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Nantucket Blizzards
The winter storm dubbed Janus by The Weather Channel pummeled the east Tuesday and Wednesday this week and prompted blizzard warnings for Cape Cod and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts. However, the National Weather Service office in Boston confirmed that, in the end, conditions actually fell just short of blizzard criteria at any location in Massachusetts. Nantucket, however, came very close Wednesday morning.
The blizzard whipped the 6-10” of powdery snow into 4’ drifts in the town of Nantucket on Wednesday morning. Photo by Nicole Harnishfeger courtesy of the Nantucket newspaper The Inquirer and Mirror.
According to the NWS for a true blizzard to occur a site must meet the following criteria: at least three consecutive hours of visibility of ¼ mile or less, sustained winds or gusts at or greater than 35 mph, and snowfall or blowing snow observed.
Looking at the METARS for Nantucket on Wednesday morning (January 22nd) we see that from the 7:43 a.m. through the 9:58 a.m. the above mentioned blizzard criteria were met (note that the ‘light freezing fog’ was, in fact, snowfall—a METAR artifact common during blizzard-like conditions).
Weather observations at Nantucket the morning of January 22nd. Blizzard conditions occurred for at least 2 hours 15 minutes from 7:45 to 10:00 a.m., short by (at the most) 45 minutes to be considered an ‘official’ blizzard.
Officially, a storm total of 6.0” fell with a peak wind gust of 60 mph. However, the high winds made it very difficult to measure the actual snow depth. The local newspaper, The Inquirer and Mirror reported that the actual snowfall ranged between 8”-10” across the island and the highest wind gust reported was 69 mph measured by a home weather station on Washing Pond Rd. Drifts up to 4’ deep were common.
How rare are blizzards in Nantucket?
Blizzards are rare in Nantucket but have occurred, on average, about once every five years or so. The average annual snowfall for Nantucket is only 23”, among the lowest for the state of Massachusetts. Snow seasons have ranged from a low of 3.8” in 1952-1953 to a high of 82.0” in 1903-1904.
The types of storms that bring heavy winter snows to Boston normally result in just rainfall for the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Only powerful ‘nor’easters’ whose tracks remain well off the Atlantic coastline can bring heavy snow or blizzard conditions to the islands. This was the case with the storm this week. The heaviest snowfalls in Massachusetts were south of Boston where up to 18” fell in Plymouth County and 12” on Cape Cod. Vineyard Haven on Martha’s Vineyard reported 11.1”.
Nantucket’s worst blizzards on record were those of January 25-26, 1905 when 21.4” fell and February 27-29, 1952 when 21.4” also accumulated. The snow depth reached an all-time record of 23” on February 28th, 1952 (another storm on February 18th had deposited 8” of snow) and drifts of 12-14’ deep paralyzed the island.
Winds during the Nantucket blizzard of February 27-29, 1952 reached 80 mph on the island. Another storm just 10 days earlier caused disaster at sea when the tanker ship S.S. Pendleton foundered on February 18th in high seas off Cape Cod. The man visible in the bow (holding the rail) later froze to death along with the loss of the captain and six others. 32 additional crewmen were rescued by a small boat of three Coast Guard members. Photo from U.S. Coast Guard archives. For more on this dramatic event read the U.S. Coast Guard account. One of the most heroic rescue events in the annals of U.S. Coast Guard history.
Christopher C. Burt
Weather Historian
The winter storm dubbed Janus by The Weather Channel pummeled the east Tuesday and Wednesday this week and prompted blizzard warnings for Cape Cod and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts. However, the National Weather Service office in Boston confirmed that, in the end, conditions actually fell just short of blizzard criteria at any location in Massachusetts. Nantucket, however, came very close Wednesday morning.
The blizzard whipped the 6-10” of powdery snow into 4’ drifts in the town of Nantucket on Wednesday morning. Photo by Nicole Harnishfeger courtesy of the Nantucket newspaper The Inquirer and Mirror.
According to the NWS for a true blizzard to occur a site must meet the following criteria: at least three consecutive hours of visibility of ¼ mile or less, sustained winds or gusts at or greater than 35 mph, and snowfall or blowing snow observed.
Looking at the METARS for Nantucket on Wednesday morning (January 22nd) we see that from the 7:43 a.m. through the 9:58 a.m. the above mentioned blizzard criteria were met (note that the ‘light freezing fog’ was, in fact, snowfall—a METAR artifact common during blizzard-like conditions).
Weather observations at Nantucket the morning of January 22nd. Blizzard conditions occurred for at least 2 hours 15 minutes from 7:45 to 10:00 a.m., short by (at the most) 45 minutes to be considered an ‘official’ blizzard.
Officially, a storm total of 6.0” fell with a peak wind gust of 60 mph. However, the high winds made it very difficult to measure the actual snow depth. The local newspaper, The Inquirer and Mirror reported that the actual snowfall ranged between 8”-10” across the island and the highest wind gust reported was 69 mph measured by a home weather station on Washing Pond Rd. Drifts up to 4’ deep were common.
How rare are blizzards in Nantucket?
Blizzards are rare in Nantucket but have occurred, on average, about once every five years or so. The average annual snowfall for Nantucket is only 23”, among the lowest for the state of Massachusetts. Snow seasons have ranged from a low of 3.8” in 1952-1953 to a high of 82.0” in 1903-1904.
The types of storms that bring heavy winter snows to Boston normally result in just rainfall for the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Only powerful ‘nor’easters’ whose tracks remain well off the Atlantic coastline can bring heavy snow or blizzard conditions to the islands. This was the case with the storm this week. The heaviest snowfalls in Massachusetts were south of Boston where up to 18” fell in Plymouth County and 12” on Cape Cod. Vineyard Haven on Martha’s Vineyard reported 11.1”.
Nantucket’s worst blizzards on record were those of January 25-26, 1905 when 21.4” fell and February 27-29, 1952 when 21.4” also accumulated. The snow depth reached an all-time record of 23” on February 28th, 1952 (another storm on February 18th had deposited 8” of snow) and drifts of 12-14’ deep paralyzed the island.
Winds during the Nantucket blizzard of February 27-29, 1952 reached 80 mph on the island. Another storm just 10 days earlier caused disaster at sea when the tanker ship S.S. Pendleton foundered on February 18th in high seas off Cape Cod. The man visible in the bow (holding the rail) later froze to death along with the loss of the captain and six others. 32 additional crewmen were rescued by a small boat of three Coast Guard members. Photo from U.S. Coast Guard archives. For more on this dramatic event read the U.S. Coast Guard account. One of the most heroic rescue events in the annals of U.S. Coast Guard history.
Christopher C. Burt
Weather Historian
The views of the author are his/her own and do not necessarily represent the position of The Weather Company or its parent, IBM.