i NEED TO KNOW HOW MUCH SNOW FELL (BY MONTH IS FINE) IN NORTHERN NEW
JERSEY FOR THE YEARS 1996 THROUGH 2002.

---

Request for Question Clarification by librariankt-ga on 29 Oct 2002 07:24 PST

Hi camman,

I've also sent email to the state climatologist for NJ asking for some
help on this one.  If the below is sufficient information, please let
me know.  Otherwise I'll repost when I hear back from Dr. Robinson.

librariankt

Hi camman,

With the help of the New Jersey State Climatologist's Office, I've
found an online source of snowfall statistics that goes back to the
early part of the 20th century, at least.  One caveat is that this
site is only free to people coming from a ".edu" IP address - so in
order to view it you will need to visit from a university or school
computer (or through a proxy server if it is available).  Otherwise it
will cost you a limited amount, like possibly $2 for a one-time visit,
$50 for a year's subscription.

National Climatic Data Center Record of Climatological Observations
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/servlets/DLY
This data site offers climatic data PER DAY for major weather stations
around the country.  To get to the northern NJ data, first select New
Jersey from the scrolling list, and click "continue."  Then select the
station you want (I would suggest Newark International Airport, but
you could pick out a more northerly one if you choose) and again click
"continue."  At this point you will have to go one month at a time
through the data, by selecting a month, clicking "continue", recording
the total snowfall, and moving to the next month.  Luckily you can
pretty much ignore June through September!  I suggest you select the
web form option, since it is the easiest to read and the fastest to
load.

Please also check out the links I provided in my comment if you wish.

librariankt

---

Clarification of Answer by librariankt-ga on 31 Oct 2002 10:37 PST

camman,

I went through the data from the above site and summed up the months
for you.  Here they are:

1996: 62.6 inches
1997: 5.9 inches
1998: trace
1999: trace
2000: trace
2001: trace
2002: 3.2 inches (January through July)

The NCDC does not sum up "trace" amounts for the total yearly
snowfall.  I guess 1996 was a real doozy!

librariankt

Hi camman,

I have found some sources of snowfall statistics for New Jersey for
you.  Please be aware that most of these look at snowfall in major
cities, and the climate being the way it is, inches of precipitation
can vary widely across a geographic area.

National Weather Service Forcast Office - Philadelphia
http://tgsv5.nws.noaa.gov/er/phi/clidat.htm
This site lists the current weather information, previous record
weather events, and snowfall data (by season, which would be 1995-96,
1996-97, etc) for several cities in the Philadelphia area.  The two
listed for New Jersey are Atlantic City and Trenton.

Daily Climate Data - Central Park, Newark, Bridgeport
http://205.156.54.206/er/okx/climate/data.html
This site (also from the National Weather Service) offers daily
snowfall totals by month (so you'll have to sum up each month) for
Newark.  However, it only goes back to January of 1997.

National Climatic Data Center - New Jersey Climate Summary
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/NJ.html
This page will give you total precipitation (NOT just snowfall) by
month, totalled over whatever years you want (back to the 1890s).  If
you want to assume that snowfall in December through February is the
only precipitation these numbers are probably safe.  However, I'd
think them dicey for March through November.

National Climatic Data Center - New Jersey
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/pub/data/coop-precip/new-jersey.txt
Again, this looks at all precipitation.  However, this one breaks it
down by research station in addition to showing all data at once (so
you don't have to go through the steps of selecting the month and
year).

Northern New Jersey Monthly Precipitation
http://climate.rutgers.edu/stateclim/data/north_njhistprecip.html
This page, from the state climatologist, is very similar to the chart
from the NCDC listed just above.

New Jersey Weather and Climate Network
http://climate.rutgers.edu/njwxnet/#
This is a fancy database that lets you search to the hour historical
data (including snowfall) for many weather stations in New Jersey. 
The obnoxious thing is that I can't seem to find a daily count, just
the hourly one.

If these sites satisfy your question, please let me know so that I can
recast my comment as an answer.  Let me know if I'm off base, too!

librariankt

STOP I HAVE THE ANSWER.  AND YOU SITE DOESN'T PERMIT ME TO STOP THIS PROCESS.