Blizzard of 2005 vs the Blizzard of 2015

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

Back about eleven years ago or longer, I witnessed the worst snowstorm in the history of my life living on Cape Cod, the Outer Cape to be exact.  We received a total of 35" it is in the PNS statement the NWS issued after the Blizzard on January 24th 2005.  I remember the day after the blizzard struck.  Snow drifts the size of two stories high, driveways covered in snow, and streets uneasy to plow due to the amount of snow that fell within 29 hours.  The snow fell throughout the 29 hours at, at least a clip of 1"/hour or more for the 29 hours straight to give us 35".  It is by far the strongest winter storm I have ever witnessed, even the power of the wind gusts showed me the true nature of this blizzard.  Nantucket, MA the closest land mass to the center of the storm received a gust as high as 86mph before the power went out to the whole island.  The pressure at the buoy 44008 which is 54 nmi southeast of Nantucket, MA was around 980.8mb pretty low for a nor'easter.  However it wasn't the pressure of the low that caused the massive winds, it was the pressure gradient between the low and the high over Quebec, Canada that provided the necessary mechanism for the high wind gusts, even Hyannis gusted to 72mph.  In terms of severity of wind and snowfall, this blizzard was by far the worst ever in my neighborhood.

Now about a year and a half ago, the winter of 2014-2015 served the second largest winter storm to strike Harwich, MA in my lifetime.  It was a longer duration beast that brought about 33 hours of snow to my town.  We ended up with 30.4" officially in the west part of our town, but I swear I got about 32-33" of snow in my front yard.  The backside of this snowstorm was probably the second worst all-time in my life, only second to the storm of Blizzard of 2005 in which the mesoscale banding brought 8"/75 minutes to Taunton, MA and I remember counting the inches of snow that piled up behind me from the Blizzard of 05 as I shoveled the walkway.  It was snowing at 5"/hour clip and we got thundersnow around midnight on January 23rd 2005.  Both storms seemed to dry slot a little bit, but the Blizzard of 2015 brought OES to Cape Cod during the time of the dry slot due to cold northeasterly winds flowing over the warmer waters.  In terms of pressure the Blizzard of 2015 brought a low to the benchmark of 977.5mb, about 3mb lower than the bLizzard of 2005.  Also the highest Nantucket, MA wind gust reached 76mph and the whole island again lost power.  Both storms were monsters in their own rights, but the winds and snowfall severity was better in the Blizzard of 2005 it was more extreme and more powerful.

 

MASSACHUSETTS

 

...BARNSTABLE COUNTY...

   WEST HARWICH          30.5   915 AM  1/28  SPOTTER                

   HYANNIS               27.0   748 PM  1/27  HAM RADIO              

   EAST FALMOUTH         24.8  1000 PM  1/27  TRAINED SPOTTER        

   WEST YARMOUTH         24.0   250 PM  1/27  HAM RADIO              

   HARWICH               23.0   749 PM  1/27  HAM RADIO              

   NORTH FALMOUTH        22.5  1055 AM  1/28  HAM RADIO              

   SOUTH HYANNIS         22.0  1054 AM  1/28  HAM RADIO              

   CENTERVILLE           21.0   700 PM  1/27  TRAINED SPOTTER        

   SOUTH DENNIS          18.2   728 PM  1/27  EMERGENCY MANAGER      

   ORLEANS               17.6   547 PM  1/27  TRAINED SPOTTER        

   WELLFLEET             17.5   136 PM  1/27  HAM RADIO              

   CHATHAM               17.1   800 AM  1/28  CO-OP                  

   BREWSTER              14.0   308 PM  1/27  HAM RADIO              

 

MASSACHUSETTS

 

...BARNSTABLE COUNTY...

   SAGAMORE BEACH        36.0   944 PM  1/23 

   HARWICH               35.0  1049 PM  1/23   GENERAL PUBLIC

   NORTH EASTHAM         32.0   528 PM  1/23 

   YARMOUTH PORT         30.0   240 PM  1/23 

   BREWSTER              25.5   820 PM  1/23 

   SANDWICH              24.0   315 PM  1/23   NWS EMPLOYEE

   BARNSTABLE            20.0   244 PM  1/23 

 

 

 

[cleetussnow]

many weenies were conceived during those storms.  You are lucky to have mostly experienced a snowy epoch as a weather enthusiast.  I would say a lot people on this forum have seen once in a lifetime type winter storms about 5 times.  We have been spoiled.  

while I hope to see another storm like these, we are already playing with the houses money.  

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

that is very true.

[ORH_wxman]

2005 was a more "ferocious" storm...had higher wind. It was developing more explosively at the time it hit New England.

 

2015 wins for duration and probably had a larger area of 30"+ snows due to the big mesobanding along 495 back to ORH. But if you are going for pure blizzard at the peak of the storm, 2005 is hard to beat. Feb 2013 matched it back here or even exceeded it (and obviously down in CT where 2005 gave them a nasty dryslot)...but I know this thread wasn't about 2013. 

 

 

2005 was def the higher impact blizzard on the Cape for sure. The wind/cold combo there was pretty rare.

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

Most definitely Will, I wish there was a better forum to discuss that storm like we had with EasternUSwx, but I didn't know about the forum at the time.

[JC-CT]

Yep I vote 2013

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

Blizzard of 2005 was the best for all of Cape Cod, including the Upper Cape where they saw amounts near 36-38", while I saw 35" total.  My story of this blizzard was very simple and honestly very fun.  Several days, around the Monday before the blizzard, this is the week before the blizzard struck, and I heard rumblings about the blizzard potential from Henry Margusity and Joe Bastardi of Accuweather.com.  They were posting videos for accuweather at the time and they mentioned that models were showing signs of a major snowstorm striking New England.  Now the severity of it wasn't intact in the forecasts yet due to timing issues and uncertainty.  Then that Wednesday, the models lost the storm signal for the Northeastern US and favored southern Mid Atlantic states.  Henry Margusity was bummed out definitely.  He said the monster storm idea was off the table.  Then Friday came along and the storm was back on as a large Alberta Clipper low and Manitoba Mauler disturbance combined to form a monster surface low traveling across the northern US, around 40N latitude.  A huge snowstorm struck Chicago and Detroit as well as Cleveland and Buffalo from the 21st through the morning of the 22nd.  Then we all knew the blizzard was going to happen.  First winter storm watches issued for the region where 6"+ was possible, then that Friday afternoon and evening, a heavy snow warning was issued along with a Blizzard watch for snows near 20-30" of snow across the region especially eastern MA and Cape Cod, MA.  Nantucket was still in a winter storm watch as they could have been raining during the height of the storm.  Then Saturday came along.  I remember it vividly.  It was extremely cold for Cape Cod weather that morning.  Then my dad asked me to move the wood into the basement that afternoon, so I did the task around 1pm and came inside around 2pm and checked the internet for the recent model updates and forecast changes.  I watched Henry M's video on the storm and he mentioned 1-2' of snow from New York into New England, with a snow map and everything.  I checked the NWS website and they issued a Blizzard Warning for the area.  We were now expected to experience the worst snowstorm in my lifetime, with hurricane force winds now expected Sunday morning through the afternoon along with the heavy falling snow.  So the snow began to fall around 3-4pm local time here in Harwich, MA.  Since the storm came from the west, we were likely the last locations to snow.  The local meteorologists up til the evening of that Saturday were forecasting 6-10" for my area as they said that we would transition over to rain during the height of the storm, they were dead wrong, we might have sleeted during the early morning hours, but the backend snows made up for the loss and we snowed and snowed, that Sunday was by far the worst snow I have ever seen in my life.  We likely had 24" that Sunday alone.  We were at 12" by midnight that Saturday night as my Dad and I went out to plow a path through the snow so that it would be easier to plow during the worst of the storm.  We were wrong.  We went to his customer's house and spent about thirty minutes just chilling and watching the news and drinking hot chocolate.  It was awesome, the snow was still falling to the ground quietly until the winds picked up as we got home around 1am EST.  Now the forecasters were saying the blizzard would be full fledged and Cape Cod would no longer changeover to rain so they updated the snow totals, now 30"+ for the whole Cape.  Now they were forecasting hurricane force winds of 75-85mph, Nantucket, MA gusted to 86mph at the peak and the whole island lost power.  The peak closest approach of the low was near 40N/70W benchmark and a pressure of 980.8mb.  It was bombing as it passed to our southeast so the pressure was lowering at 24mb/24hours, it was officially a meteorological bomb.  Once the storm reached that benchmark around 7am (12z) hurricane force winds were rampant across the Cape and Islands as Harwich, Chatham to Hyannis all gusted over 70mph.  Blizzard conditions were reached across the area that morning and we officially had the blizzard of 2005.  However, the minute I woke up from a nap that morning we had about another 12" on top of the already heavy snow we received before 12am.  My sister went out during the height of the hurricane force winds and blizzard conditions to help my dad plow and shovel snow, it got so bad that my father quit plowing that morning and came home in time to watch the AFC championship game against the Steelers, Patriots won on their way to win the Super bowl against the Eagles.  AS the snow stopped around 9pm that night after the last band of 5"/hour snowfall came through late afternoon, we ended up with 35" of snow and we were snowed in for the rest of the week with another clipper low coming through the flow south of New England, I think I received between 1-4" here in Harwich, MA.  They cancelled school for the whole remainder of the week, it was an epic winter for sure.  98.7" of snow fell that winter across Harwich, MA.  Hope you enjoyed this story.  I know I did writing it.

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

86mph wind gust, Nantucket, MA lost power around 3am that morning of the 23rd of January 2005.

[moonfancier]

Staying in Chilmark on MV I was stunned to experience 28.87 on the barometer in 2005 with howling N-NW winds on Saturday night/early Sunday morning.

Didn't get out for 6 days.

Made a small fortune with the networks during that time-frame.

[ice1972]

Neither......Feb 2013, Feb 2006.....and all of Jan 2011 for me....in that order

[Snowedin]

I know this thread is a little dated but I just wanted to say I agree wholeheartedly with the OP. No one storm that we've experienced since then or even prior to (in my lifetime at least) had the intensity of the 2005 blizzard. As far as duration, intensity and ferocious wind speeds nothing else has come close. Surprisingly, we never lost power here despite having wind gusts close to 70 mph at the height of the storm. If I remember correctly, we ended up with about 30" but it was so hard to get an exact measurement due to all the blowing and drifting that took place. As a teenager, it's definitely one of my fondest memories and it's also one of the few times I can remember feeling scared in the middle of a winter storm. It was simply impossible to see further than a foot when this beast was raging in full force and at times, difficult to breath. This was a blizzard in its purest form.

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

So true SnowedIn, I was a sophomore in High School at the time and I remember clearly the whole storm, to bad we don't have many videos of the storm on youtube.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

Both were big busts, in the trash they go. Miller Bs have a tendency to slip east of guidance or develop later than forecasted, reason why the west side folk should never high five their monitors until gametime. 

[codfishsnowman]

18 hours ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Both were big busts, in the trash they go. Miller Bs have a tendency to slip east of guidance or develop later than forecasted, reason why the west side folk should never high five their monitors until gametime. 

agreed but with both of those disasters the sky was still forecast to be falling at and after the first few innings, the step down from forecasters in both of those events were brutal even when seasoned weather weenies knew it was over.....at least you had boxing day

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

No one said this was a western New England storm.

[codfishsnowman]

2 hours ago, USCAPEWEATHERAF said:

No one said this was a western New England storm.

well they were both horribly over forecast up to and during the event for western folk so we have every right to be remarkably bitter or at least underwhelmed by both events....both of these events were forecast to be everyone's blockbusters...

[CoastalWx]

I was up all night for the 2005 storm. Unfortunately had to work for 2015 storm. For the nrn areas of Plymouth county up through here, it's a close call as far as snow goes. I want to say the edge may go to 2015 but I can't say for sure. 2005 had an annoying dryslot where the snow was more showery in nature (although still pretty heavy). That always felt a little disappointing. 2015 did as well in Plymouth county so perhaps it's a close call. Wind was likely stronger in 2005. Coastal flooding and damage was worse in 2015. The damage marshfield had in 2015 was pretty bad relatively speaking. Oddly enough, Nemo in 2013 takes the prize for most overall impact despite less snow than both. 

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

Nemo was less impact here on the Cape and Islands due to overall taint due to rain mixing in at times reducing snow totals to 17.5" of snow, backlash lasted longer in 2015 here while 2005 was shorter duration and much more impactful.  I argue to this day, that about 32-33" fell in my front yard.  I honestly think there is a boundary between Chatham and Harwich, because we get appreciably much more snowfall than they do anyways.  We end up with 32" they end up with 20".

[CoastalWx]

Nemo I thought was mostly snow there. At least in Brewster. I think power outages and impacts were felt worse in Nemo esp mid and upper Cape.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

On 10/23/2016 at 7:43 PM, USCAPEWEATHERAF said:

No one said this was a western New England storm.

We didnt steal your snow kid...its ok to discuss past storms from people who live beyond your driveway.  If it pains you to read different perspectives then dont start a thread or create your own weather forum for cape cod, ma usa earth.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

On 10/23/2016 at 9:34 AM, codfishsnowman said:

agreed but with both of those disasters the sky was still forecast to be falling at and after the first few innings, the step down from forecasters in both of those events were brutal even when seasoned weather weenies knew it was over.....at least you had boxing day

Yea, i thought 2015 was the biggest bust of my life but it didnt sting as bad as some of the busts before the internet days. Busts as a kid stung more since out reliance was on tv mets and when a storm failed you felt they let you down lol. Nowadays, you gather more info from more sources and some of it is your own. So when a forecast tanks, youhave yourself to blame too. For 2015, i blame the euro but also myself....i saw all the red flags but chose to ignore them. It didnt help though when practically every major forecast went big here. Still, i had the "i knew it" feeling when i woke up. 

 

[codfishsnowman]

41 minutes ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Yea, i thought 2015 was the biggest bust of my life but it didnt sting as bad as some of the busts before the internet days. Busts as a kid stung more since out reliance was on tv mets and when a storm failed you felt they let you down lol. Nowadays, you gather more info from more sources and some of it is your own. So when a forecast tanks, youhave yourself to blame too. For 2015, i blame the euro but also myself....i saw all the red flags but chose to ignore them. It didnt help though when practically every major forecast went big here. Still, i had the "i knew it" feeling when i woke up. 

 

agreed and I agree also 2015 was worse...at least 2005 had that massive area of overrunning snow with temps in the single digits and the waa snows were 80 percent of the totals here for that event....the real goods in 2015 were really just 30 miles away which made it so much worse

[Brian5671]

2 hours ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Yea, i thought 2015 was the biggest bust of my life but it didnt sting as bad as some of the busts before the internet days. Busts as a kid stung more since out reliance was on tv mets and when a storm failed you felt they let you down lol. Nowadays, you gather more info from more sources and some of it is your own. So when a forecast tanks, youhave yourself to blame too. For 2015, i blame the euro but also myself....i saw all the red flags but chose to ignore them. It didnt help though when practically every major forecast went big here. Still, i had the "i knew it" feeling when i woke up. 

 

The worst part of 2015 for western folks was seeing the early radar and the returns way east and knew the RGEM had scored a coup...you knew it was over, but we held on for a miracle.   I think we ended with 6-8 here after forecasts of 24-36.    Both times Upton's gone big like that they have busted hard.  (other one was 2/9/10 or something like that)

-

great storms for eastern NE however.   

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

hey I am happy with those of you discussing the storm that didn't get much of the snow to begin with, but don't so it was bust, because you didn't get any snow, I don't say NEMO was a bust because I only got 17.5" of snow instead of 40" like places in CT did.

[tamarack]

Nemo definitely was not a bust, but the forecasting busted in places, some in each direction.  The foothills forecast was 14-20"; I measured 11.3" and the Farmington co-op something like 8.8".  Meanwhile, 25-30 miles to the S and SE, LEW and AUG each had over 24".  (I think their forecast was 18-24", so 25/26 a slight bust the other way.)

And I don't recall our forecast for 2005, but know we got fringed with 1.8".  That winter never saw a snowfall greater than 3.2" until Feb. 10-11.  (When we got 21" with thunder)

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

4 hours ago, USCAPEWEATHERAF said:

hey I am happy with those of you discussing the storm that didn't get much of the snow to begin with, but don't so it was bust, because you didn't get any snow, I don't say NEMO was a bust because I only got 17.5" of snow instead of 40" like places in CT did.

The reality is your never going to make Everyone happy until we see another monster triple phase like 93 only 300 miles east. 

I was in Boston for 2005, Long Island feb 2013, nyc Jan 15 and nyc Jan 16. Boston 05 wins for sustained blizzard conditions. Jan 16 for snow intensity and ammounts as I was doing snow removal 3 miles north of Central Park and we had every bit of 27"s. 13 and 15 were disappointing in both spots as I was 50 miles west of the big snows 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

On 10/27/2016 at 2:49 PM, USCAPEWEATHERAF said:

hey I am happy with those of you discussing the storm that didn't get much of the snow to begin with, but don't so it was bust, because you didn't get any snow, I don't say NEMO was a bust because I only got 17.5" of snow instead of 40" like places in CT did.

Lol that is not the point of a bust.....of what others got compared to you. It is what you recieved compared to what was forecasted!!! Geezus dood, think.

if your patio was forecasted for 24+++ and you woke up next working with a sand whipped 4" flizzard, what would you call the storm? 

What was your feb 2013 forecast for? 

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

I don't remember the forecasts to be honest.

[powderfreak]

On 10/27/2016 at 2:49 PM, USCAPEWEATHERAF said:

hey I am happy with those of you discussing the storm that didn't get much of the snow to begin with, but don't so it was bust, because you didn't get any snow, I don't say NEMO was a bust because I only got 17.5" of snow instead of 40" like places in CT did.

Ive scratched my head so hard after reading this statement that I'm bleeding from the scalp.  

We all know what a "bust" is don't we?

[ORH_wxman]

The modeling was actually pretty solid for the Jan 2015 storm if one could come to terms with the ECMWF being an outlier...it's hard to treat it as one and subsequently put less weight on it. At first, I was more on board with it, but once we got inside of 36 hours, I think it was starting to become obvious that it was an outlier and probably wrong being as far west as it was. In the scheme of things, it wasn't horrifically far west, but it was over a highly populated region where the 50-60 mile difference mattered....NYC, HFD, SW CT and CT River Valley. The RGEM staying consistently stubborn with the westward extent of the mega snows around ORH was definitely a red flag. Typically the RGEM likes to agree with the Euro on amped solution and they make a deadly pair, but they didn't agree. Even the NAM mostly staying in the RGEM region (aside form a run or two) inside of 36 hours was a red flag.

 

The modeling for January 2005 was definitely worse. Consistently too far south and east until the last second, save the Euro and old ETA which showed big hits about 3 days out (Euro even longer actually)....but even they weren't quite amped enough.