Winter Storm Classification

So it’s nice to refer to storms as the Valentines Day Blizzard of 2007 or the October Nor’easter, or President’s Day I, II or III. However, how do you refer to a storm that dropped 12-14, wasn’t on a holiday, didn’t effect major cities and didn’t really do anything but give skiers massive boners over countless faceshots? Saying “that thing in february that dropped 12 at the summit and 1 inch at the base and nobody was there was an awesome storm” sorta only works with a weatehr dork like me. We need a better system. So I came up with one.
We’re going with the following categories:

Winter Weather Event: Any time more than 4 or less than 8 inches of snow are possible across any part of the mountains of NY, VT, MA and NH an event will earn the “Winter Weather Event” title.

Winter Storm: Any time more than 8 or less than 15 inches of snow are possible across the any part of the mountains of NY, VT, MA and NH an event will earn the “Winter Storm” title.

Major Winter Storm: Any time more than 16 inches of snow are possible across any part of the mountains of NY, VT, MA and NH an event will earn the “Major Winter Storm” title.

Blizzard: Any time a winter storm meets the NOAA certified definiation of a blizzard in BURLINGTON VERMONT, SARANAC LAKE NY or any other low elevation NWS certified recording station it will earn the BLizzard title.

Following these, each storm will be named like hurricanes are named. I’m starting with the names from the 1950 hurricane season. So we will see things like Winter Weather Event Baker. Or Major Winter Storm Charlie…next year will use the same classification but use the names from the 1951 Hurricane season. So forth an so on. If it works for hurricanes it should work for us.

Lastly a few other points. I’ll use the modifier “potential” in the titles when there is the chance for either a Winter Storm or Major Winter Storm. I think its important to note the potential of events. In hurricane forecasting when models show development of tropical waves, forecasters use the term “invest” when they investigate the tropical waves depicted by models to develop into tropical systems. I don’t like invest so I’ll use potential and preserve the idea. Potential will not be used within 24 hours of an event when it’s become clear what type of event we have. Secondly, storms can move up and down the scale just like tropical systems. Once a system shows the potential to produce snows in the above categories inside of 5 days it will get a name. As it develops, we’ll move its classification up or down accordingly. Sound good? Ok. Cool.

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