Cleveland Opening Day Baseball History Updated

Since the middle of March, we've been watching the potential for some pretty serious cold for early April around Opening Day at Progressive Field.  There's been a lot of warming in the stratosphere over the north pole (warm colors below) which usually takes a couple of weeks under ideal circumstances to make its way down into the troposphere where weather directly impacts us. (Often times the stratosphere warming doesn't propagate down into the troposphere so the upper atmospheric warming remains, what we call, decoupled from the lower atmosphere. In those cases, little impact in the form of cold occurs.)

Warming at the top of the atmosphere creating cold at the surface seems counterintuitive but that warming and the stratosphere creates high pressure at the surface in the high latitudes.  Here is a primer from NOAA. There are many ingredients that have to be present for this to occur. Some originate in the tropics which make their way to the pole.

Where that change propagates south is typically where the cold sets up. In many instances, the long-range computer models have a difficult time ascertaining this.

Here is European Model each day from March 26 through April 1 showing temperatures for Tuesday afternoon April 8th (Opening Day in Cleveland). Notice it didn't pick up on the cold over the Great Lakes/Ohio Valley until March 29. Each day the cold became stronger and more pervasive across the northern half of the country.

Today (April 4), notice how extensive the cold is for April 8. The normal high is in the mid-50s for the second week of April. This translates to mid 30s!

850 mB temperatures (5000 ft level) drop to -12 to -14C. Good bet for some lake effect snow with accumulations late Monday into Tuesday.  It is late in the season so the lake water temperature is around 34 degrees Fahrenheit. You need a lake water temperature 850 MB temperature difference of at least 13°C  to start generating lake effect snow. So that difference is going to be pretty close to the cutoff.

We all remember Opening Day 2007. The game was cancelled then moved to Milwaukee. If that game were to be played in Cleveland, it would have been 28°

Technical weather aside, I did some research looking at all of the Opening Days for not only Cleveland Guardians history but ALL Cleveland professional baseball history going back to 1871 when they were called the Cleveland Forest Citys. This is when Cleveland professional baseball was in the National League. They were also known as the Cleveland Spiders and the Cleveland Blues.

Here is the complete list. It shows the year, date, either the game time temperature or the high temperature for the day depending on what was available (color coded), the result of the game and whether or not we had precipitation that day.

A few things to note: 

• There have been 12 home openers where we had game time temperatures in the 30s:

     

• The 1979 home opener was the coldest at 32°.

•  1899 opening day at League Park was the warmest. Game time temperature 84°.

• The most precipitation ever on opening day was 1981, April 11th at the old stadium. We had 1.44" of rain.

 

Most recently the 2006 opening day had 0.61" of rain. 

Opening day April 13th 1962 we had some scattered snow. 

How Often Do We See Snow on Christmas? Cold?

Maybe you remember the super warm Christmas back in 1982 when we reached 66° degrees. Perhaps you remember the following Christmas when the high temperatures was 1°. Most of remember the brutally cold period leading up to Christmas last winter (2022).

What was the Christmas weather like when you were a kid?  I created this handy chart showing the Christmas weather history for northern Ohio going back to 1940.

Enjoy!

How Does The Christmas 2022 Blizzard Compared to the January 1978 Blizzard?

Just last week we remembered the Blizzard of 1978 or the White Hurricane as it would be known as after the fact. Ohio turnpike was shutdown gate to gate.  Twenty foot high snowdrifts. Wind gusts above 80 mph in spots across Ohio and beyond.  If you lived during the storm, the memories will live forever.

A blizzard is defined as three hours of sustained winds of 35+ mph, 1/4 mi or lower visibility due to blowing and/or falling snow.  The last condition is key as you don't need falling snow for a blizzard to occur.  Recently the Blizzard of Christmas 2022 created conditions that in some respects rival the '78 blizzard.  Below is a comparison between the initial 12 hour period for each blizzard. The data includes precipitation type, temperature, wind chill, wind direction, speed and gusts followed by air pressure from Cleveland Hopkins Airport:

A few elements stand out here.  You'll notice the wind chill values of the 1978 storm are greatly reduced compared to what many publications sited years ago. The wind chill calculation changed in 2001 to reflect new science on the subject of heat loss on the body.  Earlier estimates put the wind chill at under -60° but in reality, the chills probably bottomed out at -30°,  maybe -40° with the higher gusts with the new formula.  Other notable findings from the observations above:

* The temperature drop during the December 2022 storm was greater (42° to 0° in 8 hours).  The 1978 storm had a sharper drop. 43° to 9° in 5 hours.

* 2022 storm created wind gusts nearing 50 mph at Hopkins with some reports above 60 mph once the temperatures dropped into the single digits.  These wind gusts (50+ mph) took roughly 5-7 hours to reach after peak temperatures. The 1978 storm had gusts reaching 70+ within 3 hours of peak temperatures. 

* Official wind chill values were LOWER during the 2002 storm.

* 1978 storm was far deeper with lowest air pressure at 958 mB vs 993.0 mB with the 2022 storm.

* Snow depth was much deeper in 1978.  16" before the storm versus no snow on the ground at the start of the 2022 storm.

What about the conditions after the initial 12 hours?  Here are the hourly observations for each storm over the next 48 hours. 2022 storm on left.  1978 storm on right. Color coding is identical to the image above.

Here are some notable findings in these 48 hours

2022 storm:

* Temperatures remained below zero for another 12 hours and under 10 degrees for another 19 hours.

* Sustained wind speeds stayed at 30 mph for 12 hours with gusts near 40 mph for 24 hours.

* Wind chills remained at under -20° for 24 another hours.

The progression of the arctic cold was fast and widespread. After 7 days the extreme cold had faded.

7 day temperatures vs normal during and following blizzard

1978 storm:

* Temperatures never dropped below zero; remained below 10 degrees for only 9 hours

* Sustained winds were similar to the 2022 storm (30 mph for 12 hours) with 40+ gusts 

*  Wind chills stayed between -5° and -15° as temps stayed between 5° and 15° degrees

The cold following the '78 blizzard was just as harsh and quick but it lingered much longer.

7 day temperatures vs normal during and following Blizzard

The surface features with both storms look very similar.

January 1978 Blizzard

December 2022 Blizzard

Psychology tells us that our experiences especially during extreme events tend to leave a stronger mark in our mind more than more benign events.  The January 2022 blizzard was one of those events.  The blizzard around Christmas 2022 was also a memorable one--certainly not the worst in northern Ohio history but it's on the list (maybe top 5)--and should be remembered in the same breath as the '78 storm.

Winter Snowstorm Recap MLK 2022 - Chapter 2 of 3 (Meteorology Behind It)

The seeds of this huge snowstorm were first planted around Christmas. How is possible? We started noticing signs that the HUGE ridge of high pressure in the northern Pacific was starting to move after sitting still for most of December locking in the milder pattern across the eastern US.

Watch the big red blog move northwest into eastern Siberia and north of the Arctic Circle. Low pressure centers (blue areas on the left) then could moves off of eastern Asia east undercutting the moving ridge. These lows filled the void left by the departing high pressure ridge. This animation is from December 31 to January 5. 

The overall upper level pattern starting flipping in the first week of January.  Look at the lows across the Canadian/US border. 

Animation below is from January 7 to the 14th shows a more centered view over North America. On the left side is the departing ridge (red blob). See how the low pressure centers in the northern Pacific between the Aleutian Island and Hawaii sit and build. Also notice that around January 10th a small low pressure "piece" was spun off  north of Hawaii. This was steered into the Northwest US, strengthening as it moved southeast through the upper midwest. I circled it for reference.

On Wednesday January 12 (4-5 days before the event) the long range projections were latching onto the idea that this low in the upper mid-west was heading south through Missouri then back up along the Appalachian Mountains. 

Snowfall from Wednesday January 12 through Sunday morning January 16

My first general snowfall outlook for significant snowfall was issued Thursday.  These panhandle/eastern US snow systems historically have stayed east of northern Ohio even as computer models attempt to push them west with record setting snowfalls. I remember a long range model produce 30-35 inches of snow for half of Ohio in one instance!  I was cautious to jump on the bandwagon.

 What did the long range models say regarding snowfall on Wednesday, 4+ days before the snow event?

First the American Model:

Next the Canadian Model:

The European Model:

24 hours later (Late Thursday. 3+ days before the event):

There was a discernable shift in the heavy snow into Pennsylvania and along the Ohio/PA line south into the WV panhandle.

By Saturday morning, the model output showed the heaviest snow depth still along the Ohio/PA border by early Monday afternoon.  I'm using weather.us model output maps here.

First the American model:

And the European:

The National Weather Service in Cleveland issued these winter weather advisories starting Saturday late afternoon.

Now Sunday morning's model output. First the longer range models (GFS and EURO) then the shorter term, higher resolution model output (NAM).  Each one was showing a trend further west with the 12"+ snow amounts.

GFS

EURO

NAM

NWS in Cleveland started to extend the advisories and warning further west.

The NWS continued to expand the advisory/warning areas further west Sunday evening.

The NWS snowfall forecast Sunday late afternoon/evening:

Our official FOX8 forecast from Sunday morning. Our western edge of 6-9" snow was close to I-71.

Our official FOX8 snowfall forecast issued Sunday evening. We shifted the heavier snowfall into Summit and parts of Cuyahoga Counties with the 9"+ snowfall edge near I-71.

The 12 inch snowfall forecast cut-off was shifted west slowly each day. The actual 12" amounts verified west by about 20 miles west of our final forecast

The storm prediction center highlighted heavy snow fall in their regional discussion Sunday late afternoon. Temperatures were between 25 and 30 degrees at sundown so the initial accumulations were more "sleety snow"