Major Northeast Snowstorms Have A Historical Peak In Frequency Starting Now, But Not Every Year Delivers

L​ate-January has historically kicked off a period of time when the Northeast has been a target of major winter storms that can pack heavy snow totals and sometimes blizzard conditions. But as we've seen recently, not every year delivers a whopping winter storm.

A scale ranks Northeast snowstorms Category 1 to 5. The Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale, or NESIS, ranks storms in the region based on snowfall amounts and the population affected. Category 3 is the threshold on the scale that a storm must reach to be considered "major" in terms of impact.

Since 1956, there have been a total of 36 Northeast snowstorms that ranked Category 3 or higher on the NESIS scale between December and March, according to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.

There's a distinct peak in their frequency beginning in late-January and lasting through mid-February. The first half of February has delivered the most major snowstorms hitting Category 3 or higher on the scale with 13. That's followed by the second half of January which has seven, and late-February is not far behind with six.

However, two of the three highest NESIS-rated storms happened in early March, with the clear front-runner being the Superstorm of March 12-14, 1993.

I​t's been a few winters since the last "major" winter storm struck during the season's peak. This is probably no surprise given the dearth of snowfall in the Northeast region the past couple of winters.

New York City's Central Park picked up 17.4 inches of snow in that storm. More than two feet of snow piled up in parts of eastern Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey and southeast New York.

A​verage snowfall illustrates the season's peak, too. This peak in major Northeast snowstorms from late-January through February also shows up in average snowfall data along parts of the Interstate 95 corridor.

In a typical season, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., see at least a small majority of their seasonal snow from late January through February.

Here are a few examples pointing out this Category 3 or higher Northeast snowstorm climatological bull's-eye this century:

• Late January 2016 (Category 4): Winter Storm Jonas was a record snowstorm for New York City, Baltimore and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
• Early February 2013 (Category 3): Winter Storm Nemo was a record snowstorm for Portland, Maine, and buried much of New England in multiple feet of snow.
• Early February 2010 (Category 3): Snowmageddons I and II hammered the mid-Atlantic states just days apart. Hundreds of thousands were without power and some roofs collapsed.
• February 2003 (Category 4): Presidents' Day II storm produced 4-inch-per-hour snowfall rates in Philadelphia; Reagan National, Baltimore-Washington, Philadelphia and LaGuardia airports closed; and it was a record Boston snowstorm.

Here are a few other memorable late-January and February major Northeast snowstorms before the 2000s:

• February 1983 (Category 4): The "Megalopolitan Snowstorm" crippled the entire Northeast corridor with 2- to 5-inch-per-hour snow rates, accompanied by lightning.
• February 1979 (Category 3): The original Presidents' Day snowstorm hammered Washington, D.C., and the mid-Atlantic.
• February 1978 (Category 3): The Northeast's Blizzard of '78 crippled southern New England, in particular.
• February 1969 (Category 3): A large swath of 20-inch-plus snow buried eastern and northern New England.

Chris Dolce has been a senior meteorologist with weather.com for over 10 years after beginning his career with The Weather Channel in the early 2000s.