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Top 5 Pennsylvania 3 Day and Daily All-Time Snow Storm Records


ChescoWx
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Sorry, but I absolutely don't believe Coatesville and also their totals for Jan 1905, 29", and April 1894, 29.2".  They are completely at odds with every nearby station.  And the precip. ratios are exactly 10:1 which is very suspicious.  Probably measuring drifts.      I'm contacting NCDC  

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20 hours ago, LVwxHistorian said:

Sorry, but I absolutely don't believe Coatesville and also their totals for Jan 1905, 29", and April 1894, 29.2".  They are completely at odds with every nearby station.  And the precip. ratios are exactly 10:1 which is very suspicious.  Probably measuring drifts.      I'm contacting NCDC  

Keep in mind over relatively short distances there is often huge differences in snow totals - some good examples are in the article below

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blogs/phillylists/Historic-snowfalls-Suburbs-totals-dominate.html

 

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16 hours ago, LVwxHistorian said:

It's still too high, NCDC said they will review it in the summer

I remember when I purchased (yes I spent $ on this) the handwritten obs for Coatesville from the NCDC back in 1998 (the data was not yet available pre-1948 on the internet) I actually had a conversation with the center after I had received and uploaded day by day the data into excel (every day from 1894 to 1948) but prior to uploading to my website (as I did not want to publish any data or make a claim on my website that was not validated by the NCDC). I asked them if they found the totals valid? They then went back and did some research to help corroborate the data.  I actually have my notes from the call. They told me that while it was the highest reported storm total - they had gone back through the records and actually referenced and reviewed in detail the National Weather Review publication summary report for February 1899. He told me that in that national report they had noted some specific mentions of unusually high snow amounts including the near 40" of snow as far south as the weather office in Washington DC. Additionally, he mentioned that in addition to the Coatesville observation he had 50" plus snow reports from multiple spots across the mid-atlantic region including Egg Harbor City NJ (near AC),  Easton MD,  Warrenton VA and approaching 50" in both York PA and Kennett Square in Chester County. He mentioned that the NWS Observer for Coatesville - Mr. Gordon was a very diligent observer not omitting even one daily reported figure from January 1894 till 1930. He felt I should feel comfortable posting the data on my website - which has been up and running now since 1999. If someone new at the NCDC now tries to rewrite history it won't be due to the facts....it would only be based on feelings. But of course our society today is often inclined to favor feelings over facts. The good news is my facts don't change because someone does not believe....

 

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His totals are just too consistently higher than nearby stations:

feb 12-14, 1899: 53" -- kennett square: 32" and west chester: 21.5".

 

Or Jan 25, 1905 storm he measured 29" and Kennett Square had 18", and west chester 14.5".

And April 10-12, 1894: he measured 29.2" -- Kennett square had 8.8" and west chester 7.8"!!!!

Come on, something is very fishy!!  it has nothing to do with feelings.

I know you want to believe it because you live there, which are your feelings, but the data just doesn't back it up at all.

And the state climatologist has never recognized the data.

 

IPS - Record of Climatological Observations - Select Station | IPS | National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) (noaa.gov)

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It's a debate that won't be answered - I just choose to follow the facts that have stood the test of time for 122 years and not let any revisionist history change it. No doubt in 1899 they looked into all this but still chose to publish this as a record and the NCDC also followed suit as my discussion with them showed. There had been many instances of big differences between many spots between PHL to West Chester to Coatesville through the years....there were even many times Philly recorded snow and Coatesville did not. We can't pick and choose. Do you think Morgantown just 7 miles from here was also wrong with there 50" of snow with a temp that never went below 32 degrees? In that case the elevation of this area played a big difference. There are so many mitigating factors that you can't go back and try and rewrite history....

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6 hours ago, LVwxHistorian said:

His totals are just too consistently higher than nearby stations:

feb 12-14, 1899: 53" -- kennett square: 32" and west chester: 21.5".

 

Or Jan 25, 1905 storm he measured 29" and Kennett Square had 18", and west chester 14.5".

And April 10-12, 1894: he measured 29.2" -- Kennett square had 8.8" and west chester 7.8"!!!!

Come on, something is very fishy!!  it has nothing to do with feelings.

I know you want to believe it because you live there, which are your feelings, but the data just doesn't back it up at all.

And the state climatologist has never recognized the data.

 

IPS - Record of Climatological Observations - Select Station | IPS | National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) (noaa.gov)

By the way from the official PA State Climatologist website - you can clearly see they also recognize the 69.8" for the month for the month of February 1899 for Coatesville, PA

image.thumb.png.a908f041df364a3493e0c7e82a3b5889.png

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7 hours ago, LVwxHistorian said:

His totals are just too consistently higher than nearby stations:

feb 12-14, 1899: 53" -- kennett square: 32" and west chester: 21.5".

 

Or Jan 25, 1905 storm he measured 29" and Kennett Square had 18", and west chester 14.5".

And April 10-12, 1894: he measured 29.2" -- Kennett square had 8.8" and west chester 7.8"!!!!

Come on, something is very fishy!!  it has nothing to do with feelings.

I know you want to believe it because you live there, which are your feelings, but the data just doesn't back it up at all.

And the state climatologist has never recognized the data.

 

IPS - Record of Climatological Observations - Select Station | IPS | National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) (noaa.gov)

Again just to keep it real with facts....that April 10-12 1894 storm featured 18 inches of snow in the York - Harrisburg area

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Well I stand corrected regarding the state climatologist but that doesn't mean that the values have been investigated by them, just regurgitated!

As for April 1894, you are correct about 18" at Harrisburg and there were even heavier totals, 25 to 26", from Lebanon to Hamburg.  But its hard to ignore the sub 10" amounts at kennett square and west chester.  And Phoenixville only had 12"

 

I'm going to look at newspapers from then and see what they say  

 

[15200493 - Monthly Weather Review] PRECIPITATION.pdf

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