Significant snow - ice or rain Feb 10-12

[LibertyBell]

6 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

Insane -EPO and a very large polar vortex.  I think probably there was some degree of SSW that winter.  The NAO was largely positive though while the AO was mostly negative all winter.  93-94 was fairly similar to 13-14 or 14-15 (I forget which one now lol).  This event tonight is sort of a baby version of the February 8 94 event. The upper level pattern across the country is actually almost the same and the dynamics of the set up similar.  Models also brought that 100 or more miles north inside 48 hours.  That event appeared to be a DC and PHL snow storm up until the 00 runs on 2/7.  The big difference is that event was multiple waves riding along the boundary where as this is just one so you’re not going to see 2 foot amounts like Cape Cod saw in that storm.  It’s a much shorter duration event 

thats right, I remember that storm kept trending more and more north.  Those were the two largest back to back snowstorms I've yet seen.

Might have been some Pinatubo influence on that winter too?

 

[LibertyBell]

7 hours ago, wdrag said:

Models try to drag the bulk of the cold air across the Appalachians with each too strongly modeled short waves.  Doesn't happen. Until the trough moves to 70W or further east, we have little chance, UNLESS, we can get some decent confluence going in se Canada and place a 1035MB+high up there. I doubt if we'll ever get down to 14F NYC with this current pattern.  My guess is best chance 19th-20th after the main trough moves by but not betting on it. 

What I do think i know, we struggle to get cold air east of the Apps unless the short wave turns our 500MB flow to west northwest or northwest as ithe short wave buries toward 50-50.  Instead, the predominant trough is hanging in across the Midwest and so our 500 flow is ~270 fluctuating 240-250 at times with each short wave.  That won't do it.  

and the storm on the 18th is now looking like snow to rain, Walt?

 

[Blizzardo]

13-14 was alot of snow! I remember not having anywhere to put it..lol

[SnowGoose69]

1 minute ago, LibertyBell said:

thats right, I remember that storm kept trending more and more north.  Those were the two largest back to back snowstorms I've yet seen.

Might have been some Pinatubo influence on that winter too?

 

Yeah some believe that, also came off what was like a 3 year long El Niño event which is why some argue despite it being a neutral ENSO we had an El Niño like wave train of storm activity.   The 2/8 event was aided by a flukey mesoscale band that setup across southern parts of the NYC metro mostly impacting places like EWR, SI down across southern Bklyn/Queens.  It was just north of the changeover line to FZRA/PL.  I think tonight some places in S NJ and S PA see the same thing happen where a narrow area north of the mix line is hit hard by localized banding    

[weatherpruf]

1 minute ago, LibertyBell said:

thats right, I remember that storm kept trending more and more north.  Those were the two largest back to back snowstorms I've yet seen.

Might have been some Pinatubo influence on that winter too?

 

As I've pointed out before, at least in the NYC area, that kind of winter had not been witnessed in decades. I had people who'd just moved up from FL, they were like is this every winter? No, we'd say, NYC is just not this cold and snowy; Jim McGreevy, in his biography   talks about the "blizzardy weather" of 94, unlike anything he'd ever seen as a child ( he was the Mayor of Woodbridge at the time )

[LibertyBell]

Just now, SnowGoose69 said:

Yeah some believe that, also came off what was like a 3 year long El Niño event which is why some argue despite it being a neutral ENSO we had an El Niño like wave train of storm activity.   The 2/8 event was aided by a flukey mesoscale band that setup across southern parts of the NYC metro mostly impacting places like EWR, SI down across southern Bklyn/Queens.  It was just north of the changeover line to FZRA/PL.  I think tonight some places in S NJ and S PA see the same thing happen where a narrow area north of the mix line is hit hard by localized banding    

thats why I remember that event so vividly, it broke our January thaw and it was the first time I had seen grass in weeks, and then all of a sudden, BOOM!  Vivid lightning and loud thunder and snow starting at a rate that I had never imagined before and it continued for 2 hours or more.  Do you have any idea what the snowfall rates at JFK might have been?  I think it was somewhere between 10 AM and 2 PM that it happened and I'll never forget it- went from bare ground to over half a foot of snow in like 2 hours!

 

[LibertyBell]

Just now, weatherpruf said:

As I've pointed out before, at least in the NYC area, that kind of winter had not been witnessed in decades. I had people who'd just moved up from FL, they were like is this every winter? No, we'd say, NYC is just not this cold and snowy; Jim McGreevy, in his biography   talks about the "blizzardy weather" of 94, unlike anything he'd ever seen as a child ( he was the Mayor of Woodbridge at the time )

In some ways it even exceeded 1996 (though 1996 wins for pure snowfall of course.)  But the extreme cold in 1996 was more centered in the midwest, as the state record of -60 at Tower, MN is from that February.  When Minnesota gets a state record in cold, you know that has to be some kind of cold lol- and that was after an extended thaw in January after the big blizzard.

 

[SnowGoose69]

3 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

thats why I remember that event so vividly, it broke our January thaw and it was the first time I had seen grass in weeks, and then all of a sudden, BOOM!  Vivid lightning and loud thunder and snow starting at a rate that I had never imagined before and it continued for 2 hours or more.  Do you have any idea what the snowfall rates at JFK might have been?  I think it was somewhere between 10 AM and 2 PM that it happened and I'll never forget it- went from bare ground to over half a foot of snow in like 2 hours!

 

They got 5 in 3 hours if I remember right, 2-2-1 from 9am-12pm

[weatherpruf]

3 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

In some ways it even exceeded 1996 (though 1996 wins for pure snowfall of course.)  But the extreme cold in 1996 was more centered in the midwest, as the state record of -60 at Tower, MN is from that February.  When Minnesota gets a state record in cold, you know that has to be some kind of cold lol- and that was after an extended thaw in January after the big blizzard.

 

Hands down, it was the worst winter the region has seen in recent decades; the ice storms were horrific in scope, people were stranded on the roads, people were killed ( prompting a law in NJ that a tow truck MUST render assistance when responding to a call, even if the person has no credit card, as one woman  died after a driver left her ). You could not get any kind of salt, period. Not even table salt. No sand, no kitty litter; there weren't 300 Home Depots to shop at. There were no snow shovels; most people still didn't have snow blowers; people were getting robbed at gunpoint for a snow shovel ( it was on the AP wire ). By 96 people had gotten a little more prepared....

[LibertyBell]

3 minutes ago, weatherpruf said:

Hands down, it was the worst winter the region has seen in recent decades; the ice storms were horrific in scope, people were stranded on the roads, people were killed ( prompting a law in NJ that a tow truck MUST render assistance when responding to a call, even if the person has no credit card, as one woman  died after a driver left her ). You could not get any kind of salt, period. Not even table salt. No sand, no kitty litter; there weren't 300 Home Depots to shop at. There were no snow shovels; most people still didn't have snow blowers; people were getting robbed at gunpoint for a snow shovel ( it was on the AP wire ). By 96 people had gotten a little more prepared....

thats amazingly sad that you need laws to get passed for people to be good and actually save others....this is exactly why we need regulations  If left to their own devices, people usually wont be so considerate

 

[donsutherland1]

47 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

sounds like 2" likely for SW Nassau Don?

 

Probably 2” or maybe 3”.

[lee59]

Looks like another  last minute trend north with tonight and tomorrow.

[CPcantmeasuresnow]

53 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

I wonder if Feb 1934 was colder there.

 

Good question.

That of course was when NYC hit their all time record low of -15° and I believe the NYS record low at Old Forge NY of -52° was also during that outbreak. Upton may not have been keeping records then. I don't think LGA or JFK were either, but others can check me on that. I'm going from memory on that so not certain.

[MJO812]

Few inches possible for the coast tomorrow 

[NorthShoreWx]

1 hour ago, LibertyBell said:

I wonder if Feb 1934 was colder there.

 

Don't know, but there were unofficial reports in old newspapers of -20F or a little lower from several towns in Suffolk County in February 1934.

[donsutherland1]

19 minutes ago, CPcantmeasuresnow said:

Good question.

That of course was when NYC hit their all time record low of -15° and I believe the NYS record low at Old Forge NY of -52° was also during that outbreak. Upton may not have been keeping records then. I don't think LGA or JFK were either, but others can check me on that. I'm going from memory on that so not certain.

There was no LGA or JFK at that time. However, Flushing reported a low of -14 degrees.

[HVSnowLover]

18z rgem came south (think an inch or less now for most of the city) 

[Cfa]

The fact that JFK hasn’t gone below zero since 1985 when it reached its all-time record low of just -2°F, the same record low as Tallahassee, FL, is a stat that has always stood out to me. That -15°F event was highly anomalous, it’d be like reaching 120°F in today’s climate.

Personally, I’ve never lived in an area where subzero temps occurred while I was living there.

[MJO812]

We have 4 storms to track lol

[HeadInTheClouds]

11 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

We have 4 storms to track lol

Is the troll hibernating?

[dWave]

19 minutes ago, Cfa said:

The fact that JFK hasn’t gone below zero since 1985 when it reached its all-time record low of just -2°F, the same record low as Tallahassee, FL, is a stat that has always stood out to me. That -15°F event was highly anomalous, it’d be like reaching 120°F in today’s climate.

Personally, I’ve never lived in an area where subzero temps occurred while I was living there.

I think its just because the UHI was much less expansive then. That -2 temp in Jan 94 (i think) probably would of been several degrees colder in a 1930s scale of urbanization. Manhattan was very developed but alot of the other boros were still very far from the urban landscape of today. NJ and Westchester was much less developed as well. They weren't dealing with very dense development in all directions for miles and miles then.

[psv88]

36 minutes ago, Cfa said:

The fact that JFK hasn’t gone below zero since 1985 when it reached its all-time record low of just -2°F, the same record low as Tallahassee, FL, is a stat that has always stood out to me. That -15°F event was highly anomalous, it’d be like reaching 120°F in today’s climate.

Personally, I’ve never lived in an area where subzero temps occurred while I was living there.

Suffolk went below zero a few years ago. I recorded -4.0F in commack 

[wdrag]

2 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

and the storm on the 18th is now looking like snow to rain, Walt?

 

not yet... looks warmer with mainly rain coast and snow/ice inland possibly to rain?  8 days away... lots can change and there are events before that, like what you wake up tomorrow. Hope it's enjoyable for at least some of us. 

[mob1]

Snowing pretty good in Altoona PA now, snow doesn't need much of a northern trajectory to give most of us a light snowfall event. 

[sferic]

@crossbowftw3 @snywx think we get a fresh coating to whiten up the snow pack?

[Cfa]

42 minutes ago, psv88 said:

Suffolk went below zero a few years ago. I recorded -4.0F in commack 

I remember that, my location and ISP only managed to reach +2°F, that’s the lowest temp I’ve seen since I’ve lived here.

I believe my official (JFK) lowest is either 0°F or 1°F from when I lived in Queens.

[CPcantmeasuresnow]

1 hour ago, Cfa said:

The fact that JFK hasn’t gone below zero since 1985 when it reached its all-time record low of just -2°F, the same record low as Tallahassee, FL, is a stat that has always stood out to me. That -15°F event was highly anomalous, it’d be like reaching 120°F in today’s climate.

Personally, I’ve never lived in an area where subzero temps occurred while I was living there.

It was -1 in NYC about five years ago to the day. 

[lee59]

I think a few inches is possible for Long Island in tonights event.

[snywx]

34 minutes ago, sferic said:

@crossbowftw3 @snywx think we get a fresh coating to whiten up the snow pack?

About 1" in the area. 

[gravitylover]

1 hour ago, Cfa said:

 

Personally, I’ve never lived in an area where subzero temps occurred while I was living there.

Really? The lowest air temp I've seen is -57°F. It's not much different from -20