psuhoffman Posted January 5, 2011 Author Share Posted January 5, 2011 Well they did just get a HECS while DC whiffed...so they probably feel the difference is enormous right now. Yea and places in Eastern NC got 12" of snow from that storm also do they want to argue thats climo also? I do not remember anyone down here arguing that it was normal last year when we got 30" and NYC whiffed. When Ohio gets a snowstorm I doubt they argue that places in Indiana that missed it must never get as much snow. Its the phenomenen of this idea of exagerated expectations and double standards towards other regions. Its not just on this forum, when I was at PSU with a lot of people from the NYC area it was just as obvious and frustrating. They had an inflated view of how much more snow NYC should get then Philly or DC. They also seem to want to argue their average is actually higher then statistics and data support. I think that is very possible since airports tend to report low many times, but then when they want to consider the avg for another region they want to use the airport data as gospel truth. Its a double standard and after a while it just grates on my nerves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 5, 2011 Author Share Posted January 5, 2011 Slightly off topic, but can you post the numbers to prove that either Westminster or Manchester average 40 inches, including the seasonal snowfall totals for at least the past 30 winters? I have a hard time believing that anyone in MD east of the Blue ridge gets more than about 32" or so. I will try to post the data but I had it saved on my computer that crashed last year. I had to pay for the data from the southeast regional climate center a few years ago. They keep records for coop stations all over the regions from the Mason DIxon line south. I had access to their database for a month and downloaded like 70 coop sites data. Alas it was all lost in the crash, but I may have saved some of the info to my old jump drives that are in a box somewhere. I can tell you Westminster's coop avg was about 35" as of 2 years ago. Last year probably bumped it back up to 36 where it was when the NWS sterling made thier snowfall avg map for the lwx area. That map was posted in the DC vs NYC thread in their region last night so you can verify that there. There is a coop 5 miles from where I live in Millers, its about 200 feet lower in elevation then me and 5 miles east but its pretty close, and their avg was 36.5" before last winter with 21 years of records. If you factor in last year (I had 101" here) then that bumps it up to 39". I exagerated with that last inch. Once things even out I estimate that the real average here is probably around 37" or so and Westminster about 35" but I was just making a point in their thread when they wanted to include higher elevations well NW of NYC in their climo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fozz Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Yea and places in Eastern NC got 12" of snow from that storm also do they want to argue thats climo also? I do not remember anyone down here arguing that it was normal last year when we got 30" and NYC whiffed. When Ohio gets a snowstorm I doubt they argue that places in Indiana that missed it must never get as much snow. Its the phenomenen of this idea of exagerated expectations and double standards towards other regions. Its not just on this forum, when I was at PSU with a lot of people from the NYC area it was just as obvious and frustrating. They had an inflated view of how much more snow NYC should get then Philly or DC. They also seem to want to argue their average is actually higher then statistics and data support. I think that is very possible since airports tend to report low many times, but then when they want to consider the avg for another region they want to use the airport data as gospel truth. Its a double standard and after a while it just grates on my nerves. I think the reason why NYC people have an inflated view is because it is hard for them to face the fact that cities which are not very far from NYC average MUCH more snow. They don't like that NYC is lumped with Philly and DC while SNE is another category. For example, Hartford, which is 100 miles from NYC, averages 45 to 50", nearly twice as much as 26" in Central Park. Wilmington, Delaware is also about 100 miles from NYC, but they average about 22", not too different from Central Park. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
usedtobe Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 I would say a majority of the DC metro population has averages closer to IAD than DCA so IAD is a fine station to use in this case. Central Park is the highest station in the immediate NYC metro region which is unusual for east coast cities. DCA/PHL/BOS airports are all pretty much the worst spots in each place for snow. That's true, even where I live which is east of dc, I average around 19" according to the map Ian posted and that looks about right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easternsnowman Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 I would say a majority of the DC metro population has averages closer to IAD than DCA so IAD is a fine station to use in this case. Central Park is the highest station in the immediate NYC metro region which is unusual for east coast cities. DCA/PHL/BOS airports are all pretty much the worst spots in each place for snow. Yes the PHIL airport is right by the water with little elevation. Their average from 1981-2010 and lifetime average are both around 22 inches annually, if snow were to be measured at Fairmount Park which has close to 400 ft in elevation and is away from the Delaware river I bet snowfall will average closer to 30 inches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fozz Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 I will try to post the data but I had it saved on my computer that crashed last year. I had to pay for the data from the southeast regional climate center a few years ago. They keep records for coop stations all over the regions from the Mason DIxon line south. I had access to their database for a month and downloaded like 70 coop sites data. Alas it was all lost in the crash, but I may have saved some of the info to my old jump drives that are in a box somewhere. I can tell you Westminster's coop avg was about 35" as of 2 years ago. Last year probably bumped it back up to 36 where it was when the NWS sterling made thier snowfall avg map for the lwx area. That map was posted in the DC vs NYC thread in their region last night so you can verify that there. There is a coop 5 miles from where I live in Millers, its about 200 feet lower in elevation then me and 5 miles east but its pretty close, and their avg was 36.5" before last winter with 21 years of records. If you factor in last year (I had 101" here) then that bumps it up to 39". I exagerated with that last inch. Once things even out I estimate that the real average here is probably around 37" or so and Westminster about 35" but I was just making a point in their thread when they wanted to include higher elevations well NW of NYC in their climo. I found this site which says that Westminster does indeed average 34-35", with a median of close to 30". Impressive for the region it's in http://www.ncdc.noaa...E&coopid=189435 Also, Parkton averages 32", and it's 13 miles north of where I live. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 6, 2011 Author Share Posted January 6, 2011 I found this site which says that Westminster does indeed average 34-35", with a median of close to 30". Impressive for the region it's in http://www.ncdc.noaa...E&coopid=189435 Also, Parkton averages 32", and it's 13 miles north of where I live. The actual avg for Westminster is about an inch higher then the data unedited because there are numerous errors. When I went through the snowfall data storm by storm after inputting it into a spreadsheet I found a ton of missing days when there was snowfall in the area. I corrected this by using an average of the 3 surrounding coop stations for the storm and doing my best to estimate. If a year had too severe of a data gap I just threw it out. Furthermore, there were some storms where the total was meant to be 9 and it was logged as .9 and so forth. There were a few instances of over reporting also and I corrected those but by far the errors were in the direction of under reporting snowfall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 6, 2011 Author Share Posted January 6, 2011 The actual avg for Westminster is about an inch higher then the data unedited because there are numerous errors. When I went through the snowfall data storm by storm after inputting it into a spreadsheet I found a ton of missing days when there was snowfall in the area. I corrected this by using an average of the 3 surrounding coop stations for the storm and doing my best to estimate. If a year had too severe of a data gap I just threw it out. Furthermore, there were some storms where the total was meant to be 9 and it was logged as .9 and so forth. There were a few instances of over reporting also and I corrected those but by far the errors were in the direction of under reporting snowfall. actually considering that data does not include last winter because they still have the seasonal max as 76 and I know Westminster was near 90" last winter, they may have done the edits I did for that average. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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