Vernal Equinox is today. So how COLD was this winter?

The Vernal Equinox is at 12:57PM Eastern Daylight Time.  Astronomical winter is over!

While the meteorological winter is far from following in the footsteps of the earth's tilt and position around the sun, it gives us a good time to look back at the official season of winter to determine how COLD it actually was versus other winter similar to it.

Image: Wunderground

 

Back in February, I mentioned 4 indicators of winter severity.  1) TOTAL SNOWFALL, 2) DAYS WITH SNOW ON THE GROUND 3) AVERAGE TEMPERATURE & 4) NIGHTS BELOW 10 DEGREES.  Was this winter among the coldest and snowiest all-time? Where did this winter rank?

Each graph will show where this year resides ALL-TIME which goes back to 1871. Many have mentioned how this winter is the coldest in a generation. So I created a second graph which shows the the information over the last 40 winters (since 1975) for a more recent perspective.

SNOWFALL

RANKS 9th ALL-TIME

 77.0"

  

LAST 40 WINTERS

4 WINTERS IN THE EARLY 2000s HAD MORE SNOW THAN THIS WINTER!

DAYS/SNOW ON GROUND MORE THAN 1"

RANKS 5th ALL-TIME

 79 DAYS

THIS WINTER IS TIED WITH 2010-11 AND 2002-03 FOR DAYS WITH SNOW COVER GREATER THAN 1 INCH:  

NIGHTS BELOW 10 DEGREES

RANKS 11th ALL-TIME

26 NIGHTS

THE LAST WINTER WITH MORE NIGHTS BELOW 10 DEGREES WAS WINTER 1978-79

AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

RANKS 20th ALL-TIME

COLDEST SINCE 1993-94

5TH COLDEST IN THE LAST 40 WINTERS

 

Don't Walk on the Lake Erie Ice!

We see people walking on the Lake Erie ice every year when the lake ice cover is significant. Why people would take this chance especially this time of year when the ice becomes very unstable is beyond me. DON'T WALK ON LAKE ERIE THIS TIME OF YEAR!

The lake ice begins to crack and thin as the overall temperatures begin to climb in late March and early April. The sun angle is also higher so the sun is much stronger than what it was a month ago.

Look at the record setting ice cover statistics from the winter of 1977-78. From March 15th to April 9th, the ice went from 95% to 34%.  A loss of 61% in 3 1/2 weeks!

Expect this trend this year heading into early April. Remember, all of this melting and thinning continues to occur even when we have temporary cold spells.

So don't be fooled. Stay away from the ice!

Wednesday, March 12th Snowstorm Forecast

I'm fairly confident on the timing of the rain/sleet/freezing overnight tonight and early Wednesday.
Current image is HERE...



The initial wave of rain will move into Ohio during the night.

By sunrise/morning rush, the southern and eastern areas will be only rain with a RAIN/FREEZING RAIN MIX further west and north. The dividing line will bisect northern Ohio between 6 and 9AM

7 AND 8AM

LATE MORNING

AFTERNOON

Temps will fall fast into the 20s by early afternoon...teens by early evening.

Winds will be steady above 25-30 mpg with 40-45 mph gusts late Wednesday afternoon and evening.

Updated snowfall forecast keep a thin band of heavy snow well north from Toledo to Sandusky, Lorain, Cleveland and east. Amounts will drop off further south. Much of the accumulation will be from mid morning through early evening.

March Temperatures after COLD WINTER

Since January 1st, our average temperature (highs AND lows) is now ranked 7TH COLDEST over the last 100 years! Normal I would include December. However, since most of our winter occurs after the first of the year, I felt this was a better representation of the winter as a whole.

Lake Erie ice cover is still around 95% after a 10% loss last weekend which we regained this week. Notice that their are a handful of years in the past with at least 90% ice cover this late in the season.

By early March, the ice cover historically begins to melt. 6 years still had at least 905 ice cover. 1977, 1979, 1982, 2003, 2007 & 2008.

The big question: what were the March temperatures like in the winters that were COLDER (see list above) than this year?

I created a table that shows all of the high temperatures for March for EACH year in the list above. The years are: 1918, 1920, 1936, 1963, 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1982. I circled the days at or BELOW FREEZING in BLUE and the days ABOVE 60 in RED to show the frequency of the extremes. You can see that its not all that uncommon to have a few days in the 20s and 30s early in March after bitterly cold winters. Yet when the pattern shows spring tendencies (days in the 60s or better), those warmer days typically occur in bunches.

Fear not. There is probably one or two more bursts of winter cold left during the first half of March before our chances of seeing a 60 degree day become increasingly better!

Tricky Forecast: Flooding Update, Heavy Rain, Storms

Forecast is very tricky with lots of small details over the next 18 hours.  Temperatures remain in the mid 30s with rain/sleet and reports of freezing rain as of 11AM.. Rain is moving northeast.




CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW FOR THE CURRENT IMAGE

Breaks in the rain during the afternoon as temperatures start to climb into the 40s. Winds will increase especially into the evening. The highest temperatures will not occur until after sundown where lower 50s are definitely possible.

The main line of rain and storms moves through mid to late evening. Winds could gust to 40-50 mph with a slight chance for strong storms.

Rainfall will be close to 1/2" or more in spots over the next 24 hours!

 

Snow water content is greater than 3 inches in many areas.

River levels will start to climb fast overnight tonight and early Friday. Here are the early Thursday morning river level forecasts. ALL will be well above flood stage by midday Friday!

Flooding Potential Increasing for Northern Ohio

Fresh 3-8 inches of snow Tuesday the 18th have increased the overall snow cover to well over 15 inches across a good portion of northern Ohio

Later in February and early march, the influence of the sub-tropical jet stream driving short bursts of "warmth" becomes stronger. The Polar jet which drives the winter pattern often bounces back and forth as the southern branch shows flashes of dominance. Both jet streams can blend together as troughs become deeper in the middle of the continent.  Waves travel along the jet stream which develop into deep circulations at the surface and aloft inside the large scale trough. These waves can deepen rapidly causing rapidly rising temperatures and heavy rainfall.

Four components are coming together for a potential big flooding event because of this active jet stream:

1) Rising temperatures: Temperatures will make a run at 50
2) Heavy snow cover: Only 7 other winters since the late 1930s have had at least 13" of snow cover this late in the winter: 2008 (15"), 2007 (17"), 1993 (21"), 1987 (13"), 1984 (13"), 1960 (13") and 1954 (13")
3) Strong winds
4) Steady rainfall of at least 1/2" over 13" of snow cover

Snow water equivalent is greater than 3" in many locations:

 

How often has all FOUR of these components come together this late in the winter?

NOT SINCE 1938 WHEN SNOW DEPTH RECORDS BEGAN AT HOPKINS AIRPORT

River levels will need to be monitored Friday and Saturday especially the Huron, Chagrin, Black and Grand Rivers. All should be well above flood stage Friday.

River Flooding Level website here for updated information 

Milan could see the worst flooding according to Wednesday morning river forecasts:

Winter 2013-14 In Some Pretty Exclusive Company

It's the winter that won't end.


Continuous cold, frequent snows, perpetual snow cover and extremely cold nights have, at the very least, made our dispositions a little testy. We are all short fused. Lake Erie has frozen over with ice cover at levels not seen since the late 1970s for the 3rd week of February. We're infected with cabin fever with only small glimmers of spring-like temperatures on the 8day forecast.

We all--most of us--want this to end NOW!

How exclusive a winter has this been through February 17th?  First, we need to categorize the winter elements and see where this winter ranks. I use these four as an overall measure of winter's severity: TOTAL SNOWFALL, DAYS WITH SNOW ON THE GROUND, AVERAGE TEMPERATURE & NIGHTS BELOW 10 DEGREES. 

1. Total Snowfall for 2013-14 now ranks 10th

2. Days with Snow Cover at or more than 1 inch ranks 7th

3. Overall Average Temperature since December 1st ranks 29th

4. Number of night below 10 degrees ranks 16th

The winter is ranked ery high in some categories and not so high in others. So I looked for the winters that are ranked HIGHER than this winter in EACH of these FOUR categories. What did I find? 

ONLY FOUR WINTERS ranked higher in 3 categories...

1917-18, 1976-77, 1962-63 & 1969-70

ONLY ONE ranked HIGHER in EVERY CATEGORY: 

The winter of 1977-78!

When did we see our first string of "milder" temperatures
(5 days at or about 50 degrees) in these years?  Was spring warmer or colder than normal? That answer later this week...

Thursday Morning East Coast Snow Update

Heavy snow continues to fall from Washington, DC to Boston
NORTH EAST RADAR LOOP HERE


Updated Flight cancellations HERE

Snowfall amounts by early Friday morning will be extremely heavy.

Pennsylvania Avenue traffic cam. Click on the image for the most recent image.