Hoosier Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 Sometimes the biggest snowstorm for Chicago, Detroit, or some other city gets mentioned so I thought it would be interesting to do something bigger. I'm not totally sure if these numbers are right for a few places so correct me if I'm wrong. Wanted to put a few more on here but the info was not always easy to find. Fort Wayne probably stands out the most for relative futility, but places like DAY/IND/SPI/STL are also fairly low. However, looks can be deceiving. For instance, a band of 20-25" occurred very close to St Louis in the January 1982 storm and 24-32" fell about 50 miles from IND a band from southern IN ene into western OH in December 2004, which means that there is no real reason to think that 2 foot storms couldn't occur in those cities even if it's a low probability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted November 27, 2012 Author Share Posted November 27, 2012 Forgot to mention that I tended to avoid nearshore snowbelt areas since totals could be highly influenced by lake effect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmc76 Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 Petoskey, MI 85" 12-2001 7 day total but it was continuous Sault Ste Marie 61.7" Herman 30" Marquette 55" Grand Rapids 28.2" Houghton 57.7" Flint 22.7" Muskegon 42.5" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicago WX Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 Where's LAF's 20.5" from December 1929? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted November 27, 2012 Author Share Posted November 27, 2012 Where's LAF's 20.5" from December 1929? not pictured Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicago WX Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 not pictured Boo. I figured you were going scan all the COOP records in the region too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted November 27, 2012 Author Share Posted November 27, 2012 The general setup is probably not hard to guess for a lot of these but the one for Louisville (22.4" in February 1998) is a bit odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trent Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 This storm always fascinated me because of the date. But a widespread 20-40" of snow over eastern Ohio (away from the lake) in late April. http://sheridan.geog.kent.edu/owon/history/april/april.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hawkeye_wx Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 The 27.2" near Iowa City doesn't look right. I don't think Cedar Rapids has ever officially had a foot in a 24 hour period and the biggest storm total wouldn't be any higher than the teens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicago WX Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 The 27.2" near Iowa City doesn't look right. I don't think Cedar Rapids has ever officially had a foot in a 24 hour period and the biggest storm total wouldn't be any higher than the teens. http://www.crh.noaa....stsnowstorms-us ][/b]3) "THE MIDWEST SNOW STORM OF 1951" March 10-14, 1951 A slow moving storm system brought a prolonged period of heavy snow to much of the Midwest. Hardest hit were Missouri and Iowa where snow fell for as long as 92-100 hours! This slow moving storm system which had abundant moisture, produced 27.2 inches of snow at Iowa City which remains the largest snow storm accumulation in Iowa state history, with the bulk of the snowfall occurring on March 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted November 28, 2012 Author Share Posted November 28, 2012 Iowa City had 2.41" liquid in that March 1951 storm, so the 27.2" total is believable. Here's an excerpt from the March 1951 Climatological Data publication for Iowa. Precipitation began with glazing in southern and western Iowa, followed by more general snow, which continued without interruption for 90 hours in some sections and intermittently for 100 hours. Snow accumulated to depths of 22 to 27 inches in some northwestern and southeastern communities, 12 to 18 inches more generally throughout the central sections of the state, with only the extreme southwest reporting light snowfall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted November 28, 2012 Author Share Posted November 28, 2012 Biggest snowstorms on record can sometimes vary quite a bit over rather short distances. Think of it this way...if you took all of the storms to produce at least 2 feet anywhere in the Midwest and only drew the 24"+ contours on a map, it would be a bunch of narrow streaks with maybe a few exceptions. Certainly requires some luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hm8 Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 Biggest snowstorms on record can sometimes vary quite a bit over rather short distances. Think of it this way...if you took all of the storms to produce at least 2 feet anywhere in the Midwest and only drew the 24"+ contours on a map, it would be a bunch of narrow streaks with maybe a few exceptions. Certainly requires some luck. Not to mention with these big powerhouse systems the heaviest snow typically occurs close to where it begins to change over to rain... Make those gradients even tighter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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