LibertyBell

We had PD1 in February that winter that fringed the area but was still enough for over a foot of snow for the city and Long Island. I wonder if anyone on the south shore saw close to 20 inches in that storm?

1983 was definitely the hottest summer here (and hottest until 2010), but what I find incredible about 1983's summer heat was that it was also our wettest year on record. We dried out enough for the summer for all that record heat from June through September!!!!

1994: A nor’easter wreaked havoc on coastal MD. 50-mph winds (gusts to 79 mph) destroyed 100’s of tents/vending areas at the end-of-summer Sunfest in Ocean City. Windblown fires burned several shops along the boardwalk; 9 foot waves flooded other areas. Damage up to $5 million. (Ref. Weather Guide Calendar with Phenomenal Weather Events 2011 Accord Pub. 2010, USA) I think I remember this-- did we have 5-5.50 inches of very heavy rainfall during this? I remember this because I was on I-80 in NJ when this happened. I also remember an August noreaster which gave us very heavy rain during the 90s. There was even some snow reported on Mt Washington in that one.

1978-79 was one of the coldest winters on record nationally, we might never see that kind of extensive cold ever again.

Yeah and it's almost comical how quickly the changeover comes in.

1995: A strong cold front pushed across the Midwest, bringing with it one of the earliest freezes on record. In Iowa, temperatures dipped to as low as 24° over the northwest and sub-freezing temperatures lasted nearly eight hours. Crop maturation was behind schedule so this freeze caused significant damage, with soybeans the hardest hit. About $195 million dollars worth of soybeans were lost. Drought had already taken its toll on the corn crop so the freeze did not aversely affect the corn too much.Chicago, IL experienced their earliest freeze on record as the mercury dipped to 32°. The low of 29° tied the record low for the month of September at Dodge City, KS. Further north, Jump River and Cashton, WI head their earliest measurable snowfall on record with 1.5 inches and 0.5 of an inch respectively. Other daily record lows included: Rapid City, SD: 19°, Bismarck, ND: 20°, Aberdeen, SD: 20°, Valentine, NE: 23°, Fargo, ND: 23°-Tied, Huron, SD: 24°, North Platte, NE: 24°, Scottsbluff, NE: 24°, Grand Island, NE: 25°, Sioux City, IA: 25°, Norfolk, NE: 26°, Lincoln, NE: 27°, Concordia, KS: 29°, Goodland, KS: 30°-Tied, Omaha, NE: 31°, Topeka, KS: 31°, Des Moines, IA: 31°, Kansas City, MO: 31 °F. (Ref. Additional Temperatures Listed On This Link) 1995-96 was showing its hand about how historic that winter was about to become.... JFK: 91 (1980) 1980's historic heat ended on a high note!

it's been mostly sunny here today, very deep blue skies

1980 was also one of our hottest summers and also extremely hot nationally. Which was the driest summer during the 1980s Don?

I think it also has to do with how quickly the cold gets scoured out after the sun comes up. And sometimes we get this kind of cold just before a storm comes in during the winter and a place like FOK goes from the lowest temperatures in the area to being the first ones to change from snow to rain lol.

The patterns are astonishingly similar, dryness on both the east and west coast and wetness in between. winter 1984-1985 was cold and dry too (until February when we warmed up very quickly after a frigid January with one of our strongest arctic shots in my lifetime.)

Wow Don, I see there's a lot of years between 1984-1985 and 2024-2025 even though the rainfall amounts were only off by about 2.5 inches. Was September 1984-August 1985 the driest such period during the 1980s decade?

Frost in the Poconos (MPO) Don?

Who had our coldest temperature this morning -- was it FOK or MJX? It's usually one of the two. MVY in SE NE is also very cold on such mornings.

This is very disappointing, downsloping flow is how we get our hottest summers (like 2010) but now it gives us tainted yellow skies and air pollution.

Are we more sensitive to drought now than we were in the 1980s? I feel like the kind of rainfall we are experiencing right now is similar to what we had back then but it's being taken more seriously now?

But yesterday was cool too, under 80 is good, below 70 not so much. Today is at or above 70 so it's okay but not as pristine as yesterday was.

Too cloudy, yesterday was much better.

wild I don't remember 2000 being so dry (or hot for that matter)

1999 and 2002 were two of my favorite summers, I don't mind yellow or brown grass, it feels nice and crunchy How does this summer compare for dryness to 2010 where you are Chris??

I'm glad to see we are going back to a drier pattern on the east coast, some of those high rainfall flooding years were truly unbearable

For our area specifically though, while the number of heatwaves might be getting higher, their average length is much shorter than it used to be. So we are getting 3-4 heatwaves of 3-4 days each in length in our hottest summers vs 2 heatwaves of 7+ days in length like we used to in some of our hottest summers (1944, 1949, 1953, 1955, 1966, 1980, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1999, 2002). The last of the type of summers that had multiple 7+ day heatwaves was 2002 here.

I don't mind maximum temperatures Don because using maximum temperatures removes urban heat island from the equation. Also it's useful to compare hot weather by maximum temperature only because higher amounts of humidity will also increase minimum temperatures, which is why H20 is considered a greenhouse gas even more potent than C02. An example: tropical rain forests are extremely warm because of their very high mean temperatures, but the extremity of hot can't hold a candle to the kind of extreme heat you get in parts of the Middle East or Death Valley for that matter. I find our biggest heatwaves occurred in the 1940s and 1950s, the 1930s did not have the kind of extreme and long heatwaves that years like 1944, 1948, 1949, 1953, 1955, etc. had. The total number of 90 degree days was eventually exceeded, but not until 1983 and then 2010 did this take place. Our climate for our local area anyway seems to warm in stair steps. The summers are getting hotter, but not a straight line. There is an extremely hot summer and then many summers below that threshold before the next big increase occurs. Meanwhile the length of heatwaves of a summer like 1953 has still not been approached. Or the number of 100 degree days for that matter (tied between 1953 and 1966 at 4.)

Records:Highs:EWR: 92 (1983)NYC: 93 (1983)LGA: 90 (1983)JFK: 85 (1997) Back in those days NYC was hotter than either EWR or LGA lol.

didn't we have over 2 inches of rain just a few weeks ago Chris??

wow 1983 truly was a historic summer, I miss that kind of sustained heat..... on the flip side, the cold of 1993-94 got started on this date. we did flip back to Indian summer in November with our latest 80 on record on the 15th, but it was just a blip in time for the NYC Marathon. The heat only lasted 2 days.