The Cold Wave of 1994

[Cowhide]

it's winter and as always, I like to look at stuff from the past, and as I was looking as some very old clips of the weather channel's local forecast on youtube, something really jumped out at me.


at first I thought it was a misprint or perhaps a glitch until I did some further research.

oh, this event was as real and surreal as it could possibly get.
On January 19, 1994, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania set a record low temperature of -22F, minutes after sunrise.
map below shows a widespread area of the bitter cold air.


In an prominently curiosity (well to me)

How the hell did something like this happen?
Will it ever happen again?
Was it a Greenland block?
or the position of the earth axis?
fill me in with your wonderful, intriguing knowledge fellow meteorologist or future ones!

[somethingfunny]

I remember this, I lived in north-central New Jersey at the time (I was five). It was the only time I'd ever seen a negative reading on our minivan's thermometer... -2°F!!!

[TheStormExpert]

Look how far the 0° Line is only a couple hundred miles north of the panhandle of Florida! Brrrrr!!!

[Cowhide]

Yeah, so obviously this looks like it's one of those once in a lifetime events that we will never experience again(not because of suspected global warming) but because the last time it happened , was in 1899. The old record was -20F

But back to my question: Does anyone know what caused this event? I'm thinking all of that cold air from Russia migrated here that year. There must have been a ridge somewhere and record warmth in Europe?

[gsytch]

My guess is fresh snow cover combined with NAO. When I looked back at FL temps (I live and lived in Tampa Bay then) Id di not see an arctic freeze down here, just cold.

[Tstormwatcher]

I also remember that freeze. I lived in Virginia beach and we had several night of single digit temps in a row along with highs only in the teens. The big thing is that these temps came without any snow on the ground.

[Nicko999]

We had our last -30C(-22F) (or below) temperature in Montreal from that cold wave.

[psyclone]

i remember this well. i was a student @ kent state in northeastern ohio and when the Akron Canton airport (KCAK) broke their all time record low (-25) i immediately went outside for a smoke. there was no wind, tons of snowpack and steam escaping from places i had never observed before on buildings. very surreal. the other thing i recall is how astonishingly warm a temp in the low 20's felt as the extreme cold abated. what a winter that was for cold and snow in ohio.

[Scott Patterson]

There must have been a ridge somewhere and record warmth in Europe?

I don't know about in Europe, but in much of the western US, 1994 was a very hot and dry year and winter was extremely dry and mild.

Forest fires out west were out of control and it was the first year in recorded history that all the surface snow and ice melted off the Timp Glacier. I remember it well and even wrote an article about it several years ago:

http://www.summitpost.org/100-years-on- ... ier/186144

More than likely, the persistant high pressure ridge over the western US that kept us so mild and dry allowed cold air to spill into the east.

[Cowhide]

While the east is freezing to death, the west right now is roasting under record high temperatures. This cold wave is brought to you in part by Molson Export "Real Canadian blast!"

and by Jet blue Airways

directly from the north pole to your neighborhood!

Alright, so I'm bumping this because we're having a patten eerily similar to 1994 right now. The position of the jetstream. (it won't last though because the ridge in the west is already breaking down)and fortunately for the lower 48, the north pole, arctic circle region and Coral Harbor hasn't been as cold as it was in 94, so some lives have been spared I'm sure. And Minneapolis MN had a daytime below zero reading for the first time since 2005 How cool is that? literally!

[Scott Patterson]

While the east is freezing to death, the west right now is roasting under record high temperatures.

You mean part of the west. Many places in the west are still stuck in an inversion (most of Utah, much of Nevada, western Colorado, Eastern Oregon, Southern Idaho, etc).

We're supposed to warm up a bit (a little heat wave if you must), but I wouldn't exactly call it record heat:



In the west, only places experiencing either downslope winds or are not subject to inversions are seeing record heat.

[Cowhide]

Wow, if you're stuck in an inversion, that must really suck then. Cause not only is it cold, but all that trapped pollution makes it unsafe to go outside.

[Scott Patterson]

Cause not only is it cold, but all that trapped pollution makes it unsafe to go outside.

This is very true in the city. Especially places like Salt Lake City or the other Wasatch Front cities.

Where I live, there is hardly any people so not much pollution. Here there are sunny skies (once the river and lakes freeze over we don't get fog), but the temperature inversion is still strong.

I used to live in Salt Lake. The inversions and pollution do suck. It's much colder where I live now, but the amount of pollution isn't in our inversion. Because the Great Salt Lake never freezes and seldom do the rivers, they get a lot of fog (smog too).

[Cowhide]

[quote

More than likely, the persistant high pressure ridge over the western US that kept us so mild and dry allowed cold air to spill into the east.

I had to quote and bump this because it looks like it's happening yet again! : o