The powerful winter storm system(s) that raged across the midsection of the country last week moved on to the northeast over the weekend and pummeled that section rather badly. Some ares got hit with as much as 18 inches of snow. Widespread ice and sleet was also reported. All this, and it still is not officially winter.
DETROIT – A pre-winter blend of snow, sleet and freezing rain cut visibility and iced over highways from the Great Lakes to New England, dumping up to a foot-and-a-half of snow, stranding air and road travelers and causing an airliner to skid off a runway.
School districts across the region — including Michigan's largest, in Detroit — canceled Monday classes.
Slippery roads were blamed for four weekend deaths in Indiana, two in Michigan and one each in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The northern New York state community of Peru had 18 inches of snow, and high wind Monday morning whipped up fallen snow across the state, the National Weather Service said. In Michigan, Ann Arbor measured 10.5 inches and parts of Indiana had 14 inches.
Just out of curiosity, I looked up weather data from Watertown, up in the old stomping grounds of upstate New York.
…THE WATERTOWN CLIMATE SUMMARY FOR DECEMBER 16 2007…
CLIMATE NORMAL PERIOD 1971 TO 2000
CLIMATE RECORD PERIOD 1949 TO 2007
WEATHER ITEM OBSERVED TIME RECORD YEAR NORMAL DEPARTURE LAST
VALUE (LST) VALUE VALUE FROM YEAR
NORMAL
…………………………………………………………
TEMPERATURE (F)
YESTERDAY
MAXIMUM 20 658 AM 54 1971 35 -15 43
MINIMUM 12 1032 PM -20 1963 15 -3 32
AVERAGE 16 25 -9 38PRECIPITATION (IN)
YESTERDAY 0.32 1.00 1974 0.09 0.23 0.01
MONTH TO DATE 1.89 1.51 0.38 2.46
SINCE DEC 1 1.89 1.51 0.38 2.46
SINCE JAN 1 29.46 33.43 -3.97 36.30SNOWFALL (IN)
YESTERDAY MM 7.6 1985DEGREE DAYS
HEATING
YESTERDAY 49 40 9 27
MONTH TO DATE 701 594 107 461
SINCE DEC 1 701 594 107 461
SINCE JUL 1 2063 2228 -165 1935
The layout is a bit hosed up, but you can get the general picture. It is cold up there, 15 degrees below the norm during the day. And heating degree days are well above average for this month. There are going to be some big heating bills up in that area.
We got slammed with ice, ice, and ice. My neighbor’s trees are ruined. Mine, however, just looked pretty.
This is the first ice storm that got away from me. I can’t do anything with 3 inches of solid ice.
I did try to obtain temperature data once, just for about 10 years. I wanted to use it to determine if my heating costs could be improved.
First I found only 4 different reporting stations for NJ, all of which were irrelevant. I’m at least 20 degrees different then those in the govt database. So I picked a somewhat similar location in PA. I then started downloading data and realized that the only data available was Hi, Low, Avg and Degree Days. That gives you only two points of data per day. The Avg is calculated and so are degree days. Two points of data will not tell what that day was like on average. This data is better then holding up a finger but certainly not useful in determining climate changes.