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The adjustments, which I'll get into in a minute, highlight the difficulty of measuring snow. It blows around, compacts, drifts, moves.
You'll always get these precise measurements from snowstorms. "Hey, that storm dropped 19.1 inches of snow!" Really, the best you can do is say you got about 20 inches in that situation.
But, the National Weather Service likes precision, which is a good thing. And they have standards on how to measure snow, so at least there's consistency in the methodology.
To properly measure snow, the National Weather Service says to let it accumulate on two foot square white boards, and take measurements once every six hours to get an official snow total.
New York City's Central Park now has a new record for biggest snowstorm on record. Initially, Central Park reported 26.8 inches of new snow during the blizzard, which fell short of the largest snowstorm record.
But it turns out 27.5 inches fell, so it WAS the largest snowstorm. Congrats New York!
The New York error came because of a miscommunication between Central Park Conservancy staff, who correctly measured the snow, and the National Weather Service New York staff, according to the AP.
Newark, New Jersey reported more snow than they actually got. During the blizzard, they recorded 28.1 inches. But they measured the snow every hour, not once every six hours. That didn't allow for normal compaction of the snow, so their method inflated the actual total.
It turns out they've probably been measuring the snow incorrectly in Newark since 1996. People there have since been retrained.
Another snow total that was looked at was at the Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC. They measured 17.8 inches during the storm.
People questioned that, because some nearby areas received far more snow. Adding to the questions, was the person who was measuring the snow temporarily lost where the boards were because the snow was so deep, says the Associated Press But an investigation revealed that the person taking the measurements managed to get it right, so the 17.8 inches stands.
They're going to recommend adding yellow flags to measuring sites so that they can be found in deep snow.
In the case of the failure to acknowledge a record in Central Park the people handle reporting may have been facing pressure from those with an agenda, i.e. global warming. While the overall cast of the winter was mild KNYC had both a record snowstorm, and the first official subzero readings since 1994. I am suspicious that there may have been other pierces of the zero make, for example in January 2004 that were fudged upward.
Overall there is an aroma and not a good one associated with much of the weather and climate discussions.
I'd have to look more at the data but I doubt its accuracy. For one thing the method of measuring snow has changed; now the snow is measured on a board that is cleared every six hours. Back in the day the snow was measured at the end of the storm. That change may have two effects: 1) to make recent storms appear bigger since the effect of compaction, drifting and even melting is reduced on the measurements; and 2) with regard to the "smaller" storms that are allegedly not happening, a storm that goes from snow to rain within the six hour period, and drops say 0.25" - 2" may not be picked up at all since the rain will eliminated the fallen snow within the six hours. Many storms start with a burst of snow at the beginning and then, with southeasterly winds, change to rain.
I dtect an agenda in articles such as the one you linked to prove global warming. Global warming has really not been evident in inhabited areas; it seems confined to areas where no one lives and no one measures, thus forcing us to believe those who assert its existence.
Even I thought Central Park's 26.8" was suspect, posters on a different board I frequent were pretty upset about it, and for good reason. I doubt anyone has any sort of hidden agenda however, we're talking about a fraction of an inch of snow.
Even I thought Central Park's 26.8" was suspect, posters on a different board I frequent were pretty upset about it, and for good reason. I doubt anyone has any sort of hidden agenda however, we're talking about a fraction of an inch of snow.
The hidden agenda would be a public relations one. While people such as myself understand that one major blizzard and/or one brief but intense cold wave does not negate global warming it's harder for less sophisticated people to get beyond the headlines. People will say sarcastically "I've got 12" of global warming in my driveway." Just as I remember people when I was younger complaining to TV weathercasters that "I've just shoveled 6" of 'partly cloudy' out of my driveway."
Even I thought Central Park's 26.8" was suspect, posters on a different board I frequent were pretty upset about it, and for good reason. I doubt anyone has any sort of hidden agenda however, we're talking about a fraction of an inch of snow.
0.7" extra is a big deal. Think about a heavy snow rate. 1" per hour is heavy snow. So an extra 0.7" isn't a big deal on paper but in reality that's a lot of snow that was missed. It's not the first time they changed NYC totals.... Remember this? 3 different snowstorm totals were increased.
But I think the moral of the story here..."If True" is that NWS took 3 months to realize they had the error and not the ones measuring it. Unless they took the blame to cover up the new observer for NYC.
0.7" extra is a big deal. Think about a heavy snow rate. 1" per hour is heavy snow. So an extra 0.7" isn't a big deal on paper but in reality that's a lot of snow that was missed.
Especially when you have a real ratter of a winter such as 2001-2 where a total of about 3.5 inches fell, or 1972-3 which at least had plenty of cold weather but only 2.9" of snow.
But I think the moral of the story here..."If True" is that NWS took 3 months to realize they had the error and not the ones measuring it. Unless they took the blame to cover up the new observer for NYC.
Again, I suspect there's some agenda here. The article posted in #663 above, Big Blizzards Have Become More Common In New York | FiveThirtyEight, tries to argue that warming has increased the tendency to have big storms and reduced the tendency to have minor ones. So it's now big storms that are the evidence for global warming.
When you had snow droughts in 1985-6, 1987-8, 1988-9, 1989-90, 1990-1, 1991-2, 1994-5 (yes, one big storm), 1996-7, 1997-8, 1998-9, 1999-2000, and 2001-2 the relative snowless of all of those winters, and mildness of most of them was taken as evidence of climate change. Now, with recent epic snowy winters such as 2000-1, 2002-3, 2003-4, 2004-5, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2013-4, and 2014-5, (yes, I'm leaving out the big snowstorm of February 11, 2006 and January 23, 2016 since they were both in the context of otherwise mild winters) those winters, plus even the recent blizzard are taken as evidence of climate change.
Is there any weather that would not be symptomatic of climate change or is climate change a religion?
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