tamarack

10 hours ago, vortex95 said:

That's a good point.  That table is not updated as the paper it was taken from is from Dec 2013.  Do you have the storm surge for those days in Jan 2024?

Not the surge due only by the storm, but IIRC the high water was 14.1 on the 10th and 14.4 on the 13th.  

19 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

In Fort Kent we had 27" at the stake on April 6, 1982.  24 hours of temps in the low-mid teens and 15" later, we had 26".  Also had a bit of wind.

11 hours ago, vortex95 said:

feb2010.pdf 4.57 MB · 0 downloads

I know that Jan. 13, 2024 was at/near astronomical peak tides, but I was still surprised that it didn't make the list, as it set a new high water record that day, by 0.3 ft breaking the record set three days earlier.  (Unless later calculations have changed those peaks)

1 hour ago, CoastalWx said:

Nams are a nice look for CNE and NNE but work here too. 

Current forecast from GYX has us at 0.5", with a 10% chance of 2".  The midget march continues.  

As I've whined before, that was the absolute worst double-digit "snow" event in my wx-aware lifetime (1950 forward).  The 10.7" had 2.67" LE and was so wet that it would splatter on branches rather than sticking like the above pic.  That mess was made even worse by the 1.14" RA at 33-35°, powered by the same NE wind that buried Central Park.  Our snow blower was broken (probably would've broken anyway in the glop) and pushing a full snow scoop was a chore.  The driveway had been bare ground, so the scoop was dragging thru the mud while holding 15-20 lb per square foot.  A year earlier (Feb 22-23) we'd had a 24.5" dump of 12:1 powder that was far easier to move even though it fell atop a 27" pack and resulted in 7-foot banks by the time we'd finished.  

The cocorahs in Temple, 10 miles west and 830' higher, reported 26.4" in that event.

1 hour ago, The 4 Seasons said:

2010/2011 was the closest with two Cat 3s Boxing Day and Jan 11-12th

2020/2021 had a Cat 2 and 3

2016/2017 had a Cat 2 and 3

2014/2015 had a Cat 2 and 3

2013/2014 had a Cat 2, 2 and 3

I'm curious what Jan 25-26th will end up being. I'm guessing a 4 so might end up being two 4s or a 4 and a 3. That storm was major for most of the United States east of NM/Texas.

 

Maybe, but the NESIS rating is Northeast-centered so I don't know the extent in which areas get included.  Jan 25-27 was better BOS and points north, Feb 23-24 better for PVD and points south.

10 hours ago, vortex95 said:

Thanks for the info/input.
 

The 2/2/1976 storm, yes 957 mb at CAR is their lowest pressured on record.  BOS had 965 mb for its second lowest on record (has this been matched or exceeded since?).  Bliz of 93 was about 963 mb when it passed over central MA (up from 960 mb peak over the Mid-Atlantic).

What is the "OV Blizzard?"  The Feb 1976 one?  The Jan 2018 blizzard offshore SE of ACK was 950 mb.  I seem to recall in the New England Wx Book (Ludlum) stated a storm SE of ACK in the mid 20th century was 947 mb.

The "CLE Superbomb" Jan 1978 lowest was 956 mb in Mt Clemens MI.

The New England non-tropical pressure record is 955 mb at BID set on 3/7/1932.  And Canton NY had 955 mb in a Jan 1913 storm.  These are the lowest non-tropical pressures for the CONUS, although very close is 955.2 mb at Bigfork MN set on 10/26/2010.  The

Thanks.  "OV (Ohio Valley) Blizzard = CLE Superbomb.  Sorry for the confusion.

The 2/2/76 event caused a mega-tidal surge up the Penobscot estuary, and the water at BGR rose 15 feet in 15 minutes, drowning about 200 cars in the Kenduskeag Plaza parking lots.

29 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

As impressive as the '82 temps were, I actually think the 4/5/95 cold outbreak was more impressive. It was bare ground and bluebird skies....full sunshine. ORH put up a 26/12 that day....that is beyond crazy for such conditions in early April. I remember that day vividly because I had to walk to and from middle school in that....across an open sports field too part of the way. The wind was like razor blades into your face. 

We lived in Gardiner in 1995 and the afternoon high was 16 with winds gusting to near 50, but it was 31 at my 9 PM obs time the evening before, probably the 2d worst "midnight spoil" max I can recall.  Worst was March 6, 2007, when the afternoon high of -2 was wrecked by the 19 at 9 the previous evening.  March 2017 had one that ranks with 4/95, 14° at 9 PM on 3/10 followed by a zero for afternoon high.  Co-ops with 7 AM obs time have preserved those cold afternoons. 
(1st CT Lake had a high of -24 on Dec 26, 1980 thanks to the 7 AM protocol.  Mt Mansfield has tied that mark and MWN has numerous colder ones, but nothing in New England below 3000' asl can match it.)

10 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

<= 32F high temperature is difficult even at ORH in April...only 7 Aprils have pulled it off since 1990 (a couple of them did do it on multiple days like 2016)....they are significantly easier to pull off even 2 weeks earlier in the 3rd week of March. 

Farther north, we've had only 10 days in 27 Aprils with maxima 32 or colder, only 3 below 30 and the 24 during a modest snowfall on 5/2003 is lowest by 5°.

200 miles NNE in Fort Kent, such maxima are much more common, 3.1/yr vs. 0.37/yr.  Of course, the 1970s-80s were also colder than 1999 onward.  We recorded 31 such days in our 10 Aprils there, 30 of which were 23 to 32, plus the 17 max for the 4/7/82 blizzard.

15 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

Stein has really infected NNE…seems worse the further north you go. 

For sure.  Feb precip up to 0.76" with yesterday's 0.02" and not much in the near future - maybe a few pennies late Saturday.  Driest of our first 27 Februarys is 0.95" in 2024, but DJ & M that winter totaled 23.49".  DJ this winter: 6.08".  I doubt that March will bring 17.4" (precip, not snowfall ) to match 23-24.  Would be exciting, though.

17 hours ago, MJO812 said:

Caribou only has 68 inches for the winter. Providence , Rhode Island has 67.8

Insane

Strange, but 2009-10 takes the cake - CAR 70.3", BWI 78".  That's probably a one-in 200-year phenomenon.

15 hours ago, dryslot said:

2.2" total.

Beat me once more - only 0.8" here, 40:1 from little feathers.  

8 hours ago, vortex95 said:

 "Goldilocks situation" -- first I have heard of this label concerning a snowstorm, at least for track.  The Blizzard of '78 tracked farther NW, and look what the did, snowfall heavier both in absolute totals and areal coverage. 
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/monitoring-content/snow-and-ice/rsi/nesis/19780205-19780207-5.78.jpg

Huh?  Are we talking about tropical cyclones or baroclinic winter storms?  And since when is "ocean energy" required for intense blizzards and snowfalls?  See the OH Valley Jan 1978 blizzard (957 mb) or November 1950 Appalachia monster (62" in WV).
 

Couple of cherrypicked comments, last addressed first:

I thought the OV blizzard had pressure down close to 950 mb, the lowest on record for a non-tropical storm in the eastern US.  957 would tie CAR's mark in the 2/2/76 southeast gale.

1978 appears to have a significantly larger footprint.  PHL had 14.1" and NYC 17.7", in the same range as 2/26 though some NNJ points did get a lot more in 2026.  To the north, the Farmington (Maine) co-op recorded 22.0" from the 1978 storm.  That co-op ended reports in 2022 but a cocorahs observer had 0.5" in the recent blizzard and my site 6 miles to the east of there had only 0.2".

4 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Where does the 26.4” in 1947 come from?

The original COOP form has 25.8”

Different obs time?

Data from CLIMOD:
26:   31   25   2.36"  26.1"   4"
27:   35   29   0.04"   0.3"  26"
From the above report:
26:  31   25   0.26"   3.7"    4"
27:  35   29   2.14"   22.1"  26"

Same temps, same LE, same depth readings (nearest inch) 24-30; 2/2/4/26/25/24/23.  IIRC, NYC was (and still is) using noon for depth measurement.  I wonder if the coop reported precip/snowfall at noon as well.  Would make sense for a mid-morning start, also one newspaper article I read years ago stated that the snowfall ended shortly after midnight on 12/27.

1 hour ago, Layman said:

Uh... @weatherwiz??

https://6abc.com/post/pennsylvania-man-set-fires-kill-spiders-igniting-blaze-damaged-homes-police/18646148/ 

After seeing a huge wolf spider outside her house, our arachnophobe neighbor said that if she ever saw one of those IN her house, she'd light the place afire as she ran out the front door.

2 hours ago, NeonPeon said:

Newport schools closed for the week.

I know the bottle neck is availability of heavy equipment to deal with drifts, but this is one of the weaknesses of car dependent civic architecture.

All the main roads are cleared. 

The only other time I can recall when snow caused a full week's closure - Feb 1961 in NYC.  The storm came Friday evening into Saturday, but with the piles left from Jan 19-20 and a couple small events (plus temps never reaching 30 between the 2 big storms), schools were closed Feb 6-10.

1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

Can’t remember the last time we had this many C-2” type events. I’ll have to run the numbers but it feels like the highest this decade at min. 

We're up to 26 events of 0.1" to 3", totaling 23.5" (assumes 1.0" today).  The other 5 events totaled 45.4".

Edit:  Snow is done, only 0.8" so the 26 midgets total only 23.3".
That 0.8" had just 0.02" LE, for 40:1 ratio.  The final "flakes" included 6-pointed disks, shaped kind of like a starfish.

12 hours ago, MJO812 said:

O Boy!  Yet another one misses to the south.  Looking more like 2002-03 here, which was very cold (DJF temp 2nd only to 14-15), nearly 2 feet BN snowfall and only one storm greater than 7.5".  Like this season, the biggest event by far was in January.

Snow didn't show up until 9:30 and it's petering out now.  Forecast was 1-3 and we might reach the 1, and that only because it's air-filled fluff.  2024 set the driest February with 0.95", but this month will break it - had 0.74" thru yesterday and won't reach 0.05" today.  On the bright side, Feb '24 brought only 3.7" snow while we're a bit over 12" this month and snow total at 98% of YTD average.

Edit: 108% of the average.

15 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Remember when he drove 6 hrs to Maine to measure a Coops depth after they posted 72 only to go to the wrong town lol 

Andover, Maine - Feb. 2017
7    19   10   0.03    1.0   34
8    13    9    1.15     6.0   39
9    42   11       0        0   39
10   42  -2   0.20   6.0   44
11    10   -5       T      T    44
12    11     0   0.19   6.5    50   
13    19   11   0.90  14.0   62
14   22   13   0.15    2.5   64
15   25    7    0.03   1.5   65
16   27   13   0.95  14.0  79
17   26   18       T      T    76

He saw those monster depths and went searching, in vain.  Unfortunately, he didn't understand snow plowing in Maine, where they don't just clear the road but push back the banks to be ready for the next storm.
He made a left turn in Andover and headed up the East B Road, quickly ran out of houses and then out of phone reception as he was behind the Baldpates, and with lowering gas and not knowing where he was . . .   
When back in RI he posted a withering critique of Maine, its roads, its snow, its reporting, etc.

My snarky response suggested that his G-P-S should have been augmented by an M-A-P.

17 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

The question concerns whether Central Park measured when the snow stopped falling or measured at 7 pm when a possible small amount of snow had melted due to the temperature's rising above freezing for several hours.

According to OKX's 2 pm PNS, Central Park reported 19.7" at 1 pm.

There were several hours of additional measurable precipitation:

Although the amount of additional snowfall (probably a few tenths of an inch to just over an inch was relatively small, it would be large in terms of storm ranking implications:

 

It will never be changed, and I don't know the measuring protocol in 1947, but I think that year's storm was the biggest.  It's based mostly on pack increase/persistence.  2006's pack never topped 17", 2016 boosted pack from zero to 22" (and had similar LE as '47) while 1947 lifted pack from 2" to 26" (NYC's tallest) and was still at 24" two days later.
(And of course, 1888 is somewhat a guess as the flakes were flying horizontally.)

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

Easy to spot the drift measurements in a storm like this up here.

Or a wind-scoured valley, like our stake in the April 1982 blizzard at Fort Kent.

4/6:  24    0       T        T      27"
4/7:   17   10    1.10"   15.0"  26"   Wind NW 35G60, vis near zero
4/8:  23   13   0.14"    2.0"   25"   Wind NW 20G40

I doubt there was much melting, but 15-20 feet either side of the stake there were 6-foot drifts.

Other than the town of Oxford (western Maine) which had only a trace, our 0.2" is the lowest amount reported to cocorahs, as of 11 this morning.     
(5-6 sites reported precip but left snowfall as NA.  Other sites in those areas all had at least 1" snow and up to 5".  Tops in Maine is 11.3" in Washington County.)

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

I actually can't myself. I know GYX has internal documents we keep of the top 10 lists, I know BOX has similar. But that's what I mean about them not being digitized. Without asking BOX directly, you can't really search on your own.

Over the years I've assembled top-15 snowfalls for sites from Wash D.C. to CAR, using several sources.  Mostly the Utah State site until it became quite cumbersome 7-8 years ago, then using the CLIMOD2 site from Cornell, also some tables seen on these forums.  I'm sure there re errors and omissions, but it's been a fun task, especially when I get to revise lists due to recent events.

The very light snow has stopped, but I can see a tiny bit still clinging to the Forester's windshield.  GYX had reduced yesterday's 3-5 forecast down to 1-3 this morning - moving in the right direction!

34 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

This one's right up there with the St. Valentine's Day massacre of 2015 for GYX.

I've lamented that storm frequently on this site.     It was the 4th and last event that winter to verify at 1/8 (or less) of the lower end of the forecast range.

Finally having some snow - at this rate we'll achieve a dusting by sunset.