Snow Drought…Yay or Nay?
If you’re a snow lover, so far this winter has been a snooze-fest in the Tri-State area. If you’re a winter weather hater, then you’re dancing around your dust collecting snowblower in the garage. I think there are many who fall on either side of that line. As we enter February, climatologically the last month of winter, I wanted to take a look back historically at winters past here. This might both lend hope to the starved snow lover and promise to the snow hater. Statistically things are starting to look like any shoveling the rest of the way will be at a minimum. However, as a great philosophical mind once said, “it ain’t over ’til it’s over”. Miss you Yogi.
As a young boy I became interested in weather when the city I grew up in and the streets of Queens became impassable due to a crippling snowstorm. It was February 1969, a year of many magical moments. The snowstorm was not expected to be as intense as it turned out and the city’s sanitation department(responsible for snow removal), was ill prepared. In retrospect the mayor of the city, John Lindsay, was held responsible for not being prepared. The storm became known as “The Lindsay Snowstorm”. Compared to other storms, the 15.3″ that fell Feb. 9-10, 1969 puts the storm at a not terribly impressive #17 for heaviest snowfalls in Central Park record keeping.
When I reviewed this chart, courtesy of the New York National Weather Service, I noticed something I suspected. Records have been kept for New York City since 1868. That’s 152 years of weather. Out of the top 10 biggest snowstorms, 7 of them occurred in my time at WNBC. The first, being my first weekend officially as part of the WNBC weather team, January 7-8, when 20.2″ paralyzed the city with many suburbs seeing 30″ and drifts up to 4 feet. To this day, even with bigger storms, I have never witnessed the city so reduced to a quiet beauty in the snow that blanketed the city streets.
Ahhhh, the good old days, but I reminisce. Since we started the new century, New York City has seen six of its biggest snowstorms since record keeping began. One storm struck the day after Christmas in 2010 dumping 20.0″ of powder on the city. In 2006 the number two heaviest snowfall occurred as we were buried in 26.9″. That storm created very narrow bands of extremely heavy snowfall rates, in some cases 3-5 inches per hour, along with thunder & lightening. The big Daddy of course was just 4 years ago, January 22-24, 2016 with 27.5″. There was some controversy over the measuring used in that storm, but this is not the forum to get into that.
Here’s a look at the annual snowfalls in NYC since records have been kept. This information courtesy of the National Weather Service for the New York City metropolitan area.
A few thing I want you to note in these stats. All of the following winter seasons had under 10″ of snow: 1877-78, 1900-01, 1918-19, 1931-32, 1972-73 (this was the all time record least snowfall with 2.8″, as a young snow lover myself this was a very sad winter for me), 1988-89, 1997-98, 2001-2002 ( another especially interesting snowless winter with only 3.5″, this was the winter as cleanup and recovery continued at the WTC site after the terrorist attacks on 9-11, perhaps the weather gods were lending a helping hand) and finally 2011-12.
This season to date in Central Park we have received 4.8″ of snow, more than 7″ below normal for this point into the winter.
On the high end of those stats above, ironically the snowiest winter was my first at WNBC, 1995-96 with 75.6″ of snow. Also the longest stretch of 30 inches or more of snow per season occurred in my time at WNBC from 2013 to 2018, 5 consecutive winters set an all time record.
So what are we looking at going forward? If I had to go out on a limb at this point, I would say it’s not likely we will see the pattern change dramatically and we start dealing with snowstorm after snowstorm. That being said, I would think a storm producing 6″ or more is still possible, especially from around the February 15 – March 15 window. Believe me, that’s not going out on any great limb.
Just to add one more point. While we know the planet is getting warmer climatologically, the impact on the details, such as how much snow we get each winter is still far from clear. Just because we have an exceptionally snowy or cold winter, it does not disprove the fact that the planet is still warming. That my friends will be for another time and topic.
If you’ve come this far, thank you. I hope you enjoyed the snow stats.
Once again…….sunshine always!!!