Hoosier Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 I'm assuming most have heard of this storm, as it was one of the more impactful and meteorologically impressive storms of the 20th century in the eastern US. In case you haven't, here's something that was written for the November 1950 Monthly Weather Review: http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/078/mwr-078-11-0204.pdf This storm affected most of the region in some way, but it was really the eastern areas that were hardest hit with some areas of Ohio reporting 30"+ of snow and monstrous drifts. As mentioned above, the meteorological setup was rather unusual in that the storm moved northwest from the Mid-Atlantic, eventually peaking around 978 mb in northern Ohio and doing a loop before moving northeastward into Canada. Below are some surface charts taken from the November 1950 Monthly Weather Review. As you can see, there was an initial low in the Lakes which eventually died out. Shaded areas represent areas of precipitation at time of observation. November 24 a.m. November 24 p.m. November 25 a.m. November 25 p.m. November 26 a.m. While maps of snowfall totals have been done for this storm, most of what I had come across left out what happened on the western fringes...i.e. areas west of Michigan/Indiana. Totals were certainly less impressive but still, I wanted to make something to account for those areas. Here's my snowfall map for the period from November 24-29 (there was some snow before this which was not really related to the developing eastern low, so it's not included). The map is smoothed to some extent as I came across locally higher and lower totals in my zones, but that could partly be due to difficulty measuring as it was a very windy storm. November 24-29 totals from select cities: Marquette, MI: 14.5" Detroit, MI: 8.1" Green Bay, WI: 3.8" Milwaukee, WI: 2.8" Chicago, IL: 4.7" South Bend, IN: 10.1" Fort Wayne, IN: 10.5" Indianapolis, IN: 3.5" Lexington, KY: 8.2" Louisville, KY: 3.7" Toledo, OH: 8.1" Columbus, OH: 14.1" Dayton, OH: 12.2" Akron, OH: 21.5" Cleveland, OH: 22.1" Youngstown, OH: 29.5" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted October 23, 2014 Author Share Posted October 23, 2014 Looking at obs from across the region, this was an all-out blizzard in much of Ohio and eastern Kentucky. Blizzard conditions may have spread farther west but not finding evidence of it... it was plenty windy but the visibility criteria looks like it wasn't met. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicago WX Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 Courtesy of this cool site, for those that don't know: http://www.greatlakes.salsite.com/ Nice write-up Hoosier. Very neat storm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buckeye Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 During the Michigan / Ohio State game too. Dubbed the 'snow bowl'. Love to see something like that in January. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted October 23, 2014 Author Share Posted October 23, 2014 Check out the 850 mb temperature progression. Impressively cold stuff for late November. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunder Road Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 This storm is represented in our WRF simulations of old LES cases: http://fujita.valpo.edu/LES_cases/1950-11-20_original/dbz.pdf for the first half, and http://fujita.valpo.edu/LES_cases/1950-11-24/dbz.pdf for the second. Note the curved single band into western MI around 14-18z on the 24th, as well as the very end of the first link with LES on Lake Erie on a due south wind... in November! (Also, for you NWP junkies, notice how differently the 24th is represented on the two simulations. Double-nesting and running with a cold start certainly leaves room for error!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunder Road Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 Oh yeah, in Chrome you can use the arrow keys to move through the hours instead of scrolling like a madman all the way through. Not sure about other browsers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted October 24, 2014 Author Share Posted October 24, 2014 The old models of the time had it as a decent coastal low in the 144hr range. I wonder if todays models would pick it up faster considering the strange way it formed. I didn't even know they had models back then. I thought I read that this storm was one of the things that led to the push for numerical modeling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
on_wx Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario (100km SW of Toronto) for November 24-26, 1950: Nov 24: 24" Nov 25: 6" Nov 26: 2" Total: 32" Other interesting note: 8" of snow fell on Nov 4 1950 at the same station. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunder Road Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 I didn't even know they had models back then. I thought I read that this storm was one of the things that led to the push for numerical modeling. They didn't. Well, technically NWP on ENIAC began in 1950, but at this point NWP was only solving the barotropic vorticity equation at 500 mb (and taking about 24 hours to forecast 24 hours). I didn't mean to confuse anyone... what I posted is a simulation of the event. It takes in the NCAR global reanalysis data (2 1/2 degree resolution) as the background field, updating every 6 hours. It runs the outermost domain at 108 km, then nests down to 36 km, then nests again to 12 km over the domain you see in the output. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sokolow Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 Neat. Historical case studies are the coolest, thanks for the writeup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowlord81 Posted October 25, 2014 Share Posted October 25, 2014 Very neat storm. I've always wanted to see a re-analysis of the 1978 Blizzard. I sometimes find myself wondering how the storm looked on radar, cause Im sure we've never seen anything like it since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted October 25, 2014 Author Share Posted October 25, 2014 Very neat storm. I've always wanted to see a re-analysis of the 1978 Blizzard. I sometimes find myself wondering how the storm looked on radar, cause Im sure we've never seen anything like it since. I'd love to see radar from that storm. All I've seen are visible and infrared satellite images and it had a pretty classic appearance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Posted October 26, 2014 Share Posted October 26, 2014 I'd love to see radar from that storm. All I've seen are visible and infrared satellite images and it had a pretty classic appearance. That and Jan 67 blizzard would be the other i would love to see some radar images of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted October 27, 2014 Share Posted October 27, 2014 Quote from Kocin and Uccellini (2004), page 349, regarding the storm of 1950. "Easterly gales with hurricane force gusts prevailed across much of the northeastern United States and coincided with high tide, producing destructive coastal flooding. Wind gusts in excess of 100 mph were recorded in Newark, NJ (108mph); Hartford, CT; and Concord, NH, and wind speed of hurricane force were experienced not only along the coast, but over much of the interior of the Northeast as well." This description sounds a lot like the destruction produced by Sandy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michsnowfreak Posted October 28, 2014 Share Posted October 28, 2014 We were fringed here, but it sounds like it was a sloppy mix of snow/sleet/ice to rain to snow. Precip fell at Detroit non-stop from 2am Nov 25th through 1pm Nov 26th. Total precip was 0.98" with 6.3" snow (24 hour period max was 0.90" and 5.5"). Then there was about a 36-hour break of just flurries (T) until another 1.7" of snow (0.15" liquid) fell the early morning of the 28th. It appeared to all be the same storm system, so the Nov 25-28 total precip was 1.13" with 8.0" of snow. Snow depth by sunrise of the 28th was 7", one of the higher marks on record for November for Detroit (the record is 9"). Comments on the storm-log for November 1950 for Detroit show the months volatility. "November was the coldest since 1936. A temperature of 81 on the 1st was the highest ever recorded in November. Minimums of 7 and 10 on the 24th and 25th, respectively, were the lowest ever recorded for those particular dates. Driving conditions were extremely hazardous during the snowfall of the 25th and 26th. Small ice floes were observed for the first time this season in the Detroit river on the 26th". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted November 6, 2014 Author Share Posted November 6, 2014 500 mb loop leading up to and during the storm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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