Feb 19, 1979

The 1979 President's Day snow storm was a significant snow event in the North eastern US. This article presents an interesting review of the impact on the DC region and the modeling capability of the time. With the 30th anniversary of this storm, an animation of the MERRA depiction has been posted on the main WWW page. Here, we just compare a snapshot of the reanalysis to GOES IR imagery. The interesting part is that there is a clear break in the cloud structures of the storm develops over the Atlantic. This is not as apparent in the visible imagery (more like a continuous comma shape). MERRA cloud cover seems to catch this aspect of the storm. This data comes from the assimilation cycle of the system, forecasts for this case have not been run, but may be interesting.

The current estimate for when MERRA will catch up to real time is Fall 2009.

The MERRA cloud data is contoured from no cloud (black) to complete cover (white), the mean sea level pressure is contoured in purple. Wind barbs are colored according to the magnitude of the wind speed, and only 1 in 4 grid points are plotted.

For a study of the event, see: Bosart (1981)