to persistent upslope between the massive storms.

[griteater]

Here's a 500mb Height Composite Anomaly map for the period 2/12/60 - 3/27/60. You can see the strong ridging north of Alaska and strong west-based -NAO blocking west of Greenland, leading to cross-polar flow and negative anomalies (deep trough) over the eastern 2/3 of the U.S.