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Characteristics of snow cover duration across the northeast United States of America
Author(s) -
Leathers Daniel J.,
Luff Barbara L.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
international journal of climatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.58
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-0088
pISSN - 0899-8418
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-0088(19971130)17:14<1535::aid-joc215>3.0.co;2-7
Subject(s) - snow , snow cover , environmental science , precipitation , snow line , climatology , duration (music) , snow field , physical geography , period (music) , geography , meteorology , geology , art , physics , literature , acoustics
The presence or absence of a snow cover affects a myriad of environmental and societal systems through its modification of the surface radiation balance and its ultimate impact on near‐surface air temperatures. Daily snow cover data were collected for a network of 91 stations covering the northeast USA from Maine, south through to West Virginia. The snow cover data along with ancillary temperature, snowfall and precipitation data were used to investigate the characteristics of snow cover duration in this region and the effects of the snow cover on boundary layer climate variables for the snow cover seasons 1948–1949 through to 1987–1988. Results indicate that snow cover duration is variable in both space and time. The duration of a snow cover of 2·5 cm or greater varies from greater than 100 days in northern New England to less than 20 days across areas of Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia. Temporally, snow cover duration for the region as a whole was very short from the late 1940s through to the mid‐1950s. From the late 1950s to the end of the period snow cover duration has varied around a consistent mean value. No long‐term trends in snow cover duration are apparent in the record for the northeast USA. Principal components analysis and clustering techniques were utilized to isolate spatially coherent regions in which snow cover duration has varied similarly over the period of record. This analysis resulted in the identification of four snow‐cover‐duration regions across the northeast USA: including (i) the West Virginia area, (ii) the mid‐Atlantic from southern New England through to western Pennsylvania, (iii) western and central New York and (iv) northern New England. Snow cover duration is shown to be highly associated with snowfall and temperature but not strongly related to total liquid precipitation. The intra‐annual variability of snow cover duration is also investigated for each region. © 1997 Royal Meteorological Society.