LibertyBell

Forget Boston.... Atlantic City took us to the woodshed! Chris should list their snowfall amt and averages too.

fwiw this winter was better than any of those....first of all NYC undermeasured snow this season and secondly most people live near either JFK or LGA and both saw more snow (over 20 inches) and both saw double digits snowstorms as their biggest events. NYC was the outlier.

Tempwise I remember it was stated that for the coldest 90 day period of the year, it's really the end of the first week of December to the end of the first week of March.

Technically you're right about climate zones. On my seed planting guide, our subforum covers three climate/planting zones.

No I didn't say they shouldn't be part of our subforum, I just said their climate is like SIBERIA compared to what I'm used to lol. You might be right about Upton's forecast zone, I didn't even know where that extends to, but I always thought the CWA extended from Poughkeepsie to Monticello to Trenton to Toms River to Montauk to Groton to Danbury and back to Poughkeepsie. Basically the polygon made by connecting all those citys' airports. Is that approximately what it is?

I had that when I was in 7th grade I was in the hospital for 3 weeks lol

I think this is the way the ancients (and even some modern people) memorize historical texts and epic sagas. They were passed down through history in oral form. I've always been fascinated at how the Iliad and Odyssey were memorized by some and even the Bible and Koran. Now that requires some powerful brain usage. I remember earlier this year I was on the train and I didn't have access to a writing device and for some odd reason I started to form a rhyme in my head and since I couldn't write it down, I committed it to memory. It wasn't that long (about 20 lines) but I used the cadence of the syllables subconsciously to memorize it (I just realized this now that you mentioned this.....fascinating how our minds work!) And isn't it amazing that we remember this stuff all these years later? How old were you when you memorized pi? Long term memory always amazes me.

what about some random 2-4" event between March 15-22 which seems to often happen even in mediocre patterns? Or do you think March will be a total shut out (there aren't many of those.) It's very hard to get a 6" plus snowstorm without a great pattern after March 15th, but a 4" event can happen in such a pattern all the way thru the first 10 days of April.

lol a lot of us (including you might I add) post in the New England forum.

omg you're right! it almost sounds like a song. It's the way I did it, without consciously realizing how I did it. Did you get past 100? I always wanted to do it to 100 digits (I stopped at 50 since that was the challenge my friend gave), I might tackle that while I'm still youn....errr middle aged lol (48 now.) I didn't do e or the golden ratio, might as well try that too. But pi to 100 is my priority lol. I think I can do it because I also did the chemical elements (there were 109 at that time). You should try that too, I found that my fascination with the periodic table made it easier for me because I already knew the order of several groups (like the Lanthanides and the Actinides.)

doesn't sleet look a little dirty to you though? it doesn't have the sparkle of freshly fallen snow and doesn't look pretty as it falls.

you're not dumb at all lol....I don't know maybe it's some memory trick, I have no conscious control over it, it just happens.

Don is mid to upper 40s considered cold? I'd argue it's actually mild today, tomorrow will be cold.

No, March 1993 wasn't anywhere near one of the greatest east coast storms (the operative word being "coast").... you could say it was the greatest interior northeast snowstorm though (along with greatest interior southern snowstorm too). March 1888 coverage wasn't enough to get it up there either. The greatest east coast snowstorms of all time were..... Jan 1996, Jan 2016, Feb 2003, Feb 1983, Feb 1961, Feb 1978, March 1960

my favorite word has always been antidisestablishmentarianism and also memorizing pi to 50 digits when I was 12 lol let's see if I still remember it 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937511 yup it's all still there lol It was a contest between me and another kid in my class to see who could memorize the most in one weekend, I did pi, the sq rt of 2, the greek alphabet, the constellations, the chemical elements and the presidents (first middle and last names backwards and forwards.) damn I miss those days that was a fun time when the sky was the limit and even the sky wasn't a limit lol btw you mentioned Alexander Pope earlier, I have his translation of the Iliad, it's still considered the best one.

Don or anyone with historical info, how common is it for Boston to get 8 inches + of snow while NYC gets under 1 inch? Is there anything such storms have in common in terms of teleconnections, which month they happen in, etc.? Thanks.

No I also thought about it back in the 1980s when all of this was happening, but because the 2000s and 2010s were so good for snow, I just put it in the back of my mind.

Chris, if we further limit the set to include 20"+ snowstorms only and compare NYC, JFK and ISP, how do they compare? Let's extend it to the last 30 year climate period (1991-2020). It makes sense that ISP requires less than what NYC requires....but I find it interesting that ACY, which is south of us, also seems to be fine with a +AO. Maybe ACY can be included in the set too, it's not like the January storm was an isolated event, it also happened in 1989.

Feb 2006 was a measly 13" here LOL and 10" in Feb 2013

Thats right and actually for me, Jan 2016 is in its own category. There's only a few that rank that high for me and it's Feb 1983, Jan 1996, Feb 2003 and Jan 2016....so basically once a decade. That's my full list of 20"+ storms (my minimum for HECS) and one of them was a 30"+ storm (BECS in my classification system). <1" coating 1-3" minor 4-6" moderate 6-10" significant 10-20" major 20"+ historic 30"+ biblical

I don't find trying to figure out 5 letter words particularly exciting. Sooner or later they'll run out of words and this craze will end. Humans are like a herd of sheep, they like to go together, no matter how foolish the direction is that they go in. Make them 10 letters or longer and then you'll pique my interest. Actually variable length is the best and give each person the same number of guesses as the number of letters in the word.

That's an excellent way of looking at it-- we need to view teleconnections together, not in isolation. And we further have to subdivide them into north vs south and east vs west based. But here's another thought. Is the NYC area just in a bad area for storm tracks....we saw this in the 80s too- there are two predominant tracks for storms, one is south of the area and the other is north of the area. We've seen this in a few other recent winters too, where places both south and north of us see less snow in individual storms than we do. Maybe the NYC is just a bad area for snow unless everything lines up perfectly?

very difficult to get a good winter with a December average of 40+ Just picking through this list from bottom to top the notable ones are 1957-58, 2014-15, 1982-83, 2015-16. Some of these were one big snowstorm winters like 1982-83 and 2015-16. 2014-15 was a real standout because of how cold it got from Jan 20 through Mar 20. And it was the only non strong el nino out of the 4, as a matter of fact it wasn't an el nino at all. Was 1891-92 snowy? I'm not familiar with what happened that winter, but it looks like it was the only 1800s winter that had a December average of 40+

One would think a +AO would favor inland areas.....wasn't this the case during the mid 80s thru early 90s? It was all about N/W

It was only for the big events....for one thing there werent any extreme events between Feb 1983 and Mar 1993 and then it was sporadic (just Mar 1993 and Jan 1996) before the madness that began in the 2000s lol. Mar 2001 would have sent this board over the edge