New England Anomalous Events

[CT Rain]

I'm actually probably forgetting an event or two that could be on there as well. Maybe the August 1944 heat wave...but I think Sept 1953 is more impressive so I didn't include it...but it was a long heat wave. One of the longest for the region. Ditto for the tornado last year...crazy impressive event, but not up to par versus 1953.

1873 CT tornado and 1989 tornado (discontinuous but one supercell produced tor damage from Schoharie County NY to HVN) had some crazy path lengths too.

[ORH_wxman]

I agree with this list. In terms of anomalies I wonder if 1938 is not as anomalous as we're giving it credit for. Return time of 100 years? Seems like some of the other events may have long return times.

Its possible we are...but I think we have to consider what we are talking about in terms of return time...for what? A major hurricane that landfalls in NE? Or a major 'cane moving at 60 knots landfalling in a spot that pretty much maximized damage for most of New England...so the return time on the former is definitely more frequent than the latter.

Maybe its more of a list that is a combo of most anomalous/most impressive. Like for instance, the May 18, 2002 snow was probably more anomalous than a lot of events listed but I'm not sure we all look back on that coating to 2" of slop in total awe...so the impressive factor is lacking a bit.

[HoarfrostHubb]

Dec 1989 over the ORH tornado?

A long track stove pipe vs really cold.....hmmmm.... I can see your point about larger area of impact, I wish we had decent records going back 500 years

And at some point Ginx will chime in about how often SNE gets hit with a decent 1938 type storm... I am thinking it happens something like 1 in 125 years (I forget) based on that mud paper...

[HoarfrostHubb]

Its possible we are...but I think we have to consider what we are talking about in terms of return time...for what? A major hurricane that landfalls in NE? Or a major 'cane moving at 60 knots landfalling in a spot that pretty much maximized damage for most of New England...so the return time on the former is definitely more frequent than the latter.

Maybe its more of a list that is a combo of most anomalous/most impressive. Like for instance, the May 18, 2002 snow was probably more anomalous than a lot of events listed but I'm not sure we all look back on that coating to 2" of slop in total awe...so the impressive factor is lacking a bit.

Were you on a weather board in May of 2002? I wonder if there are any archives of weenie reports from that.

[CoastalWx]

Its possible we are...but I think we have to consider what we are talking about in terms of return time...for what? A major hurricane that landfalls in NE? Or a major 'cane moving at 60 knots landfalling in a spot that pretty much maximized damage for most of New England...so the return time on the former is definitely more frequent than the latter.

Maybe its more of a list that is a combo of most anomalous/most impressive. Like for instance, the May 18, 2002 snow was probably more anomalous than a lot of events listed but I'm not sure we all look back on that coating to 2" of slop in total awe...so the impressive factor is lacking a bit.

Yeah a little subjectivity gets thrown in, but what about something like 4/1/97? The return time I would think is at least 1-100yr. Maybe more, especially for a place like BOS.

[ORH_wxman]

Dec 1989 over the ORH tornado?

A long track stove pipe vs really cold.....hmmmm.... I can see your point about larger area of impact, I wish we had decent records going back 500 years

And at some point Ginx will chime in about how often SNE gets hit with a decent 1938 type storm... I am thinking it happens something like 1 in 125 years (I forget) based on that mud paper...

Dec 1989 is definitely harder to get than a big tornado in New England...the departures are disgustingly off the charts in 1989. The tornado obviously looks more impressive and is something tangible with tangible damage left behind.

1989 probably killed a lot of plants/tree roots and had soem crazy heatign bills, but it obviously doesn't have the tangible factor that a tornado, a flood, or winter storm had.

[CT Rain]

Its possible we are...but I think we have to consider what we are talking about in terms of return time...for what? A major hurricane that landfalls in NE? Or a major 'cane moving at 60 knots landfalling in a spot that pretty much maximized damage for most of New England...so the return time on the former is definitely more frequent than the latter.

Maybe its more of a list that is a combo of most anomalous/most impressive. Like for instance, the May 18, 2002 snow was probably more anomalous than a lot of events listed but I'm not sure we all look back on that coating to 2" of slop in total awe...so the impressive factor is lacking a bit.

Absolutely. I'm not sure the answer to the question I posed... it was more rhetorical.

I guess what struck me about the October snowstorm is that I couldn't find anything else in history (and we have a good idea of what happened back in the 1700s/1800s in terms of big storms) that came close.

[CT Rain]

Dec 1989 is definitely harder to get than a big tornado in New England...the departures are disgustingly off the charts in 1989. The tornado obviously looks more impressive and is something tangible with tangible damage left behind.

1989 probably killed a lot of plants/tree roots and had soem crazy heatign bills, but it obviously doesn't have the tangible factor that a tornado, a flood, or winter storm had.

I agree that Dec 89 outranks the tornado. It's so out there and we've seen several long track/violent tornadoes in the NE in the last 100 years.

[ORH_wxman]

I agree that Dec 89 outranks the tornado. It's so out there and we've seen several long track/violent tornadoes in the NE in the last 100 years.

Yeah, I mean you could give the '53 one a little extra credit for being borderline F5...we'll probably never know for sure...which is definitely harder to get than a F3 or weak F4....but I have to imagine that the return time on it is probably easier than a -15 to -20 monthly departure for an entire region. I'm guessing a Dec '89 up here is around 1 in 300 years. Strong F4 tornado or borderline F5 might be 1 in 200 or something...its hard to place exact odds on some of these things.

The best we can do is what you said in the other post...try and find historical accounts of something close. When we have a hard time doign that, it usually means the event was really impressive.

[HoarfrostHubb]

Dec 1989 is definitely harder to get than a big tornado in New England...the departures are disgustingly off the charts in 1989. The tornado obviously looks more impressive and is something tangible with tangible damage left behind.

1989 probably killed a lot of plants/tree roots and had soem crazy heatign bills, but it obviously doesn't have the tangible factor that a tornado, a flood, or winter storm had.

I see your point. Sort of like the big heat wave that killed 1000+ in Chicago that no one seems to care much about.

-20 departures are sick. How was it for ORH/BOS/BDL?

[HoarfrostHubb]

Yeah, I mean you could give the '53 one a little extra credit for being borderline F5...we'll probably never know for sure...which is definitely harder to get than a F3 or weak F4....but I have to imagine that the return time on it is probably easier than a -15 to -20 monthly departure for an entire region. I'm guessing a Dec '89 up here is around 1 in 300 years. Strong F4 tornado or borderline F5 might be 1 in 200 or something...its hard to place exact odds on some of these things.

The best we can do is what you said in the other post...try and find historical accounts of something close. When we have a hard time doign that, it usually means the event was really impressive.

Plus there could have been a big tornado raging through some unpopulated parts of VT or something in the 1830s that no one recorded or considered the damage...

Temps are more noticable and measurable

[radarman]

For this area and parts of NH and ME the flood of 1936 probably stands as the single most damaging event. Similar, or perhaps just less than '55 in CT I'd guess, but over a more widespread area.

[Tropopause_Fold]

for me...

last 10 years...12/9/05, 1/22-23/05

last 20+...10/30/91

[CoastalWx]

I wonder what the return year of boredom is for something like Dec-Mar 2011-2012. Having virtually no coastals is almost impossible.

[dryslot]

For this area and parts of NH and ME the flood of 1936 probably stands as the single most damaging event. Similar, or perhaps just less than '55 in CT I'd guess, but over a more widespread area.

Yes, You could throw that in as well, And i would refer to here in ME the flood of 1987 as well

[CT Rain]

Yes, You could throw that in as well, And i would refer to here in ME the flood of 1987 as well

1936 in Hartford is the biggest flood on record.

1927 Vermont???

[wxsniss]

Good thread.

Add:

-- April 1st, 1997 blizzard: surprised no one has mentioned it yet and we've expanded to the 1990s. For Boston, 22.4" since midnight April 1 in a month that averages 0.4".

-- Jan 22, 2005 blizzard for southeastern New England: hurricane-force winds on the Cape, single digit temps and white-out conditions in metro Boston. I'll never forget Walt Drag's AFD mentioning an 8"/hr gravity wave that passed through the North Shore.

-- 1995-1996 winter season: not a specific event, but 107.6" for Boston

-- Jan / early February 2011 record snowbanks

Agree with:

-- Oct 2011 snowstorm

-- Hurricane Irene flooding in Vermont

-- June 1, 2011 tornado: long path and intensity up there with 1989 and 1953

-- March 2012 heat, comparable to 1945-46

-- January 2004 cold

I wasn't here to experience Feb 1978 or more historic events worthy of the list.

[ORH_wxman]

The 1955 floods were most impressive in CT but they were still devastating up this way. Its still easily the worst flood on record in ORH...and it flooded horrifically down the blackstone into RI. We had like 17" of rain a few days. Not the 30" parts of CT had, but more than enough for crippling flood damage.

Downtown was under about 6-7 feet of water.

What is funny about 1955 is that there was another set of floods in October that year...ground still saturated and areas had another 10-12" of rain. What a crazy couple months that was.

[HoarfrostHubb]

1936 in Hartford is the biggest flood on record.

1927 Vermont???

From what I had read, a lot of old timers suggested 2011 was worse than 1927, which I am not sure about.

They had over 1000 bridges washed out in 1927, the Lt Gov of VT drowned, devastation

[HoarfrostHubb]

1978 is still my #1 event as far as what I have witnessed, but probably not the most anomalous

Oct 2011 is probably my most anomalous that I have witnessed

[Allenson]

I'll echo those who mentioned Irene here in VT and other places. Never seen anything like it in my years.

1.25-1.75" was common with 2-4" ice execration in a lot of places was devastating up here, It was +RN all night long and temps holding steady at 24F, It was a constant sound of trees snapping and transformers popping....

Yep, gotta put the 98 ice storm on the list. I was living in York, ME at the time--four or five miles inland and we were right on the edge of the ice. It would drop <32 for a while and ice up, only to warm to 33 or 34 and melt. Back and forth it went. With that set-up, we didn't see much damage where I was but a quick drive a few more miles inland yielded a significant difference.

[tamarack]

I'm actually probably forgetting an event or two that could be on there as well. Maybe the August 1944 heat wave...but I think Sept 1953 is more impressive so I didn't include it...but it was a long heat wave. One of the longest for the region. Ditto for the tornado last year...crazy impressive event, but not up to par versus 1953.

Not quite within the 100 yr, but during the 1st 12 days of July 1911, those few central/western Maine stations for which I've found data had 3-5 days of 100+, nearly as many as all their other triples put together. Bridgton touched 105 for the state record and Farmington reached 104, plus 102 thrice. If TDs are to be recognized (LOL), I'd nominate August 1988 - set PWM's record at 77 and BGR had some obs (93 with RH68) that point to 80+.

As Dryslot noted, April 1987 is probably Maine's worst flood, though it was far less extensive elsewhere than 1936. The Kennebec at North Sidney recorded peak flow of 232,000 cfs; their top since then is 102,000. (That gauge didn't exist in 1936. Data from Weston Dam in Skowhegan suggests the earlier flood ran about 200-210,000 past the future Sidney site.) For northen Maine, it's April-May 2008.

Dec 1989 is the most anomalous month for temperature at many NNE locations. Stiffest competition I've noted was the warmth of Feb 1981, +15 for CAR while tying their Feb record high twice and breaking it 7 times. (Since re-broken, in 1994.) NYC's greatest cold snap, IMO, was 12/29/17 thru 1/4/18. Their average temp for the week was 2F, and I don't think they've had another 7-day period anywhere near that. It was plenty cold farther north, too, Farmington's coldest mean temp was 12/30/17, with -11/-36, 3.5F colder than #2, Jan 20, 1994 with -1/-39. The one-day departure on 12/30/17 was -41; not many Eastern stations with a mean temp 40 off the avg. Van Buren recorded -18/-32, probably still in the cyclonic flow which kept the minimum out of the -40s.

[Ginx snewx]

I think the one thing I'll always remember about Jan 2004..was driving over the Sagamore bridge and watching freaking icebergs drifting down the canal along with the sea smoke. That was something else.

I will remember the ice flows being picked up on Sat in nantucket sound forever.

[dryslot]

1936 in Hartford is the biggest flood on record.

1927 Vermont???

I think the flood of 36 was pretty wide spread over the NE, 1987 was more localized here in Maine as was Oct 2011 in Vermont, Myself, I have not looked at 1927 so i would have to refer to others without going back and read upon it

[adk]

The flooding from Irene in Vermont. The entire state got hammered. Even today I just took these pictures from my old stomping grounds (first time I went back to the Camels Hump region since the storm) and Irene's flooding literally changed the landscape in one 24 hour period.

This was an event that nature will have a hard time topping in terms of flooding and the raw power of swift water.

Every stream, river, gully in Vermont was pretty much altered in a way that should take a hundred years of gentle erosion, not just one 24 hour period. And its everywhere you go. This was just today in Duxbury...

This is not a creek or river, this is just the rubble left from Irene when water was everywhere, just flowing rubble and rocks through driveways and yards.

All of these rocks are not supposed to be here. Just imagine flooding where boulders are being pushed down through your yard. This is a stream bed created by Irene that may not see flowing water for what, another hundred years?

I disagree. Irene bascially followed the pattern for Floyd which came in 1999. The damage in VT was severe but two storms tracking on the same path in 12 years sorta kills the rarity idea.

Personally for me it was the stretch of weather in March of this year. 5 straight days of 80+ in March in Burlington VT? I will never see that again.

[NECT]

I disagree. Irene bascially followed the pattern for Floyd which came in 1999. The damage in VT was severe but two storms tracking on the same path in 12 years sorta kills the rarity idea.

Personally for me it was the stretch of weather in March of this year. 5 straight days of 80+ in March in Burlington VT? I will never see that again.

You hope.

[nzucker]

Looks like a Siberian block hooked up with a +PNA for some fun times in December 1989:

I'm surprised the East had such low heights though considering the lack of any appreciable -NAO signal.

[Ginx snewx]

Speaking of anomalous, local interest only but do not see this too often.

[HoarfrostHubb]

Speaking of anomalous, local interest only but do not see this too often.

Best radar image since October

[Damage In Tolland]

Speaking of anomalous, local interest only but do not see this too often.

Our own private landphoon. Unbelieveable