Major Long Duration Nor’easter – Friday-Saturday January 3-4, 2003
Coming only eight days after the severe Christmas day, 2002 nor’easter plastered the area with record amounts of snow ranging from 15″-25″ on average, the atmosphere reloaded with another knockout winter punch. A second powerful nor’easter hammered the Northeast with just about the same amount of snow as the Christmas day storm. The snow storm total of 20.8″ at Albany, only two tenths of an inch less than the Christmas storm, shattered records again. Exactly 12″ of snow fell on Friday, January 3rd, setting a new 24 hour snowfall record for the day, breaking the old record of 9.8″ that was set in a large storm in 1996. The 8.8″ of snow that then fell on Saturday, January 4, also broke the twenty four hour record for that date of 7.3″ set previously in 1942. The storm total of 20.8″ was good for the second all time heaviest January snow storm at Albany since records began in the mid 1800’s and was also heavy enough to fall right behind the Christmas storm ranking it as the 10th heaviest of all time.
The two storms combined produced an incredible 41.8″ of snow at Albany…which, shy 5.6″, was the total amount of snow dumped on Albany in the entire 2001/2002 season!
Unlike the Christmas storm, this storm progressed over a much longer period of time, lasting approximately thirty five hours. The first flakes of snow, somewhat indirectly related to the main storm, began late at night on Thursday, December 2, amounting to flurries in the region. Light accumulating snow began between 6:00am and 8:00am Friday morning as warmer, moist onshore flow moved inland over a dome of mid twenty degree air, rising, and creating the light snow. Upper level low pressure, located over the Midwest during the morning of the 3rd, moved east into Pennsylvania by evening aiding in the production of a surface storm along the mid Atlantic coast. The combined effects of the developing surface storm enhancing the onshore flow, and the lift in the atmosphere generated by the upper air low pressure system generated waves of moderate to at times heavy snow that progressed through the morning, afternoon, and night of the 3rd. Snowfall rates climbed at times to as high as two inches per hour, but generally did not remain at that rate for more than an hour at a time in any one location. The coastal storm tracked to southern New Jersey during the night, then south of New England to about Cape Cod by Saturday morning, January 4. (This track was a bit south of the Christmas 2002 storm) This storm’s intensity remained considerably below that of the Christmas 2002 storm as well, and was moving much more slowly. The slower motion of the surface storm and the path of the parent upper air low pressure system directly across New York and New England created a situation that supported a prolonged period of snow that fell at varying intensities through the storm’s duration. Snow in fact fell across a good portion of eastern New York and western New England well into Saturday evening. Although, the bulk of the heavy accumulating snow had ended between 7:00 and 8:00 am on Saturday. Only an additional 1″-3″ of snow fell Saturday afternoon and evening…