Disputing Central Park's Last 1-Inch Snowfall

 

 

 

For the past month I've been scratching my head over the National Weather Service and The Weather Channel touting that Central Park hasn’t had a snowfall of an inch or more in nearly two years (since Feb. 13, 2022).  But that’s simply not true, and their observation appears to be based on a flawed understanding of what a "snowfall" is.

 

Last winter, Central Park had a snowfall of 1.8” on Feb. 27-28, with 0.9” falling on 2/27 (in the evening) and another 0.9” on 2/28 (in the wee hours of the morning).  As I see it, the entirety of the snow event determines a snowfall amount, not the confines of a calendar date.  (Snowflakes don’t abide by boundaries of calendar dates, as half of significant snowfalls since 1950 have begun on one date and ended the next day.)

 

Many of us are well aware that last winter was the least snowy on record, so scraping together an artificial factoid isn't needed for us to appreciate the lack of snow in New York. 

 

 

WRONG!

 

Comments

[William]

I agree with what you’re saying in this post. but to defend both sides, saying Central Park hasn’t had snow of one inch or more in one calendar day since Feb. 13, 2022 is undoubtedly true. publicly making this statement is most certainly worth doing since the streak reached 700 days on Jan. 14, 2024. this almost doubles the previous record of 383 days from March 1997 to March 1998 and 381 days from January 1954 to February 1955.

[Guttmana9]

Hmmm, tough to say. On one hand, you're right, but in thoery you can get .5" on one day and .5" the next from unrelated events. Hence why NWS does it the way it does.

Anyway I hope we crack the drought soon. I heard a polar vortex and we need it. So far we just got .2" of snow, from last Saturday (I could make a snowball, not a snow angel.)

[Ken K. in NJ]

Hi Rob. I too was puzzled by the statements about it being almost 2 years since the last snowfall of over one inch. Gradually I realized that they were referring to calendar days, which seems to me a pretty odd way of slicing the snow drought (although of course, snowfall records are kept for each calendar day).

I did notice that the various TV Weather people I follow have at least started to clarify the record when they mention it. It seemed at first they were trumpeting it without even thinking what they were saying, leading to a lot of confusion, and dare I say it, Fake News.

I guess it's just one more way to sensationalize Weather Reports, like the Heat Index and the Wind Chill.

[Harry]

Thank you!!! (As well as allowing comments on this). I've been saying just this on every forum regarding this question, and even on NWS NYC's own Facebook post about it as a comment.