Descriptions of “Near Miss” Events

In this chapter, examples of three categories of “near miss” storms (see volume I, chapter 5) are presented. The first category is called interior snowstorms, since these are events that posed a threat of heavy snow accumulations along the coast, but the threat did not materialize as heaviest snowfall amounts fell inland and snow changed to rain or mixed precipitation within the more heavily populated urban corridor. The second category is termed moderate snowstorms and describes cases that posed a potential heavy snow threat to the Northeast urban corridor but were marked by more moderate snowfall amounts, generally 4–10 in. (10–25 cm). In these cases, heavy snow amounts exceeding 10 in. (25 cm) may have fallen, but over smaller domains than described for the 32 cases discussed in chapter 10. The third category is termed ice storms and describes significant storms involving other frozen precipitation types such as freezing rain or ice pellets.