Coastal Climate Extension

OK, so I have to admit, there’s a bit of a personally sarcastic tone in that – to someone who’s lived in PA the last few years, 3″ of the white stuff isn’t as big a deal as, say, the Pittsburgh Steelers making it to the Superbowl. To someone from the coastal Carolinas, however, it doesn’t take more than a few flakes to generate excitement. But I do remember the joy of trying to catch snowflakes on my tongue with the other neighborhood kids during those rare Charleston flurries when I was growing up, so I’m not entirely unsympathetic.

So who got snow? In this time frame (the day or two after the event), the best places for data are the local National Weather Service Weather Forecast Offices (NWS WFOs). There are four different WFOs that serve the coastal counties of North and South Carolina (note that here I’m just listing the counties the SC Office of Coastal Resource Management and the NC Division of Coastal Management define as “coastal”):

The NWS WFOs will usually issue snow totals (or for that matter, exceptional rainfall totals) in the form of text-based products called Public Information Statements (PNS) or Local Storm Reports (LSR). Finding these products depends on the WFO’s website – NWS web sites are similar in look but vary in terms of the exact layout. If the office has had time and it was a newsworthy event, their webmasters may link these reports directly from the WFO’s index page under “news” or “headlines.” Otherwise you may have to go digging to find them by entering a location and seeing if they’ve issued a PNS or LSR for that location recently. You can also root through their lists of text products to find them.

From what I can find so far, it looks like the big winner was Engelhard in Hyde Co., NC, with 5.5″ of snow. The Charleston WFO reports coastal SC (or at least east of Hwy. 17) accumulations as far south as Green Pond, SC, in Colleton County (though 0.1″ isn’t quite enough for a decent snowball – Edisto Island wasn’t much more impressive at 0.3″). The Island Free Press, the online newspaper for Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands, has a great slideshow of snow on the beaches up that way (including a really cool shot of the Cape Hatteras Light in the snow). Also, the Jacksonville Daily News has a cool video that Chuck Beckley shot of the snowfall in Beaufort, NC – check it out!

Want to know how to find out how often it’s snowed in the past? Then check out the web sites for the state climate offices in North Carolina and South Carolina. These offices have resources like monthly climate reports, historical data, and even brief synopses of past significant snow events.

So where are my snow pictures? Alas, I was at home sick all day and didn’t see a single flake. Hopefully I’ll have an update to this post soon with some pictures from the folks up at NC Sea Grant, though. Meanwhile, I’ll just remain thankful that I didn’t need those snow shovels we gave away before moving back to South Carolina.