Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Weather, Or Not

Many memories, including mine, are somewhat faulty, when trying to remember which year was THE year, snow wise. I contacted Spokesman-review's own Michelle Boss, who coordinated with cliff Harris, both of whom are outstanding weather guessers. There are, indeed some surprises, but then most of us remember the year that most inconvenienced us. Here are the records of the six top snow years, since 1894-95, which probably means none of you remember past then anyway.

1. 1915-16: 124.2"

2. 2007-08: 122.7" As of February 3

3. 1968-69: 117.8"

4. 1949-50: 116.6"

5. 1992-93: 114.5"

6. 1921-22: 112.1"

Clearly, this year, within 1.5" of the modern record, will set a new record. One must remember however, that these statistics are collected at the Coeur d'Alene Airport,(Pappy Boyington Field) and are not indicative of other more snowy areas, such as the Rathdrum-Spirit Lake Corridor, nor further north, where around Priest Lake, the weatherman may still be buried from any one of these years. What is interesting, is that the years most people remember, 49-50, 68-69 and 92-93, are all within 3.5" of each other. Now that's consistency.

Since we have one new storm on our doorsteps, and another slated for the week-end, it appears that the new record is safe for this year. the snowiest on record. Again, thanks to Michelle and Cliff for the information.

1 comment:

Word Tosser said...

I am surprised that 1996-97 winter isn't in there... November 19th was my grandson's birthday, and his mother drove thru a blizzard to take cup cakes in for his class(remember you could do that in those days) for his birthday, because they wouldn't call a snow day. And that was a wicked year for snow... and flooding later.