LibertyBell

Yes, the new season starts on Sunday lol

We won't be below 50 for highs again after this week.

Yes this was actually mentioned in regards to the January 2016 behemoth, it was stated that the snowfall was 20% higher than it would have been in a pre ACC world.

It maddens me that this historic storm is never mentioned as one of the all time greatest so I will keep mentioning it: February 1920, three days of heavy wintry precip, more than 1.00" LE each day for three days, 4.50" plus total LE, 17" of frozen precip, Manhattan looked like it was invaded by icebergs. The only reason it didn't cause the same or more level of destruction as March 1888 did is because the city finally decided to bury the powerlines after March 1888 happened.

There are also other factors, Ray, like high winds are not conducive to high ratios, among other factors. We can use other 2" LE storms as our guide, I've not found the ratio to be more than 12:1 in any case so I think that should be the upper bound here. What do you think of that massive three day event in February 1920 with 4.5" LE though? It was a mixed event but 17" of snow/sleet out of that is still historic and Manhattan looked like it was invaded by icebergs from the images I've seen lol.

By the way, when you do a deep dive into the greatest NYC area winter events, you learn that the top one isn't March 1888 or December 1947 or even January 2016 (which is my personal favorite snowstorm of all time), the real number one is February 1920. Based on your charts and the total LE over three days of over 4.5" LE and 1"+ LE every day for three days (the only winter storm to do this), this has to be the greatest winter storm this area has seen in recorded history. It's too bad it was a mixed event so the snowfall total was *only* 17 inches (or is that 17 inches of sleet, heh). What was the highest temperature during this storm and what percentage of it was snow?

Thanks Chris, I figured the epic February 1920 17" three inch mixed precip storm would be in this list. Is this our only frozen storm to make this list? I noticed it's the only one that happened in the winter! The one from around Thanksgiving 2018 was close to the start of met winter, was that all rain, I don't remember it at all. That three day storm from September 1944 and the three day storm from September 1938 also stick out, were they both from those two big hurricanes? Was the 4 day event at both JFK and NYC in September 1975 from some sort of tropical event? Or the 3 day event from September 1977, only 2 years later? It seems like September is the most common time for these multiday big storms to occur! I clearly remember the 3 day event in October 2005 (that was the first time I ever used a digital rain gauge, what a way to break it in!) I think in eastern Long Island that might have been even worse (up to 2 feet of rain!) It's wild that one of these 3 day storms is from July 1988, that was one of our hotter summers, I wonder what kind of storm that was? And then another one the following summer in August 1989! Was the 3 day event from August 2021 a tropical event? I remember we had a big flooding rainfall around the time of a concert in Central Park.

Strange that JFK had almost half an inch on the first day of the storm while Islip only had a trace of rainfall.

plus the winds calmed down somewhat.

omg it even changed the color of the sand! all joking aside it's understandable that Sandy pushed sand inland because of its angle of approach and the SE winds. SE winds are considered our most damaging winds for trees and I wonder how many trees were damaged because of Sandy.

so that snow was on the 4th day of the storm Chris? and gale force (40 mph +) for 5 days? I know wind gusts at LGA reached hurricane force (77 mph I think.)

Lows:EWR: 26 (1977)NYC: 25 (1977)LGA: 26 (1977)JFK: 28 (1977) The impressive thing about this arctic cold snap in 1977 is that a few days after this JFK had their earliest 90 degree day on record.

wow very different here we hit low 50s.

I wonder what some of our big noreasters like December 1992 mentioned above did to the sand there?

Chris do you remember with December 1992 did most of the rain fall on one day or was it heavy rain for three days? I remember the winds were high for 5 days and there was about an inch of snow on the third day of the storm.

I beg to differ about this storm, Chris. JFK not only had over 30 inches in this storm they also had 3 inches of LE and 30 inches of snow depth in this storm. I think we should a) either take the average of all city locations or b) take the highest amount. I noticed in really big storms NYC consistently undermeasures compared to the airports. Newark is in NJ so I would not use their data at all. The potential for confusion became evident after New York’s official Central Park site reported a 24-hour snowfall of 26.8” on January 22-23, 2016, a new all-time record for New York City. That total was adjusted upward even higher, to 27.5”, after an NWS review found and corrected an error in the transmitted snow report. However, local weather-minded residents living near the site in Central Park (and there are many of those!) measured only 18” to 22” on the ground at the end of the storm. At Newark International Airport, observations from the same storm showed a preliminary record of 28.1”. That total was declared invalid by the NWS because the private contractor who measured the snowfall took snowboard measurements once per hour, as opposed to the standard six-hour interval. The revised total of 24.0” fell short of the record of 25.6” set on Dec. 26, 1947.

It's fascinating that Tambora could be the reason that sunspots would be visible by the unaided eye. I hadn't thought of that.

Sunspots visible with the naked eye are extraordinary! The sun is blindingly bright, you usually need a solar filter to see them (for example-- last year.) I would add that them being visible by day (and the extreme cold in the summer) might also be related to the eruption of Tambora which occurred around then? Wasn't 1816 the year without a summer? The volcanic eruption could have the dual effect of cooling the climate and dimming the sun -- which would make the sunspots easier to see with the naked eyes (still not recommended-- looking at the sun directly except during a total solar eclipse at totality will damage your eyes.) By the way yesterday was the one year anniversary of the total solar eclipse-- it seems like a century ago lol.

wouldn't the westerly flow actually result in a larger beach since the ocean is being pushed offshore?

it's really just a 2 day storm, the other days just have a small amount of rain late (Thursday) and a small amount of rain early (Sunday).

I mean once that storm leaves the westerly flow will come right back the storm is just an island in a vast westerly sea!!

Yes, this is why they were called minutemen....

I wonder if they even wore knickers back then LOL

Thanks, in the Pennsylvania Weather Book it was reported that both New York City and Philadelphia had 100 inches of snow and constant snowcover from Thanksgiving to St Patrick's Day a few times in the 1800s (and likely in the 1700s too). I forgot what years they pointed to but they likely included 1804-1805, 1835-1836 and a few others. In the 1700s 1782-83 should be included in that list since there was a huge volcanic eruption in Iceland that year and Washington's diary mentions a dozen blizzards in Morristown NJ and the ink in his pen freezing there lol. I love these old historic accounts. By the way, Roger posted snowfall records from Providence RI going back to 1831 in a pdf file in the CC subforum, that may be of some interest.

Here's some from the Poconos, these were the coldest I could find anywhere within 3 hours of us. They were between 18.7 and 21.9 Much lower than the 25 degree low reported for KMPO. https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KPAJIMTH8?cm_ven=localwx_pwsdash 21.9 https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KPAJIMTH71 20.7 https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KPAJIMTH33 21.7 https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KPAJIMTH7 18.7 https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KPAJIMTH64 20.3 https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KPAJIMTH60 21.0 https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KPAALBRI36 21.0 https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KPAALBRI43 20.5 https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KPAALBRI9 19.2 https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KPAALBRI44 20.0 https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KPAALBRI22 19.9