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January 2016 Blizzard draws parallels to famous ’96 storm

We’ve all heard it before: “There will never be another storm like the Blizzard of ’96”.

And then there was.

This past weekends blizzard will be remembered for many things. 30 inches of snow at Kennedy Airport, drifts above windows and along sides of homes, strong wind gusts and damaging coastal flooding (yes, Gov. Christie). Meteorologically, however, it will stand as a testament to the fact that analogs, no matter how wild they may seem, can be a tremendously useful tool in forecasting.

During the medium range period on forecast models, specifically between days 3 and 5, analog tools and algorithms were continuously signaling the Blizzard of 1996 (January 6-8, 1996) as a tremendously high percentage analog. The evolution of the storm system at multiple levels of the atmosphere was comparable to what forecast models were indicating. And as it turned out, the Blizzard of 2016 would have a very similar evolution and outcome to the famed ’96 Blizzard.

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