LibertyBell

wow sounds like horrible driving conditions the next morning (I assume it was over by then)?

Was this the big one in Feb 1996? I remember there being another one that dropped close to a foot, was that around the 11-12th?

Thats the thing, we never went above freezing here. I kept checking the temperatures all night, at the height of it around 2-3 am we were 30-31 and JFK stayed in the upper 20s, similar to VD 2007 I remember the beautiful crystalline nature of the trees, looking like prisms in the bright sunlight under a backdrop of the clear blue skies.

I lived in Lawrence in 1994 and from what I remember it was more than an inch of ice, so I'm trying to get a JFK amount.. It was on my railings outside my side door I remember I was shocked how thick the ice was, and there was a nice layer of sleet under that. How long did that storm last? Was it a two part storm? The high temp was around 31 so just below freezing towards the end of the storm. One of my favorite memories from that winter (the other was the unique daytime thundersnow CG event in early February.)

you know rainboy19 is laughing at you guys right lol

just one more run. is that supposed to be the pattern change storm? the luxury of having two homes is I'm going to be in the Poconos that entire week, so one way or other I'll have a lot of snow lol. I'm going there 2/11 and staying all week.

Hey Chris is there any way to see what JFK's top ice storms were and their amounts? Curious to see how 1994 compares to 1973 which gets talked about so much. I remember JFK didn't get to freezing in that storm at all. It reminds me of how we had ice in VD2007 but that wasn't a pure ice storm, it started as snow.

Oh I had family in CT I used to go there when I was little.

there was freezing drizzle that year that came off the sea breeze because the SST was below 32-- thats how cold that winter was! Lots of awesome snow too

yes it was a really nice and very pretty Saturday morning. You guys had sleet in Jan 1994? How do we find records for biggest freezing rain events at JFK lol

2 questions, Don-- 1) I realize you said there is uncertainty but can the timeframe for a pattern change be ironed down to within a 5 day period (say between February 15-20)? 2) What are the chances of a big wintry storm before the pattern changes? Could it occur in the PD timeframe or would it have to be a little before that? We are in our climo best period for historic snowstorms (starts around Feb 5th and ends around Feb 20th).

lmao probably. Here's the ironic thing. I've been a lot more west (on I-80) than I have been north. I just looked at anything north of the GWB/Yankee Stadium as the Arctic Tundra lol.

were those patterns where the AO was negative and the NAO was positive? Didn't this storm also have a slightly negative AO and a positive NAO?

wow nice, the three winters I was looking at were 1960-61, 1993-94 and 2002-03

But that did diddly for us on the south shore because at JFK and here that "big storm" last Groundhog Day had less snow than this and was a mixed precip storm, I'd rather have all snow pure snow even at the same or somewhat lesser amount (and this one was bigger than anything we had last year here.) How do you compare this to 1993-94 when NYC had over 50 inches without a neg NAO or PD2 where we didn't have a neg nao either, I believe 2002-03 and 1960-61 both averaged out with a slightly positive NAO? Was 2014-15 another positive or neutral NAO winter? What about 2013-14? Why did we have so much mixing that winter?

How does it compare to Jan 1994? I cant imagine anything bigger than that. Can you compare freezing rain amounts for both storms and duration at JFK as well as temps?

Is that a fake moustache he has on? Anyways lol We had the same amount of snow as Ray did (a little over a foot.) Only the high banding areas got 20 inches plus.

I've never been to either so I'll take your word for it. I've actually never been north of Yankee Stadium or I-80/ GWB aside from my trips to Albany when I was a newspaper reporter covering the state capital.

according to Ray in the NE forum (he does it there too) he was dropped on his head in the snow a few too many times

I'm going to message Randy about him

Most of us coasties have had our seasonal snowfall for the entire winter already

and you had a big storm last week with over a foot of snow, you didn't need a negative NAO

Thats what I've been saying. lol

I see 100 degrees in your future this summer, I hope you have your a/c

But JFK almost always gets less than half the snowfall than the jackpot, no matter the situation. My main point being this.... NYC was never going to get 25 inches of snow. It's in a central location and jackpots are usually to the west or to the east or to the south. Look at what ACY got in January.... 33 inches. Now are we to assume that locations further south do better in a positive NAO? Of course not! And we had a negative NAO in December and all it got us was 0.3. A negative NAO is much less important for us than a west coast ridge, we need that above all else. We can't hope for perfection-- it's very rare that everything will line up perfectly, and quite frankly if there is one thing I had to pick wouldn't line up it's a negative NAO. We've had historic snowfall seasons and historic snowstorms without one (PD2 and 1993-94 and 1960-61 being cases in point.) And look how well ACY did in a positive NAO in January. We can't root or hope for perfection, because it rarely happens. I also question the value of the nao when we have south based blocks and east based blocks that do diddly for us. So rather than chasing ghosts, I'd rather have the sure thing-- which is a great Pacific. Everything else matters FAR less than that. Also, I choose not to compare JFK to ISP, because JFK would never get that kind of snowfall in any scenario unless we had a strong el nino. I choose to compare JFK against its own historical record....and for JFK getting over a foot of pure snow is an MECS. It was a great storm. Anyone from Brooklyn on east and south had a great storm and has absolutely nothing to complain or whine about.