Big Winter Storm Next Week Vs. 1993, Others
A potential superstorm is coming next week, and it's being described as "a monster storm" by FoxNews. Like last winter, meteorologists and weather enthusiasts are asking how this storm, which is expected to drop heavy snow over much of the east coast, is similar to the Blizzard of 1993, the Valentine's Day Storm of 2007, one in 2009, and last year's February Nor'easter.
Much of that probably comes from the fact that the computer forecast models are predicting very low central pressures with this storm, and because the current snow map that we have out shows a similar area to that affected by the 1993 "Storm of the Century":
However, one important distinction between the two maps is that we believe the storm will form on the Carolina coast; in 1993, the storm formed over warm Gulf waters, giving it more power. So even if snow ends up in the same area, it's unlikely (given the current forecast) that the amounts would approach 1993 levels.
With the track still uncertain, the best we can do now to estimate the storm's strength is to look at maps like these, which show the minimum central pressure (maximum strength) of the storm. Here's a shot of the minimum pressure forecast next week by the Canadian (CMC) computer forecast model:
Next week's storm looks big right? Actually, we've had worse. Here's a quick comparison (possibly inaccurate due to some missing data) showing the predicted pressure ranges (shaded), the GFS model prediction (unbolded year - not available for 1993) and the actual lowest pressure measured (bold year) for each storm:
Lowest Central Pressure Comparison (Major Models 3-5 Days Out):
In other words, although two other storms were progged to be as strong as the Blizzard of 1993, neither was. And this year's isn't even forecast to be that strong, so we probably don't have to worry about that. We seem to be in a similar situation to 2007 as far as the range of pressure predictions, but we're considerably higher on the scale. The 2007 storm ended up just outside of the highest range of model predictions; if that were to happen this time, it would be a formidable storm at 987 mb, but not worthy of comparison to any of these.
As you can see, 2009 was a wild forecast that hit in the middle (but ended up going out to sea), and 2010 all the models agreed at this point, and they were right. It's too bad we're not seeing that agreement with this storm, it would probably make it easier to predict. Here are the details and links to my previous blog entries, which is where I got the numbers from.
THIS STORM: Progged 972-984*
FEB. 2010 STORM (Progged 976mb): Actual 975mb
JAN. 2009 STORM (Progged 960-982): Actual 984mb
FEB. 2007 STORM: (Progged 960-972): Actual 975mb
BLIZZARD OF 1993: 960mb *GFS: sub-984; ECMWF: sub-980; DGEX: sub-978; NOGAPS: sub-972; CMC: sub-972 as of 4 PM Eastern Time Friday.
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