Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale (NESIS)

Description

While the Fujita and Saffir-Simpson Scales characterize tornadoes and hurricanes respectively, there is no widely used scale to classify snowstorms. The Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale (NESIS) developed by Paul Kocin of The Weather Channel and Louis Uccellini of the National Weather Service characterizes and ranks high-impact Northeast snowstorms. These storms have large areas of 10 inch snowfall accumulations and greater. NESIS has five categories: Extreme, Crippling, Major, Significant, and Notable. The index differs from other meteorological indices in that it uses population information in addition to meteorological measurements. Thus NESIS gives an indication of a storm's societal impacts. NESIS scores are a function of the area affected by the snowstorm, the amount of snow, and the number of people living in the path of the storm. The aerial distribution of snowfall and population information are combined in an equation that calculates a NESIS score which varies from around one for smaller storms to over ten for extreme storms. The raw score is then converted into one of the five NESIS categories. The largest NESIS values result from storms producing heavy snowfall over large areas that include major metropolitan centers. For details on how NESIS scores are calculated at the National Climatic Data Center, see Squires and Lawrimore (2006).

Resources

Name Format Description Link
0 Landing page for the dataset. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/metadata/geoportal/rest/metadata/item/gov.noaa.ncdc:C00453/html
0 NESIS rankings and maps for snowstorm events. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/snow-and-ice/rsi/nesis
0 Download the Northeast Snowfall Impact Index and other related products. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/surface-snow-products/
0 For more information and links to the NESIS maps and data. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/snow-and-ice/rsi/nesis
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 DOI link to science paper http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-85-2-177
33 PDF file of science paper describing the production of the data. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/metadata/documents/C00453_squires-lawrimore-paper.pdf
0 An evolution of the NESIS, see the landing page for more information about the RSI Index https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/metadata/geoportal/rest/metadata/item/gov.noaa.ncdc:C00465/html

Tags

  • vertical location
  • human dimensions
  • precipitation
  • united states of america
  • land surface
  • national climatic data center
  • nesdis
  • snow measuring rod
  • snow
  • atmosphere
  • continent
  • noaa
  • snow depth
  • north america
  • meteorological hazards
  • u.s. department of commerce
  • earth science
  • doc/noaa/nesdis/ncei
  • snow/ice
  • solid precipitation
  • hydrosphere
  • meteorological stations
  • doc/noaa/nesdis/ncdc
  • national centers for environmental information
  • natural hazards

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Categories