LibertyBell

How many of these -5 AO blocks did we have during the 80s, Chris? February 1989? December 1989?

this winter somewhat reminds me of 1988-89, a few of the 80s winters to be honest. the key seems to be when the deep south gets snow we do not.

Yes I only like NW winds in the summer (dry and hot, love that low humidity heat!)

The reason why the key to an HECS is to keep the SLP south of our latitude is that once north and east of here the wind backs around to the NW and that quickly terminates any and all snowfall (at least for here, NW is a very dry downsloping wind and the sun quickly comes out.) You want the wind to be NE as long as possible to maximize snowfall duration and that means the SLP has to stay south and east of us. Long duration snowfall isn't 12-18 hours, that's medium length, long duration is 24+ hours.

that was the famous GFS *bad data* win when all the other models lost it

don't we have that now too though? -AO and +NAO

there are far more examples going the other way though, most notably January 1996 which the GFS/AVN had offshore and the Euro/NAM/ETA had hitting us from a week out.

is that last panel showing sleet for us (not here but just east of here)? that might be a little too close

Yes I remember a stat from years ago when the AO was negative the NAO was also negative 85% of the time. Has the correlation become less over time?

the classic loop ! February 2010 (snowicane) was like that too. Two of those had a rain component for part of the storm (1888 and 2010), Boxing Day was best over New Jersey and 1978 was best over eastern LI and SNE.

this map reads 16 for the city and 20-24 for us here SW LI 5 days out so it doesn't matter that much

we dont actually want this to get to that latitude, if you look at maps of our previous widespread 20 inch plus events (February 1983, January 1996, PD2 2003 and January 2016) they go due east once they reach the latitude of Delaware or southern NJ, it makes the snowfall of longer duration for us.

Great position for us because it makes it snow longer. The great storms we all remember usually did not make it north of ACY in terms of the SLP.

Thanks I forgot about the Long Island COOPs! I hope these are all still in operation, I was sad that the Mineola one shut down, it has recorded the highest temperatures on Long Island (I think they reached 109 and have the record for most number of 90 degree and 100 degree days on Long Island.)

Looks like slightly more out this way in western Long Island.... from your description of the snowfall totals it sounds like the December 2009 snowstorm which had 10 inches at NYC and 15 inches at JFK with up to 24 inches on eastern Long Island.

Tony are there no records from 1947-1948 and the December 1947 HECS from anywhere near JFK, perhaps a proximal location in the same area?

too bad JFK just missed the epic season of 1947-48 and the historic blizzard that occurred in December 1947.... Did Newark also start in 1939 Tony?

I'm glad these airports existed in 1940, Tony. JFK didn't exist yet did it (even as Idlewild)?

February 1983 January 1996 PD2 2003 January 2016

it would be nice to see it stall and not scoot out of here in 12 hours. we need at least a 24-36 hour snowstorm

no such thing as luck, this kind of thing has happened before many times, the strong jet is more to blame.

Tony how much snowfall did we get in the 1940 blizzard? This was also the anniversary of the 1899 blizzard and the 2016 below zero arctic outbreak! Lows: EWR: 0 (2016) NYC: -1 (2016) LGA: 1 (2016) JFK: 1 (2016) Historical: 1895: The most significant snowfall in the history of Houston, Texas, occurred on the 14th and 15th. The Houston area saw 20 inches of snow. 1899 - A great blizzard struck the eastern U.S. Washington D.C. received 20.5 inches of snow to bring their total snow depth to nearly three feet. The storm produced 36 inches of snow at Cape May NJ. (David Ludlum) 1940 - A "Saint Valentine's Day Blizzard" hit the northeastern U.S. Up to a foot and a half of snow blanketed southern New England, and whole gales accompanied the heavy snow stranding many in downtown Boston. (David Ludlum) 1940: A St. Valentine's Day Blizzard blankets New England with up to 18 inches of snow. Gale force winds associated with the storm strand many in downtown Boston.

January 2018? and January 2016 before that

also see the above, not all OP runs are the same, the 0z and 12z runs have higher verification scores because they use new upper air data

6z and 18z OP runs are the worst performing by far