As it turns out, August 2016 was the hottest August on record in (by abbreviation): MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, PA, DE and MD. The nation’s capital saw the brunt of the heat, with Reagan Airport topping out over 100 degrees, three days in a row! Not only that but it was sultry when you factored in the dew points. Temperatures soared into the upper 90s along most of the I-95 corridor, with localized triple digit heat. (Annual Exceedance Probabilities for the Worst Case 3-Hour Rainfall, courtesy of NOAA.)Ī strong ridge of high pressure led to very hot temperatures and dangerous heat indices a couple of weeks later, from August 10th to the 17th. The floodwater claimed the lives of two people as 6.6” of rain fell in three hours on that Saturday night, a one in thousand year event. One of these places was Ellicott City, MD, where the historic district became devastated by flash flooding. However, some saw repeated, slow-moving, back-building thunderstorms that brought heavy rainfall in a short period of time. A low pressure system brought beneficial rain for many in the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic. Our longest gap, time wise, in the top ten list occurred from April to July, then another event broke that streak on July 29th to the 31st. Two day snowfall totals exceeded 6 inches in many New England locations, including Provincetown out on Cape Cod (7.2”), Providence (6.0”) and Plymouth, MA (8.5”) Many places had wind gusts of 40-60 mph! The second system was a clipper system. The first system was a strong coastal low pressure, containing heavy snow and very gusty winds. Two systems brought accumulating snow to much of New England. Though we were safely in spring (both meteorologically and astronomically), winter did not give up on April 3rd, 4th and 5th. (Strong winds caused this gas station to topple over in Illinois, courtesy of Andy Demote.) Scattered areas of downed trees, a tipped-over gas station roof and a few structure collapses resulted. The highest gusts topped out at 60 – 70 mph consistently during the day, with a 73 mph gust at Chicago’s Harrison-Dever Crib, right off the shore. A very intense low pressure system, ranked in the lowest 1% of cyclone strength, channeled in the strong winds. Just a few days later, another top ten event would strike, this time in the Midwest. Large Scale (Synoptic) Midwest Wind Event on February 19th A little further north, the weather had no love for Albany, NY, bottoming out at -16 degrees, while Mount Washington, NH was an astounding -40 degrees! Wind chills ranged from -25 to -35 degrees for much of the morning, as the coldest air in decades took hold. Boston dipped below 0, bottoming out at -1 degree, as did Central Park. Valentine’s Day Cold Snap in the NortheastĪfter the blizzard, historic arctic air locked in just a few weeks later on Valentine’s Day, setting daily record lows across much of the Northeast.
(True-Color Satellite Image after the Blizzard of 2016, courtesy of MODIS) There was some back and forth over what the snowfall totals actually amounted to, but numerous all-time records were broken, such as at BWI Airport (29.2”), New York City’s Central Park (27.5”) and Harrisburg, PA (30.2”). While over two feet of snow fell in our Hackettstown, NJ office in Warren County, just 50 miles north, there was close to nothing. An intense snowfall gradient set up from north of I-80 in New Jersey and Eastern PA to the lower Hudson Valley and Connecticut. High winds and heavy snow led to blizzard conditions across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. The first top ten event on our list was also one of the biggest Nor’easters on record (it was a Category 4 event on the Regional Snowfall Index).
Do note, that these events are for the Midwest and Northeast, where the majority of our Storm Alert clients are located. Explore the list below and relive the year that was.
#Big weather events 2016 full#
Our list spans seven different months (not including a long-lasting event, more on that later) and covers a full spectrum of events. What about the weather itself, though? Well let’s just say there was something for everybody. We celebrated our 30th anniversary (that's right we started in 1986!) and reached 4,000 likes on Facebook. Even here at WeatherWorks, 2016 was a notable one. From Brexit to the Presidential Elections, from the new $20 bill to the Olympics and from the eradication of measles in the Americas to the deaths of many famous celebrities, it’s fair to say that the year that has come and gone will be one for the books. (Image courtesy of under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0)Ģ016, oh what a year you were.
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