LibertyBell

There is a scientific way to name winter storms, I just don't like the silly names they use. We can tie winter storm naming to areal coverage of winter storm warnings, that's the most objective way to do it.

I did too. I don't remember any snowfall at all last winter hmmm lol

Thanks, I've been looking for storm by storm details of some of the elusive winters that dumped 100" of snow in NYC and PHL I believe there was one in the late 1830s and another one in the 1840s with continuous snow cover from November through March.

Yes, what you mentioned-- a hot and dry summer followed by a snowy winter is common in the el nino to la nina transition. It's happened several times.

Typically, la ninas after el ninos are good for cold and snow, so we'll see.

La Ninas after El Ninos are usually really good for snowfall, even recently, so hope is not lost.

Fantastic storm that enveloped a large part of the country-- where was it ranked on NESIS? It makes you wonder what it would be like for such an extremely cold blizzard to hit such a large area today. It was a two day storm with a high of 11 and a low of 4 over that two day span!

We also had some very hot summers or at least extreme heat during rainy years, but the heavy rains were timed to either occur after the extreme heat ended, or there temporary pauses in the heavy rainfall to allow for drier periods that allowed for the extreme heat-- notable years that were like that were 1983 and 2011. 2011 in particular I remember for having an extremely hot July, and extreme rainfall both before and after that month. The peak heat of that summer occurred during the weather conference in Baltimore. That was probably the hottest weather this area has had since July 1977 and just off the all time records set in July 1966.

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/reanalysis.php?map=2&model=noaa&var=1&jaar=1899&maand=02&dag=13&uur=1800&h=0&tr=360&nmaps=24#mapref This was just posted in response to my query for some maps of the February 1899 blizzard that ended on Valentines Day that year. This reanalysis page is a treasure trove, using the drop down menu it looks like you can analyze any storm going all the way back to 1836!

Wait, this goes all the back to 1836 if you use the drop down menu, does this mean we can analyze any storm from 1836 onwards?

Wow a 2 day 16" snowstorm in February 1899 (even though Cape May did get close to 3 feet lol), with a high of 11 and a low of 4 over those two days? Since this was heavier farther south, do you think the south shore of Long Island would have gotten 2 feet plus in this storm (much like the Feb 1961 and Feb 1969 storms where JFK got close to 2 feet of snow while Central Park got around 15-16 inches in each.) If that happened today.. it would probably be suppressed lol.

and also a record setting triple phaser in November 1950 not to mention all the Cat 3's that hit the NE coast in the 50s..... The snowstorms we had back in the 50s also seemed to last a lot longer and occur much later in the season. March 1956 and March 1958 being cases in point.

Hey, Roger, we were just talking about 1953 and 1955 in terms of extreme long duration heat and also the Worcester F5 tornado!. I'll copy over one of my posts from there and maybe you can find more numbers on this.... how many 100 degree highs did NYC have in 1953? Because if this correct, there were an incredible number of very hot days that summer. https://www.weather.gov/okx/heatwaves And 1955 had another amazingly hot summer, I wonder about that 11 year cycle sometimes, it hasn't worked in every case but it has in a majority of them. There's another more subtle thing going on that's different from back then. Back in the 40s and 50s we used to get much longer heatwaves and the heat came in earlier, the extreme heat anyway. We hit 100 back in June in a few of those years, which hasn't happened much since. Also, the length of the heatwaves was much longer-- we have a record of a 12 day super heatwave (really amazing!) back in late August through early September back in 1953 (including a few days of 100+, the monthly record of 102 in September 1953 was recorded in this stretch.) We have not had a heatwave of more than 6 days since 2002 I believe. And that 12 day super heatwave from 1953 has not come close to being touched-- and it was rather astonishing it happened in the last week of August and the first week of September. https://www.weather.gov/okx/heatwaves I remember the ones from 1993 and 1999 in this list as well as the one from 2002. Interesting how many of these are in that 11 year cycle I mentioned. I also just saw that 1953 had two long heatwaves, a 7 day heatwave in July and that 12 day heatwave.... and a total of 4 days of 100+ wow. You just don't see that around here anymore. And if I'm not mistaken I think it also hit 100 in June 1953, so that would be 5 days of 100+ and hitting 100 in every month from June through September, wow! Interesting thing about 2002-- it had two long heatwaves, one of 9 days and one of 8 days. And although the 11 day heatwave in 1999 did not have any 100+ degree highs, we had two back to back 101 degree highs right after July 4th that summer.

1953 is at the top of the list for super heatwaves too. Look at this list, it's crazy to see a 12 day heatwave at the end of August and into September and hitting 100+ several times, including the September monthly record of 102 in the middle of that torrid stretch. I also just saw that 1953 had two long heatwaves, a 7 day heatwave in July and that 12 day heatwave.... and a total of 4 days of 100+ wow. You just don't see that around here anymore. And if I'm not mistaken I think it also hit 100 in June 1953, so that would be 5 days of 100+ and hitting 100 in every month from June through September, wow! We haven't had a double digit day heatwave since 1999 and the last time we had a long heatwave here at all was back in 2002 when we had 2. https://www.weather.gov/okx/heatwaves

And 1955 had another amazingly hot summer, I wonder about that 11 year cycle sometimes, it hasn't worked in every case but it has in a majority of them. There's another more subtle thing going on that's different from back then. Back in the 40s and 50s we used to get much longer heatwaves and the heat came in earlier, the extreme heat anyway. We hit 100 back in June in a few of those years, which hasn't happened much since. Also, the length of the heatwaves was much longer-- we have a record of a 12 day super heatwave (really amazing!) back in late August through early September back in 1953 (including a few days of 100+, the monthly record of 102 in September 1953 was recorded in this stretch.) We have not had a heatwave of more than 6 days since 2002 I believe. And that 12 day super heatwave from 1953 has not come close to being touched-- and it was rather astonishing it happened in the last week of August and the first week of September. https://www.weather.gov/okx/heatwaves I remember the ones from 1993 and 1999 in this list as well as the one from 2002. Interesting how many of these are in that 11 year cycle I mentioned. I also just saw that 1953 had two long heatwaves, a 7 day heatwave in July and that 12 day heatwave.... and a total of 4 days of 100+ wow. You just don't see that around here anymore. And if I'm not mistaken I think it also hit 100 in June 1953, so that would be 5 days of 100+ and hitting 100 in every month from June through September, wow! Interesting thing about 2002-- it had two long heatwaves, one of 9 days and one of 8 days. And although the 11 day heatwave in 1999 did not have any 100+ degree highs, we had two back to back 101 degree highs right after July 4th that summer.

August 1893 was a big one here. I see it was unusually snowy back then too, so maybe there was a connection between higher activity in east coast snowstorms in the winter and east coast hurricanes in the summer/fall? Ludlum lists the late 1860s as a period when snowfall was exceptionally high, including one season when NYC had close to 100" of snow. There was a famous snowstorm that supposedly dropped 3 feet of snow with temps close to 0.

Maybe the +AMO.... in the 50s the summers were extremely warm and humid too. Less snowy winters overall that decade also. But the snow we did get was often backloaded, March was the snowiest month.

I remember the widespread and intense severe weather activity in October 1989 and again in May 1998 and Labor Day 1998-- it almost seems mythic now because of incredibly intense and widespread they were. Going back and reading about October 1989 WOW, that was a severe weather outbreak that affected almost the entire country. And on Labor Day 1998 an F2 tornado hit only a few miles from here

Thanks Ray, that makes a lot of sense because the storms that do survive the wind shear will have to be more intense. And in years when the shear is less (like this year), we'll have hyperactive seasons instead of just moderately more active.

That was just an almost unbelievable period of intense TC activity that we've not seen anything like that since. I wonder what was different about the 50s vs today? The SSTs are warmer now but we don't see those kinds of storms that far north anymore.

The sunny, cold weather is wonderful, however we can do without these winds.

The high winds really sucked.

Yeah, this is exactly what we talked about awhile back--- geoengineering is being talked about much more often than anyone thought it would be just a decade ago. The only real fact we can say right now is the +1.5C of warming over the past 12 months, we don't know if it was a temporary blip because of the volcano, el nino, or some combo of the two (plus the solar max we're now hitting) and if it's going to get worse right away or plateau for a bit. About 40% of the warming we've seen has no explanation.

This is something I've wondered and talked about a lot.... despite the spike in TCs with the latest +AMO period, we haven't seen east coast TCs as strong or as many as we did back in the 1930s-1950s warm AMO period. I wonder why? Most of the bigger storms seem to be concentrated in the GOM. When was the last time we had a Cat 3 hit anywhere from Cape Hatteras on north?

I don't like the term "atmospheric river" and the media throws it around a lot. It might be a scientific term, but it's more than a little sensationalistic.