Ian Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 I wrote this back in December for the most part, just got reshuffled a bit since. Probably could use some more work, but I think it came out well and has been well received thus far. Ultimately may try to do similar across a network of sites in the region: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/02/05/its-increasingly-difficult-to-get-snow-in-d-c/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
North Balti Zen Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Praised it in the banter thread, echo here. Nice piece and brings the conversation to the public domain in a really accessible way . Well done. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Mike Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Excellent, well researched and written. After reading it, I openly wept. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravensrule Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Great job and very interesting read. I hope this new phenomenon does not move 60 miles north in the near future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Great job Ian. I love stats and #'s. Of course the conclusions that can be drawn kinda suck but nice work. How many times did DC's official measuring station get moved over the period? I'm sure at least a little bit of the decline that has occurred in the last 20 years would be mitigated with a more central DC location with a little elevation. Sea level by the river surrounded by development is probably the worst location overall. Not saying the trend isn't very real though. But we've hashed out the DCA stuff over and over. Prob not worth a second look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HighStakes Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 That is a really good article. Enjoyed it very much. You have to think a winter like we are having this year would have produced close to double the current DC snow amount through early Feb. had it occurred 25-30 years ago. Something similar to the 81/82 winter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HighStakes Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 This winter at BWI is acting like a recent DC winter. BWI has been on the edge all season. Look at the great disparity through this point in the season between BWI's total and say Ravensrule totals. Pretty sure he has more than doubled BWI's totals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
87storms Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 bob ryan wrote an article about this in his weather almanac book about how dc should expect to see much less snow going forward. this was back in the 90s when i read it. he's been right so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ncsled Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 I noticed the same thing about the lack of snow in the Piedmont of NC. The snow amounts have really dropped off from the 70's and 80's. I really think something is killing our snowfall amounts. For me Global Warming sure looks real for my backyard. As something has killed our yearly snowfall totals in the last 25 years. It looks like its doing the same for you guys too. I started a thread in the southeastern section about newspaper articles about snowfall from the 1700-1800's in NC. A fair amount of articles and some pictures about large snowfalls. Now its just a faint memory. I searched the web trying to find out more information and came across a guy named Joe Bastardi. He had written alot of articles about climate change. I know Mr. Bastardi sure Does NOT believe in Global Warming and posts a ton of stuff against it. He thinks we may be entering a little ice age. Maybe we should bring up this to Mr. Ice Age. Where is our snow Joe? I guess all of the snow lovers need to pack up and move to Boston. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAPE Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Interesting and very well thought out article. Great job. A few (sort of random) thoughts I have on the subject... DC is on the edge of the fall line, as is Baltimore. There are typically several events each winter where temps are marginal and areas NW in the higher elevations can do well and the cities do not. However there are also events where DC misses out on snow and Baltimore does well. This may be attributed to Baltimore being located about 40 miles NE of DC, even though both cities are at relatively low elevation. In winter events occurring where there is an arctic cold air mass in place(elevation not a factor), DC still can manage to miss out when storms track just a bit too far south or east, with the eastern shore and southern MD as well as central VA receiving the brunt of the storm. Obviously places to the NW miss out in that scenario was well, but as previously mentioned, they often receive snow when DC is rain or a mix. Also DC tends to get screwed in many Miller B set ups, where places even due east can sometimes do well catching the SW portion of the developing coastal storm. Boxing day 2010 is a good example, where the Delmarva received 5 to as much as 14 inches of snow at the immediate coast. In a NS dominated pattern with clippers, as we have just recently seen, DC can end up in the "jip zone" as the winds down slope, while areas to the west receive snow due to the dynamics of the parent low as well as terrain effects, and areas towards the coast can get enhancement with coastal redevelopment. Add in the urban heat island effect and it appears that there are a multitude of factors(excluding climate change and cycles) such as elevation, simple geography, and plain old bad luck, that conspire to produce less snow in DC than places to the NW, NE and sometimes E and SE. I live on the eastern shore at the same latitude as the very northern tip of DC, and in recent years I almost always surpass DC in seasonal snowfall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inverted_Trough Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Great article! While the data shows that it's harder for it to snow - and stick - in DC these days, the opposite seems to be the case for NYC (and probably all of SNE). It wouldn''t surprise me if NYC's seasonal snowfall has actually increased a little bit. Interesting how just 200 miles away, it's a completely different story. NYC is a concrete jungle, near sea level and surrounded by water....you'd think they'd also be getting jipped during the marginal events more often than they do, but lately, doesn't seem to be the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidlothianWX Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Sad but solid read. Obviously, we've seen a similar phenomenon down this way. The relocation of measuring to the airport has hurt totals. RIC had a lower average to begin with so now we're seeing the impacts of missing out on the margins big-time. November snows are all but a distant memory while March has delivered just a few fluke events over the past decade or so. Where Richmond is really hurting is in the record event category. Although RIC has seen four top-15 events since 1980 (arguably five if you count the botched 96 total), three of those came between 80-83 and none since Jan. 2000. The largest airport total since that event is 10 inches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fozz Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Great article! While the data shows that it's harder for it to snow - and stick - in DC these days, the opposite seems to be the case for NYC (and probably all of SNE). It wouldn''t surprise me if NYC's seasonal snowfall has actually increased a little bit. Interesting how just 200 miles away, it's a completely different story. NYC is a concrete jungle, near sea level and surrounded by water....you'd think they'd also be getting jipped during the marginal events more often than they do, but lately, doesn't seem to be the case. NYC's seasonal average has certainly increased and may continue to increase, at least temporarily, as crappy decades fade from the 30 year record. I do think it's short-lived though, and perhaps it marks NYC's final hurrah as a snowy city. If the world warms 3-8°F this century, which is all but inevitable, there's no way that NYC would be able to keep getting 30"+ winters on a regular basis. In a generation, NYC will probably be like DC is today, and DC's transformation to a Raleigh-like climate will be complete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ3 Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 bob ryan wrote an article about this in his weather almanac book about how dc should expect to see much less snow going forward. this was back in the 90s when i read it. he's been right so far.I was just going to mention this point. Actually the Almanac version was 2002-2003. Of course the irony was that winter had over 40 inches at DCA. But for the most part we get the point. I seem to remember him mentioning some researchers felt we would eventually end up averaging 2-4 inches per year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted February 6, 2014 Author Share Posted February 6, 2014 Great comments thanks. Been really busy but I'll get back to some of them soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterymix Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 The idea of taking official snow measurements at DCA makes the trend more intense. Just imagine if someone thought, "Where can I take snow measurements that are most affected by the urban heat island and by the humid and low elevation of a river and runway tarmac?" Gosh! Why measure snow at the bottom of the city instead of at a park in the middle? BTW, that "15" at the bottom; how soon will it be replaced by a "14" or "13"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mappy Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Just got a chance to read the article, nicely done Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ltrain Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Great read. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weatherjedi Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 NYC's seasonal average has certainly increased and may continue to increase, at least temporarily, as crappy decades fade from the 30 year record. I do think it's short-lived though, and perhaps it marks NYC's final hurrah as a snowy city. If the world warms 3-8°F this century, which is all but inevitable, there's no way that NYC would be able to keep getting 30"+ winters on a regular basis. In a generation, NYC will probably be like DC is today, and DC's transformation to a Raleigh-like climate will be complete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weatherjedi Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Thats intresting...tho i think NYC keeps records at central park...so maybe the analog to DCA might not work. Id love to see the trends for Iad and bwi etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WEATHER53 Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 It's harder to get it measured in a way that allows true comparisons to the decades preceeding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.