Monster Storm Brings Out Climate Blame-Stormers

Any casual watcher of TV news realizes that weather sells and that should explain the seemingly endless updates on storms around the country.  Most of us living in the NE corridor have had our fill of Old Man Winter and the fluffy white stuff he delivers almost weekly.  We are generally concerned with how much snow is coming, how quickly will be it removed and do we need to stock up on the universal trio of food supplies taught to us as kids - milk, bread, and eggs?  Some in the media are more interested in taking every opportunity to spin even the random weather event into a story.

As computer models were showing another snow storm was building and preparing to dump more snow and ice on the Midwest and the Northeast, MSNBC was looking into the WHY of this relentless winter of snow.  Their answer?  Global Warming.  You and I did this.

It should be noted that the MSNBC statistics showed NYC with an annual average of 22 inches of snow.  Most sources I have say this number is actually 28 inches per year.

A quick survey of the snow stats about New York City reveals that while the alarm bells have been ringing from the Global Warming crew, winters of large snowfalls have not been on the increase over the past decade .  Let's review the Top 10 Snowiest Winters ever recorded in New York City.

The snowiest winter on record in the Big Apple was back in 1995-96  - with 75.6 inches and that was a full 15 years ago.

The second snowiest was back in 1947-48 when 63.2 inches accumulated.   And since people are often blamed for carbon pollution, it might be important to note that in 1947, America was home to fewer than 150 million citizens and certainly fewer cars were on the road.

Coming in at #3 on the NYC Snow Hit List was 1922-23 - with 60.4 inches.

Numbers 4,5, & 6 were all in the 1800s and all three had recorded snowfalls between 55-58 inches.

54.7 inches of snow was good enough to score the #7 position for the winter of 1960-61

1993-94 grabbed the #8 spot on the snow survey  with 53.4 inches

1906-07 was in 9th place with a total of 53.2 inches

And #10 was 1933-34's 52 inches.

The winter of 2010 -11 is certainly on track to be a record setter, but is it man's fault or is this just part of the never-ending cycle called climate change?  (Omission of the words "man-made" was intentional.)