Winter Storm

Winter Storm Jonas Was New York City's Heaviest Snowstorm on Record, NOAA Review Says

January's Winter Storm Jonas was the heaviest snowstorm on record in New York City, according to a post-storm review released by NOAA on Thursday.

The new preliminary official measurement for the Jan. 22-23 snowstorm at New York City's Central Park was adjusted up to 27.5 inches. The original storm total was 26.8 inches, but NOAA review found that was too low due to miscommunication between that National Weather Service in Upton, New York, and the Central Park Conservancy, which is responsible for taking the measurements.

The new storm total of 27.5 inches now beats New York City's previous record snowstorm of 26.9 inches Feb. 11-12, 2006. Weather records have been taken at Central Park since 1869.

An analysis of the snowfall from Jonas.
(NOAA)

In total, the NOAA team reviewed snowfall totals at eight locations from Washington, D.C. to New York City. Of those eight, six locations had their snow totals from Jonas verified as accurate including, Dulles International Airport, Baltimore/Washington International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia International Airport and Philadelphia International Airport.

The only other location to see an adjustment to its final storm snowfall total was Newark, New Jersey. Improper measurements taken hourly rather than the standard procedure of every six hours led to an inflated final total of 28.1 inches at that location. This improper measuring technique may have been ongoing at Newark since 1996, the report stated. As a result, the 27.8 inches Newark saw in the Blizzard of 1996 remains the heaviest snowstorm of record, there.

Jonas was the benchmark storm for several other individual locations across the large area it affected.

This includes Baltimore, where the storm total of 29.2 inches at BWI airport beat the President's Day II storm of Feb. 16-18, 2003, that dumped 26.8 inches. Records there date back to 1892. The 30.2 inches of snow Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, saw ranked as the heaviest snowstorm there dating to 1888, according to the National Weather Service.

Though the period of record is shorter, Jonas was also the heaviest snowstorm for New York's LaGuardia and JFK airports, dating back to the 1940s.

Snowfall totals from the storm topped out near 42 inches in West Virginia and at least 14 states in total received more than a foot of snow from the storm.