Understanding How and Why Nor'easters Do Not Always Follow a Seasonal Clock

DISCUSSION: Even though the month of November just ended, and the month of December is underway, there are still things to remember and learn about Mother Nature. One major thing is that Mother Nature most certainly does not hardly ever follow a set clock. More specifically, most people most often associate the heart of Winter with the occurrence of coastal or inland low-pressure systems which induce regional and/or multi-regional snowstorms. Thus, if someone ever is completely shocked by heavy, accumulating snowfall occurring across the central of eastern United States during late October or throughout any part of November, this should not be nearly as shocking as one would think. That is a result of the fact that under the right combination of larger-scale and smaller-scale atmospheric and environmental conditions, a snowstorm can occur well before the start of December. The upper-most image is taken during the evolution of the third Nor'easter which occurred off the coastline from the northeastern United States in March of 2018.

In looking at the lower graphic attached above (as provided by Meteorologist Tom Niziol from The Weather Channel), the above information is clearly reflected by the corresponding graphical context. To be precise, the context of graphic above reflects the reality that between 1959 and 2000 (i.e., the 41-year period ending at the start of the 21st century) there was a substantial prevalence of blizzard occurrence during the month of November across a good portion of the central and the north-central Plains states. It is important to acknowledge the fact that this graphic came from the journal article published by Schwartz and Schmidlin (2002) which was a research project that involved studying blizzard events across the contiguous United States and was entitled “Climatology of Blizzards in the Conterminous United States, 1959-2000.” As you can see from the lower image above, there have been a solid distribution of November blizzards across the northern tier of the United States with the heart of the November blizzard event concentration being across North Dakota and South Dakota.  It just goes to show that as the atmosphere is transitioning from Fall to Winter, the southern shifting of the Polar jet stream likely has a role in the presence of the greater snowstorm frequency across the north-central Plains region of the United States.

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© 2018 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz