Major Northeast Snowstorms Have a Distinct Seasonal Peak, And It Begins Now

From 1956 to 2019, almost three-quarters of all Northeast snowstorms attaining a Category 3 or higher rating on the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale (NESIS) have occurred in late January or February, according to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.

Of the 34 such storms on that list, 25 of them have happened in late January or February. A dozen of those storms have occurred the first two weeks of February.

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

In 2004, Paul Kocin, a National Weather Service meteorologist, and Dr. Louis Uccellini, the director of the National Weather Service, developed the scale to rank the impact of Northeast snowstorms based on snowfall amounts and the population affected.

In general, widespread heavy snowfall over highly populated areas produces a high NESIS value.

This peak in major Northeast snowstorms from late January through February also shows up in average snowfall data for the Boston-to-Washington corridor.

Some Notorious Examples

Here are just a few examples pointing out this Category 3 or higher Northeast snowstorm climatological bullseye this decade.

• Late January 2016: Winter Storm Jonas was a record snowstorm for New York City, Baltimore and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
• Early February 2013: Winter Storm Nemo was a record snowstorm for Portland, Maine, and buried much of New England in multiple feet of snow.
• Early February 2010: Snowmageddon I and II hammered the Mid-Atlantic States just days apart. Hundreds of thousands were without power and some roof collapsed.

Here are a few other memorable late-January and February major Northeast snowstorms prior to the 2010s.

• February 2003: Presidents' Day II storm produced 4-inch-per-hour snowfall rates in Philadelphia; Reagan National, Baltimore-Washington, Philadelphia and LaGuardia airports closed; record Boston snowstorm.
• February 1983: "Megalopolitan Snowstorm" crippled the entire Northeast corridor with 2 to 5 inch per hour snow rates, accompanied by lightning.
• February 1979: The original Presidents' Day snowstorm hammers Washington D.C. and the Mid-Atlantic states.
• February 1978: The Northeast's Blizzard of '78 crippled southern New England, in particular.
• February 1969: A large swath of 20-inch-plus snow buried eastern and northern New England.

Why the Peak?

There are no hard facts why this time of year has had so many big Northeast snowstorms.

This is a topic The Weather Channel senior meteorologist Stu Ostro has investigated.

"I'm not sure exactly why that is," Ostro said. "Perhaps it's a reflection of an underlying meteorological tension between winter being firmly entrenched in North America and the atmosphere sensing the first signs of the coming change in seasons."

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