The Mid-Atlantic weather event of the decade (snow/ice storms not included)

[Vice-Regent]

Close race between the March windstorm - Sandy - Derecho. Locally speaking. Northern edge of Derecho was a little underwhelming which is why it doesn't win outright.

[Cobalt]

Hmm, I think I may put Lee remnants up there. Didn't know it was what I experienced in early September 2011 (I was 8 at the time). I recall crazy flooding while my mom was driving me home from school, and we actually got part of the school playground partially swept away/destroyed from the water. That was pretty memorable

[dukeblue219]

Are we including NYC in mid Atlantic for the purposes of this poll? Sandy was boring here but it was hands-down the most devasting, most powerful, and most newsworthy event on the list. I voted for it because of the public interest level and the fact that it killed a couple hundred people. 

The derecho came to mind as well, but the results varied so widely. Ill put it #2. We didn't lose power and schools didnt close (I think it was a Friday night event) and I'm not sure there were any fatalities.

The rest aren't even close IMO. The March wind storm is doing surprisingly well in voting. Nobody will remember that in a year...

[09-10 analogy]

On 3/29/2018 at 2:32 PM, Eskimo Joe said:

I think so many people chose the Derecho for 3 reasons:

1. It was relatively unpredicted.  There was some wavering meso guidance in the 12 to 18 hours leading up to the event of an MCS coming through, but nothing to the extent that happened.
2. It occurred very late at night.  Most of the severe weather in this happens before 9pm and this was almost 2 hours outside our climo window.  
3. The heat that followed the storm was significantly magnified by the event.  So many people lost power that it essentially shoved folks back 20 or 30 years to the 70s and 80s when not many people had AC.  It was rather anomalous.

As I recall, the forecast that Friday morning was for the possibility of severe later on, but the focus for a severe outbreak was on Saturday.

I remember taking my dog for a walk about 15 minutes before it hit and seeing lightning flashing in the sky to the west. It was just ridiculously hot for that time of night. I had a vague idea of going up to Fort Reno to watch it come in, but the dog wanted to get back inside. Most uncharacteristic; I usually have to drag her back inside after a walk. I think it was just too dang hot for her, and not that she knew something freakish was coming and she wanted to take shelter. Anyway I'm glad the dog won out. I wouldn't have wanted to be rushing back to my house once all hell broke loose, with a traumatized beagle in tow.  

[MillvilleWx]

Wasn’t home for derecho, but when it went over OCMD, it was the single most incredible lightning storm I’ve ever seen. I remember tracking it while on vacation with my family. Once it got into WV and Dulles sounding came out, I knew it was going to be epic. We finished eating crabs and grabbed a few drinks and went out on front patio of our condo 11 floors up. We watching the lightning in the distance approach with over an hour and half eclipsing before the storm even got to Berlin area. Then, we could see the the outskirts of the storm approach with the outflow streaming out ahead. It got super calm. Just dead silent in wind right as the edge of the cloud line approached. Not even 15 seconds after the cloud passed overhead, the wind kicked in like something I’ve never experienced. Like someone turned a giant fan on full blast. Our front patio chairs got pushed back and we just stood their in awww. The lightning started to get pretty nasty close in, so we went back, grabbed a big mix drink and sat on back patio to avoid the wind since it was coming perpendicular to building. From there, the rains kicked in and dumped for a while with lightning ongoing around us. Then the best part was a straight two hours of lightning over the water, just painting the sky as it pulled off the coast. Hands down the coolest experience on vacation and the best lightning show I have seen to date. A moment I’ll never forget.


.

[PrinceFrederickWx]

On 4/5/2018 at 10:24 PM, dukeblue219 said:

The March wind storm is doing surprisingly well in voting. Nobody will remember that in a year...

Considering an entire street in my neighborhood are still having their roofs and fences repaired, I’d say it being forgotten by next year is highly unlikely.

[dukeblue219]

14 hours ago, PrinceFrederickWx said:

Considering an entire street in my neighborhood are still having their roofs and fences repaired, I’d say it being forgotten by next year is highly unlikely.

Maybe I'm just way out of touch with the farther counties, but for most of the immediate DC area it was just windy I think. I went out and ran errands around lunchtime and it was gusty but didn't feel historically so. I don't know anyone who lost power or had any real property damage and it didn't seem like those were widespread based on what I saw on the news. As wind events go I thought the derecho had more lasting impact. 

I'm still sticking with Sandy, though. That's the one I think Average Joe MidAtlantic will remember in 20 years.

[MN Transplant]

50 minutes ago, dukeblue219 said:

Maybe I'm just way out of touch with the farther counties, but for most of the immediate DC area it was just windy I think. I went out and ran errands around lunchtime and it was gusty but didn't feel historically so. I don't know anyone who lost power or had any real property damage and it didn't seem like those were widespread based on what I saw on the news. As wind events go I thought the derecho had more lasting impact. 

I'm still sticking with Sandy, though. That's the one I think Average Joe MidAtlantic will remember in 20 years.

Interesting.  I found Sandy to be pretty boring inside the DC Beltway.  The only memorable thing about it was the extremely odd nature of the event and the coverage of things elsewhere. The 2018 March windstorm wrecked two houses within a few blocks of my house and had us w/o power for the better part of a day (no outages with Sandy).

[EastCoast NPZ]

IMO, the best event, and by a very-wide margin, was the July 4th Canadian air-mass of 2014.  That was straight out of my dreams.  I would rate that weather day as one of my top-5 weather events of any type in my lifetime.

[Cobalt]

29 minutes ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

IMO, the best event, and by a very-wide margin, was the July 4th Canadian air-mass of 2014.  That was straight out of my dreams.  I would rate that weather day as one of my top-5 weather events of any type in my lifetime.

Any details on this? 

[EastCoast NPZ]

1 hour ago, Cobalt said:

Any details on this? 

Oh yeah.  Breezy, refreshingly cool/dry air-mass.   High temps in the low 70s.  People in sweatshirts and huddled under blankets for the fireworks.  Lows dipped into the 40s that night out here.  I remember actually being chilly that late-afternoon (in the shade) at a cook-out.  DPs in the low/mid 40s.  It felt like October.  It was simply amazing, and every-bit as rare as a HECS.  In fact, I'd argue it was more rare, and I enjoyed it every bit as much.

[Jebman]

2 hours ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

IMO, the best event, and by a very-wide margin, was the July 4th Canadian air-mass of 2014.  That was straight out of my dreams.  I would rate that weather day as one of my top-5 weather events of any type in my lifetime.

High was 76, dewpoint was 46. It was unbelievable. People were asking, Is this really July?

[MN Transplant]

2 hours ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

Oh yeah.  Breezy, refreshingly cool/dry air-mass.   High temps in the low 70s.  People in sweatshirts and huddled under blankets for the fireworks.  Lows dipped into the 40s that night out here.  I remember actually being chilly that late-afternoon (in the shade) at a cook-out.  DPs in the low/mid 40s.  It felt like October.  It was simply amazing, and every-bit as rare as a HECS.  In fact, I'd argue it was more rare, and I enjoyed it every bit as much.

July 4th was memorable because of the holiday, but the "cold" snap later in July was even more impressive.  Low of 48 at IAD on 7/30/14 after a high (no precip!) of 74 on the 29th.

[EastCoast NPZ]

2014 was the best weather year I can remember.  As you noted, there were several continental air intrusions that summer.  Not to mention a great winter to-boot (starting in Dec 2013).

[Jebman]

1 hour ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

2014 was the best weather year I can remember.  As you noted, there were several continental air intrusions that summer.  Not to mention a great winter to-boot (starting in Dec 2013).

The 2013-2014 winter was fantastic! Just have a look at my sig, lol

[Fozz]

18 hours ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

2014 was the best weather year I can remember.  As you noted, there were several continental air intrusions that summer.  Not to mention a great winter to-boot (starting in Dec 2013).

December 2013 to November 2014 was an amazing 12 month period. I don't know when we'll see anything like it again.

[Cobalt]

17 minutes ago, Fozz said:

December 2013 to November 2014 was an amazing 12 month period. I don't know when we'll see anything like it again.

Kind of seems like a mini version of 2003. From what I've seen in terms of the 2000s for DCA it was the coldest & wettest year of the 2000s. 

[Fozz]

3 hours ago, Cobalt said:

Kind of seems like a mini version of 2003. From what I've seen in terms of the 2000s for DCA it was the coldest & wettest year of the 2000s. 

I wouldn't call it a mini-version since it was a whole year, but yeah 2003 was similar in that it was very wet (one of the wettest years on record in Baltimore) and was a very cold, snowy winter.

[PrinceFrederickWx]

17 hours ago, Cobalt said:

Kind of seems like a mini version of 2003. From what I've seen in terms of the 2000s for DCA it was the coldest & wettest year of the 2000s. 

There’s been two long-term cold periods since 2000: the first was roughly late 2002 into early 2004, and the second was roughly January 2014 through March 2015.

July 4, 2014, was a beautiful day but nothing record-breaking (at least not in the cities- maybe further west it was?). I would agree with @MN Transplant though that July 2014 overall was impressive cold departures, especially later in the month, with multiple record lows broken at BWI and IAD. 

If anyone wants to vote for July 4, 2014 or July 2014 overall, just choose “Other” for now. As I said in my original post, if there’s enough interest in something I will add it as a choice.

[Eskimo Joe]

On 4/8/2018 at 9:08 AM, MN Transplant said:

Interesting.  I found Sandy to be pretty boring inside the DC Beltway.  The only memorable thing about it was the extremely odd nature of the event and the coverage of things elsewhere. The 2018 March windstorm wrecked two houses within a few blocks of my house and had us w/o power for the better part of a day (no outages with Sandy).

On the MD side of the Potomac, there were more power outages from this year's wind storm than from Sandy.

[PrinceFrederickWx]

I added today's Ellicott City flooding to the July 30, 2016 option.

Good Lord...

[osfan24]

On ‎5‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 8:01 PM, PrinceFrederickWx said:

I added today's Ellicott City flooding to the July 30, 2016 option.

Good Lord...

Still think it's the derecho because of the region-wide impact, but if you combine the two flash flood events, consider the devastation to Ellicott City twice, the loss of life, and also consider this time impacted areas of Catonsville through the city to the east side, it has to be considered. It was certainly the most impactful with regard to the economy, but again, the number of people impacted is very small. Unless you live in that narrow stripe that was trained over, you hardly got any rain. I know it was just a deluge just several miles northwest of me and I got very little rain and some distant thunder.

[PrinceFrederickWx]

A few updates:

The original "Other" that Eastcoast NPZ voted for has now been renamed "July 2014 cool weather" (since that was his pick). A new "Other" option has been created at the bottom.

July 21-24 rain events have been added. Depending on how this goes, the end date of that may be extended.

 

[PrinceFrederickWx]

The "July 21-25 rain events" option has now been changed to "2018 extreme rainfall events (wettest year on record for BWI and DCA). So if any rain events (or just the whole idea of wettest year ever) is the event of the decade for you, please vote for that option. The only exception to this is the May 27, 2018 Ellicott City flooding which is covered in a separate choice along with 2016.

[wasnow215]

Missing the RVA tornado outbreak this past September. Localized but so is Ellicott City.

 

 

[PrinceFrederickWx]

10 minutes ago, wasnow215 said:

Missing the RVA tornado outbreak this past September. Localized but so is Ellicott City.

 

 

What day was that and where? I can add it.

[George BM]

19 minutes ago, PrinceFrederickWx said:

What day was that and where? I can add it.

Richmond area. September 17, 2018.

[PrinceFrederickWx]

50 minutes ago, George BM said:

Richmond area. September 17, 2018.

Thanks. I added it to the tornado outbreaks option (since no one's voted for that anyway).

@wasnow215 can you move your vote to that choice now? Thanks!

[kickingupastorm]

Washington DC : The two back-to-back winter storms in February 6th 2010 & Feb 10th 2010  (dubbed Snowpocalypse & Snowmeggedon).

I was a Senior in college in Washington DC during these two blizzards. My college schedule was arranged where I had no classes on either Mondays or Fridays. So when these two blizzards hit the area of downtown Washington DC, the University was closed and how it ended up working out due to my personal schedule, I didn't have any classes for a solid 2 weeks -- I had more time off due to these blizzards than the entire allocation for Spring Break.

It was phenomenal. I never saw so much snow in my entire life --- both produced around 20 inches of snow, so when all was said and done there was somewhere between 30 to 40 inches of snow on the ground. It was absolutely incredible to witness. A lot of drinking in celebratory fashion was had. Ah college, good times.

[PrinceFrederickWx]

2 minutes ago, kickingupastorm said:

Washington DC : The two back-to-back winter storms in February 6th 2010 & Feb 10th 2010  (dubbed Snowpocalypse & Snowmeggedon).

I was a Senior in college in Washington DC during these two blizzards. My college schedule was arranged where I had no classes on either Mondays or Fridays. So when these two blizzards hit the area of downtown Washington DC, the University was closed and how it ended up working out due to my personal schedule, I didn't have any classes for a solid 2 weeks -- I had more time off due to these blizzards than the entire allocation for Spring Break.

It was phenomenal. I never saw so much snow in my entire life --- both produced around 20 inches of snow, so when all was said and done there was over 40 inches of snow on the ground. It was absolutely incredible to witness. A lot of drinking in celebratory fashion was had. Ah college, good times.

You didn’t read the thread title did you lol