When Will The 1st big Snow Occur in NYC?

When Do You Think the 1st 6" Snow will Fall in NYC this Season?

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HAltschule

EF5
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Aug 16, 2005
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Albany, New York
Cast your votes for when the first 6"+ snow will occur in New York's Central Park.

With New Year's Day approaching, it's hard to believe that most of the Northeastern U.S. has not seen much, if any, snow so far this season. El Nino sure has caused a marked change in the weather patterns and it's not only wet precip. that we see, but also very warm. Here are a couple of select cities I just peekd at this morning.

Albany, NY: Actual Snowfall: 0.2" Normal Snow: 16.1"
Binghamton, NY: Actual Snowfall: 4.2" Normal Snow: 23.4"
NYC Central Park Actual Snowfall: 0.0" Normal Snow: 2.2"

The average temperature so far for December 2006 (in Albany, NY) currently stands at 7.6 degrees ABOVE normal. Pretty amazing.

Finally, the long range models indicate yet another RAINstorm moving across the Northeast around New Year's Day at the same time of year when we should be getting close to our snowiest months of the season.
 
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February 5, 2007

I think I'm beginning to understand why polar bears were recently put on the threatened species list :)

Pat
 
I am seriously losing faith in an event like this happening at all. I would like to see a "not going to happen" category. This may be known as the year without winter if things stay the way they are. Boooo.
 
Andrew Sorce said:
I am seriously losing faith in an event like this happening at all. I would like to see a "not going to happen" category. This may be known as the year without winter if things stay the way they are. Boooo.
Click to expand...

Those are bound to happen from time to time. But don't forget, we are only a few days into winter, and one snowstorm will wipe out all memories of December's warmth.
 
Looks like the coldest air of the season so far will be arriving in the CONUS mid January. This could makes things much more interesting for the northeast, eventually.

The long range models have been consistant with this the last several runs.
 
The latest runs continue to show a major push of bitterly cold air in the middle of the month, with lots of storminess on it's front side. This could yield a big storm somewhere in the eastern half of the lower 48.
 
I just checked the latest mid range models for the weekend of Jan/ 6-7, 2007 and the trend is certainly warmer. Looks like an all rainer event for this period. Even the storm advertisied for January 17ish has a warm rain look to it...rather than snow. We just might be looking at the end of this month for the 1st significant snow for the Northeast?

I usually like at least 1 big snowstorm before I am ready for the 80's to return. But this is ridiculous.
 
Late season freak storm around March 6th due to a wicked cold front out of the northwest catching a slow moving warm front on the east coast.

What? You might as well gamble.
 
GFS Model for January 13, 2007: 1000-500 thickness of 528-534 combined with over 1" of QPF might bring 6"+ of snow to Los Angeles before it snows in NYC.

Now THAT would be cool. The stars would go insane not knowing what to do.
 
Snowfall Copntest Update

The 0.3" of snow that fell at Central Park this morning does not quite cut it. Hence, the contest continues. NYC still has a huige deficit of snowfall this season and they still have not seen there 1st 6" of snow.

We have the cold air in place, but now we need some darn phasing of the jetstreams to occur.
 
First 6"+ storm could be on the way starting Tuesday evening. Still up in the air though as warm air is progged to overspread the coast and cut down on snow totals. I think its still possible for NYC to get 6" before the changeover.

If memory serves me right, NWS meteorologists in the northeast don't fully understand evaporative cooling either. The snow rarely starts on time, and it always gets colder before the first flakes hit the ground. Assuming arctic air is in place.
 
I've been watching the same storm system take shape. The 00z and now 6z Monday model runs of the NAM and GFS unanimously give KNYC/KLGA around 1" of snow before the changeover to mostly rain. With both models forecasting this consistently as a result of the very mild Atlantic Air intrusion, I think it will be very hard to get anything more than an inch or two at best the way things look right now.

Ironically, the models usually have a cold bias for the NYC/LI and NE NJ area and the changeovers many times occur even faster than progged.

Also, it seems that the true arctic air has already been scoured out, finally!! So, a major ice storm or trend to a major sleet or freezing rain event seems minimal also. Just a good 'ole Broadway Gullywasher.

As far as Upstate New York and Western New England go, there will also be a changeover in many places. But both of these models are forecasting 10-11" of snow in Albany, NY before all is said and done. I am much more confident on a 6"+ snowfall in the Capital District of New York with very low confidence of even a snow advisory event in NYC.
 
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