Combining HECS/MECS totals across IAD/DCA/BWI- The Top 10

[gymengineer]

I was wondering how the top snowstorms shake out if you combine the snow totals across the three airports. So it's kind of a DC suburbs through Baltimore region look at the biggies. There's no official ranking significance for doing this. It's just for fun. And of course, there are disputed snow totals in there and all that, and none of the pre-IAD storms are on this list... this is just a different look at the storms. 

The order for the storm totals below is IAD/DCA/BWI .                             

1) 1/22-23/16: 29.3/17.8/29.2     Total: 76.3"

2) 2/5-6/10: 32.4/17.8/25.0        Total: 75.2" 

3) 2/15-18/03: 22.4/16.7/28.2     Total: 67.3"   (If you reject the 4-day event length, 3-day totals: 21.7/16.4/26.8   Total: 64.9")

4) 1/6-8/96: 24.6/17.1/22.5        Total: 64.2"

5) 2/11-12/83: 22.8/16.6/22.8     Total: 62.2"

6) 2/18-19/79: 16.3/18.7/20.0     Total: 55.0"

7) 12/18-19/09: 18.0/16.4/18.0   Total: 52.4"

8) 2/9-10/10: 9.3/10.8/19.5         Total: 39.6"

9) 1/29-30/66: 9.8/13.8/12.1       Total: 35.7"

10) 1/25/00: 10.3/9.3/14.9           Total: 34.5"

Just missed top 10:

1/22/87: 11.1/10.8/12.3        Total: 34.2"

Others of note:

2/7-8/67: 11.8/10.3/10.6       Total: 32.7"

2/22-23/87: 12.0/10.3/10.1   Total: 32.4"

3/13-14/93: 14.1/6.6/11.9     Total: 32.6"

2/12-13/14: 13.3/7.0/11.5     Total: 31.8"

 

 

[GramaxRefugee]

Interesting that on first glance, one might think you  listed in chronological order, not magnitude. Reverse-chrono through the first 6.

I half expected 1966 to be higher, but I guess my memory is wrong. I was pretty young then. (So was IAD I suppose)

[Cobalt]

Nice idea! I have some spare time today, so I'll contribute a bit and add the top 10/bottom 10 winters if you don't mind. Like the idea of adding up all of the airports, since it's more representative of the region rather than just 1 airport. 

[gymengineer]

15 minutes ago, GramaxRefugee said:

Interesting that on first glance, one might think you  listed in chronological order, not magnitude. Reverse-chrono through the first 6.

I half expected 1966 to be higher, but I guess my memory is wrong. I was pretty young then. (So was IAD I suppose)

I didn't even notice that until you pointed it out. One thing that stood out to me was how well 2/83 has held up and how close it was to 1/96. The 1983 event gets lost in the shuffle sometimes.

1966's impact does seem disproportionately high compared to the snow total. I think it was a combination of the super cold temps, the winds kicking up at the end of the storm, and worse plowing operations compared to today. The photos from that event look like no attempt at plowing happened while snow was falling on the most affected roads.  Same with 2/58. I think a repeat of either event wouldn't paralyze this area for as long as they did. 

[gymengineer]

29 minutes ago, Cobalt said:

Nice idea! I have some spare time today, so I'll contribute a bit and add the top 10/bottom 10 winters if you don't mind. Like the idea of adding up all of the airports, since it's more representative of the region rather than just 1 airport. 

Yeah, that would be great to see. I'm curious where 63/64 would end up, given the disparity between BWI and IAD, as well as 13/14 for the same reason.

[Cobalt]

Just now, gymengineer said:

Yeah, that would be great to see. I'm curious where 63/64 would end up, given the disparity between BWI and IAD, as well as 13/14 for the same reason.

Yeah, that was my feeling too, especially for the difference between IAD and DCA as well. Of course 09/10 is gonna be miles ahead of other winters when compared. I'll put the stuff in a spreadsheet in a couple hours and I'll post it here

[GramaxRefugee]

 

6 hours ago, gymengineer said:

 

1966's impact does seem disproportionately high compared to the snow total. I think it was a combination of the super cold temps, the winds kicking up at the end of the storm, and worse plowing operations compared to today. The photos from that event look like no attempt at plowing happened while snow was falling on the most affected roads.  Same with 2/58. I think a repeat of either event wouldn't paralyze this area for as long as they did. 

My youngest sister was born in the blizzard of 66 so it was part of family lore. We grew up in fairly snowy times, but it's hard to convince folks that we've gotten more snow since, in spite of this listing. And I think it's explained in Gym's comment. In the 60s side streets were not salted, and they just remained icy for 7-10 days. The Counties used to put half barrels of sand at the bottom of hills in winter so anyone could throw it on the road when needed.  In HoCo we had snow fences too. I was told that in the PG section of West Laurel the County never plowed the many miles of side roads. I remember a new but closed road which we sledded on for a couple weeks one year. Nowadays we get salt 2 days before it snows. Then a little more for good measure. I just walked the dog and there's still some salt on the cul-de-sac.

Maybe Cobalt can find some old photos or something because I don't see how younger guys can know what it was like.

Well, that's enough slogging through the snow for now. 

[nj2va]

What jumps out immediately is how awful DCA is at measuring snow.  

[Cobalt]

Through 95/96

https://prnt.sc/iil45d

 

[yoda]

1 hour ago, nj2va said:

What jumps out immediately is how awful DCA is at measuring snow.  

Nothing new to see here

 

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

I'm surprised, the totals are low. should be >90" in the next 5 years

[Cobalt]

Got all of the seasons since Dulles started measuring at 62/63. Too long to fit into one image, so here's the top 13/bottom 10

Interesting enough, the (Great) Blizzard of 2016 was close enough to making the top 10 list for every winter since 62/63 (of the 3 airports). Close enough in fact that it actually could have happened given ideal conditions in the storm (no dryslot reaching DCA, etc), with top 10 being at least 91.9", and that one storm reaching 76.3".

Also, it's pretty clear that 72/73 is the worst for the 3 airports by a long shot. Even 11/12 doesn't come close, since at least it had more snowfall altogether, and looks like a decent winter compared to 72/73 (and of course a big storm hit the South and areas there got 100x more snow than DCA that year)

Also, 4 of the top 6 have happened since 95/96, and 6 of 13 in the same time-frame. Also, there has been 5 winters out of the bottom 10 since 97/98 (6 of 11 if this winter holds or only increases cumulative snowfall by 5.2"), and it would make sense to believe that our bigger winters are getting bigger, and our smaller winters are getting smaller (I guess it's a fair trade given we seem to be in the cycle where our huge storms happen every 5-7 year or so rather than every 20 years). 

Here's the link to the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1spsZkSQcHFFViW3xL8V9vY3HHzoLi2rGNOj6cnpZJdM/edit?usp=sharing

keep in mind there may be an error or 2 in the data, but it all seems accurate, unless I skipped over something. 

 

[North Balti Zen]

Cobalt - that’s nice work- thanks for doing that. And gym, good thread. 

[gymengineer]

Thanks, Cobalt. It’s interesting to me that we get a clear #1 season, clear #2, and clear #3. Then, 4-7th place are much more closely clustered. 

02/03 was a fantastic snow season for the cities— much better snow-wise than 13/14.  And 78/79 was another season where the cities did better than 13/14. 

[Cobalt]

Started working on multi-year stretches. Got the top 5 snowiest 2 year stretches here. Pretty positive that this is entirely accurate, but if it isn't let me know.

 

Couple things of note:

#1: 9/10 was insanely impressive for the 3 airports. I knew it was impressive, but it's not even close to other seasons. Alone it would've ranked #6 on this list (of snowiest 2 year stretches mind you). I can't imagine what would've happened if the Dec 26th 2010 actually had a big hit (8-12" for both airports). The 9/10-10/11 streak would have been off the charts basically. 

#2: 13/14-14/15 was very impressive, and is up there with some of the big ones. 14/15 was even close to being a bigger year too, and so who knows.

#3: DCA measures with a pool noodle heated to 200 degrees

[Cobalt]

On 2/24/2018 at 1:18 PM, gymengineer said:

Thanks, Cobalt. It’s interesting to me that we get a clear #1 season, clear #2, and clear #3. Then, 4-7th place are much more closely clustered. 

02/03 was a fantastic snow season for the cities— much better snow-wise than 13/14.  And 78/79 was another season where the cities did better than 13/14. 

02/03 and 13/14 are fairly incomparable, except maybe for IAD and points North or NW. It also hurts that DCA measured low during the Feb 12-14 storm (I guess you could consider it low, since despite it's location, folks in the city had 10" or in some cases more), but that wouldn't have changed it's rank any bit. 

[Cobalt]

I'll leave you with snowiest 3 year stretches (at least the top 2 since that's all I have time for), and it does confirm that 14/15-15/16 was the snowiest 3 year stretch when considering totals from all 3 airports. Most of this comes from IAD, but BWI's numbers from the 3 year stretch are pretty impressive too. #Snowtown

[KingJWx]

Nice work Cobalt. I wonder what are the lowest 2 year stretches for the region? I'd think 16-17 and 17-18 would have to rank up there.

[Cobalt]

5 hours ago, KingJWx said:

Nice work Cobalt. I wonder what are the lowest 2 year stretches for the region? I'd think 16-17 and 17-18 would have to rank up there.

Only got around to the first lowest 2 year stretches, and I couldn't go any further. Pretty depressing stuff. 

Speaks volumes. 

 

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

I measured over 100" here in 02-03 and it was done kind of easily 

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

It might surprise you, the pressure of historic storms. looking at the Kocin-Uclinni Northeast snowstorms book.

[Mordecai]

It’s funny how the best 3 year stretch and the two worst year stretches all happen within the same decade. Crazy

[Cobalt]

With the recent storm, the total from all 3 airports is 20.8". If this winter ended today, that would be 9th worst in the Dulles measurement era for all 3 airports.

We need 3" to surpass 12/13 (DCA 3.1" BWI 8" 12.7" Total 23.8") and get out of the top 10 bottom. I haven't done any more bottom 2 year stretch years yet, but I'm assuming if we get about the same, we can get out of the #2 spot. Glancing at it, 00/01 and 01/02 was pretty bad (37.1"), and so we're close enough to beating it (34.5" in this 2 year stretch). Get a huge storm (I'm assuming huge would mean double digits for IAD/BWI, maybe 8 or 9" at DCA), and we're probably out of the top 5 or top 10 in that regard

[T. August]

Dude @Cobalt is bad ass

[Cobalt]

@gymengineer

If you don't mind me asking, where do you find individual storm totals? I haven't looked into it an awful lot, but from what I've seen I could only find CWG articles detailing the events & Wunderground (where you have to piece each day together & the only accurate number is the daily total)

[gymengineer]

14 minutes ago, Cobalt said:

@gymengineer

If you don't mind me asking, where do you find individual storm totals? I haven't looked into it an awful lot, but from what I've seen I could only find CWG articles detailing the events & Wunderground (where you have to piece each day together & the only accurate number is the daily total)

https://climate.usu.edu/mapGUI/mapGUI.php

Let me know if you can’t figure out the interface. 

[Cobalt]

6 hours ago, gymengineer said:

https://climate.usu.edu/mapGUI/mapGUI.php

Let me know if you can’t figure out the interface. 

I think I got it after a bit. Interesting that the site uses snowfall to the 2nd decimal place.

Also, found out that IAD received 11.1" from March 16-17 2014. I knew that IAD's total was up there, but not that high. Neat stuff!

[gymengineer]

1 hour ago, Cobalt said:

I think I got it after a bit. Interesting that the site uses snowfall to the 2nd decimal place.

Also, found out that IAD received 11.1" from March 16-17 2014. I knew that IAD's total was up there, but not that high. Neat stuff!

I assumed that was a conversion thing. I think maybe they convert to metric first and then convert back to inches from the metric value? 

If you're not trying to go back to the 80's and earlier, here's a *great* site to sift through-- airport totals are included: http://www.jhuapl.edu/weather/education/ACONdata.html  Given where you've been drilling down in terms of data, I think you'll really enjoy going through the "Precipitation" pdf's for many winters past. (BWI's total for 12/18-19/09 got downward revised to 18" much later in the season-- the only wrong total I'm aware of.)

And, if you're looking for an easy place to catch all the stats (high, low, precip, snowfall, snow depth, max wind, max wind gust, temp departures from average) about winters 13/14, 14/15, and 15/16, you should familiarize yourself with the NWS forecast offices' climate pages: http://w2.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=lwx   Select (CF6), the airport you want, then Archived Data. Then choose the month. They only keep a certain number of months backwards in time, so you have to save the expiring months by copying and pasting into whatever format you want. Let me know if you'd like CF6's for the 09/10 winter; I have those saved.