Countdown to Winter 2018 -2019

[tamarack]

1 hour ago, WarrenCtyWx said:

Yeah I didn't mean that it was historic everywhere, just that you'd be hard pressed to find a location that got completely screwed.

75% of average snowfall is pretty bad, 16h of 20 winters here.  However, the mid-November powder (7") that kept the ground white into early April was a plus, and we had a decent storm in early January.  Beyond that, it was reading about snow to our south.

[LibertyBell]

On 10/19/2018 at 7:04 PM, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah it was a very good winter that often gets overshadowed by the following winter. 

Both of those late '70s ninos had very cold decembers. We will have to see if we can get back on the cold December Niño train this season. Last time we did it was dec 2009. Both December 2014 and 2015 were furnaces...2015 was the worst. It was  actually more like a slightly above average November. Thankfully though that was a super Niño and we don't have that. But I still worry about a dec '14 or dec '94 happening. 

1994-95 was horrendous and the only reason we forget it is because it was sandwiched by two of the greatest winters of all time lol.

 

About December 2014, would you take that if you knew you would get what we had from the middle of January through the middle of March?

/OT

lol at the Yankees suck and Arod sucks chants during the post game after the first game of the world series, they are muting like half the broadcast lmao.  Even Papi is laughing because they are basically serenading him and demonizing Arod lmao

[LibertyBell]

On 10/20/2018 at 12:39 PM, mreaves said:

That storm still gives me nightmares. Lots of rain here while heavy snow not too far away. 

Here's another one for nightmares lol...... back in the 1920s in February NYC had a storm which dropped 20 inches of..................... SLEET!

One can only imagine how much it would be if it were all snow!

[LibertyBell]

11 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah it was only really kind of a dud in far NNE...esp up into Maine...though it was frigid there. But elsewhere it was a pretty monster winter. ORH had their 4th snowiest winter on record that season and only 1993-1994 was a colder winter there in the past 3+ decades (for BOS '02-'03 was actually colder than '93-'94 believe it or not and 5th coldest since Logan airport became the site ). 

It def gets the reputation as a Mid-Atlantic centric winter but the monster snows were actually spread out much further than just that region. 

Even JFK had 50"+ in 2002-03 which is pretty rare lol, they also had 50"+ in 1977-78 but somehow undermeasured the Feb 1978 blizzard to only 14".........it was more like 2 feet there.

Seeing major snow into April in 2002-03 was a lot of fun though!

 

Baltimore had 50" of snow in February but Boston also had their biggest snowstorm on record in the same month, that was definitely a well-distributed winter.  In that respect 1995-96 and 2002-03 stand apart from all the others.

[LibertyBell]

On 10/20/2018 at 9:37 AM, tamarack said:

Late Feb 2010 was another 4-day storm here  Feb. 25-26 brought most of our snow while pasting S.VT and the Catskills.  Next 2 days brought mainly 33-34° RA/catpaws (on strong NE winds) while NYC got its 21" snowicane at low-mid 20s and the 'Skills got slammed again - some locations there got 4 ft.  (There was also a station in the WVA mts that got Catskill-level snow in that event, and also the 2 earlier KU storms, and recorded something like 159" for the month.)

The set up looks very similar except the Feb 2010 storm came in further to the south and west.

I always wondered what March 2001 would have been like had it gone according to some of the earlier forecasts and thats the storm I think it would have been most like.

[LibertyBell]

6 hours ago, tamarack said:

75% of average snowfall is pretty bad, 16h of 20 winters here.  However, the mid-November powder (7") that kept the ground white into early April was a plus, and we had a decent storm in early January.  Beyond that, it was reading about snow to our south.

2015-16 was better to the south too, we had close to 50" of snow after a torch December, and 30"+ of that came in one storm but some other highlights were a couple of storms in early February, right around the super bowl.

[weathafella]

On 10/22/2018 at 7:53 PM, Ginx snewx said:

Answer to Rays questioning Euro Dec. low sea ice, rapid buildup in ECanada of cyrosphere . We party. Analog 02/03 continues

You and I are on that analog.  The old men and the weenies....  

[tamarack]

6 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Here's another one for nightmares lol...... back in the 1920s in February NYC had a storm which dropped 20 inches of..................... SLEET!

One can only imagine how much it would be if it were all snow!

For that 3-day event, Central Park recorded 17.5" and 4.43" LE, for a 4:1 ratio.  All IP generally runs 3:1 so I'd guess there was some snow mixed in.  Still, a horror show for plowing that stuff; roughly the same LE as the 43" dump at Farmington, Maine in the 100-hour storm of 2/69.  Nearby stations with 1920 data are scarce - BDL had 2.80" LE at temps well below 32 but the snow data is missing.  Two towns near the NJ/NY/PA confluence (Sussex, Port Jervis) each got 12-14" of near 10:1 snow.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

I’d take 20” of sleet.

[weathafella]

I call bs on 20 inches of sleet.  I don’t doubt the obs is in the books but my guess is the 20 inches was mainly snow.

[powderfreak]

18 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

It was only a monster into the deep interior of sne....it was not here.

I had like 86"...very good, but not obscene. 

That winter had like 110" at ALB in 02-03.  Biggest winter I ever had living there.

That included 50" in a 10 day stretch from 12/25 to 1/4....so half of that season landed in less than 2 weeks.  

However, if you are going to cram two 20" storms and some other small stuff into a 10-day period, doing it during the holidays was absolutely unreal.  You dream of getting two MECS during the Christmas/New Year week.  Nothing gets you into a holiday spirit like 24" on 12/25.

[powderfreak]

26 minutes ago, weathafella said:

I call bs on 20 inches of sleet.  I don’t doubt the obs is in the books but my guess is the 20 inches was mainly snow.

It was at a 4:1 ratio based on the liquid he sited.  That's probably largely sleet but you also get crystals/snow in the low levels during those sleet storms...could have been a bunch of pixie dust mixed in.

[40/70 Benchmark]

6 hours ago, weathafella said:

You and I are on that analog.  The old men have flaccid weenies....  

Cialis?

[40/70 Benchmark]

18 hours ago, WarrenCtyWx said:

Yeah I didn't mean that it was historic everywhere, just that you'd be hard pressed to find a location that got completely screwed.

That winter would have sat better with me had I not gotten porked in PD II with only a 1'.

I took leave in the marines to come home for that craptacular disappointment. 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

7 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

That winter would have sat better with me had I not gotten porked in PD II with only a 1'.

I took leave in the marines to come home for that craptacular disappointment. 

[weathafella]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

It was at a 4:1 ratio based on the liquid he sited.  That's probably largely sleet but you also get crystals/snow in the low levels during those sleet storms...could have been a bunch of pixie dust mixed in.

I just don’t buy it based on life experience and no stories about the 20 inch sleet storm...

[dryslot]

12 minutes ago, weathafella said:

I just don’t buy it based on life experience and no stories about the 20 inch sleet storm...

I don't either, 5.0" qpf, hmmm.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

15 minutes ago, weathafella said:

I just don’t buy it based on life experience and no stories about the 20 inch sleet storm...

Did your online weather board in the 1920s not give proper observations?

[powderfreak]

57 minutes ago, weathafella said:

I just don’t buy it based on life experience and no stories about the 20 inch sleet storm...

Oh I'm not sure I buy it either but 4.5 inches of QPF...I mean that *could* be a lot of sleet in theory.  

[tamarack]

4 hours ago, powderfreak said:

It was at a 4:1 ratio based on the liquid he sited.  That's probably largely sleet but you also get crystals/snow in the low levels during those sleet storms...could have been a bunch of pixie dust mixed in.

My only significant snow that actually fell as 4:1 was the sloppy disaster of late Feb 2010.  NYC temps in Feb 1920 were too cold for that to have happened.

[dmillz25]

7 hours ago, powderfreak said:

It was at a 4:1 ratio based on the liquid he sited.  That's probably largely sleet but you also get crystals/snow in the low levels during those sleet storms...could have been a bunch of pixie dust mixed in.

That sounds similar to last years storm here we got like 7” of snow and sleet

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

I think Winter starts early this year, sometimes like mid to late November with the first snowstorm of the winter for SNE, and probably after Thanksgiving for the coastline, those SSTs to our NE are cooling rapidly.

[LibertyBell]

On 10/24/2018 at 12:23 PM, powderfreak said:

It was at a 4:1 ratio based on the liquid he sited.  That's probably largely sleet but you also get crystals/snow in the low levels during those sleet storms...could have been a bunch of pixie dust mixed in.

I remember Uncle W found some pictures of the February 1920 event and he posted them (B&W of course), in the pictures it literally looked like Brooklyn had been struck by an iceberg LOL.  I mean there was an iceberg in the middle of Brooklyn with a lot of jagged edges sticking out of the ice.

That is the largest liquid equivalent all wintry precipitation event in the history of NYC.  There were only two others that were even near 3"- February 1961 and January 2016.

 

All snow at the standard ratios that would have easily been 4 feet of snow!

[LibertyBell]

On 10/24/2018 at 1:49 PM, weathafella said:

I just don’t buy it based on life experience and no stories about the 20 inch sleet storm...

There's a picture Uncle W posted awhile back, I saved it on my old computer that busted over the summer but just going by memory alone it looked like a huge iceberg was covering Brooklyn lol.

 

[LibertyBell]

On 10/24/2018 at 9:06 AM, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

I’d take 20” of sleet.

What's do you prefer- 20" of sleet or  4 feet of snow?

[LibertyBell]

I decided to look this up and find what I could since I'm a big fan of anomalous events.  As a bonus there's a picture of ice encrusted Manhattan during February 2015 lol.

https://thestarryeye.typepad.com/weather/ice/

 

Today in New York Weather History: February 6

 

1920

For the third day in a row the City was lashed by snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain (although the temperature got no higher than 33°).  Like the previous two days, between five and six inches of snow and ice accumulated, bringing the storm's three-day total to 17 inches (an additional half inch would fall in the wee hours of 2/7).  1.40" of liquid precipitation fell today, bringing the three-day total in Central Park to 4.41".   

 

Today in New York Weather History: February 5

 

1920

The fierce snow and sleet storm that began yesterday continued unabated today.  Winds gusted to 44 mph in the pre-dawn hours and gusts of 25 to 35 mph lashed the area for the rest of the day.  Combined with temperatures in the mid-20s throughout the day, the wind chill was only in the single digits.  Much of the day's precipitation came in the form of sleet.  Like yesterday, close to half a foot of snow/ice accumulated while 1.31" of liquid precipitation was measured.  The storm would continue through tomorrow.  

 

 

Today in New York Weather History: February 4

 

1920

A nasty winter storm that would last for 72 hours began this morning.  Temperatures fell from the low 30s when the first precipitation began falling in the pre-dawn hours into the mid-20s by lunchtime.  Winds gusting to 40 mph after 10PM (from out of the northeast) produced wind chills in the single digits.  Close to a half foot of snow fell, but much of the day's 1.70" of precipitation fell as sleet and freezing rain.  An additional 2.70" in precipitation and another foot of snow would fall in the following two days.

 

[LibertyBell]

Technically you can consider that 17.5" of snow since sleet is actually measured as snow (the two measurements are combined) but it does look like most of this was sleet.

 

Looked up some other February 1920 stuff to help us paint a picture of what was going on in the first week of that month.

http://www.glenallenweather.com/upload/history/dailyevents/feb.htm

FEBRUARY
01ST 

Atmospheric pressure builds over New England to extreme levels. Barometer in Portland, Maine reads 31.09 inches of mercury (1053 mb), the highest February sea-level pressure ever recorded in the Eastern US. Hartford, Connecticut hits 31.06 inches of mercury (1051 mb). The Eastern US record was set the previous day (January 31, 1920) in Northfield VT at 31.14 in, though it was the same air mass. The mercury dropped to -45° at Pittsburg, NH. The City data comes from Christopher Burt's list of extreme pressures for US Cities

1920
February third to the fifth of the month Washington, DC received 61 hours of sleet that totaled 5.0 inches. (Ref. Washington Weather Records - KDCA)

---

February third to the fifth of the month Richmond, VA had 4.78 inches of liquid equivalent and 1.5 inches of frozen precipitation. February of 1920 in Richmond, Virginia (as of 2010) is the wettest February on record with 6.67 inches. 
(Ref. Richmond Weather Records - KRIC) 

1920
An intense nor'easter dumped 17.5 inches of snow on New York City, NY. The storm was accompanied by extremely high tides from strong northeast winds and a full moon. Many structures along the shore on Coney Island, Manhattan Beach and Brighton Beach, NY were destroyed by the waves. Flamethrowers were used to clear the huge snow banks on city streets. 
(Ref. Wilson Wx. History) 

 

1920
A 4-day ice, sleet and snowstorm over New England and southeastern New York came to an end after dumping as much as 15 to 20 inches of frozen precipitation. 
(Ref. Wilson Wx. History) 

1994
THE GREAT SLEET STORM OF FEBRUARY 10-11 1994
This winter storm was most unique in that produced almost entirely sleet for the immediate DC metro area. To the north, heavy snow fell and to the south and east, freezing rain occurred producing a devastating ice storm. In the Washington area, the sleet accumulation averaged between 3 to 4 inches. The maximum sleet accumulation occurred over Central and western Fairfax County, with over 4 inches of sleet measured at several locations. Only two other sleet storms in Washington's history have compared to this storm-one occurred in 1920 and the other in 1927. The average sleet depth for the 1927 storm was 4.5 inches. Washington was lucky it was sleet and not a glaze as they received south of DC. In areas to the south where the ice storm (glaze) occurred there were some areas without electricity for nearly a month and most had no power for a week. 
(p. 95-96 Washington Weather Book 2002 by Ambrose, Henry, Weiss)

---

The Northeast was suffering under its 2nd winter storm in 3 days. Newark, NJ picked up 18 inches of snow on top of the foot that had fallen just a few days earlier. 18 inches fell at Newark, NJ & New Bedford and Hyannis, MA. 3 to 4 inches of sleet was reported at and around the Baltimore, MD – Washington, DC area. 
(Ref. Wilson Wx. History) 
Ref. (NWS Ranking for Storms between 1956 and 2011) This is the 17th Worst Snowstorm

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

11 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

What's do you prefer- 20" of sleet or  4 feet of snow?

Point is, I’d rather miss up and in then right and out. So, 20” of sleet is better than 4” of dust. Mix line is always welcomed here.

[LibertyBell]

Some other interesting stuff on this from Google books

https://books.google.com/books?id=dRgzAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA91&lpg=RA2-PA91&dq=February+1920+20+inches+of+sleet&source=bl&ots=RxZUOjfV_s&sig=IJt75ZuQBoOdZHfi9XkWDeow0lQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj9mZD_maLeAhWtc98KHVvmAHUQ6AEwCnoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=February 1920 20 inches of sleet&f=false

https://i4weather.net/biggys.txt

 

https://books.google.com/books?id=tcCfaoewoKcC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=February+1920+20+inches+of+sleet&source=bl&ots=rAyoVHiR_9&sig=4Y6MSUTAxuNXXhRgLmjsAiuB21M&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj9mZD_maLeAhWtc98KHVvmAHUQ6AEwDXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=February 1920 20 inches of sleet&f=false

 

 

[stadiumwave]

I just finished compiling my analog years for my winter outlook. May change a year or two depending on how Nov evolves. I'll have a final analog blend by Thanksgiving. For now:

1951-52

1957-58

1963-64

1977-78

1986-87

1987-88

1994-95

2002-03 × 2

2006-07

2009-10

2014-15 

 

The blend yields a colder than average from Texas to Maine. 

Back loaded winter. Warm DEC, JAN-MAR colder.

My thoughts have changed a little since my preliminary thoughts but not too much. The biggest change in though is a stronger El Nino than originally thought. I was originally thinking a very weak El Nino, but looking like now a weak to weak moderate.