The Forgotten Blizzard of 1886 Are our climate

The Forgotten Blizzard of 1886 - Are our climate records better today? Tim Morrin Jeffrey Tongue NWS New York, NY

Gilda - 1946 January 9, 1886

March 13, 1888 ? ?

NCDC • • High 25 Low 15 Pcpn 0. 30” Snow ? ? ? • Check of The Applied Climate Information System (ACIS), NOAA Regional Climate Centers. • SAME RESULT. Record of 4. 3” in 1974

NWS Web Page

Records • Dr. Daniel Draper • 1841 -1931 • Director of the New York Meteorological Observatory 18691911 • Records are in the Library of Congress

Where? ?

What Did Dr. Draper Report? ?

How? ? • The Draper selfrecording pluviometer.

U. S. Signal Service: Daily Journal • 28. 719” Hg (972 mb) • Anemometer Cups Blown Away. • 44 miles in velocity. • Street and RR Travel almost entirely suspended. • Many Marine Disasters Reported. • TOTAL SNOWFALL: • 11. 90”

Today

ASOS ZOO

Central Park Zoo

The correct way to measure snow Measuring snow Sometimes not a “nobrainer”!

SNOW BOARDS. Approx. 3 ft X 3 ft and painted white. You will need two never One board gets swept (this one is for continuous snow depth) • The other board gets swept during snow event every 6 hours. Wiggle room here!! • The total snowfall for event is the Summation of all 6 hourly measurements

First order climate locations • At airports—MANY challenges • Poor siting-NWS has no say where they are. • Too many obstructions • Too few acceptable locations to measure. • CENTRAL PARK BETTER—open sky, natural terrain, 24/7 coverage, yearly training. • Doing it here since winter of 1996 -97

QUESTIONS ? ? ?