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Powerful Pacific System Impacting the West; First Significant Snow for Portions of the East

Power Pacific system will continue to bring significant impacts for Pacific Northwest into northern California the remainder of the week. Dangerous coastal affects, heavy rain, flooding, strong winds, and higher elevation mountain snow continues. Meanwhile, a storm across the east is set to bring the first accumulating snow to many higher elevations of the Catskills into the central Appalachians. Read More >


Now that it's June and the 2017-2018 snowfall season is clearly behind us, it's time to rewind and take a look back at a winter that featured a noticeable difference in snow totals between northern/western portions of our 30-county coverage area (snowier) and southern portions of our area (less snow, especially in north central KS). 

Below are graphics and tables that reflect seasonal totals, departures from normal/average etc. for the 2017-2018 season. Before continuing though, and in order to give last season's snow totals some perspective, official 30-year normals from NCEI suggest that: 

 "Normal"/average seasonal snowfall within our coverage area is:

  • 24-30" for most Nebraska counties along/north of the Highway 6 corridor
  • 20-24" for most local counties along the NE/KS border
  • 16-20" for the majority of North Central Kansas, especially south of the Highway 36 corridor. 

 
The 2017-2018 snowfall season was highlighted/
defined by the following points:
 

 

  • Despite the big difference in snow totals from north-to-south, it actually turned out that the majority of our coverage area saw "near-normal" snowfall (within roughly 6" either side of the 30-year normal), especially within most of our 24 Nebraska counties. However, many areas near and especially south of the state line into our six north central KS counties averaged roughly 5-10" below normal for the season. 
     
  • The highest concentration of at least slightly above-normal seasonal snowfall focused within counties north and west of the Nebraska Tri Cities. The highest concentration of below-normal snowfall clearly focused near and especially south of the Nebraska-Kansas border.
  • Per NWS Cooperative Observers: Within the 24 South Central Nebraska counties of the NWS Hastings area, the highest 2017-2018 seasonal snow totals featured 39.8" near Arcadia and 39.5" at Ord, while the lowest totals included 10.3" in Naponee and 12.9" in Franklin. 

  • Per NWS Cooperative Observers: Within the six local North Central Kansas counties, the highest 2017-2018 seasonal totals featured 22.9" near Plainville (actually slightly above normal) and 20.3" at Burr Oak, while the lowest amounts included 7.6" at Cawker City and 9.1" at Phillipsburg. 

  • In the Nebraska Tri Cities, official seasonal totals included: Grand Island 33.6" (4.6" above normal)...Kearney 31.1" (7.7" above normal)...Hastings 27.1" (1.7" below normal). 

  • See the links below (in red) for more details, but two of the overall-biggest snow storms of the 2017-18 season included: the Jan. 21-22 blizzard (highest totals north of I-80) and the April 1 Easter snow (narrow corridor of 6-10+" mainly within the Highway 6 counties). PLEASE NOTE: The April 14 blizzard was also a significant winter storm featuring widespread power outages in some counties, but only a small portion of our coverage area received more than 5" of snow from it.




Two of the Biggest Snow Events From The 2017-18 Season (click red links for details)...

January 21-22, 2018: Blizzard Strikes Most Of The Area, Heaviest Snow North of I-80

April 1, 2018: No April's Fool Joke! Heavy Snow Blankets Parts Of The Area on Easter Sunday

 


 

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