bluewave

The big story in 1994 was the heaviest snows setting up in Central and Eastern PA due to the super gradient that winter. A number of spots set their all-time snowiest season. Several 100”+ amounts in the Poconos and Central PA .Those were the days of the big Miller As east of the APPS that we haven’t had in a while. It was the all-time snowiest in State College. PA LONG POND POCONO LAKE COOP 115.8 PA MONTROSE COOP 136.5 PA HOLLISTERVILLE COOP 132.1 PA SUSQUEHANNA COOP 113.9 Time Series Summary for STATE COLLEGE, PA - Oct through Sep Snowiest Seasons Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 1993-1994 109.3 0 2 1995-1996 99.0 0 3 1977-1978 98.2 0 4 1992-1993 92.5 0 5 1960-1961 91.9 0 6 1969-1970 89.9 0 7 2002-2003 83.6 0 8 1963-1964 78.2 0

A piece of good news is that the models don’t currently have a heavy 1.50”+ rainstorm in the near future. The best outcome going forward would be a series of weaker lows like the current runs are showing without much total QPF. This way we could see many days with gradual melt with highs into the 40s and the increasing sun angle. Hopefully, a heavy rainstorm holds off until early March after the snowpack has had a chance to melt gradually.

Yeah, the GFS was #1 back to last weekend with the longer range forecasts and the AIFS was #2. In the shorter range it was the SPC HREF that did the best. For consistency across the entire season the best scoring models have been the AIFS and EPS AIFS. So it’s good to see the AIFS not having the suppression bias of the OP Euro and EPS with East Coast storms. Andrew has written an excellent article below. I would be curious if the outstanding winter forecast from the Open Snow team which Andrew is a part of used AI for their winter forecast. They didn’t mention it in the write-up back in November but perhaps they have a seasonal AI model that they aren’t ready to announce yet. https://opensnow.com/news/post/november-update-2025-2026-winter-forecast-preview

2-22-26 to 2-23-26 Central Islip 31.0 in 0140 PM 02/23 Trained Spotter

This was one of the better measured snowfalls considering all the drifting. It also highlights how these narrow deformation bands can cause significant variation over a very small distance. You can see the spread between the airport at Newark and the Harrison coop. Central Park was nearly identical to the Greenwich Village measurement After looking at our snowfall over the years some things stand out. Most snowstorms drop the heaviest snow either just west of the NYC-LGA-JFK corridor or to the east across Long Island. 2016 and 2006 were the rare times the heaviest snow was centered at one of these stations. My guess is that the northwest wall of the Gulf Stream to our east provides the natural focus for the very deep lows that track near the benchmark. Terrain interaction with the coastal fronts also lead to a snowfall secondary snowfall maxima somewhere over NNJ into Orange, Rockland, or Westchester. Weaker storms with marginal temperatures often favor areas to the west of NYC. So this has lead to mostly Islip and secondarily Newark for the snowfall leaders among the major observation sites. Greenwich Village 20.4 in 0230 PM 02/23 Public Central Park 19.7 in 0100 PM 02/23 Official NWS Obs Newark Airport 27.2 in 0200 PM 02/23 Official NWS Obs Harrison 18.0 in 0445 PM 02/23 CO-OP Observer

The SPC HREF had the separate band west of the Hudson idea but it verified a little further to the east.

It could be the terrain effects and placement of the coastal fronts and deformation bands around the NYBight. There is often a least one very heavy band that parks over NNJ and another across Long Island. The immediate area around Manhattan can get into some relative subsidence between the bands. The NNJ band this time was just west of the Hudson. But at other times with a storm track more tucked in near the coast it has been over Western NJ into Orange and Rockland. The December 2020 storm tracked closer to ACY than this one did and delivered 40” to BGM.

These modern storms have much more moisture to work with the 7° warmer Gulf Stream than in the 1950s . We were discussing several years back what it would take to get a single 50” snowstorm across the region. My guess would be a stall and a loop back to the west near the benchmark before exiting to the east. A track like this happened during the blizzard of 1888. So it’s seems possible to me that this could be the biggest snowstorm at ISP even if records went back farther.

Plenty of damage to the trees and power lines out there.

First 75+ mph gusts for that area in a while. Massachusetts... ...Barnstable County... Wellfleet 77 MPH 0706 AM 02/23 WXFLOW Hatch Beach 71 MPH 0912 AM 02/23 WXFLOW Chatham 70 MPH 0813 AM 02/23 WXFLOW Hyannis AP 69 MPH 0733 AM 02/23 ASOS West Dennis 68 MPH 0909 AM 02/23 WXFLOW Chapin 65 MPH 0816 AM 02/23 WXFLOW West Falmouth 62 MPH 0832 AM 02/23 WXFLOW Kalmus 60 MPH 0904 AM 02/23 WXFLOW Otis AFB 58 MPH 0856 AM 02/23 AWOS ...Bristol County... Horseneck Beach - The Knubbl 63 MPH 0859 AM 02/23 WXFLOW New Bedford AP 62 MPH 0748 AM 02/23 ASOS 1 NE Somerset 60 MPH 0923 AM 02/23 ...Dukes County... Vineyard Station 64 MPH 0936 AM 02/23 WXFLOW ...Essex County... Children's Island 62 MPH 0742 AM 02/23 WXFLOW ...Nantucket County... Nantucket AP 83 MPH 0906 AM 02/23 ASOS Nantucket Harbor 61 MPH 0917 AM 02/23 WXFLOW ...Norfolk County... Milton (Blue Hill) 61 MPH 0656 AM 02/23 CWOP ...Plymouth County... Hull YC 70 MPH 0908 AM 02/23 WXFLOW

The SPC HREF been one of our best performing pieces of guidance especially in extreme events. It’s what helped to give the NWS the confidence to issue its great forecasts the last few days with this event. Just shows how far weather forecasting has come. When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s many times we didn’t even know a big snowstorm was coming even a day before. I would say the last major model miss was 1-25-00 when the 12z runs the day before were all offshore with no snow for many places that got record snow.

The SPC HREF had the right idea somewhere between its mean and max. The globals and even some models like the RGEM struggle with such dynamic systems. I have often noticed that the best banding usually is just NW of where the globals and even some regionals show.

This site works really well without degrading the quality of the photos. https://optimole.com/image-compressor/

I jokingly said to Allsnow a few years back that it would take a volcanic eruption for Central Park to measure 50”. I thought it would be a challenge before this winter began but I never speak in absolutes or use terms like impossible. We’ll see where they land after today as they came in this event with 22.3” on the season. Also never said it was impossible to have another colder winter just that it was a struggle over the last decade with how warm it was. I am very happy with how this winter has turned out as we really needed a good one after the long string of disappointing winters. You seem like a very angry person from reading many of your posts.

Closing in on 25” there now.

Freehold at 22.2”.

Harrison at 14.0”.

Seeing reports from the OKX obs page that EWR is at 18.0” with JFK and LGA at 15.0”. https://www.weather.gov/wrh/timeseries?site=klga https://www.weather.gov/wrh/timeseries?site=kewr https://www.weather.gov/wrh/timeseries?site=kjfk

72 mph gusts out on Cape Cod.

3” in one hour.

Thundersnow earlier in NY Harbor.

It’s great to see that winter finally put in a cameo appearance this year compared to what we have been getting recently.

Yeah, roughly similar for the entire OKX forecast zones. The statistics below go back to 2010. It’s good to finally see an event in late February which hasn’t happened since 2010. February has really been more frontloaded for these major 12”+ events. Roughly 2 week snowfall periods for the 2010's and number of 12"+ snowstorms Oct 29-Nov 15.....3 Nov 16-Nov 30....0 Dec 1- Dec 15.....0 Dec 16-Dec 31....3 Jan1-Jan 15.......4 Jan16-Jan 31.....7 Feb 1-Feb 15.....7 Feb 16-Feb 28...1 Mar 1- Mar 15....6 Mar 16-Mar 31...1 Apr 1-Apr 16.....0 Individual events and the highest snowfall totals 2026 Jan 25-26….Bridgeport…15.3” 2022 Jan 28-29….Islip….24.7 2021 Jan 31-Feb 2....Blomingdale, NJ.....26.1 2020 Dec 16-17 East Tremont, NY....12.4 2019 Mar 3-4...Monroe, CT....12.0 2018 Nov 15....Mount Hope, NY.......18.3 Mar 21-22...Patchogue, NY......20.1 Mar 13...Southampton,NY.....18.3 Mar 8....New Farfield, CT..........26.8 Mar 2...Monroe, NY.................14.0 Jan 4...Islip, NY.......................15.8 2017 Mar 14...Montgomery, NY.......23.5 Feb 9...Selden, NY...................16.0 Jan 7...Orient, NY....................12.5 2016 Feb 5...Setauket, NY................12.0 Jan 23..JFK,NY.........................30.5 2015 Feb 2..New Faifield, CT............12.0 Jan 26-27....Orient,NY.............28.5 2014 Feb 13-14...Roselle, NJ............16.7 Jan 21-22....Centerreach,NY....14.0 Jan 2-3......Lindenhurst, NY.....12.5 2013 Mar 8....Harriman,NY..............15.0 Feb 8....Upton, NY..................30.9 2012 Nov 7-8.....Monroe, CT..........13.5 Jan 21......North Haven, CT....12.0 2011 Oct 29.....Harriman, NY.........16.0 Jan 26-27...NYC................... 19.0 Jan 11-12.......Meriden, CT....29.0 2010 Feb 25-26...Mount Hope, NY...27.5 Dec 26........Elizabeth, NJ........31.8 Feb. 10.....Sound Beach, NY....16.2 2009 Dec 19-20....Upton, NY..........26.3

First blizzard warning in any of the OKX zones since January 2022. https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/plotting/auto/?_wait=no&q=92&phenomena=BZ&significance=W&e=all&_opt_edate=on&edate=2026%2F02%2F21&_r=t&dpi=100&_fmt=png

How have you been doing? Everyone has been asking about you. Really glad you are back.