Cold Outbreak - Northeast

[B Ozanne]

Many places in New England are experiencing their coldest weather of the season. Tonight valley locations will see multi-year lows. As the cold air core at 800mb moved over Mount Washington this morning their temperature fell to -37F. That is just one degree shy of the March record low, and breaking the previous daily record by 14 degrees.

If it was January these temps would be big news, even for Mount Washington (Saranac Lake is forecast to drop to -32F tonight). But its March. My best analogy is that this is like recording the hottest day of the summer in September.

Does anybody know what is driving this cold outbreak so late in the season? We are quickly approaching the equinox so it can't be the long nights in the north. Is there an unusually large snowpack in Canada thats aiding the formation of this cold?

 

[B Ozanne]

I just checked Saranac Lake and they are sitting at -35F.

 

[HAltschule]

We had dropped down to -3 here in Colonie, NY which is 1 mile from the Albany Int'l airport. Wind chills were as cold as -20f.

Temperatures this cold are not abnormal for the Northeast by any means. We finally got into a "normal" winter weather pattern in January. It's just that we were used to the unseasonably warm 1st half of winter. So, no real reason for the cold outbreaks other than the arctic air finally got unleashed in the northeast as is usually does in January and February and even early March. Negative low temperatures in Albany and even Saranac Lake are actually quite common during the winter. In fact, there are usually many more below zero low temperatures than we have seen this year.

The good news is that we should only have another 3 days or so of frigid weather and then we see a pattern change that will boost most areas in to the 40's and low 50's. Bring on Spring and summer!!

 

[B Ozanne]

Temperatures this cold are not abnormal for the Northeast by any means.

For January these temperatures would be below normal, for early March they are way below normal. Central park yesterday was 25 degrees below normal. Mount Washington was 1 degree shy of a monthly record, that doesn't happen every year. -35F at Saranac Lake happens every 3 years or so...in January. In March it happens every other decade.

While I agree that nothing crazy is going on up north, probably just a good Arctic feed, but these temperatures are very unusual.

 

[John Hudson]

Many places in New England are experiencing their coldest weather of the season. Tonight valley locations will see multi-year lows. As the cold air core at 800mb moved over Mount Washington this morning their temperature fell to -37F. That is just one degree shy of the March record low, and breaking the previous daily record by 14 degrees.

Up here, we don't call that cold. We call it "business as usual."

John

 

[B Ozanne]

Up here, we don't call that cold. We call it "business as usual."

John

Well, you're mostly resposible for this. We'll send some Gulf moisture and heat up your way in a few months.

Edit: The latest forecasts are calling for even colder temperatures on Thursday night. Saranac Lake could see -35F twice in three days.

 

[HAltschule]

For January these temperatures would be below normal, for early March they are way below normal. Central park yesterday was 25 degrees below normal.

I think my post was not interpreted exactly as I meant it. I was really saying that although the air temperatures are below normal statistically (March Mean temp. is -2.2 degrees below average as of today), it is not abnormal to see arctic outbreaks (with a -25 deficit for a max)...even in early March. A very quick check of the maximum temperatures in Central Park in March for the past 10 years show at least 1 or 2 other occasions where daily maximums were in the 20's. Below normal...YES, abnormal to see these kinds of arctic outbreaks in February and even early March....NO.

BTW....Blame it on "La Nina" (also known as "The Nina")