Evaluating the Variable Intensity of the Recent February 8-9 Snowstorm! (credit: Dr. Bob Hart)

DISCUSSION: As the numbers continue to be organized by various forecasters, researchers, a clearer picture is being painted about the evolution of the recent February 8 to 9 snowstorm.  As previously noted in other recent posts in both our North America and winter weather sections, this recent snowstorm impacted areas in and around the greater New York City metro area as well as areas located to the north and east.  To get into some of the finer details of how this storm evolved, we will be analyzing the graphic above (courtesy of Dr. Bob Hart from Florida State University). The graphic above shows the distribution of major reporting stations from along the heart of the I-95 corridor and points to the east.  The details of this graphic are explained in detail below for your convenience.  

​As noted in the graphic, each of the colored circles represent the corresponding number of hours in which official blizzard conditions were reported with light blue shading representing 3 hours of blizzard conditions, light green shading representing 4 hours of blizzard conditions, yellow shading representing 5 hours of blizzard conditions, orange shading representing 6 hours of blizzard conditions, and red shading representing 7 hours of blizzard conditions.  In addition, you can see how there were several unofficial lighting reports during the course of this recent snowstorm throughout the aforementioned region based on the presence of the thunderstorm symbol without the snowflake on top.  On the flip side, the 15 + stations scattered across southeast New York, northern/eastern Connecticut, Rhode Island, eastern Massachusetts, and southeastern New Hampshire which had official thundersnow reports indicated the widespread sufficient thundersnow dynamics in place throughout the course of this recent winter storm.  It is also worth noting that at several of the reporting stations scattered across eastern New England, there were several instances of multiple thundersnow occurrences within minutes of each other; indicating that the lightning strikes occurred in bunches in many cases.

To learn more about other high-impact winter weather events from around the world, be sure to click here!

©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz